After leaving Nanchuan, Oster visited several smaller camps, and the next stop was the Xishan stronghold.
It is close to the Black Mountain Mountains and has abundant water and grass. It is a place where refugees from areas seriously affected by the blight disease gather and camp.
Previously, this area was an unclaimed wasteland due to inconvenient transportation. The victims set up camp here, reclaimed the barren hills, planted fruits and vegetables, hunted and cut firewood, and temporarily settled down.
Seeing that many victims who had no household registration and neither paid taxes nor served in the military began to be self-sufficient, the local government saw this and was anxious in their hearts;
Don't get me wrong, what they are anxious about is that there are so many two-legged beasts that they can't exploit for profit. They can't sleep at night and feel uncomfortable all over.
Therefore, under the advice of smart wealthy businessmen, the government and businessmen quickly colluded, cleverly created names, conducted internal bidding, and transferred large tracts of unowned forest to private land at extremely low prices.
When the victims woke up, they found that the barren hills where they had chopped firewood, water, and picked fruits and hunted yesterday had become private property; not to mention reclaiming the land, even taking a step there would be regarded as infringement of other people's property.
If you want to continue living here, you need to pay extremely high rent. Many victims were saddled with heavy debts, and their last bits of property were plundered. Those who fail to pay by the due date will be captured by officers and soldiers and sold into slaves in the mines and farms of the knights.
Fortunately, the rebels moved here later, drove away the officers and soldiers, chopped down and hung those landowners who should be chopped down, and all the land deeds and bonds were destroyed, and a large number of prisoners and slaves were also rescued.
The rescued victims warmly welcomed and actively helped the rebels build a stronghold. Based on this, they continued to cultivate wasteland nearby, and small and large village settlements were quickly established. Xichuan has now become the one with the largest population and cultivated land among all the strongholds. It is the granary and source of reserve troops for the rebels.
Oster actually didn't want to come here, because he had already heard that some of the refugees and serfs he had rescued in the Northern Knights had also come to the surrounding areas of Montenegro County. After the reputation of the red-haired villain spread, those who had seen Auster with their own eyes were not willing to be outdone, and everywhere praised his deeds of killing Paladins without getting hurt;
Oster is now a useless person with a false reputation. The greater his reputation, the sooner he will die. He doesn't want to cause any more trouble. Along the way, I repeatedly warned myself to keep a low profile.
When we arrived in front of the Xichuan stronghold, we found that this place was guarding the mountain pass and could not be bypassed. In desperation, I had to sneak in through the side door.
As a result, as soon as he entered the gate of the camp, the people he had rescued were already waiting, and a large number of them knelt down in front of them, shouting that the saints were coming. Oster's scalp was numb. Along the way, people would kneel down wherever he went; this was not a farewell, it was clearly a royal tour.
When Skar saw this, he didn't know what kind of misunderstandings he would have. Now let alone leaving quietly, it is difficult to continue to stay low-key in the gang.
Afterwards, Oster pretended to inspect Nishikawa for a day, and after receiving Captain Price's report, he prepared to say goodbye and leave.
Before leaving, Price kept him and asked the host to bring some farewell gifts. Upon hearing this, Auster waved his hands repeatedly, "If you do this, I will write bad content in your evaluation."
Price laughed and said, "That's what I told them, but I couldn't stop them."
At this time, footsteps came from behind. Looking back, I saw a large group of people coming up. There were men, women and children, holding fruits, eggs, goat milk and other local products in their hands. They surrounded Oster and said:
"Things are not of high quality, they are just our thoughts. Please accept them, Master."
"Without the hall master and the rebels, we people would have died of hunger and freezing long ago."
"Even if they don't die, their families will be destroyed by the officers, soldiers and the church."
"You are our great benefactor, accept it, Hall Master!"
"Please accept it!"...
The eyes of the common people were shining, and they grabbed Auster's clothes and stuffed local specialties into his hands. Faced with this situation, even the hard-hearted people could not remain indifferent.
