Chapter 258

Chapter 255

There was silence in the hall, and everyone lowered their heads and kept silent.

Everyone knew that the Earl—now the Duke—had a volcano in his heart, and no one thought of looking into the fire.

Bad news, the Graman family's army suddenly went south and invaded Emden—the former territory of the Kent family, and drove away the officials and vassal lords sent by the Kent family along the way.

Good news... Actually, it's not good news, but it's a little better than the previous one—the Arda people stopped not far from Bailan Castle.

Paul Graman... It's so crazy, doesn't he know what he's facing?

The Kent family has always been the second most powerful family in the Northwest Bay, and now it has become unprecedentedly powerful after obtaining the title of Duke. It's just that it's not convenient to fight now, so they didn't have time to pay attention to him.

And taking advantage of everyone busy with spring plowing to make trouble, this is too despicable and shameless. According to the news, there are more than a thousand people in Arda, which is not a lot, but not a few either. Especially for Arda, which has a sparse population, it is a pity that so many young and strong laborers are not working in the fields.

Ah, they can rob food, which is really... this is really... too much robbery.

Maltz Kent looked around the hall and asked, "Do you have any good ideas to drive the Arda people out?"

Everyone was a little surprised. The Duke's tone sounded very calm. He could be so calm even when his hometown was destroyed?

But since the Duke asked the question, everyone below made suggestions.

"My Lord Duke, we were only defeated before, but Graman was so rampant. Please gather your forces again to fight them."

"Why not take back Bido Castle first and avenge the previous shame!"

"The firearms of the Arda people are sharp, we must think of a way to restrain them."

"You cowards, no matter how powerful you are, how powerful can you be? Can they stop us from gathering cavalry to charge?"

The hall was noisy.

...

Malts was actually a little bitter in his heart. Those Emden lords who were driven to the city of Sente by the Arda army cried to him, and their words were all frightened by the opponent's fire crossbows and thunder hammers.

"After the smoke rose, people and horses fell down one after another, even if they were wearing armor."

"The roar was like thunder, and one shot could hit dozens of miles away!"

Although some people's words sounded exaggerated, the power of the Arda people's weapons seemed to be correct.

Damn, this is clearly magic and witchcraft, okay, biased bastard church.

The noise in the hall annoyed the Duke. He inadvertently saw his intelligence chief sitting there in silence, so he waved to him and went to the study together.

"My Lord Duke, why did you ask me to come here...?"

"How have you been gathering intelligence on Alda recently?"

"Uh... I have gained a little. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about this after the meeting. Since you asked me to come, I will present it to you first."

The intelligence chief took out a roll of parchment from his arms and handed it to the Duke respectfully with both hands.

Since the outbreak of the war, the Duke's Mansion has ordered to stop all trade with the territories of the Anti-Kent Alliance, which naturally includes Alda. So the territories standing on the side of Maltz Kent can no longer enjoy cheap paper, and everyone has to use expensive parchment again.

Anyway, this is what Maltz Kent saw himself. In correspondence and official documents, he received parchment.

Maltz glanced at it first, then waved to the chief.

"I need to analyze it carefully. Please wait outside first."

"Yes, sir."

The supervisor respectfully took his leave. In fact, he felt a little strange. The Duke's hand seemed to be... shaking?

After the supervisor left, Maltz leaned his arm on the table, put his right hand on his forehead, closed his eyes and twisted his eyebrows for a long time, and then unfolded the parchment again.

I underestimated the enemy! I was too careless! I should have killed the boy from the Graman family last year.

...

There is no mistake in the content of the book!

The following is the content on the parchment.

Dear Duke:

After our many inquiries, we have a general understanding of the military strength of the Graman family. The information is summarized as follows.

Since the pirate invasion last year, Alda has maintained a standing army, and the size of the army has been growing over the past year. It is estimated that there are about 2,000 to 3,000 people now. That is to say, Alda only deployed less than half of his army in the Battle of Bido Castle.

This 2,000-strong army includes a water force of at least 600 people, which should have been established to eliminate pirates last year. As for why it was retained after the pirates were eliminated, according to our exploration in Fulan Port, Graman seemed to have plans to develop ocean trade and has already put it into action. Alda invented a new ship that is very suitable for ocean voyages. People in Fulan Port are saying that this ship has sailed to the Horn Bay.

In terms of military equipment, although the armor rate is not high, they have deadly fire crossbows and thunder hammers. When Graman marched to Bailding to quell the rebellion, they were still a mixed force of fire crossbows and spears. By the Battle of Bido Castle this year, they were all equipped with fire crossbows, and the fire crossbows were further improved with bayonets, so that the soldiers can attack from a distance and fight in close combat.

As for the two new weapons, the fire crossbow and the thunder hammer, intelligence shows that they are most likely invented by Paul Graman himself.

In terms of the quality of the army, according to the feedback from the spies, the slogans of the soldiers can be heard every day near the barracks, from morning to night, and it seems that there is no movement only on weekends. Although I didn't find out what they were training, the rate of six days a week is far beyond the average army. Even the knights rarely practice martial arts six days a week.

In addition, high-intensity training means high-level food supply, otherwise the soldiers' bodies can't stand it.

With advanced and sophisticated weapons and sufficient material support, this army spends a lot of money.

A year ago, Arda was still a poor earldom, but its current performance has overturned our previous impression of it. We analyze the reasons for this change as follows:

First, Graman "united" with the neighboring Bayerdin. Although Arda is poor, Bayerdin is considered to be relatively good among the northwest territories. This move can double the tax revenue.

Second, the invention of various new things, such as porcelain, paper, and canned food, which are things that people have never seen before, and can also bring great convenience to people's lives. Before the technology to make them spreads, Graman will continue to make huge profits from them. In addition, Alda also has a method to produce a large amount of salt, which greatly reduces the cost of salt. Now almost all salt merchants in the Northwest Bay are purchasing from Alda.

Porcelain, paper, canned food, and salt, in the words of Alda merchants, these are their "fist products" for foreign trade.

In addition, Graman is also selling an expensive agricultural machine to the landlords in the territory. The role of this machine in promoting agriculture remains to be investigated, but it has already earned him a lot of gold coins.

Third, the rise of industry and commerce in Alda and Bayerdin. After the emergence of "fist products", Graman adopted a policy of supporting industry and commerce in the two places, absorbing a large number of private factory owners and merchants to participate in the production and sale of these products. Although the tax rate has been reduced after the implementation of the policy, due to the expansion of scale, the tax revenue in this area has still increased a lot.

Nightmare week!