The hourglass in the room slowly fell, and time passed by minute by minute.
Oran and Sals both calmed down.
Sals took a few more steps, and the king's infantry and knights advanced step by step, surrounding Oran and Shimon, but there was also a void that they could take advantage of.
Sals said, "The situation is unclear now. Even if they dare to encircle us, they dare not attack rashly because they also cannot calculate the situation.
King Ella was in an unfair position. He did not receive the education of a king. When the opportunity arose, he occupied his brother's throne. He once had the opportunity to kill his brother, but because he did not want to be charged with murder, his brother successfully fled to the south and established his power. , fight against him.
He thought he was very capable of dealing with women, but he was controlled by Princess Haian without realizing it. His treasury was empty, and taxes from many places were forcibly collected by the princess in the name of the king, causing resentment.
He was outwardly devout to the priests and promised to build a church in the future. Recently, he canonized a knight and held a ceremony due to the 'Holy Bones Incident'.
But on the other hand, they followed my private suggestions to weaken the power of the priests, and even wanted to take back the private lands that were given to them during the previous king's time.
He can still intimidate the nobles, but he is still relatively strong. He has a group of personal soldiers who have followed him since the prince's time. This is his main force. The number is unknown, but it will not be less than three hundred.
Including the loyalty of some small lords or knights, there were nearly six to seven hundred people.
He was also afraid that the nobles would turn against him, and he never wanted to waste his immediate subordinates.
When encountering a battle, he would speak randomly, reward people, and make them sacrifice their lives.
I came to County Durham of my own free will, and he made me Earl of Yorkshire.
A tomb robber, holding a hand bone, is said to be the earl who fought the Vikings to death?
Easily reward dozens of acres of land and gold and silver?
He granted land rewards and always used various means to get them back from sinners or dead people and then reward them.
But how will the families who have lost their land survive?”
Sals told a lot about the information he had gathered about the kingdom, and on the one hand he also asked Oran about his plan.
Because Oran must know better about the information about people like Shi Meng, Earl, and Jin Ya.
Oran called Nanding and got some more chess pieces. Then he put together the long table in the study, spread out the chessboard, and added more Vikings from Danfa District.
In this way, the battle plan of the four northern counties was clearly formed.
Oran put down six castles, representing respectively the Royal City of Ella, the White Eagle Territory, the Shimon forces, the main city of Er, and the Golden Teeth United Forces.
"We are second only to King Ella among these six forces, but my prestige in the territory is much higher than his. If I say the same thing, if we don't move, this will be the case after the situation is established." Orland said.
"Who do you distrust the least?"
"I don't believe it. They are all extremely evil people."
"Which party has the deepest hatred for you?"
"Those who have a life-and-death feud are the Viking forces like Golden Tooth and Earl. I beat them up once in the Black Forest for the former, and not to mention the latter. Most of their land was taken over by me."
"Who do you think would be best for us if we died?"
"King Ella, if he dies, the four northern counties will be in chaos."
"Which person are you most worried about?"
"Shi Meng, the number of his tribe is close to two thousand, maybe more. The number of people equipped with weapons is as many as three or four hundred. With full recruitment, maybe it can reach six or seven hundred.
I killed his people and put the blame on Earl. This is a hidden danger.
I met him once. He is not stupid and has high internal prestige. If he turns against me and his territory borders us, the harm will be incalculable.
If we want to talk about weaknesses, there are currently two.
One is extremely attached to his pregnant wife,
I have inquired and found out that this wife very much supports his peaceful coexistence with the Lord of Heaven. It is her help that can suppress different voices in the territory. In the past two years, there has been almost no attack on the surrounding lords. "
"I have also heard that Shi Meng sent people to see King Ella before, hoping to be baptized and converted and take root in the kingdom." Sals replied.
Oran nodded and continued, "The other is that he once had a deputy who did not agree with his ideas. Now he has defected to the Golden Teeth camp. It is said that he also contacted the Vikings from Edinburgh to join him during this northern rebellion. His name is 'Glock'."
"Then what is your weakness?" Sals asked again, "We can take advantage of others, but we must also prevent others from taking advantage of us. We must think of all possible escape routes before the enemy takes action."
"The priests and wives I left behind at the king's court are in the hands of King Ella."
"My relationship with Adisha is not stable. She is now the lord of Haizhen. Will she stab me while I am weak?"
