On September 22, 996 in the Imperial Calendar, Lant woke up early.
Just last night when they had just settled down, several of his knights came to him and believed that there were too many monsters in the forest, enough to threaten the safety of the entire camp.
If you stay here, you may attract mid-to-high-level monsters. If you return to the previous camp, you may be discovered by the barbarians.
Now, unlike when Rand followed Rohr and Albert before, it was impossible for him to leave his luggage and more than 200 people.
The only thing he could do was to send out a reconnaissance force, have the Greyhounds scout toward the forest, and Rohr to scout out the forest, and choose a camp plan with the least danger.
However, in addition to Forest Lant, he was also thinking about other possibilities. He found Albert and asked about his previous experience of trading from his territory to the Galloping Horse Plains.
Albert was straightforward about most of these experiences. The so-called merchants in the Benma Territory were actually smuggling to the barbarians in the Benma Plains.
This kind of smuggling mainly involves purchasing some runes, cloth, and grains for daily use from the mainland of the kingdom, and exchanging them for barbarian livestock, meat products, leather products, and woolen products. Of course, just exchanging local products is not considered smuggling. They really started from Benma. What was smuggled out on the plains were three strategic materials: high-quality war horses, iron, and salt.
Yes, the Galloping Horse Plains produce both iron and horses. However, the barbarians who have mastered strategic resources have not been able to complete the organizational upgrade, nor can they break out of the Galloping Horse Plains and invade the human hinterland. It can only be said that on Alivia , magic is the most basic ability.
The empire has a monopoly on salt, iron, copper, tin, gemstones, gold and silver, magic ores and magic-guided metals, and a specialized agency - the Empire Salt and Iron Division, conducts unified exploration, mining, transportation, smelting and distribution.
Of course, as a department of the empire, it is impossible to reach out to every principality and kingdom. Therefore, the Salt and Iron Division adopted an agent system outside the empire's direct territories and found 1-2 agents related to the royal family in each kingdom. Agency-related business.
For example, in the Dragon Kingdom, there are three legendary national pillars, and the agent that the Salt and Iron Division found in the Dragon Kingdom is the Blue Dragon family, one of the three pillars, to act as an agent for the salt and iron trade throughout the Dragon Kingdom.
As the general agent, the Blue Dragon family will have a trading house as a secondary dealer in each earl territory. It will be controlled by the young people of the Blue Dragon family and operate all markets and groceries with strategic resources such as salt and iron in the entire kingdom. All shops are their third-level dealers.
In the cooperation between Imperial Salt and Iron Division and agents, we will stipulate key matters such as selling prices, profits, and sharing of salt and iron in the sale of salt and iron to ensure the stability of salt and iron prices in the sales area. This will ensure that both agents and Imperial Salt The benefits of the railway company can also reduce the living costs of the territorial residents.
The sales profit of each level in the entire three-level dealer system will be stipulated. In this way, from the accounts of the general agent of the Blue Dragon family, after deducting the cost of transporting salt from coastal areas, salt is sold in the kingdom. It's all about small profits but quick turnover, and it relies entirely on the population base of the entire kingdom to maintain profitability.
In this way, Huck and the others smuggled salt from the Benma Plain, because they did not need to share profits with Blue Dragon and the Salt and Iron Division. As long as they sold private salt at a slightly lower price than the official salt of the Salt and Iron Division, they could get more than the Salt and Iron Division. , Blue Dragon and any first-level dealer's profits, from the standpoint of the Blue Dragon family, they are dividing their family's interests.
Of course, this kind of carve-up is tacitly allowed to a certain extent, because most of Huck's salt is digested in Ben territory. Strategic commodities such as salt and iron have low unit prices and high transportation costs. If you want to make big money, you have to think If you only use animals to carry out bulk trade by water transport, you won't make much money in total. Therefore, Huck's smuggling has no impact on the market outside the barony.
And Huck is in a certain strategic position. Ensuring the stability of Huck's territory will be beneficial to the entire northwest region of the dragon. Therefore, for the Blue Dragon family, the private salt interests taken away by Huck are part of what they have given to Huck. Funds to stabilize Northwest China.
Huck's most profitable trade in recent years is actually the war horse trade. The black-scaled horses on the Galloping Horse Plains are of good quality, but this quality is the result of the dual influence of blood and magical environment. Once the black-scaled horses enter the inland, The quality of the second generation will be significantly lower than that of the previous generation. To a certain extent, the black scale horse is a high-end equipment limited to its origin.
Therefore, for Huck, selling black-scaled horses is a high-cost, high-profit project. There is no need to worry about the big horse getting rid of the pony and his own horse will not be sold. However, the total amount of horse trade is also limited. After all, if you are doing business with the barbarians, you are openly collaborating with the enemy, and you can only trade privately.
