The horses' hooves fell on the ground and stirred up dust. The knights on horseback, armed with spears and fleur-de-lis shields, faced off against the Davidic barbarians a few hundred meters away, armed with bucklers and scimitars. From time to time, the knights approached the barbarian team, and after a slight contact, they separated again. Occasionally, the knights would attack the barbarian cavalry with their spears, but the dexterous cavalry team would immediately dodge. The barbarian cavalry can also shoot arrows with their bows. Unfortunately, the animal tooth arrows shot by the compound short bows are completely unable to penetrate the knights wearing iron armor. The two teams circled each other, sometimes approaching and sometimes separating.
In the Blue Magpie Castle, the Earl of the Maned Wolf is currently standing on the observation deck watching the mutual testing between the first team of the Maned Wolf Knights and 30 barbarian cavalry. After several years of accumulation, the Maned Wolf Knights' iron armor and black-scaled horses are in perfect order. Each team has a senior knight as the leader. It can be said that a knight team of the same size can completely defeat a barbarian cavalry team twice the size of our own.
The current leader of the knights outside the city is the eldest son of the Maned Wolf. As a leader of the younger generation, the eldest son has strong talents in fighting spirit, equestrianism and tricks, but lacks combat experience.
Fortunately, this kind of mutual testing is not a fight for one's life, but a mutual testing between opponents.
Ever since the Earl of Maned Wolf noticed the barbarian's intention to prevent the vassal knights from all over the northwest from approaching the Blue Magpie Castle and then defeat them one by one, the Earl has been thinking of a way. The current situation between the Maned Wolf and the Gray Goose is that the sum of the Knights of the Maned Wolf and all the vassals is more powerful than the sum of the Gray Goose's cavalry, but the Gray Goose is now divided into 5 troops, except for the less than 100 knights under the Blue Magpie Castle. 100 people, and the others turned into small groups to harass the vassal territory and interfere with the vassals gathering towards the Blue Magpie Castle. The count's knights, who had no vassal troops to raid the formation, were hedging against 100 cavalry. The losses were too great for the count to bear.
If you want to break the stalemate, you need fresh forces to join. The earl did two things in total. First, he sent a team of 10-15 knights to continuously engage in stalemates and tests with the barbarians. The knights have strong combat power, and there are mid-level priests from the Maned Wolf City in the castle. As long as they can control the intensity of the fight with the barbarian cavalry, they will not lose strength or suffer losses.
After several days of testing, more than a dozen of the barbarians were injured and fell off their horses, so they had to recall part of the cavalry team that had gone out to harass. In this way, the earl's vassals can leave the city and gather in the Blue Magpie territory. This is how Viscount Elk and another baron from the east of Maned Wolf City were liberated.
However, just gathering vassals may not be enough. The Earl of Maned Wolf is summoning his vassals, and the leader of Gray Goose is also summoning more tribes on the plains. Therefore, the earl also contacted the Blue Dragon family in the kingdom and asked the Blue Dragon family to provide support for a 25-man knight squadron using the private salt income in the next three years as collateral.
This squadron is expected to arrive in about a month. The earl believes that the local vassals plus external forces are enough to ensure that the barbarians are driven away without letting the territory escape his control.
. . . . . . . .
"You know Albert Galloping Horse better than I do. He will not be caught by the barbarians." Behind the count, Viscount Elk was comforting Huck. "Your family has been operating in that forest for so long, what else do you have to worry about?"
"It is because of the familiarity that I am worried. There are too many monsters in the forest. If you are not careful, those without monsters will become the meals of intermediate monsters. Why did I take care of the citizens of the two territories for the Lot Territory 8 years ago?" , because we know the forest too well, and an intermediate knight there is simply too busy." Huck's heart has always been about his territory.
"Originally, I have always been opposed to you trading grain, salt, iron, and horses with the barbarians. I used to think that you were siding with the enemy, but now I don't think so. The black-scaled horses are too powerful, and the iron armor is the strongest when you can't use your fighting spirit. Armor. Now that the barbarians are riding horses and wearing armor, if we can't keep up, we will have to be surrounded by the barbarians in the castle."
"Aren't you going to say that it was because of our deal that the barbarians became stronger?"
"You're kidding, how many barbarians can you put on iron armor with your little deal?" There is a saying in the Dragon Kingdom that the barbarians are now so powerful because of the frequent transactions between the border nobles and the barbarians. "There are now at least 200 barbarian cavalry in the entire northwest territory. There are at least the same number of barbarian demon embracers and five times the number of demon-free people in their tribes. Such a number of demon embracers have sent all the food in the entire northwest territory to Even on the Benma Plain, we can’t support so many people.”
"But the empire can afford it," Huck said with a wry smile. "How can we reduce the cost of salt and iron while ensuring the interests of the nobles? Of course, the Salt and Iron Department directly purchases salt and iron ingots from the barbarians on the Galloping Horse Plains on a large scale. "
"Yes, salt and iron are bulk commodities that are not easy to transport. Only local production is profitable. In order to ensure greater profits, the Salt and Iron Division also provides barbarian iron-making and salt-cooking technology." Families that enter the important passage of the Benma Plain are very sensitive to the transportation of goods. "Every year, a large amount of grain from the eastern and southern parts of the continent and demon supporters from many failed families enter the Benma Plain. These grains and slaves support the barbarian tribes." Nowadays, hundreds of cavalry can be easily sent to sweep through the northwest territories.
Not only that, the entire northwest territory and the entire Dragon Kingdom purchased salt and iron from the barbarians. Our gold coins were divided up by the agents of the Dragon family and the barbarians. These gold coins have now become chains to hang us. "
The two border nobles talked to each other and outlined the well-known secrets on the Galloping Horse Plains. After many fruitless campaigns, the human race planned to develop the mineral resources on the Benma Plain through agents. The Blue Dragon family, the agent of the Salt and Iron Division in the kingdom, came forward to guarantee the mining technology and transportation channels of the barbarians.
Although such mining will increase the strength of the barbarians, no matter how powerful the barbarians are, they cannot threaten the inland of the Dragon Kingdom, because as long as they pass through the Maned Wolf City, the influence of the magic turbulence will almost disappear, so the threat from the barbarians will only exist. In the territory of the northwest earldom.
Although the minor nobles in the northwest territories will be in danger, compared to the cost of living of the people in the entire Dragon Kingdom and the interests of the Empire's Salt and Iron Division, such sacrifices are necessary. This is the inner thought of the princes in the temple of the Dragon Kingdom.
"I really don't know how you got here all these years." Viscount Elk admired Huck very much now. "Don't worry about the territory. It doesn't matter even if Albert and the others don't protect the people in the territory. Several of our nobles in the east and south will join forces." Minato, it's not easy to find 300 subjects for you. My chief knight's third son recently became an intermediate knight, and I will call him here tomorrow to be your family knight."
Now that the nobles in the northwest territory have felt the threat of the barbarians, they all know that Huck's territory is their outer gate, and they don't mind allocating part of the population and demon-supporting people from the territory to Huck.
"Who is that?" suddenly the count asked on the terrace.