"I have a bad relationship with the surrounding Catholic lords. After the sword fight in Dancheng, my reputation in the ears of the distant priests became worse and worse day by day."
"I am developing too fast. If I lose once, the morale of my subordinates will be greatly affected. My financial resources are not much better than King Ella's. I can only support war with war."
Olan said four things in succession, Sals thought for a while and replied,
"Your Excellency, I will write a letter back to remind King Ella not to do anything before falling out with you, but from now on, if your wife or priest sends a message, no matter how sincere it is, you can only believe it. Take a part, no one knows, whether they were threatened and have rebelled.
I also brought a lot of smelted gold and silver nuggets from the hands of the Archbishop of Wales. I gave one-sixth of it to King Ella. When I entered the White Eagle Territory, I hid it and buried it in a farmhouse on the border. In the manor, we can now send people to withdraw it. This fund can solve some of our troubles.
My idea is to use it to buy other Viking leaders in the Golden Teeth camp or purchase food and weapons reserves.
This can solve some of the problems in the first two items.
The last two can be summed up in one sentence: launch a 'just war' and win, letting your reputation be known.
Now that the Vikings are causing chaos in the Seven Kingdoms, what better way to fight for justice than to defeat the Vikings?
The target is set on King Ella and Shi Meng. "Saers adjusted the chess pieces again, creating a situation where Shi Meng was surrounded by Ella's soldiers.
And he took out a "Queen" and said, "This is Shi Meng's wife. Let this 'woman' be killed by Gu Lie or other king's subordinates, so that both the angry Viking wolf and the king will suffer losses."
At that time, the Vikings around your territory will either surrender and convert to you, or they will die or become slaves. "
"But Shi Meng protected his wife very tightly and set up fortifications around the settlement. This settlement has been able to hover between Ben Bo's territory and King Ella for so many years, so it is not easy to win."
As he said this, Oran had an idea in his mind.
But Sasir had the same idea as Oran.
"Just deceive people out." Sals answered what Oran wanted in advance.
"Women tend to be soft-hearted, and use peace to lure them to put down their swords and axes, and persuade Shi Meng and his wife to behave in submission to the king again.
Send people to the territory of Shimeng and tell them that you will intercede with the king to pardon their recent evil deeds and accept them as members of the kingdom. You will also give them legal rights to live and start enjoying a peaceful border life from now on.
If you don't want to be baptized in the local area, you can choose to be baptized near Dan City.
It was a huge first step in the temptation to let his wife convince him.
After success, it’s the second step,
The second step is to prepare your manpower and go together, and promise to Shi Meng that as the middleman, you will protect the baptism throughout the whole process without any accidents.
The third step is to write a letter to the king and tell them that you are cooperating with the Vikings to pretend to surrender and be baptized, but in fact you will kill the priests and soldiers sent by the king after the baptism.
Therefore, I suggested in my letter that the king should send the clergy, who held large amounts of land and often disobeyed him, to come with the private soldiers of the church.
By sacrificing these priests, the king could quickly devour the land they left behind.
Since you took all the main force out, the territory was empty, and you asked the king's troops to dispatch in advance, invade the empty Shi Meng territory, and directly penetrate his lair. Shi Meng's wife will either die in battle or become a slave. If he becomes a slave, he can use this woman to force Shi Meng to surrender.
The fourth step is that since the territory has been breached, as a Viking leader, if Shi Meng surrenders for a woman, he will be useless and the settlement will more likely be divided.
I guess he will resist surrender and launch revenge. At this time, no matter whether his wife dies or becomes a slave, he will use war to get her back.
At that time, Shi Meng can kill as many people as he wants on the border and loot as many towns as he wants.
If Shi Meng can bring big trouble to Ella, that would be great, just watch and watch.
If Shimon is destroyed by Ella, you will protect the Vikings from his tribe and use them as your own.
After this battle, we will reset our position. "
The plan was roughly drawn up, and the two talked for a long time. It was not until the moonlight was high that it came to an end. As long as Olan talked, Nanding stood outside.
"The Romance of Fairy Wood"
After it was over, Olan called him in and poured him a cup of fruit tea himself.
"Your Excellency." Nanding took it respectfully with both hands.
"Today's dinner, you can share it with me. Thank you for your hard work. I think that by now next year, you will also be a baron, and you will have a beautiful wife. If I have entered the Royal Court of Ella by then, then I will be in charge of you." In the jurisdiction, as long as it’s a woman you like, you can say whatever you want.”
