Dominate the Game of Thrones with Mount and Blade

Chapter 94 Tax

Arthur performed exceptionally steadily, using his left and right hands to slash dozens of times, and the cavalry from the Western Territory was penetrated by them.

He didn't care whether he killed the enemy or not, because Ma Ke, Patrick, Ange and others behind him would finish him off.

The current situation is that more than 700 cavalrymen from Hejian followed Arthur, who was leading the way, to divide the Western Territory cavalry into two groups.

The northern group where the Western Territory coach Rocky was located had about 1,000 people, and the southern group had more than 500 people.

"Great!" Arthur shouted, "Patrick, Ma Ke, Raymond, you lead all the Hejian cavalry to besiege the 500 people in the south."

"Ange, Wager, take your men, we will attack and kill the coach of the Western Territory cavalry."

"Okay!" Patrick responded briskly.

Among the cavalry present, the most came from Haijiang City, so Patrick and others could lead the team to boost morale.

So they turned around and headed towards the target after just completing the charge.

Arthur was accompanied by Anguy, two Dornishmen, Varg, and the core members of the Blood Troupe, a total of 18 people. Led by the golden giant horse, they charged towards the western soldiers on the north side who had turned back.

"The enemy commander is that Loki." Anguy suddenly shouted.

As a sharpshooter, his eyesight was naturally amazing. He recognized Amory Loki wearing a helmet from a long distance.

"Old enemy!" Arthur waved his knife and pointed at Loki. "I let him run away at the Mummers Beach last time. This time I will twist his head off and use it as a chamber pot."

In front of them.

"Whoever kills the knight of the golden giant horse will be rewarded with a thousand gold dragons by Lord Tywin." Loki shouted casually while charging with his sword raised.

This was naturally a lie. Duke Tywin could not have expected Arthur to appear here. Loki just said it casually to boost morale.

But if he really killed this person, Duke Tywin would not be stingy.

These people were all Lannister's self-employed cavalrymen, whose monthly salary was in silver deer, and one gold dragon was enough to exchange for 210 silver deer.

Gold dragons were very far away from them, and one thousand was beyond their ability to count on their fingers.

But after they converted countless silver deer with Qingting Island wine, big-butted brothel workers, and beautiful full-body plate armor according to their own preferences, more than a thousand people looked at Arthur differently.

That was a walking treasure boy.

"Give me your head!"

"My gold dragon!"

The entire Westerland soldiers were boiling.

Seeing that the morale was good, Loki was overjoyed. He waved his hand to the cavalry behind him to charge forward, while tightening the reins to slow down the horse under his crotch.

In this way, he would not be the one rushing in the front.

Unfortunately, Arthur had already locked him.

"Loki, do you still recognize me?" Arthur led his men to the center of the army.

"Go, go, go, all of you." Amori ignored him and ordered his soldiers to pile up around Arthur.

A thousand people, they can squeeze him to death.

Under the stimulation of the golden dragon, the entire Western Cavalry was unusually brave.

Arthur's charge was immediately delayed, and a steady stream of enemies came to kill him.

The difference between a dozen people and more than a thousand people was soon apparent. Arthur and his people were completely covered by Westerners.

There were people on the left and on the right, and the human wall was so tight that the skyline in the distance could not be seen.

Half an hour passed.

Although the Western soldiers could only survive one round in Arthur's hands, and after many rounds, they actually piled up a pile of corpses around Arthur and others.

Human corpses, with heads, without heads, horse corpses, gasping, dead, all piled together, squeezing them.

There were only five people left around the River War God, including Ange and Wager.

Ange had already used up all his hundreds of arrows, and now he was holding a half-handed sword to fend off the enemy.

Wager and the others even stood directly on the pile of corpses to fight, and their mounts were buried underneath.

Fortunately, Red Hare was high enough to carry Arthur without being squeezed under the corpses.

"Arthur, where are you?" A shout came from outside.

It seemed that Patrick, Ma Ke and others had defeated the 500 people on the south side and came back to rescue.

"Here." The stuttering leader Wager was very responsive and responded directly.

"I see, rush in and kill a way out."

Loki was commanding the Western Border Cavalry to dismount and climb onto the pile of corpses to fight Arthur, and suddenly noticed that the Hejian Cavalry was charging again, and hurriedly instructed the guards around him to block them.

"How about our lord, let's retreat."

"That's right, there are another 300 fresh troops over there, plus this invincible Arthur, we will not get any good results today."

But the guards cherished their lives very much and were unwilling to die.

Amory glanced at Arthur, who was still killing people with his sword, and then looked at Harrenhal from a distance.

"Retreat, retreat, retreat." He said somewhat weakly.

Although the great achievement was in front of him, his life was still more important.

He was better than the dead Mountain, that is, he knew that he had to escape when he should.

