Viscount Comas didn't do anything with the materials handed over at noon the next day. Perhaps in his heart he hoped that the sooner Lorist would leave his Viscountdom, the sooner he would be relieved, so that he gave Sedkamp A big surprise. The seven carts of grain and three carts of fine linen that the Lord Viscount provided for Lorist's convoy were delivered together with the carts, which made Sedkamp, who couldn't buy long-distance freight carriages in Feng Yata Town, happy. Can't help it.
With the addition of ten freight wagons, Soderkamp did not have to worry about the shipment of supplies. After overnight maintenance and preparations, Lorist set off on the northbound journey again on the morning of February 11th. .
Three days later, Lorist's convoy arrived at Nadgas, the border city between the Kingdom of Antinac and the Principality of Madras. After a day's rest, they set off again and entered the Principality of Madras.
Compared with the Kingdom of Antinac, the situation in the Principality of Madras is obviously better, whether it is people's livelihood or security. This is due to the Grand Duke of Madras, who devoted himself to protecting himself during the civil war of the empire. Whoever invaded and attacked, and no one invaded, he would not attack. He just guarded the border and strengthened the defense facilities, which earned him the title of a Hedgehog Grand Duke. , which also allowed the Principality of Madras to suffer less damage during the civil war.
Lorist's convoy ran from the southern border of the Principality of Madras to the northern border, a distance of more than 1,300 miles, and only encountered two groups of bandits and a group of horse thieves within seven days. Of course, these short-sighted guys soon regretted that they shouldn't have taken the idea of this convoy. By the time they reached the natural dividing line between the Principality of Madras and the Northland Plateau, Lorist's convoy was already crowded. Six wagons full of spoils, and more than seventy captives.
"My lord, after crossing the Midobro River, we will reach the edge of the Northland. There is only nearly seven hundred miles left. We don't need to travel overnight. Even if we walk one hundred miles a day, it is enough to reach the family before March. Territory." Sedkamp heaved a sigh of relief, and finally did not delay Lorist's return to inherit the title and family territory because he and Pat insisted on returning with a large amount of supplies.
The Midobrow River in front of you is spacious and calm, with clear water flowing quietly.
Crossing the Methabura River, one can see the vainly elevated terrain in the distance, with patches of green dotted among the endless mountains, rivers and hills.
That is Beidi, the hometown of Little Locke, the original owner of this body...
Lorist stared into the distance, where would be his new hometown...
"I remember that when I left the Northland with the family caravan ten years ago, I passed a cable bridge. The river under the bridge was surging, and there was no such peace and tranquility as before..."
"My lord, you are talking about the Hengdelifu Cable Bridge, which is on the upper reaches of the Methabura River, more than a hundred miles away from here. After crossing the Hengdrifu Cable Bridge, you will reach the Grand Duke Lukin of the Northland. Fresde Castle in Lord Si's territory. At the beginning, you said that you didn't want to deal with the Grand Duke for the time being, so I chose to cross the river from here. After crossing the river, we will reach our family territory after passing through seven territories." Soderkamp explained.
"Where is the ferry?" Lorist asked.
"Not far ahead, that's Baron Seurath's territory. With so many of us crossing the river, Baron Seurath will earn a lot of money for the ferry." Sedkamp said.
"You still have to pay what you have to pay. Let's go, set up camp on the spot after crossing the river, and rest for a whole day." Lorist said.
…
As a noble, it is free to pass in the territory of other lords. Like the convoy led by Lorist, as long as they show the family badge, it means that this is a family convoy and not a caravan. Generally, it does not cost money to pass customs or pass through other lords' territories. But crossing the river was different, Lorist also had to pay for the ferry.
Baron Seurath's ferry terminal is not big, there are only two ferries. There is a big sign on the pier, on which are the clear prices of various ferry fares: one person, one imperial silver coin. One horse, ten imperial silver coins, a four-wheeled long-distance freight carriage full of goods, one imperial old man's head gold coin, and so on. Even for nobles, there is no free preferential treatment and discounts, and the only consideration is the right of way.
Lorist thought to himself that this is priority traffic, there are not many people wanting to cross the river at all, the boatmen on the two ferries all herded sheep, and only one old man was repairing the oars on the boat.
The arrival of the convoy made the secluded ferry so noisy that Baron Seuras was alarmed. He took a small team of guards and rushed to the ferry to guard the gate in person. The convoy's ferry fee that Rist gave was a big bag full of gold coins, and he couldn't close his mouth from ear to ear. Baron Seuras, who was in a good mood, specially ordered someone to go back to his manor castle to fetch a few bottles of precious wine, set up tables and chairs at the ferry, and sincerely invited Lorist to come and taste it.