Nanding nodded simply. Although he should be happy to be promised a baron, he also understood that there were still several fierce battles to be fought.
As for women, Oran has the final say.
When dinner was served, it was very simple, a few hot cakes, a pot of vegetable soup, a meal for the lord.
During the meal, Nanding stopped prophesying.
When Olan finished eating, he still didn't speak and silently withdrew.
Oran knew what was going on. Recently, these men had been traveling frequently from County Durham to County Yewe. In the past, Oran had granted many manors to go out, so they would also pass through each other's territories.
Some time ago, when Kunsang passed through Nanding's territory, he felt that a peasant woman had offended him, so...
This incident caused some friction between Kunsang and Nanding.
Olan later called Kunsang's subordinates at the time to question him. The subordinates acted disrespectfully by biting the peasant woman to death, so he gave up.
So these days, he left Nanding in King's Landing, and just now he had dinner with him at the same table, promising rewards. The implication was that the overall situation was more important, and he should win this battle first.
Early the next morning, Sals split up and acted according to the plan discussed with Oran yesterday.
More than a dozen people were sent out separately. As soon as they left, a bad news came from behind.
An old man with a gentlemanly image was sent to Oran by the soldiers of King's Landing with several family papers.
"Your Excellency Oran!" The old man knelt down on one knee, his body swaying, and he almost recovered in one breath.
After Jia Juan beside the old man said a few words, Oran finally understood that they were the owners of a manor in Yewei County.
And has surrendered to Oran's White Eagle Territory.
"What are you doing here?"
"Your Excellency, the devil has hurt us, and we come here to seek your protection." The old man's body was shaking, and his face was full of tears.
"who?"
"Ox-neck Shimon!"
"Huh? Didn't Uncle Ben give the order and as long as you plant the white eagle flag on the manor, you can drive them away?"
This is an agreement between Oran and Shi Meng, to avoid accidentally hurting his subordinates or new followers. As long as there is a picture of the white eagle flag, Shi Meng's subordinates can cause superficial disturbance.
"Dead, but they still rushed in, killed my youngest son, and..."
The old man couldn't continue. Olan knew what happened by looking at Jia Juan's face behind the old man.
"Someone will accommodate you. Stay here first."
Oran originally thought this was an accident, but within the same day, two more such incidents occurred and were reported to King's Landing.
Oran wrote a letter that night and asked a scout with superb riding skills to deliver it to Shi Meng as quickly as possible, and he immediately got back the letter of explanation.
It took a total of a day and a half to send the letter back. After Olan opened it, he appreciated Shi Meng's explanation.
The article said very briefly, it would rain, the ground would shake, and people would fall. These would all happen without warning. He would find out the cause and write a letter to Oran.
"The wolves started to snatch our things, sir." Nanding said.
"Dog!" Olan crushed the letter into pieces, "Just treat it as a burial gift. I will give him a ride."
Then another letter arrived. It was from Earl's territory. When opened, the handwriting was beautiful.
There is also a fragrance of leaves and petals.
In the letter, Earl told Oran that Yewei County has been owned by his family 'since ancient times', and he has been awarded many ruling documents by the king.
In short, they talked a lot of nonsense, and the general idea was that they hoped that Oran would withdraw its troops, lift the blockade of the territory, and open their way to the south.
Earl would pay a substantial fee as a truce payment.
"This should be the word for 'sally'. She is a nice woman. What a pity."
Oran didn't believe that Earl was willing to pay the money at all. He probably asked him to go south to find Ella to move reinforcements after lifting the blockade, and to slow down his idea of storming their castle.
"Nanding, come and write a letter for me." Orland said.
Nanding herself is not as illiterate as Ladd. Recently, under Oran's request, her knowledge has improved a lot. Writing letters is not difficult.
Oran sat on the chair, his voice contemptuous, Nanding held the pen, and Titan served beside him.
"Sir Earl, your Sachs family in Northumbria can be traced back to a hundred years ago, but for the Vijay family, it goes far beyond that.
According to the chronology of the Vijay family, Benbo traced back seven generations of his ancestor, Sir Bran, who ruled Jewe County for a period of time. He also planted a rose forest near the boundary of the castle where you now live, and often hunted there. 'Pissing', this is called 'since ancient times'. "
"This!" Although Nan Ding stated faithfully, there were still some feelings about Olan's words...
"Write another greeting to Sally."