So the remaining Westerland soldiers were gathered by the messengers, and then quickly retreated to the west.

Those who could survive until now had the ability to save their lives to the fullest, so in a dozen breaths, hundreds of people retreated cleanly.

The corpses, the wounded, and the ownerless horses were all ignored.

"Finally, they were driven away." Wager said bitterly, "Master, you have to pay more."

Arthur wiped the blood on his face and looked back at the uncle with a goatee.

This man is still alive.

Arthur's idea was to kill the backbone of the Blood Troupe through fighting, and then send his own people to take over the command of the Blood Troupe.

But he didn't expect that Varg could survive so long.

He is indeed a veteran who has been tested in the mercenary war in Essos, and he has experienced many battles.

"Okay, I'll increase it. Seeing that you have worked so hard in the past few times, each member of the Blood Troupe who came this time will be paid 50 gold dragons. Excluding the five that have been paid, the remaining 45 will be paid in the next few days."

This time, thirteen backbone members of the Blood Troupe participated in the battle, and now only two are alive.

Varg was overjoyed and laughed.

Arthur shook his head at his heartless attitude, expressing his helplessness, and then said to the Dornish:

"Your commission will also be increased to 50 gold dragons like them. The wages of the twelve Dornish soldiers who died in the previous battle will be led by you two."

The only Dornishmen still alive are Angai and a spearman named Dutch.

"That's not necessary. You killed the Mountain, and that's a big favor." Dutch said.

Arthur waved his hand, "Golden Dragon should settle the accounts. When the war is over, you can find a way to send them to their families."

The commission was settled.

Patrick commanded the cavalrymen of Haijiang City to dismount and move the bodies so that Red Hare could come out.

"Your performance this time is not as good as before." Patrick said to Arthur.

There were more than 700 Westland cavalrymen who escaped. Arthur, Wager, Ange and others killed more than 200 people together.

"We are surrounded, and I can't do anything." The Lord of the Red Mill jumped on the pile of corpses and walked down first.

Maybe he was hungry, and the smell of blood made him uncomfortable.

After paying the price of more than 400 people, the Hejian cavalry defeated more than 500 enemy troops.

The task of cleaning the battlefield was naturally handed over to the residents of Heron Town not far away.

Thousands of cavalry suits can be obtained here, and Arthur is reluctant to leave them here.

Although the equipment of the dead soldiers in the river would be taken back by their lords, the equipment of the Westerland soldiers fell into his hands.

Horses were in short supply, and human armor could be equipped to infantry. When the cavalry was formed in the future, saddles and stirrups would also come in handy.

…

Six days later, in a room in the Burning Kingstower of Harrenhal.

“At this time when the war has begun and the refugees are scattered, I think it is necessary for you, as the actual controller of Harrenhal, to make a fortune.”

The little girl Hayley from King’s Landing stood in front of Arthur and expressed her views.

“Twelve thousand people have entered Harrenhal. We can collect some food from every refugee who enters the castle for refuge as tax, and then wait for them to eat up the food they brought, and then use the collected food to exchange for the copper coins on them until they are squeezed out.”

Arthur sat behind the huge desk and looked up at her.

"I just appointed you as the logistics director. You are quite sensible."

A day ago, the new army of the Red Mill, which landed at the Ruby Beach of the Trident River, arrived at Harrenhal. With them came Hayley, who volunteered to come.

Since Arthur really couldn't find a few capable people under him, Hayley, who could calculate addition, subtraction, multiplication and division within a few hundred, seemed to be a high-quality talent.

So Arthur, who actually controlled Harrenhal, made her the logistics director, responsible for managing supplies and logistics.

"What you said makes sense, but I will never do it." Arthur shook his head and rejected her proposal.

"Why?" Hayley was puzzled, "This can make your wealth multiply several times."

"Taxes are collected, but in return they make people disperse. Money gathers people and money disperses people. This is an eternal truth."

Arthur will not be tempted by such petty profits.

"But in this case, isn't it reasonable to collect taxes? In the king's territory, civilians have to give the lord a fat chicken leg when they kill a chicken." Hayley insisted on her point of view.

She was determined to persuade Lord Arthur so that his wealth would increase significantly.

This way of collecting taxes is very common, but it is not fixed.

For example, Arthur's territory, the Red Mill, did not have such temporary taxes before. It only collected in-kind taxes during the harvest season every year, and collected monetary taxes from handicraft workshops every quarter.

Most of the in-kind taxes collected were wheat, fruits and vegetables, etc. Every year, the original owner's father and the general manager Amber took the family soldiers to collect them in nine villages.

And it was not a fixed amount of tax, but one-tenth of the harvest of the year.

Although clarifying the harvest of each farmer made the tax work much more complicated, it also reduced the burden on farmers.