Oster couldn't help but turn his head away and wiped his wet eyes. The sound of a car was heard, and Price had already rushed a carriage as expected. Now there was no reason to refuse.
After getting into the carriage with a cart full of things, Oster urged him to leave. The common people ran after the carriage and refused to disperse for a long distance.
Auster thought uneasily, what would they think of him if they knew that he was actually a coward with no real abilities, a loser who pretended to be cool just because of his reputation as a golden finger?
In the following week, the remaining camps and strongholds were inspected one after another. Oster once again reminded himself to be careful in his words and deeds, and not to add flags to his head. Yet somehow, the more careful he is, the more things develop in the direction he least expects;
The masses are always willing to discover and make associations for no reason. In the end, just keeping a straight face was considered to be insightful, looking around was considered to be looking for evidence, going to the toilet to get constipated was considered to be activating ancient magic, and not saying a word was considered to be waiting for leniency.
Don't tell me, because of this, he really caught a lot of typical disciplinary offenders, and now his reputation is even more famous. Under the encouragement of various people, Auster was described as an incredibly powerful warrior, a sage who was so wise that he could only see the smallest details, and a ruthless person who could not get rid of the sand in his eyes;
Everyone disagreed over whether Auster's profession was a Paladin, a Sword Master or an Archmage, and even formed multiple fan circles to quarrel with each other. After he left, these rumors were captured by the world's dedicated media reporters and spread to a wider range through the developed journalism industry.
Unaware of it, Oster arrived at the last stop, the Northridge stronghold. This area has crossed the boundaries of the Kingdom State and County, covering the territory of the Knights Territory in the north.
Auster had already known that due to historical reasons, the states and countries in the Kingdom of Stormwind were parallel, and the territory owned by the Pope was no less than that of the King. Each church territory not only has independent financial and judicial power, but also maintains its own armed forces. It is a completely independent small country. Because there was no mutual trust between the kingdom and the kingdom, the lords who were assigned to guard various places were all high-level paladins with considerable ability and prestige.
The rebels not only attacked the kingdom's prefecture forces in the area of activity, but also took over the hypocritical and cunning local church. Drive away the priests, open the holy warehouse, and distribute the large amounts of stored food and magic materials to the victims or use them as military supplies. A large number of serfs fled after hearing the news and came to join the rebel army.
Landis Tomand, whom Auster killed here before, was the captain of the Skitarii under the command of the lord of this place, Garris Vishack. To be honest, Landis is quite powerful. If he lets the guards join the battle from the beginning, or directly escapes to bring in reinforcements, Oster will not be able to resist him. He lost because of his arrogance and failure to correctly judge the situation, and was completely consumed by the golden finger;
The guard captain is already so difficult to deal with. I can't imagine how powerful a stronger lord can be. Even if Sashu is recharged in the future, it would be better to lead him around these knights.
Auster was vaguely uneasy about the rebels rashly provoking church forces. In the world line he is familiar with, revolution and any resistance movement should not be rushed, as the consequences of being accomplished overnight are often counterproductive. In the early stage, it is necessary to expand the scope of unity and reduce the number of enemies as much as possible.
Judging from the current situation, the person directly responsible for the natural disasters, wars and economic collapse of this country is obviously the Storm Royal Family as the ruler. The religious power is a legacy of history, and it is also a problem of the royal family itself. Although there are times when they work together, the church and the kingdom have been wary of each other for a longer period of time. When one party is in trouble, it is considered morally noble for the other party not to take advantage of it.
Now, Skaar may be too eager to rescue everyone in distress, abandoning part of his previous guerrilla strategy. Although the rebel army was massive, neither its economic population nor its military strength was enough to compete with the Kingdom and the Church at the same time; hastily dividing its troops to garrison so many strongholds actually gave its opponents the opportunity to defeat them one by one.
He wrote all these concerns in a report to headquarters, but he couldn't say anything more. After all, the rescue of so many people was real and no one could turn a blind eye. The life of serfs was much more miserable than that of farmhands.
