A Tale of Strategies For the Throne

Vinal City, a city famous for its prosperous trade, and because the Vinal River, the largest tributary of the Enki River, one of the two mother rivers of Aaron Landis, surrounds this city, it is also an Aaron Landis city. The most important grain producing area southwest of Landis.

The Vinal River brings abundant river water and fertile soil to the city, and coupled with the subtropical climate, the city's crops can be harvested twice a year.

However, the existence of this large river also has advantages and disadvantages. During the flood season every year, the Vinard River will rise. If there is too much water, it will break the river banks and overflow farmland and cities, causing floods. The city of Vinard has suffered from floods many times in history. Therefore, the repair and reinforcement of the embankment of the Vinard River have been the top priority of the successive governors of the city of Vinard.

In the kingdom of Aaron Landis, there are two ways of ruling the city.

One is family inheritance, which is passed down from father to son, and blood inheritance. As long as the current city lord reports his intended heir and obtains the king's approval.

The second type is a city directly under the jurisdiction of the Royal City. A city without a city owner is managed by a consul dispatched by the Royal City. Generally speaking, this consul is replaced every three years.

And Vinal City is the second type.

After riding horses for two days and two nights, King Camos and his men finally arrived near the city of Vinal.

On the third day after arriving here, at nearly noon, King Camos stood on a horse on a high mountain, with the howling wind blowing through his brown hair. He looked down at the huge city surrounded by rivers below. Something seemed to be passing through his golden brown eyes. He was deep in thought, as if he was thinking about something.

A small white hand stretched out and pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked down at the little brother who pulled him and smiled.

"Brother Wang, I want to go down."

Garlan, who was sitting in front of Kamos, tilted his head and said to Kamos.

"good."

Camos said with a smile, turned over and dismounted, and patted the neck of his dark old man. The black horse gave a low neigh, turned its head, and reflected the sun. The dark fur shone like satin in the sun. Moving beautiful luster.

As soon as he reached out his hand, Kamos took Garlan down and placed him on the ground.

Garlan took two steps forward, and the wind with the scent of the jungle brushed his cheek, bringing a strange smell that he could not smell in the royal city.

When you stand on the top of the mountain and look down, you can take in the entire city. He didn't know what this city looked like before, but at this moment, one-fifth of the city was covered in yellow-brown sewage. The turbid water crisscrossed the city and surrounded the collapsed buildings.

Outside the city, most of the large tracts of green square farmland that should have been turquoise were swallowed up by the turbid water. Occasionally, part of it is exposed to the water, and there is no green at all in the muddy field, only an ugly yellow-brown color.

Garlan could tell that in the first half of this year in Vinar City, there would be no food crops for this season.

While Garlan was still looking down at the flooded city below, King Camos, who had been thinking for a long time, spoke.

"Garlan, get ready, let's go down and take a look."

"Okay, Brother Wang."

After arriving near the city of Vinal, King Camos did not lead the five hundred cavalry directly into the city. Instead, he deliberately made a big detour and found a hidden place in the dense mountain forest next to the city to camp. down.

Then, he sent dozens of soldiers in disguise to go out and separately investigate the situation in the city. Garlan could tell from King Camos's face that the information he had found out might not be very good. Although the king still smiled at him, he could feel the love surrounding him in the past two days. A vague anger.

"What are you thinking about?"

Looking at King Camos who was busy changing his clothes after returning to the camp, Shermur asked with a frown.

"Let's go out for a walk."

Camos answered matter-of-factly.

He had taken off his dark brown leather armor and put on ordinary riding clothes. Moreover, the riding clothes and long-sleeved trousers, which look slightly loose, can well cover up the strong muscle marks on his arms and legs, making him look like an ordinary tall man.

He thought for a moment and said, "Call Heimos over."

Prince Heimos, who was arranged by Camos to stay with a group of cavalry, came over quickly, and then was given an inconspicuous piece of clothing and asked to change into it.

After finishing cleaning up, Camos took two princes and a dozen cavalry, disguised as ordinary nobles passing through the city, and set off. Of course, he didn't ride the black horse Tucker. The king of horses was too conspicuous. He just found an ordinary horse at random.

Garlan sat in front of King Camos. As the horse under him ran, the huge city on the horizon slowly appeared in front of him from far to near.

When you look down from a high mountain, the disaster is already terrifying. When you look closer, it becomes even more shocking.

The raised road in the middle was half-covered by shallow water and had become a mud road. The running horses' hooves trampled heavily on the muddy water, causing the muddy water to splash out.

Most of the farmland on both sides, which was lower than the road, was completely submerged in yellow-brown sewage. It could be clearly seen that large areas of crops that were about to mature were lying in the muddy water, and they were almost soaked to death.

King Camos, who was taking the lead, tightened the reins and slowed down. Garlan turned his head and looked around, only to see some farmers, or rather serfs, in simple clothes standing sparsely in the flooded farmland.

Most of them have haggard and aged faces, with wrinkles on their foreheads.

