On January 3rd, Lorist bid farewell to Earl Miranda and started heading north.
The huge convoy traveled a hundred and twenty miles a day along the road.
On January 4th, the convoy traveled forty miles in the morning, left the avenue in the afternoon, turned westward into the forest path, climbed over a small hill, and entered the territory of the first nobleman of the Kingdom of Ridleys.
On the third day, when the convoy was just about to leave, Yuri sent someone to report that the lord of this territory, a distinguished viscount, personally brought over twenty cavalrymen to collect taxes. The viscount said that if the convoy did not leave ten One's carriage is used as a toll to his lord, and he will lead the soldiers to attack the convoy.
Lorist laughed dumbfounded. He asked the scout who came to report: "Did Knight Yuri explain to the viscount that this is the army of the Norton family in the north, and now they are going north to return to the family territory?"
The scout reported: "Master Yuri has repeatedly explained to the lord, but the lord did not listen, insisting that we are a caravan carrying out smuggling activities under the banner of nobles. He also laughed at us saying If you want to fly the banner of nobility, you should find someone famous, the Norton family? Who knows what the hell it is."
Lorist turned around and shouted: "Terman, go and invite the lord here, and I will let him know what the Norton family is like."
Terman came back soon, and the viscount had already become a prisoner.
Terman said that when he led the knights to charge, the viscount's cavalry either turned around and fled or dismounted and surrendered. He disarmed. All twenty-seven cavalrymen under him were also taken prisoner.
Lord Viscount showed the noble and unyielding character of a nobleman. Even though he was a prisoner, he still held his head proudly, and scolded Lorist for daring to attack the head of the noble Meister family. The war of the Meester family
Of course, if Lorist is willing to apologize, the noble Viscount is willing to forgive this reckless attack on him. As a sincere apology, Lorist must offer a batch of property to the Viscount, and ... Well, this maid is very nice... He was referring to Jasmine standing next to Fatty Shi.
Lorist smiled wryly, and turned back to Bodfinger, saying that he doubted whether the Viscount had a brain after all.
The noble Viscount was ordered by the angry Fatty to tie Reddy and Pat to the hollow wheel that had been set up. After experiencing the feeling of spinning for ten minutes, he spread his tears and snot on the ground. Answer whatever you ask, and explain everything cleanly.
It turned out that Lord Viscount Meister was at war with a neighboring baron lord. Last night, Lord Viscount led all his cavalry to raid the neighbor’s village, burn, kill and loot, but the neighbor’s family had already prepared for it, and Lord Viscount failed. And back. On the way back to the castle in the morning, I found Lorist's northbound convoy, and brought the cavalry over to beat the autumn wind. By the way, Lord Viscount's castle is next to a small lake sixty miles away in the direction of the convoy.
Lorist laughed, "It turns out that the viscount invited us to visit the castle. Terman, take this lord Mei to his castle and let the people in the castle open the door to surrender, otherwise the viscount will be hanged." Outside the castle. Let Dolles' chariot go with you, and attack the city without surrendering. We will rest in the castle at night."
…
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Lord Viscount Meester felt so cold, he opened his eyes, he was still dizzy and felt a little nauseous. That damned fat man dared to treat a noble viscount like this. When he returned to the castle, he would definitely gather the citizens to form an army to settle accounts with the convoy. Wait, where is this, why is it so familiar
Lord Viscount tugged at his face, and finally regained his sanity, looked around and felt more and more strange, where is this place, it seems very familiar. Finally, the Viscount finally realized that this is his castle, and this place should be his former bedroom, but why has this bedroom changed so much
Lord Viscount jumped up from the ground, and then found himself naked, with nothing on. What's this? Lord Viscount picked up the thing that was draped over his body just now, and looked carefully, it seemed to be a coarse sack, which seemed to be used for storing wheat.
It makes no sense, what did those people do to themselves? The Viscount cursed and rushed to the previous bed. There was a rope on the wall that summoned the bell. Once the rope was pulled and the bell rang, the maid would come in to help him take care of it. It's just that when Lord Viscount pulled the rope, the rope fell down, and the summoning bell broke the rope.
Lord Viscount had no choice but to pinch his nose to pick up the sack on the ground and put it around his waist, tied it with the rope, opened the door with bare feet, and stretched his head to look around. The corridor was empty and there was no one there. Lord Viscount called the names of several of his servants and maids, but no one answered.
Lord Viscount went to the next few rooms, and found that these rooms were just like his own bedroom, empty, without a piece of furniture, a piece of clothing, or a pair of shoes, only the cold walls remained, and even the beautifully decorated doors of several rooms were missing traced.