Listening to Albert's introduction, there were a few things that Lant didn't understand. Why were the barbarians able to mine? Since they could mine, why didn't they build a fixed city?
Since they have a fixed mining area, why don't they conduct bulk trade with the Dragon Kingdom? Lant didn't know much about the secrets involved, but he grasped one point. In addition to cooperating with the territory of Viscount Roth, Huck's merchants would also do it privately.
The Lot territory was considered the gatekeeper of the Galloping Horse Plains. Since they could sneak in without the gatekeeper, at least there was a window through which they could enter.
Lant's guess was not wrong. Albert was sure that in their current forest, there was a path leading to the Benma Plain. This was the remnant of an ancient river. You could enter the Benma Plain through a small cave to the north. Southwest part of the plain.
That night, Greyhound and Rolle returned to the camp one after another. According to Greyhound, there were an unusually large number of monsters near the camp. He didn't know the reason for this phenomenon, but he was certain that these monsters were no easier to deal with than the barbarians.
The result of Rohr's investigation was that the barbarians did not leave the baron's castle. They stayed in the baron's castle.
Rand was a little unsure whether Viscount Roth had made preparations in advance, which led to the increase in the number of monsters near the camp. After all, there were not many people in Roth's territory who knew about the western forest. Buying some animal offal in advance and placing them near the camp would be enough to attract the monsters back.
As long as there is a conflict between humans and monsters, the new scent of blood will only attract more monsters.
But now, Lant had new hope. He asked Rolle to go north the next day and conduct reconnaissance on the trading road. Let the greyhound take Red Sand and go to the depths of the forest to guard.
On the 23rd, after a day of reconnaissance, Rohr came back and reported that the plains outside the northern trail were empty and there were no traces of barbarians within more than ten kilometers nearby.
Greyhound reported that some small monsters had appeared west of the camp.
Lant knew that he might have no choice, so Lant once again gathered all the people. He decided to use a speech to let everyone understand why he wanted to go north.
"Everyone who supports demons, fellow citizens," Lant, who summoned all the citizens, stood on a wooden box this time. Fortunately, as a junior knight, he is tall. He has grown a little taller after eating Warcraft meat for the past two days. Easily visible in a crowd.
“We left in a hurry the day before yesterday, and I didn’t tell everyone why we hid in the forest.
Now I must tell the truth: Galloping Horse Territory has been betrayed! My father, the baron of the territory, Huck Galloping Horse, encountered an accident on his way out, and both my two brothers were robbed by the barbarians! "
"Ah!" "Oh my god!" "How could this happen?" Ordinary people had a very good impression of Huck. It was Huck's credit that everyone had enough to eat these years. At first they thought Huck had gone to Lot's territory or The Earl's Maned Wolf City joins the other knights.
Now that they heard that Huck and his two sons had been kidnapped by barbarians, everyone was very worried.
"However, this is not the worst, what is worse is that someone is summoning the monsters in the forest through magic to attack us.
Just today, the Greyhound Knights have discovered some small monsters to the west of us. Tomorrow there will be large monsters. Maybe the day after tomorrow we can only choose to be robbed by barbarians or eaten by monsters. "Lant attributed the arrival of the Warcraft to magic, and no one without magic would question it anyway.
When Lant finished speaking, there was another burst of surprise and panic below.
"In order for everyone to survive, I will take you north to the Galloping Horse Plains! On the vast plains, it will be difficult for the barbarians to find us, and our livestock can continue to grow.
I announced that we will break camp early tomorrow morning and move the entire camp to Benma Plain within two days! "
After Rant finished speaking, he left, leaving Albert to do work with the people, while he took Greyhound, Roll and two other junior knights with him.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Early the next morning, Lant's camp had completed preparations for breaking out of camp. Albert and several reserve knights left first with the people. Roll, Lant, Greyhound and other junior knights stayed together temporarily to prepare for hunting.
After everyone in the territory was at least 1 kilometer away, Greyhound opened a hide bag, which contained the meat of the steel-bristle pig killed two nights ago.
Taking advantage of the waiting time just now, several junior knights dug some large trap pits and put steel-bristle pork into the pits. Soon some small monsters like mandarin ducks, fire iguanas, and water salamanders came over, and Lant They were not in a hurry. When they saw these little monsters entering the pit, Luo Er jumped down and killed them one by one. Greyhound and his son were checking and filling in the gaps next to the pit.
After more than a dozen small monsters came, Hong Sha, who was on alert in the distance, ran over quickly, it must be that a big one was coming.
Sure enough, after a while, five steel-bristle pigs came after smelling the smell. This time, Rolle was surrounded by Lant, Greyhound and his son, Walker, and Territory Knight Hammer. There were a total of 5 low-level knights. It was not difficult for 6 people to deal with five pigs: Rolle and Greyhound teamed up to kill them one by one, and Lant It was enough for a few people to pester the other pigs, but within 20 minutes, all the pigs were dead.