They stood barefoot in the mud, staring at the soaked crops in a daze. There are also some old women squatting in the muddy water with their naked children, picking out the crops that are not soaked one by one, and putting them into bamboo baskets full of mud.

These serfs, who had lost the fruits of their labor for more than half a year and were about to starve, did not show expressions of grief on their faces. Their expressions were more dull, with no light in their eyes, a kind of numbness that had accepted their fate. But it is this expression of indifference and lack of hope for life that makes people feel even more sad.

Approaching the city gate, Garlan looked up at the huge city gate. There are soldiers guarding the city gate closely, and people are checking in and out. There are two places that appear to be refugee shelters near the city gate. From a distance, you can see a large earthenware pot cooking porridge.

Garlan turned his head and looked at King Kamos behind him. Kamos seemed to have seen it, and nodded slightly, but soon frowned again.

Because there is something wrong with that so-called food relief point. It stands to reason that if there is a place that distributes free food, the disaster-stricken refugees should flock to it, but in that soup kitchen, there are only a few extremely old people there. Begging for porridge.

Camos turned his head and whispered a few words to a guard behind him. Then the guard dismounted and went to the shelter to inquire about the situation. The others dismounted at the city gate and waited while looking around.

Gallan thought for a while, then quickly ran to the soup kitchen on the left, leaned over and looked hard into the earthen pot.

The porridge soldier who was standing there bored wanted to chase someone away, but he saw it was a cute child. The child leaned over to the steaming pot of porridge, looked inside, sniffed it greedily, and then raised his head with a look on his face. Look at him innocently.

"Is this delicious?"

The soldier chuckled.

"Little one, it smells pretty good, doesn't it?"

He also saw how cute the kid was, so he teased her a little bit.

"Go back quickly and ask your adults for food. This is not something you can eat."

As he spoke, he reached out and wanted to pinch the child's little face.

But before the soldier could reach out, a hand reached out from behind and grabbed the child. He pulled and dragged the child backwards.

Heimos, who was chasing after him, pulled Garlan behind him and blocked the soldier's sight without leaving a trace. Then, he smiled and apologized to the soldier, then grabbed Garlan and walked back.

"Heimos."

"What?"

"It's full of water, not porridge at all."

Garlan thought of the so-called porridge he had just seen. The bottom could be clearly seen, with some wild vegetables floating on the water and almost no grain at all.

"……Yeah."

The young man answered. He had not let go of Garlan's hand since just now, and he held it tightly.

He said, "What do you want to do next time, tell me and I will help you do it."

Not noticing that Heimos was holding his hand tightly, Garlan was still looking left and right. Suddenly, his pupils shrank violently.

He saw the edge of the city wall, near the river, where piles of corpses were piled up. Many of them were soaked in the water. The corpses were soaked and rotten by the water. They gave off a putrid smell and attracted countless Flies and bugs crawled over the carrion.

Moreover, from time to time, soldiers would come over with new corpses and throw them over there at will.

……no.

Doing that will definitely cause a plague. This river is the water source of the city. If you drink the river water, most of the people in Vinar City who managed to survive the flood will probably die again.

Garlan thought.

He must tell Brother Wang about this when he returns.

…………

Everyone slowly walked around the city of Vinar. The wealthy and powerful areas of the city were fine, with only a few traces of floods left. However, many houses in the ordinary residential areas and slums had collapsed, and It looked like it had never been rebuilt. It was full of broken pieces of wood lying messily on the ground. You could even occasionally see a few uncollected corpses under the collapsed house.

They wandered around for a long time and did not leave the city until evening. Then they hurried back to the camp deep in the forest.

King Camos frowned. This was not the first time he came to Vinal City, so he was very unhappy when he saw that the bustling and lively city in the past had turned into such a dead place now.

He knew that natural disasters could not be predicted or resisted by humans. It was impossible for him to use natural disasters to question the officials of Vinal City.

but……

But what if this isn't a complete disaster?

You know, when Vinal City was hit by a disaster, he immediately allocated a large amount of supplies to provide disaster relief.

If the officials had done their job, the city would not be what it is now more than a month later.

With the return of King Camos and others, the soldiers who went out to inquire for information during the day also returned one after another and reported what they had heard to Camos.

"It is said that several refugees died of diarrhea after eating the porridge from the soup kitchen. After that, very few refugees ate it."

"It is true that a large amount of food has been delivered to Vinar City. However, in more than a month, food has only been distributed to the city residents twice, and the quantity was not large. It is estimated that more than half of the food allocated should be left. .”

"The same goes for medicines. I have inquired about them, and they only give out some medicinal herbs in a symbolic way."

"The fishermen on the river said that since the second half of last year, the embankments of the Vinal River have been rarely constructed and maintained."

After hearing this, King Camos, who had been sitting quietly, smiled.

"Those guys are still saying that the food and medicine consumption in Vinal City is extremely high, and a large amount of relief materials need to be allocated again."

He said it with an understatement and a light tone, which for some reason gave people a great sense of oppression.

Everyone stood there with their heads lowered, silent at this moment.