Lorist felt that it was really painful. A ferry carried a four-wheeled carriage and several people at a time, and the four boatmen paddled desperately. It took an hour to go back and forth. With nearly 100 carriages and 600 horses in my convoy, how much time would it take for more than 500 people to cross the river by these two ferries? There are only eight boatmen, and they will be tired and need to eat, sleep and rest. According to this calculation, it will take at least six or seven days for the entire convoy to cross the river.
Baron Seuras felt very sorry, after all, he had charged so much for the ferry, but there were indeed only these two ferries and these few boatmen in his territory, so he could only express his helplessness.
Lorist asked, is there any rope
Baron Seuras nodded, there are many ropes. Because the territory is by the river, and there are many reeds growing by the river, Baron Seuras will order people to harvest a large number of reeds every year, and then use the reeds to weave straw mats and ropes. This is also a special product of his territory. It can increase the income of Baron Seuras by two or three gold coins.
Lorist asked Baron Seuras to send people to bring in a lot of ropes. He first connected the ropes, tied a rope to the bow and stern of the two ferries, and ordered people to make four big wheels on each side of the ferry. Attach the rope and use the wheels to pull the ferry. This not only saves the physical strength of the boatmen, so that only two boatmen are needed on the ferry to ensure the stability and docking of the ferry, but also greatly reduces the round-trip time. River.
Even so, it was already the evening of the second day when Lorist stepped onto the ferry as the last group of convoy members. Sedkamp, who came to greet Lorist with the boat, looked at Baron Seurath who had come to see Lorist off on the shore and kept waving his hands, and said indignantly, "We will let Baron Seurath earn money for this trip of our convoy." Nearly one hundred and fifty imperial gold coins. No wonder he is so attentive, and he came to see him off when it was getting dark."
Lorist also waved a few times at Baron Seuras on the shore. Last night he accepted the invitation of Baron Seuras and brought Ovekis to the baron's manor castle as a guest, which moved the old bearded bandit unbearable. In fact, Lorist took him only because Josk brought Pat and Sodkamp across the river to arrange camping affairs, and only Reddy, Ovekis and Lorist were left here. Lorist was invited to consider It was more reassuring to let Reddy stare at the follow-up vehicles and horses to cross the river, so he brought the bearded man to the banquet.
Lorist brought Baron Seurath a set of half-body plate armor with golden silk pattern as a gift, which was the trophy of the horse thieves he met on the road to sweep. I don't know which unlucky nobleman the horse thief robbed, and the head of the horse thief proudly wore it on his body. Because it was too gorgeous and dazzling, Josk stared at it with an arrow and blocked his throat, killing the leader of the horse thief. This set of gorgeous plate armor came into the hands of Lorist.
Lorist reckoned that this set of half-body plate armor should be custom-made by a certain horseman as a coming-of-age gift for the male sons of a certain noble family, so the family crest has not yet been engraved on the plate armor. It's very suitable as a gift. Anyway, Lorist doesn't like the gorgeous style of this set of plate armor. Wearing this plate armor to go into battle is like calling out to the enemy, come and attack me, and shoot me with arrows. This kind of self-defeating method is not Lorist. dishes.
Baron Seuras liked the gift from Lorist so much that he couldn't put it down. After the banquet, the bearded Ovekis resigned consciously and went to the pier to assist Reddy in arranging the convoy to cross the river overnight, while Baron Seuras invited Lorist to the study room to appreciate the dozen or so bottles of ancient fine wine he had collected .
In the study, Baron Seuras expressed his thanks to Lorist again. He said that in the past three to four months, there have been many convoys of the Northland lord's family who wanted to cross the river through the small ferry in their own territory. However, due to limited capacity, many convoys did not want to wait and went to the Hendryford Cable Bridge to cross there. Jiang, let himself lose a lot of ferry fare. Now the ferry boat at the pier has been improved by Lorist, and its efficiency has almost doubled. I believe it will attract many family convoys from the Northland to cross the river from here.
Lorist was very strange. He chose this road to avoid the territory of the Grand Duke of the Northland because he didn't want to deal with the Grand Duke Lukins. Then why did the other Northland family convoys choose to cross the river here
"Didn't it mean that the cost of crossing the river at the Hendryford Cable Bridge is half that of your ferry fare, Lord Baron? Why did those Northland family convoys choose to cross the river here?" Lorist asked.
Baron Seurath laughed triumphantly: "Lord Lukins, the Grand Duke of the Northland, is famous for being greedy. The cost of crossing the river at the Hengdrifu Cable Bridge is half that of mine, but after crossing the river, you will be the Grand Duke's Frey." Sid Castle. The Grand Duke Lukins set up a strict checkpoint there. Although the nobles are exempt from tax, as long as the Grand Duke finds that there are materials he is interested in in the convoy, he will be forcibly collected and only given half of the market price. If you are lucky, you will only lose One or two carriages, half of the convoy was confiscated by those who were unlucky, which caused complaints from the nobles of the Northland, but the Grand Duke couldn't help it, so they would rather choose to cross the river by the small ferry here."