But Lant and others knew that they were running out of time, and the more advanced Warcraft might not arrive anytime soon.
So they changed their approach and put a pig on the ground, ready to be used as bait for other monsters.
Lant was on guard while the others took care of the other pigs, mainly the magic crystals on the heads of the monsters, the meat of the monsters, and the hides of the monsters. Small monsters do not have magic crystals and valuable skins, so they can only cut their flesh.
The difference between Warcraft and ordinary beasts is that Warcraft can sense and use magic. When a Warcraft can use magic, it will form a nuclear-shaped organ in its head to store magic power. This organ is called a magic core.
During the running-in process, specific magic crystals may precipitate, which are magic crystals.
Magic crystals can release a certain amount of magic power and will disappear after it is released. Therefore, they are widely used as the source of magic power for magic items. Because of this, magic crystals are also hard currency that can be used to purchase items.
The entire human empire issues currencies of three different denominations: gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins. The conversion ratio between the three is 1:10:100. 1 copper coin can buy a small portion of wheat cake, 3 copper coins can buy half a kilogram of wheat, and half a kilogram of salt requires 2 silver coins.
Because the magic crystals that can be produced by the magic cores of different Warcraft are different in size and attributes, the price of the smallest piece of magic crystal fluctuates around 10 gold coins.
In the recent hunt, 1 shadow leopard and 8 steel-bristle pigs only produced 3 magic crystals. This is a great fortune for Rand. The income of the territory fluctuates between 300-500 gold coins a year. The reason for the fluctuation is how many black-scaled horses can be transported out of the plains. Each of these black-scaled horses It can be sold at a high price of 60 gold coins in Maned Wolf City, but in Dragon Tooth City the price is over 80 gold coins. This is still an untrained horse. If it is an adult trained war horse, the lowest price is 100 gold coins.
For the territory, gold coins are just a calculation tool, not a storage tool. No matter how many gold coins are sold in the city, it will become goods needed by the territory and merchants in less than a day.
Just when several people finished opening the magic core and packed up the monster meat, a new monster arrived, a wind wolf. This monster can control the wind magic element and use the wind element to accelerate itself or form a wind blade.
The wind wolf that came was probably a lone old wind wolf, and was quickly killed by Luo Er. But within 20 minutes, a black flame tiger came, completely making all the monsters below medium size run away.
The Flame Tiger is more than 2 meters high at the shoulder, more than 6 meters long, and has a large long tail. Not to mention the medium-sized monsters in the forest, even Lant was thinking of how to escape. Fortunately, the Flame Tiger's IQ is not low, so there is no need to fight for his life if he has meat to eat.
The tiger was eating the big pig, and Lant and others exited safely with the meat of 2 pigs and 20 small monster beasts that had been packed away. A few people did not dare to look for the team immediately, fearing that the monsters would smell the smell and chase them. Instead, they asked Hong Sha to constantly check the team's location.
Several people kept walking around carrying animal skin bags. Finally at night, everyone and the large army met at the ancient river heading north.
In the early morning of September 25, Lant led his knights and subjects into the Galloping Horse Plains. The moment he entered the plain, Lant actually felt like he was a pawn crossing the river.
After entering the Galloping Horse Plains, the deepest feeling was the chaotic feeling of magical elements I felt in the Galloping Horse Territory a few days ago. It was countless times stronger here.
Before, I could barely gather some fighting spirit, but now I can't gather it at all.
Lant now understands why only barbarians can survive here. They only need to be strong and not intend to use magic. Naturally, it doesn't matter whether there is turbulence or not.
Lant led the camp to a place with a hillside and a river, and then sent out Rolle and Greyhound to investigate. He asked Albert to be a consultant and began to decorate the entire camp.
Lant didn't think that even a nomadic tribe could be encountered. If he wanted to avoid countless barbarians coming to trouble him in the future, he would first dress up like a barbarian, including adding more tent decorations and asking the people to wear more white cloth and thicker lines. fur.
Lant also personally followed the local customs and made a barbarian-style flag depicting a galloping horse.
He planned to call his tribe the "Benma Tribe", which would be regarded as inheriting the ancestral system.
The housekeeper came in the afternoon to report that due to the continuous trekking, the food in the camp was eaten faster than usual. If the return date cannot be determined, it is necessary to start looking for food. Fortunately, there is a river here where you can fish.
However, the camp has a large population, and the knights and devil-wishers have big appetites.
As soon as the security pressure is gone, we will face a food crisis. Lant was very helpless and could only organize the people to start fishing in the river.
However, during the rest period, Lant also discovered many problems.
