Alien paradise

Chapter 278 Earl Ranch Brinton

After Naruko Asahara and others left with the countess and two children, only Chaoyang and Lan Qi were left in the room. Even without introducing himself, Lan Qi knew that the uninvited guy in front of him must be the leader of the forces that broke the current situation.

Even if he is not the supreme commander, he must be someone who can speak his mind.

"What's your name?" The count put away his previous emotions and asked with honorifics.

"They all call me Mr. Chao." Chaoyang stepped forward, took out a key and opened the lock hanging beside the bed. "Maybe it will be easier to talk this way."

"Looking at your accent, you are not from the Old World, right?" Lan Qi tried carefully, "I heard you right, you want Thousand Limburg... But I have to remind you that the city manager is It is determined by the king's canonization, even if... even if His Majesty William is in a bad situation now, even if the Long Jiu family comes to power, the Duke will definitely arrange for his own people to lead the city. "

"What you said is common sense." Chaoyang nodded.

"Yes, so can I understand that asking for Thousand Limburgs means another thing?" Lan Qi licked his dry lips, "Look, you defeated the Elko camp that illegally usurped power and saved me from treason. I am naturally grateful for saving it from the hands of the emperor, and I am happy to share the money and power. However, in the eyes of the person in charge of the royal city, I am still the Earl of Qianlimbao, and naturally they will not mind who I share the resources with."

Chaoyang raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Regardless of how sincere the other person was when he said this, he seemed surprisingly sensible. He couldn't help but chuckle, "If Duke Long Jiu comes to power and you express your allegiance to him immediately, he may continue to let you be the Earl of Qianlimbao for the sake of stabilizing the situation, right? But if you change it to someone with unknown origins, The Duke will definitely not accept my words, and it will be a matter of time before he leads the army to put down the rebellion."

"Yes, yes, you really understand the overall situation."

Lan Qi forced a smile, although it looked a little bitter.

Chaoyang asked with great interest, "Did you also say this to those garrison troops who seized power? For example, that General Elko?"

"Bah, he's a shitty general!" the count said angrily. "As a general of the kingdom's army, instead of going to the royal capital for reinforcements, he imprisoned me instead. When I get the chance, I will cut him into a flagpole and stick it in the city. At the door!"

"I asked you if you said anything."

Lan Qi hesitated for a moment, "...I said it."

But the other party didn't accept it, which is a bit interesting. Chaoyang thought to himself that attacking nobles, especially big nobles in enfeoffed territories, would definitely be a serious crime of genocide. As a senior officer in the kingdom's army, Elko couldn't possibly be unaware of this. But it's not like all members of this army have defected to the Longjiu family, otherwise there would be no need to save the lives of the count and his family, because to this day, they are still acting as "kingdom border garrison".

After betraying the Yue Gui family, refusing to surrender to the Long Jiu family, and even refusing to accept Earl Ranch Brinton's "compromise proposal", what on earth did the Elko camp want? Now their actions have obviously destroyed the original order of Qianlimbao. Sustainability of fishing from the lake is not considered. Basically, they are not doing anything at all.

Chaoyang originally thought that this was just an ordinary military coup, but now he smelled a hint of conspiracy.

"Do you know what the rebel Royal Army did in the city?"

"Uh... ransack my warehouse? Feed the common people? It's impossible to recruit soldiers to prepare for the king, right?"

"More thorough than what you said."

Chaoyang briefly recounted the various things he witnessed.

"Crazy...all crazy! How could Elko do such a thing!" Lan Qi showed a look of despair, he put his hands on his head and shouted loudly, "I have many sawmills here, but it is not a slaughterhouse! Business has finally improved in recent years, who would dare to come after being messed with like this!"

I have to say, he looks quite aristocratic in this regard, Chaoyang thought to himself. What he regretted most was not the dead businessmen and civilians, but Qianlimbao's business reputation.

"Tell me about this Elko camp. When did they betray you? Do you know what their purpose was?"

The count sat down on the bed in frustration, "It's not been a year or two since Elko came here. When General Fares Ben led the war to exterminate the cult, Qianlimbao was also purged. At that time, there was no mention of killing. There must have been rivers of blood, and at least more than a thousand people were beheaded. Later, in order to prevent the cult from resurrecting, the general ordered a permanent army to be stationed here. Elko was the latest rotation, about five years ago Did you come here?"

"He was normal at first, no different from the previous commander. The army will not be stationed in the city. Except for daily field training, people in the city will rarely encounter them. Of course...it is different at night. After all, soldiers are also Those who want to have fun will occasionally have drunken brawls..." He coughed twice, "I digressed, let's go back to Elko. When he betrayed me, it happened to be a week after Duke Longjiu announced his army. That bastard... used the pretext of inviting me to participate in a military meeting to detain me halfway, and threatened me with the life of my servant to obey his orders."

When talking about this experience, Lanci showed an extremely angry expression.

This was definitely the most humiliating moment in the count's life.

"In order to stabilize Elko, I had to hand over the keys to the warehouse and the management of the castle to him, and then he locked me up here. Apart from providing food and drink every day, everything else was cut off. They even used iron chains to lock me in I locked him up and showed no courtesy towards an earl!"

"As for asking what his purpose is, don't traitors always want those few things? Money, power, and at most a woman." Lan Qi gritted his teeth and said, "It's just that he shouldn't be so arrogant. That's Bu. The goodwill that the Linton family has built up over generations! Now, once the news gets out, who will dare to do business in this remote place?"

A week after the uprising?

Chaoyang estimated the time and found that Duke Long Jiu had not yet reached the royal city at that time. Even now, the Yuegui family is not necessarily said to be defeated. After all, there are still many lords in the east of the continent who are loyal to His Majesty the King. Elko actually chose to betray so quickly. Could it be that he knew in advance that the final winner of this battle would belong to the Long Jiu family?

But he didn't surrender to the Duke either.

What this garrison did was simply to drain a city of blood as quickly as possible.

"Do you know much about Elko?"

"Honestly... I don't know much about him." Lan Qi shook his head, "He should also be a graduate of the Royal City Military Academy. His hometown seems to be in the north. I remember his last name, Steven, and he is a minor nobleman."

Small nobles... Chaoyang remembers what Dan En said when he introduced the Old Continent. There are many nobles here, some are newly established due to business, and some are declining. In addition, the king also recognizes the nobles before the Unification War, so they have names. There are as many as thousands of families, and it is difficult for non-professionals to sort out the relationships between these families.

"I have said so much, and I have answered your questions truthfully. What about my proposal?" Seeing that he was silent for a long time, Lan Qi couldn't help but ask. "I am deeply touched that you are willing to save those businessmen and women who were tortured by soldiers. I don't know which family or force you belong to, but you are definitely more reasonable than Elko!"