King Camos said: "The governor of this city has been asking me for money and food since last year to repair the river embankment——"

He spoke word by word, the last few words almost forced out through his teeth.

"King Camos!"

A hurried shout came from outside, the curtain was opened, and the priest of Shamash walked in quickly with a gloomy face.

"Please come out and have a look."

He stood at the door and kept opening the tent curtain and said to Camos. There was a faint sound of crying from behind him.

Kamos walked out quickly, and everyone in the camp followed suit, including Garlan.

As soon as he went out, he saw twenty or thirty people kneeling on the ground, including several women and holding two children, all sobbing softly with expressions of shock on their faces.

"what happened?"

King Camos glanced at the people kneeling on the ground and asked.

"I brought a few people to investigate the thieves nearby, but it's strange. Many people can't explain clearly. Moreover, I have also seen the terrain nearby. There are no traces of places suitable for thieves' dens."

Shermer replied.

"On the way back, we happened to encounter this group of people being attacked by thieves... Those thieves were very strange. They actually had a lot of weapons and horses. And it stands to reason that they came out to rob as thieves to steal money, but they just chose To attack these refugees who have lost their property due to floods."

"It seems to me that their main purpose was to capture the women and children in the crowd."

The air around him cooled down little by little and settled down, as if there was an invisible aura emanating from King Camos who was silently listening to Shermur's words.

King Aaron Landis stood there, in the dark night, the light of the burning torch next to him reflected in his golden brown eyes, making his eyes as bright as fire at this moment.

The cavalrymen on the side lowered their heads in silence, and the kneeling people fell deeply to the ground, not daring to take a breath. Even the ignorant children stopped crying at this moment as if they were afraid of something.

The terrifying Lion King, just standing there, is so scary that it makes people unable to breathe.

"King Camos, I suspect that the so-called large group of thieves reported to us are soldiers in disguise."

Shermer continued speaking with a gloomy expression.

"Under the instruction of certain people, when many people suffered in this flood and it was difficult to count the dead and missing people, the army was disguised as thieves and abducted the surviving citizens, especially women and children, for use human trafficking……"

As soon as he finished speaking, he was suddenly interrupted.

Only a loud bang was heard, and King Camos slapped his hand heavily on the big tree next to him.

"Those people...damn it!"

he said, his voice horribly deep as he uttered the last two words.

There seemed to be flames burning in those golden brown eyes, the look of an angry beast.

Natural disasters may be terrible, but what is more terrible than natural disasters are man-made disasters!

"The entire city of Vinal, from top to bottom, needs to be cleaned."

The young king spoke a terrible order in a calm tone.

Camos thought that it was probably because he had been busy fighting with other countries on the border in the past few years and no longer killed people in Aaron Landis, so some moths felt that it was easier for them to talk.

It's time for those guys to see blood again and know the value of life - and let them remember the fear of the 'Lion King' again.

"Mount."

As soon as King Camos finished speaking, there was a snap, and all the cavalry present were on their horses in almost a second, ready to go.

The horses beneath them snorted, snorted, and paved the ground with their hooves.

As long as their king gives the order, they will rush into the city of Vinar and mercilessly wash away the greedy guys who have angered their king.

"Wait a moment, King Camos."

Shermer stopped Camos.

"Not yet."

He said, "Following those so-called thieves, I have found out where the people they kidnapped are being held. I can rescue them at any time."

He shook his head.

"However, none of the children who were taken away could be found. I suspect that they moved those children to another place for some ulterior purpose."

"It's easy for us to deal with those guys in the city, but I'm worried that in order to protect themselves, they will frantically destroy the evidence of the crime - secretly kill all the children. In this case..."

Before Xie Muer could say anything, someone burst out crying, interrupting him.

A man kneeling on the ground was crying and kowtowing desperately to Shermer.

"Please! Please! Save my daughter! She is so young, she is only five years old-"

When the man cried, the other people who were holding back also cried and begged.

"And my child - he was taken away yesterday."

"My son is definitely still alive. He must still be alive. Please help me save him!"

There were even children who rushed over and hugged Shermer's legs while crying, and kept begging him to save his brother.

Shermer pursed his lips and endured the discomfort of being soiled by the dirty child. He did not push the child away, but just turned to look at King Camos.

"In a short period of time, it may be difficult for us to find the kidnapped children." He frowned tightly and said, "However, as time goes by, I am very worried that something will happen, especially once our traces are exposed, Those people will destroy the evidence first, and those children will most likely be..."

For a moment, except for the cries of those kneeling on the ground and kowtowing, the night was extremely quiet.

All the cavalry were silent, including King Camos, who was already riding a horse. He was deep in thought and seemed to be thinking about something.

In the midst of the crying, a long sigh seemed to be heard.

Then, a child's clear, soft and waxy voice sounded in the dark night.

"For kids, there's one here."

Under the reddish firelight, the little prince's pale golden hair, which was pointing to himself and speaking, shone brightly and softly in the darkness, like a light halo on his head.

"Let them take me away and you will know where those children are sent."