This is also one of the sources of the original owner's father's good reputation.

You know, in order to save trouble, many earls and viscounts in the river land set a certain amount of grain to be collected for a piece of land, and only collected this amount every year.

As for the taxes in the workshops, they are collected through the ferry of the riverside village. The village chief Jace is responsible for registering the number and price of handicrafts shipped from the ferry, and then summarizing them every quarter and collecting one tenth of the market price of the goods.

Arthur thought about it and decided to make it clear to the girl, lest she would not give up.

"Do you know why the people in the North like to say that the North will never forget?" he asked Hayley.

"I don't know, maybe they have a good memory." The girl shook her head.

"No." Arthur raised his right index finger and shook it, "First, it's because the tax rate in the North is extremely low, 30% tax, which civilian is not grateful for the generosity of the Stark family?"

The entire continent of Westeros, except for the northern border, basically pays one tax per ten. Although it does not seem high, considering that winter can sometimes last for several years, plus some voluntary labor for the lords, the tax is still very heavy. .

Kankan is the level that allows common people to live decently in the long summer and have enough to eat in the winter.

There are two reasons why the tax rate in the north is so low: the long winter and the vast land and sparsely populated areas.

The former requires that the nobles in the north cannot collect high taxes, otherwise the common people will starve to death in winter, and sometimes trigger civil uprisings; the latter greatly increases the cost of tax collection.

Because the tax collectors and soldiers sent by various castles can eat a lot of food on the road.

Arthur held out the second finger of his right hand.

"The second reason is that the Wolf family is generous to their vassals. The Manderly family of White Harbor used to be from the Reach. After being defeated by their neighbors, they fled to the north. So the Stark family waved their hands and an earldom was established. Although it means to be wary of the Bolton family, the generosity of the Lang family can be seen. "

The Manderly family name evolved from the Mander River in the Reach.

"These two points, one satisfies the common people and the other satisfies the nobles. How can the Stark family not be supported by the people of the North?"

"Now is a time when people are in panic. I ruin the reputation I have built up for a small profit. Isn't this too short-sighted? You think so!"

Arthur explained the reasoning to her and sent her away.

Hailey curtsied, "Thank you for your teaching."

Then he turned around and left the room.

Immediately afterwards, Dickon and Bill, who were training the new army in the Hundred Furnaces Hall, walked in.

Bill was one of the ninety-seven mercenaries hired by Arthur in King's Landing. He was elected as the leader by his peers and was responsible for communicating with the sponsors.

When the new army was sent over by the captains of the Red Fork River, ninety-seven mercenaries from King's Landing City and the remaining sixty-four people from the Blood Troupe were also sent over.

On the territory of Moulin Rouge, there are also one hundred and sixty-one mercenaries and thirty-four family soldiers from the Reach, as well as strong farmers who have been selected during the ongoing screening work.

Eleven days ago, when Arthur led people down the river from Riverrun, he demolished all the bridges on the Red Fork River.

In addition, most of the large ships and small boats on the south bank were brought to the north bank, so it was impossible for Tywin's army to cross the river at once.

Therefore the North Shore is relatively safe.

These men were enough to maintain order and repel small groups of enemy troops.

Most of the soldiers in Crowtree City are in Riverrun City and have no time to cause trouble at Moulin Rouge. Of course, they probably don't dare to go against the River God of War now.

"Lord Arthur, I'm here." Dickon walked in and said hello.

Bill, who was in his thirties, followed him and quickly looked around the room before nodding to the sponsor.

Arthur said: "I came here to ask you two to compile two military songs for the new army."

"Military song?" Dickon felt curious, "I have never learned this."

"I'm not asking you two to make it up. I'm going to let you two watch and take charge of this matter. Among the refugees who take refuge in the castle, there are always a few people who love to sing. Let them make it up. After you show it to me, you will be responsible for letting the new army sing how many times a day. All over." Arthur explained.

Bill was surprised by this military song and asked: "Sir, do you have any requests?"

Arthur thought for a while and said: "I will come up with the title of the song, and they will make it up. Just four beats will do. The title of the song is: Arthur's orders are heard in everyone's ears. We only listen to General Arthur's orders. Let's make up the song." Let me review the lyrics.”

The new army is different from the borrowed guest soldiers. This is the basis for Arthur to fight for the world in the future. He has to pay attention to all the details.

Such highly suggestive lyrics can subtly influence the psychology of the New Army soldiers.

In other words, it is to put an ideological stamp on it.

"Interesting." A smile appeared on Dickon's serious face, "This is the first time I've heard of this kind of military song."

Bill nodded in agreement, "Me too, but we will do a good job."

Arthur waved his hand and asked the two to leave.

Next, he had to discuss with Patrick, Ma Ke, Raymond, Wag, Ange and others how to protect Shili City.

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