Chapter 50: You Must Hug Your Thighs
Chapter 50 Must Hug the Thigh
Time retreated to a few days ago.
In a certain tavern within a small city in the territory next to Arda, Baron Hansel Abbott was drinking with a man dressed as a traveling merchant.
“Times are hard!” The man across from him put down his cup and pulled out a roll of parchment from his pocket and handed it to the Baron.
“So, this is a new mission for us?”
Hansel took the roll of paper, unrolled it and scanned it.
“Collecting grain? I remember that the officials managing the granaries in the royal capital bragged every time that their grain could last for more than a year, could it be that it was eaten up by those few thousand men from Hals in such a short period of time?”
“Uh ……” the liaison dressed as a merchant was stumped for a moment, after hesitating for a while, he shrugged, “There was a fire in the warehouse.”
“Oh, no wonder.” Hansel nodded, in all likelihood it was the work of spies.
“Speaking of which, Lord Baron, why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Lakewood? I went through a lot of trouble to find you.” The liaison asked strangely.
“Uh-huh!” Hansel cleared his throat, trying to control his heartbeat to keep his face from turning red.
“The Alda Territory is suffering from pirate infestation, and naturally, as a representative sent by the royal family, I can’t just stand by and do nothing, so that’s why I’m here picking up supplies and purchasing weapons for the Lord Lord.” He couldn’t say that he was scared by the pirates to come here.
The liaison gave a thumbs up, “Impressive! So Lord Earl Gleiman was able to pacify the pirates, and you have a part to play in that.”
It was Hansel’s turn to wonder, “Calming pirates?”
The liaison said, “Hasn’t Count Gleiman informed you yet? When I went to Lakeheart Town to look for you, the people there had already spread the word that Lord Earl had already led his troops to recapture Fulan Harbor and hanged a large number of pirates, and I heard that he would be returning to Lakeheart Town after a while.”
“Is that so? It looks like I’ll be able to return to Lakeheart Town as well.” Hansel’s face had a look of delight, but in his heart, he was thinking, “That little earl really has some skills, I was even beaten to my doorstep before I left.
He followed up with, “But you know, I still have to wait for Lord Gleeman to give me an official notice before I can go back.”
“I think the notice will arrive soon, and I’ll ask Lord Baron to take more care of the rations at that time.”
“This is natural.” Hansel agreed with his mouth full.
The liaison officer suddenly lamented, “I often run this part of the Northwest, it’s really rare to see a lord like Earl Gleiman who thinks about his people, the coastal area has been plagued by pirates for many years.”
Hansel grunted inwardly, rather unimpressed. He immediately changed the topic, “Speaking of which, how is the situation in the south?”
The liaison officer shook his head, “The food has been burned, what else can be done? Ah, about this matter please don’t tell anyone else, but I guess it will be spread all over the world before long. I didn’t follow the army into the city at that time, and I could see the monstrous fire from several miles outside the city, so it’s impossible to hide it.”
Hansel frowned, “In other words, there is no way to immediately transfer the army to the south to quell the rebellion?”
“Isn’t there a saying? Before the troops and horses move, the food and provisions go first. Now that the food and provisions are gone, how can we fight. I guess we can only send a small force to help Old Duke Dodge hold the Thorn Pass, and it would be good if we don’t let Giles hit the north.”
With a pessimistic look on his face, the liaison continued, “Fortunately, it seems that the ones attacking Thorn Pass are not Giles’ main force.”
He suddenly winced and said in a panic, “Lord Baron, I just got drunk and started talking nonsense, please ……” Hansel grinned and raised his cup to him, “I’ve always had a tight mouth. To His Majesty the King!”
The liaison raises his cup as well, “To His Majesty the King.”
Did Giles’ main force not move north? That must be cleaning up those lords in the south who disobeyed him, if the royal army couldn’t go south in time, with Jarls’ power, he would have to leave those lords to fend for themselves. By the time the rebels consolidated all the southern territories, it would be even harder to deal with.
“Times are tough!” Hansel sighed inwardly as he made up his mind to meet that little earl again.
……
Back in time to the present, inside the study of the Lord’s mansion in Lakeheart Town, Cecil, the intelligence chief, was reporting the results of his work.
“My lord, according to your request, our intelligence officers have already started their work in the royal capital. But because of the lack of experience and the martial law some time ago, we didn’t pry out much information, and now we finally have a little result.”
He respectfully handed Paul a stack of documents.
“Well ……. Let me have a look.”
Paul skimmed through it roughly with a single glance, he didn’t really care much about the intelligence of the royal capital, and this piece of the Northwest was already busy enough for him, but as a bannerman of the Kingdom of Aldo, it was necessary to roughly understand some of the latest national events.
“I go, so tragic? The granaries are being burned.” Paul was shocked, recalling what Quiller said to him in Port Fulan, there is someone behind Giles’ side who strongly supports him, but the royal side has suffered successive losses, the capital was stolen at the beginning, and after recovering it with great difficulty, he lost a large amount of grain and grass, could it be that the royal family is really hanging by a thread this time.
Paul secretly wondered if he should first write a letter of complaint to Giles or something, as a traverser of the Rodney dynasty he did not have much loyalty to speak of, regardless of his crown on the head of whoever, as long as it does not affect his industrial revolution plan on the line. When my factory is built, you are all feudal trash to be swept into the corner of history.
However, Cecil’s next piece of information dispelled his thoughts.
“Lord Earl, with the spread of the new type of paper, there have been quite a few people quietly beating us to the punch.”
Cecil said as he handed over the second piece of intelligence. Paul was now anxious and read the second piece of information carefully, this was about the important financial source of Alda Territory.
“Robbers! Thieves! Shameful!” After reading the information Paul waved his hand, angry and loudly rebuked those hiding in the dark despicable people.
The intelligence showed that several forces were trying to steal the manufacturing technology of the new type of paper, including several powerful chambers of commerce, and even a few lords from the next-door territories, such as Count Kent of Emden and Viscount Johnston of Bordeaux.
Fortunately, Paul repeatedly emphasized secrecy, tight defense, high treatment to the workers also cultivated enough loyalty, papermaking technology has not been stolen, but in the long run it is difficult to say.
Not that Paul wants to monopolize the papermaking, this thing is actually quite simple, sooner or later will be learned, but this is about Paul’s first bucket of gold, he must rely on the monopoly to complete part of the capital accumulation.
The spread of new technologies is actually Paul happy to see it, otherwise he alone can not be industrialized to struggle for a lifetime, but there is a prerequisite must be within the scope of their own control, he did not want to be the first step of their own enemies to pound out airplanes and missiles and so on, and then bombarded themselves into the sky.
But it involved the neighboring lords, which was a bit more troublesome. He instructed Cecil, “Inform Steward Philip and have him invite Baron Hansel Abbott to my place.”
Not being able to care that much, it was imperative to find a thick enough thigh to hug at this moment.
(End of chapter)