Lorist stood on the ferry, the cold river wind blowing in his face made him feel extraordinarily clear-headed. I thought back to what Baron Seuras said last night. Although the Northland has a vast territory and the Mithobrow River is a natural danger, there are only two major traffic routes to the outside world. One is the Hengdelifu Cable Bridge connecting the two banks, but that is in the hands of the Grand Duke of the Northland. The second is the middle reaches of the baronial domain of Seuras, where the Mitoburo River bends and flows for more than ten miles. However, this section of the river is extremely vast, and it is only possible to rely on ferries instead of building bridges, which is very time-consuming.
The only reason why the Midoburo River is relied on as the natural danger of the Northland is that the area it flows around the Northland is either a cliff or a river with jagged rocks and turbulent torrents. Except for the middle reaches of Baron Seurath's territory, where the Mitoburo River bends and flows for more than a dozen miles, it is relatively calm and peaceful, and there is no way to sail across other rivers.
Lorist suspects that the Northland is vast and sparsely populated, and it is difficult to attract refugees to reclaim the wasteland, so that the Northland can be fully developed because the transportation arteries are all in private hands, like the Grand Duke Lukins and Baron Seuras , what they are focusing on is the fee charged for crossing the river, which is their inexhaustible source of gold mine income.
Even if Fatty Shi's convoy can reach the family territory smoothly in the future, the main roads for external transportation are in the hands of other lords, who can cut off the family's external ties at any time. In that case, the family territory still cannot be fully developed and sustained. As the popular propaganda slogan in the previous life said, to get rich, you must first build roads, but how can the territory with no roads develop
Maybe after he inherited the family territory, he had to plan to open up a new main route for external communication, so as to avoid being choked by others. Alas, there is a long way to go. Looking at the mountains and rivers in the distance, Lorist fell into deep thought with a touch of sadness and a heart full of thoughts.
Because crossing the river was delayed for a day, Lorist led the convoy back to the family territory on February 25th. He decided to run the remaining six or seven hundred miles in five days and reach the family territory before February 30.
After setting foot on the Northland, Lorist discovered that the situation that Fatty Shi said when he held a family knight meeting to formulate the northward travel strategy was not just hearsay, but a real fact that happened before his eyes.
This has only passed through three territories, and has encountered five territorial wars. There are conflicts between old nobles and new nobles, some call nearby lords to help them fight against invading territories, some help friend lords invade other people’s territories, some old lords fight against old lords because of old grievances, and some new lords fight against new lords because of old grievances. All sorts of reasons are lumped together. In short, they are all in one piece, and there are shouts, fights, and killings everywhere.
Thanks to the vastness and sparse population of the Northland, the wars between these lords seemed to Lorist to be village-level fights. Generally, the lord brings two or three family knights and dozens of garrison soldiers, and then recruits one or two hundred farmers and soldiers to launch a large-scale collective brawl against the hostile lord as a large army. The largest lord's army that Lorist encountered was only four to five hundred people, all of whom were peasants and soldiers dressed in rags.
What's ridiculous is that the lord, who is self-sufficient and strong, has also taken the idea of Lorist's convoy, and even asked Lorist to hand over half of the vehicles as road money before allowing it to pass. Lorist would not let this obvious roadblocking act go unnoticed. For the free passage of the sacred nobles, Lorist asked the guard team to launch an attack and beat the opposite army with zero casualties. The arrogant lord knelt in front of Lorist and demanded redemption with tears and snot in his nose. In the end, he regained his freedom at the price of fifty Northland horses and four wagons full of grain.
In order to prevent the lords who had lost their minds during the fight from getting the idea of the convoy, Lorist ordered the guards to escort them in a parade with full armor on horseback. Sure enough, in this way, there will be no more flies with troops to harass. Even on the fourth day, the two armies of the lords, who were fighting in full swing, deliberately stopped fighting and gave way to the road to allow the convoy to pass first.
On the fifth day, the endless virgin forest and endless mountains appeared in front of the convoy.
Sedkamp and Pat cheered: "Master, our family territory has arrived, that is the Black Forest, and the high mountains in the distance are the Dragon Mountains. After passing the Black Forest, the undulating hills are the Morgan Hills , after passing the Morgan Hill convoy and running for another day, we will arrive at our family castle manor... "
It took most of the day before the convoy circled the edge of the Black Forest. The Morgan Hills loom in front of you...
But Sedkamp and Pat were stunned. A city wall made of rocks appeared at some point in the gap of the Morgan hills leading from the avenue ahead, and the pattern on the flag flying on the city wall was not a roaring giant bear. , but three golden circles nestled together...