Chapter 258
Chapter 258.
Chapter 255
The hall was silent, everyone kept their heads down and didn’t speak.
Everyone was aware that the Earl-now a Duke-had a volcano blooming in his heart, and no one wanted to look into the mouth of the fire to find out what was going on.
Bad news, the Gladman’s army had suddenly moved south and invaded Emden – the former territory of the Kent family – and along the way had driven out the officials and vassal lords that the Kent family had posted.
Good news …… is not really good news, but it is really that much better than the previous one – the Aldar stopped not far from Fort Byram.
Paul Greiman …… is simply crazy, does he not realize what things he is facing?
All along, the Kent family is the second most powerful family in the Northwest Gulf, and now it is even more powerful than ever after obtaining the dukedom, which means that it is inconvenient to fight the war now before they have time to pay attention to him.
And while everyone is busy with spring plowing to mess things up, this is also too despicable and shameless. According to the news, the Alda people total more than a thousand people, said not much, but said less is not a lot, especially for the thin Alda, so many young and strong laborers do not work in the field is really a pity.
Ah, they can rob the grain instead, this is …… this is …… too robbing behavior.
Maltz Kent looked around the hall and asked, “Do you have any good ways to drive the Alda out?”
The crowd was slightly surprised, the tone of the Lord Duke sounded very calm ah, his old home was terminated can be calm as such?
However, since the Duke asked, the bottom of it has been constructed.
“Lord Duke, before we are just a small defeat, let Gleeman rampage into this way. Please gather troops again to fight them.”
“Why don’t we recapture Bidor Castle first and wipe out the previous shame!”
“The Aldar’s firearms are sharp, we have to think of a way to restrain them.”
“You cowards, even if you are powerful, how powerful can you be? If we gather our cavalry and charge, can they stop it?”
The hall was in a mess of noise and clamor.
……
Maltz’s heart was actually slightly bitter, those Emden lords who had been driven to Sentry City by Arda’s army cried out to him, and in their words, they were all scared out of their wits by the opposing side’s fire crossbows and thunder hammers.
“When the smoke rose, men and horses flopped down, even if they were wearing armor, it was useless.”
“The booming sound is like thunder, one shot can hit dozens of miles!”
Although some people’s words were exaggerated, the power of the Arda people’s weapons always seemed to be right.
Damn it, this is clearly magic and sorcery, right, biased asshole church.
The noise in the hall was very distracting to the Duke, and when he inadvertently glanced at his head of intelligence sitting there in silence, he waved him over and together they made their way to the study.
“Your Excellency the Duke, did you seek me out for …… this?”
“How’s the intelligence prying on Arda going these days?”
“Uh …… slightly. In fact, I was going to approach you about it after the meeting, but since you’ve asked me to come, I’ll present it to you first.” The intelligence chief pulled out a roll of parchment from his pocket and respectfully handed it to the duke with both hands.
Ever since the outbreak of the war, the Dukedom had ordered that all trade with the Anti-Kent Alliance territories be eliminated, which naturally included Arda. So the territories on Maltz Kent’s side could no longer enjoy cheap paper, and the people used expensive parchment again.
In any case, Maltz Kent himself saw this, the correspondence, official documents, he received all parchment.
Maltz scanned it for a few moments, then waved his hand to his supervisor.
“I’m going to analyze this carefully, so go ahead and wait outside.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The supervisor respectfully retired, in fact, he was a little strange in his heart, the duke s hand seemed …… to be trembling?
After the supervisor went out, Maltz leaned his arm on the table, his right hand against his forehead, closed his eyes and wrinkled his brow half a dozen times, and then once again unfolded the parchment scroll.
Too gullible! Too careless! One really should have held the Graiman boy down last year.
……
Here’s what’s on the parchment.
Dear Lord Duke:
After our many inquiries, we have a rough idea of the military strength of the Greiman family, and we are summarizing the information as follows.
Since the pirate infestation last year, Alda has maintained a standing army, and over the year, the size of the army has grown larger and larger, to the point where it is now estimated to be around 2,000 to 3,000 men. That being said, Alda committed just under half of its army at the Battle of Biddle Castle.
This 2000+ troops include a water force of at least 600 men, which should have been created by eliminating the pirates last year, as to why it was retained after the elimination of the pirates, based on our exploration in Fullan Harbor, it seems that Gleiman has the intention to develop the ocean trade and has already put it into action, and that Alda has invented a new kind of ship that is well suited for the ocean voyage. It is rumored that this vessel has already sailed as far as Horn Bay.
The army’s equipment, although the armor rate is not high, but they have the deadly fire crossbow and thunder hammer, in the Gleiman’s march to Baldin to quell the rebellion, they are still a mix of fire crossbow and spear troops, to this year’s Battle of Bidor Castle, it is cleanly equipped with fire crossbows, and fire crossbows are further improved with bayonets, so that the soldiers can attack from afar, but also in melee combat.
As for the fire crossbow and thunder hammer these two new weapons, intelligence shows that the probability is that Paul Greiman himself invented it.
As for the quality of the army, according to the news returned by the scouts, the slogans of the soldiers inside could be heard near the barracks every day, uninterruptedly from morning to night, and it seemed that there was only one day on the weekend when there was not much movement. Although he didn’t find out what was being trained inside, but the six days a week drill rate was already far beyond that of a normal army, even the Knights rarely practiced martial arts six days a week.
In addition, the high intensity of training means a high level of food supply, otherwise the soldiers’ bodies will not be able to hold up.
With advanced and sophisticated weapons, and sufficient material security, the money spent by this army is absolutely massive.
A year ago, Alda was a barren countship, but now its performance has changed our impression of it. We analyze the reasons for this change as follows:
First, Greymane “united” next door to the Bairdine, Alda although barren, but the Bairdine in the northwestern territories is considered to be better, this move can make the tax revenues doubled several times.
The second is the invention of various new things, such as porcelain, paper, canned goods, these are things that people have not seen before, but also can bring great convenience to people’s lives, until the technology to make them spread, Greiman will continue to make huge profits from them. Additionally, Alda had a method of being able to make salt in large quantities, making it much cheaper, and now almost all of the salt merchants in the Northwest Gulf were getting their goods from Alda.
Porcelain, paper, canned goods, salt, in the words of the merchants of Alda, these are their “fist products” for foreign trade.
In addition, Gleiman is also selling an expensive agricultural equipment to the landowners in the territory, the effect of this equipment on the promotion of agriculture is yet to be examined, but it has already earned him a lot of gold coins.
Thirdly, the rise of industry and commerce in Alda and Bairdin, after the emergence of the “fist product”, Gleiman adopted a policy of supporting the industry and commerce in the two areas, and absorbed a large number of folk workshop owners and merchants to participate in the production and sale of these products, although the tax rate was reduced after the policy was implemented, but due to the expansion of the scale, the tax revenue in this area still rose quite a lot. Although the tax rate was lowered after the policy was implemented, the tax revenue in this area still rose a lot due to the expansion of the scale.
A nightmarish week!
(End of chapter)