Lord Viscount was wandering around in the castle, he had nothing, not even the torch that was originally stuck on the wall. The further I walked, the more scared I became. What happened? Where did everyone go? Lord Viscount rushed to the top floor, and he finally breathed a sigh of relief. The sun was shining outside, and the warm sunlight shone on his body, bringing a warm and comfortable feeling to his skin.
The viscount looked down from the top floor of the castle, and felt that his castle was very clean, yes, it was clean, clean without a single person, a stinking livestock, a car, a piece of cloth, and a piece of iron. The entire castle is made of wood except stone.
"Is anyone there? Is anyone still there?" Lord Viscount let out a desperate scream on the rooftop...
"My lord, you're finally awake. Great, that's great." A figure stood in the corner of the courtyard downstairs. His lord Viscount saw that this was his loyal old butler. But the old butler, like the Viscount, was naked, with a sackcloth around his waist.
The Viscount rushed from the top floor to the yard in one breath. The old butler looked at the Viscount with great excitement: "My lord, you finally woke up. You have been lying unconscious for two days..."
Lord Viscount grabbed it, but failed. They were naked and had no clothes to grab, so they could only put their hands on the old butler's shoulders: "What happened in the castle? Where are people? Where did they go?"
"My lord, have you forgotten? Two days ago, a group of robbers took you to the castle and asked us to surrender. If you don't surrender, you will be hanged outside the gate. We have no choice but to open the gate and surrender for your life. The robbers said it was the northbound convoy of the Norton family. They said that because of you, they delayed their trip and caused them huge moral loss and reputation damage. So they caught you and demanded compensation. But, But you know the situation at home, there are not many gold coins. The robbers ate all the livestock in the castle, and moved all the things in the castle, not even a curtain and a rag. It’s demolished,” said the old housekeeper.
Lord Viscount was about to go mad with anger: "Where is that man? Why is there no one left?"
"Everyone left with them. When those robbers left, they gathered all the people in our castle together. A fat man asked us if we would follow them? I said no, so they stripped me naked and threw me in the yard. So everyone followed them." said the old housekeeper.
"My lord, I begged them hard before they left, and they threw me a sack of wheat. I poured the wheat on the ground, covered my lord with a sack, and searched the castle for two days before I dug out a broken pottery from the ground. Basin, I just cooked some oatmeal porridge, would you like to eat some porridge first?"
Lord Viscount felt his stomach was empty after being told by the old housekeeper: "Okay, go and bring me the porridge."
At this time, the sound of horseshoes came from outside the door, and the old butler looked outside and his face changed: "My lord, it's not good, the Boqi family has come to attack us."
"Go and close the gate." Lord Viscount was also anxious.
"But, my lord, the iron door bolt was also taken away by the robbers. These two nights I used a stone to top the door..." said the old housekeeper.
"It's over..." Lord Viscount squatted on the ground in despair.
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Fatty Shi didn't care about what happened to the first territorial nobleman he met, Viscount Meister. In his opinion, that viscount was purely stupid, and he didn't know how to become a territorial nobleman. I really thought that wearing a nobleman's hat could boss everyone around, and I didn't think about the difference between my own strength and others'. I didn't give him some strength to see how I could do it, but I dared to attack my Jasmine. …
At this moment, Fatty Shi was standing in front of the castle of the nobleman of the third territory that the convoy passed by, and he was bargaining with the lord, the baron, for a batch of weapons and equipment. When passing by the castle of the nobleman of the second territory yesterday, Fatty Shi sent someone to shout out, wanting to make a deal with that lord. However, that lord might have been frightened by the huge convoy outside, and shrank back in the castle like a turtle, ignoring whatever he yelled. Fatty Shi had no choice but to give up the idea of doing business.
When passing by the baron’s castle today, Fatty Shi learned the lesson from yesterday, and brought only three carriages to the castle, and first unloaded a set of relatively exquisite furniture brought from Viscount Meister’s castle as a A gift to the lord. The main reason is that Fatty Shi thought that this set of furniture was too bulky and took up space in the carriage, so he took it as a gift.
With the gift, the lord baron appeared on the city wall and asked Fatty Shi what he wanted to do.
Fatty Shi first gave a knightly salute, and then explained to the baron that the convoy behind him was the northbound team of the Norton family, and asked the baron if he could provide some supplies such as food and supplies. He brought some weapons and equipment here. Do adults need it
Hearing that there were weapons and equipment, the baron came out of the castle to have a look, and then he chose a hundred spears, twenty sets of chain armor, twenty round shields, twenty two-handed swords, and three Full body armor of a knight. All things add up to almost five hundred gold ford. However, the baron didn't have so many gold coins, so he discussed with Fatty Shi whether to use materials to barter.
In the end, the baron used one hundred gold coins and ten wagons filled with wheat, including the wagon and two horses to pull the wagon, plus five cows and fifty pigs, reached a deal with Fatty Shi for the weapons and equipment. Fatty Shi specially offered a 20% discount because the business was opened for the first time, and ordered the people below to bring a small barrel of grape wine from the original Slov Manor for the baron to taste.
The Baron was very happy to accept the grape wine from Fatty Shi. Looking at the direction of the convoy not far away, he kindly reminded him that he would leave his territory after crossing the mountains in the distance. You had better be careful when you go forward. The area where grass bandits and bandits are most active, and it also needs to guard against attacks by Count Cobili's family army.
When Fatty Shi heard this, he politely expressed his gratitude, and sincerely invited the baron to the evening banquet. The location is not far away, just under the distant mountains, where the team camped at night.
The baron thought about it for a while, and said that he would go to the banquet in the evening, hoping that it would not cause any trouble to the convoy.
Fatty Shi said that the Norton family would be very honored to wait for the visit of Lord Baron. For the banquet in the evening, I said goodbye first to prepare.
In the evening, the baron brought his eldest son, a three-star silver knight, and four attendants to the banquet. They entered the camp and watched all the way, admiring the military strength of the Norton family.
Fatty Shi set up an open-air banquet in the open space in the middle of the car camp using the dining table, chairs and tableware brought from Viscount Meester's castle. He first introduced Lorist and several family knights to the baron and his son. The baron called himself Charles, and his son Soria. Then everyone sat down and chatted while eating.
The purpose of Fatty Shi's banquet with Baron Charles was to inquire about Zhou Bian's situation and the situation of several lords in the direction of the convoy. The baron himself knows this. The father and son ate and drank at the banquet, and quickly introduced what everyone wanted to know.
Lord Baron Charles pointed to the mountain next to the car camp and said that this mountain was the dividing line between him and Viscount Di Bernard on the other side of the mountain, but Viscount Di Bernard had already died, not only Viscount Di Bernard, but Baron Enler, Earl Baijiali and Baron Umado are all like this. That is to say, the next hundreds of miles of Lorist's northbound convoy will pass through unclaimed lands that have lost their lords. In this area, Lorist will not be able to find supplies, and all he will see are abandoned or burned towns and villages.
This situation was caused by the good deeds of the private army of the Kobili family. When it comes to the Cobili family, one cannot fail to talk about the Earl Cobili who is now in charge. It is said that the Earl was a well-known prodigal knight and playboy in his neighborhood when he was young. His favorite thing to do was to roam around on horseback in the territory. When he saw a woman, he dismounted and forced her to have sex with him, no matter if he was forty or fifty years old or young. At the age of thirteen or fourteen, he would not let go of any of them. As a result, the women in the territory either had to stay at home and dare not go out, or the citizens who couldn't bear it dragged their families and fled to other places.
For this reason, the Earl had as many as sixty illegitimate children, but he didn't mind and adopted them all. In the surrounding noble circles, he was known as the Earl of the Queen. Later, the earl suddenly became interested and decided to go to the imperial capital to have fun. Then he met the eldest prince in the imperial capital, and the two had similar tastes and became good friends. Two years later, the eldest prince was exiled by the old emperor, and the Earl also returned to the territory. He went against his old ways and stayed in the manor to carefully raise those illegitimate children.
A few years later, the Eldest Prince raised the flag of rebellion in Puerto Org Province, and the Earl raised the flag in response, and brought about thirty grown-up illegitimate children to join the Eldest Prince. After the civil war, the Earl returned to the territory with a large group of troops and a large amount of money, but only a dozen or so of the more than thirty illegitimate children who followed him returned.
Now the Earl is over sixty years old, but his ambition is still undiminished. Soon after returning to the territory, he used various excuses to provoke a war with the nobles of the nearby territories, successfully doubling the power of his territory. The thirteen nobles who fought against him all ended up dying. The males were basically killed, and the females ended up even worse after being captured. They were either humiliated to death or sold to slave traders after being bored.
Once, a nobleman went to the capital to complain to the eldest prince, denounced Earl Cobili for his cruelty, and asked the eldest prince to punish him and avenge the noble who died unjustly. As a result, the eldest prince dismissed lightly and said that he didn't know much about the matter, and he needed to send someone to investigate it. Then there was no news. The nobleman who complained waited hard in the capital for three months but found that the investigation had not made the slightest progress. Then he ran into an illegitimate son of the earl who was said to be going to the capital to escort the eldest prince with taxes.
A conflict broke out between the two during the conversation. Unfortunately, the noble who complained was killed because his head was smashed in the dispute, and the murderer was a servant of the illegitimate son. According to the servant, it was because he could not bear the noble's treatment of him. The beloved master's curse was unbearable and he smashed it with a stool. The result of this incident was that the servant was sentenced to death, but the earl's illegitimate son was safe and sound.
After this incident was reported, it aroused great repercussions among the nobles in this area, and everyone felt aggrieved that the eldest prince favored Count Cobili. At this time, one of Earl Cobili's confidants revealed a shocking news in the tavern, that is, when the Earl returned to the territory, the eldest prince promised him that as long as he integrated all the nobles in the northwestern part of the kingdom, he would appoint Count Cobili as Ridley. Northwest Duke of Sri Lanka. And all the land in the northwest region will become the enfeoffment of Duke Cobili.
That's why Count Cobili was so frenzied when he started the war with the nobles in the nearby territories, and he didn't care about the custom of the nobles' wars that would harm their families. He uprooted the defeated opponents so as not to cause trouble for his future rule. Now the nobles in the northwest region of the entire kingdom have despaired of the eldest prince, and the remaining thirty-four nobles united to form a loose alliance against Kobili, agreeing to support one party in trouble. It's just that there are too many people, and many nobles are entangled in old grievances and grievances. There are endless incidents of dragging their legs and stabbing knives. In the past six months, two nobles have been wiped out, and the assembled noble coalition has suffered several defeats one after another. The nobles of the alliance were panicked, and even several nobles groveled and surrendered to Count Cobili.
Baron Charles drank another large glass of cider, and now the army of the Earl of Cobilli had wiped out his neighboring Viscount Di Bernard, and it was about to be his family's turn. In addition to preparing for the war, he sent his youngest son and daughter to Morente to live with a distant relative, and he planned to defend the castle to the death, in order to cause the greatest possible loss to Count Cobili's family army. Buying weapons and equipment from Fatty Shi is for this purpose.
The baron's eldest son, Knight Solia, introduced to Lorist the situation of Earl Cobili's family army. Because Earl Cobili made a fortune in the civil war, he brought back more than a thousand mercenaries when he returned to the territory. All of these mercenaries rode horses and were equipped with leather spears. They called themselves Lancers and were good at using flying nets to capture the enemy. It is the main force of Earl Cobili's territorial war. Then there was the 2,000-man garrison that Earl Cobili had recruited in the territory, led by a few illegitimate sons who had followed him to battle as adults, and were responsible for the defense of his family's territory and several nearby territories.
Whenever Earl Kobili defeated an opponent, he would burn, kill and loot the territory, and in the end, he would send all the surviving citizens back to his family territory to serve as hard labor slaves and build various facilities for him. I heard that Earl Kobili wanted to build a city similar to the royal capital in his territory, as his residence when he became the Duke of Northwest in the future.
Knight Solia said that Lorist's northbound convoy will pass through the territories of several exterminated nobles in the next few days. These territories are active with rebel forces composed of many fugitives. Ten people, more than a hundred people, they caused more damage to Count Cobili's family army than the coalition army of nobles. It's just that these rebels often acted as robbers and bandits because of the lack of supplies. They not only robbed Earl Cobili's territory, but also robbed other noble territories. In order to wipe out these rebels, Earl Cobili often sent his troops to sweep through these unowned territories. One was to eliminate the rebels, and the other was to capture adult laborers and return them as slaves.
Among the rebel forces in these territories, the most famous is a knight named Josk. This knight has the strength of a gold star, and his special skill is the magic arrow stunt that hits every shot. In order to avenge his family head who was exterminated, he sneaked into the family territory of Earl Cobili alone, shot and killed the two illegitimate sons of the earl, and shot the earl's shoulder. He was listed as the most wanted criminal by Count Cobili, and the reward was as high as one hundred gold . Now this Josk knight has organized an army of hundreds of people. Because of the lack of weapons and equipment, he has written letters to blackmail some nobles in the territory, hoping that Lorist's northbound convoy will not encounter him.
Knight Soria's suggestion to Lorist was that it was best to take a detour instead of passing through Earl Cobili's sphere of influence. Otherwise, Earl Kobili or those who say the rebels are actually robbers will be targeted. No matter how strong the armed forces of the escorting family are, they will suffer heavy losses. What's more, when their father and son entered the car camp, they saw the family members of the army. These will become the convoy burdensome.
After seeing off the Baron and his son, Lorist's face was heavy. Should the road ahead of him continue to move forward or turn backwards? This is a question that requires careful consideration.