Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon

"The Tyrell army has withdrawn to King's Landing? King's Landing has set up a large number of giant crossbows on the city walls? And iron scorpion arrows? And net-throwing machines? Well, spending money buys peace of mind. Lannister is quite smart and knows how to deploy King's Landing well. The purpose is not to stop the dragon, but to make the people living in King's Land believe that they can stop the dragon. This doesn't cost much, but it can stabilize the hearts of people in King's Land."

Grolai took his eldest son Gryk, the merchant spy captain sent by Viserys to King's Landing, and reported to Viserys in the Picture Table Hall the news he had brought back from many inquiries in the past few days. Gryk was older than his father. He was a little more polite. Before being brought to Dragonstone by Grole, his eldest son had originally planned to be sent to Illyrio's Chamber of Commerce to become a director. Unexpectedly, Grolai was old and promising, and became a knight of the Seven Kingdoms in Viserys, becoming a son who is more worthy of his father.

Now this captain with rich business experience in Pentos is responsible for asking Viserys for information about King's Landing. He is taking the merchant route, Illyrio's business route - there is no way, he wants to become a wealthy merchant and a powerful person in King's Landing. It would take at least a generation for its commercial representatives to do business and open up a new independent channel. Viserys did not have time to wait, so he could only follow the path of Illyrio and develop towards independent operations as he went. Although this would be tantamount to exposing all his spies to Varys, there was really no other way to go.

It wasn't until he did it himself that Viserys understood the value of Varys's so-called most well-informed person in the Seven Kingdoms. In this world, communication basically relies on ships, carts, horses, and people. Ordinary people have no way to raise or use the messenger crow. In this amazing world, it can be said to be a miracle that Varys can build an intelligence network in Westeros.

When Greg came to the Picture Table Hall for the first time, he was still a little cautious, but he still told the news he had learned: "Your Majesty, dragons cannot be discussed openly in King's Landing, but there is a secret that is quietly circulated among the powerful. The dragon's The weak point is the eyes."

"Well, you can find out this kind of secret the first time you go to King's Landing. Where did you get the information?"

Greg didn't expect that the king would ask: "This"

Grole, who knew how cautious the king was, quickly explained: "He was invited to a banquet for business cooperation. Several dignitaries from King's Landing attended. The Chancellor's business activities in King's Landing have been hit hard now, but the secret chamber of commerce is in King's Landing." There are still some ways. Taking advantage of the current shortage of supplies in King's Landing, Greg pretended to be a foreign partner of the Spice Guild in King's Landing, and his name was under the name of a governor's guild in Pentos. "

"Oh, the chancellor's channel worked." Viserys nodded, "That's not surprising."

"And, Your Majesty." Seeing that Viserys was about to end the meeting, Greg hurriedly added, "I also heard at the King's Landing banquet that Balon Greyjoy, the false king of the Iron Islands, was dead. During a storm, He fell from the castle bridge."

There is a lot to hear at this banquet.

Viserys couldn't help but worry: "Grek, you must be extremely careful when traveling to and from King's Landing to spy on intelligence. People say that Varys's little birds are everywhere, and this is not a lie. You are mostly in King's Landing to observe the material procurement and procurement of merchant ships. Just organize a warship to attack Dragonstone. You don't have to risk too much to enter the noble circle. You don't need to go to King's Landing too often. By the way, you came here through the report from the intelligence office at the foot of the mountain."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Okay, then you should be familiar with the process. Arrange some sailors you trust who have never been to King's Landing with you to go to port taverns in various places on the Narrow Sea to secretly spread the news that the Dragonstone Military Intelligence Office is interested in the military affairs of various parts of the Seven Kingdoms and has rewards. , remember to be a little vague in your intelligence quotation.”

"Yes, Your Majesty."

This so-called Military Intelligence Department is where Viserys purchases military intelligence from various places. Ever since he came to Dragonstone, he has been blinded by the war situation in the interior of the Seven Kingdoms. The lack of intelligence means that many situations can only be guessed.

He had not been to Dragonstone before, and he could still rely on his understanding of the original world line to brainstorm guesses about the situation in various places from the intelligence gathered from the wind and shadows. But when I came to Dragonstone Island, I was obviously closer to the inland of the Seven Kingdoms, but I could only get information from merchant ships that were overdue for who knows how many days in a place with good trade routes.

For example, when the Tyrell army retreated and King's Landing deployed its defenses, he had no way of knowing immediately about changes that were obviously caused by the flapping of his wings as a butterfly.

It took who knows how long it took for the news to reach Viserys that Balon Greyjoy was dead.

The establishment of intelligence agencies has a long way to go. The military camp under the town has also gathered many free riders and mercenary riders who came to surrender during this period. Viserys planned to use these people as scouts and spread them out to various ports in the Stormland to see what Stannis was doing. The loyalty of these people may not be guaranteed and can only be restrained by bounties, but they basically have no idea of ​​the plans of the higher-ups on Dragonstone Island.

It would be better to say that these people are used to this kind of work. Serving as scouts for the lords who come to seek refuge is part of the mercenary knight's way of survival, and it is also part of the war organization in Westeros. When fighting in Westeros, you have to get used to this. You also have to get used to calling vassals to assemble the troops, not by military types, but by families, fiefs and vassals. After being combined into a large regiment, the generals who command the troops command the leading representatives of each family rather than specific soldiers. .

To coordinate such a force, it must be commanded by a great lord who can convince the crowd.

In particular, we have to guard against the situation where the leader is beheaded and his soldiers leave the unit and disband and go home.

However, this form of war is the most favorable for Viserys. The larger the scale of the war, the easier it is for the side with dragons to win, because the large army formed in this form can easily cause part of the enemy to collapse, forming the effect of rolling back the pearl curtain on the battlefield. On the contrary, the smaller the scale of the battle, the more difficult it is for the side with dragons, because small-scale battles often mean that the enemy is more organized than large-scale armies. They are either from the same family, or are familiar with each other and trust each other, and it is easier to form guerrilla warfare and exert personal strong fighting spirit.

How does that saying go: It is much easier to capture 30,000 people than 30,000 pigs on the battlefield of a large-scale battle.

The simplest is to attack the castle. Of course, there is also a premise that the people in the castle choose to defend it to the death instead of dispersing into the wild.

Back to the present, this time the first spy activity to King's Landing can get so much information. It is obvious that Varys is deliberately leaking intelligence to Viserys, but Viserys can't figure out what Varys' attitude towards him is.

Varys and Illyrio's plan has been as biased as it can be. Viserys is not sure whether they are planning to change ships? Or is he still planning to continue to secretly support little Aegon?

As for the defense of King's Landing, and knowing that the dragon's weakness is the eyes, Viserys is not worried at all. He was more prepared than King's Landing. He knew all the weaknesses of the dragon, and even had magical props that people in this world could not imagine to restrain it. Although the dragon-slaying team he organized only had a hundred people, the dragon-slaying team was basically saturated, because the combat contact area with the dragon was so large, the more people there were, the more difficult it was to coordinate, and the more concentrated, the more dangerous.

However, despite being fully prepared, when the dragon flew high into the sky and cast high-altitude magic, the ground team of the dragon-slaying was helpless. Back then, Viserys barely defeated an ordinary ancient oak with the cooperation of various tribes in the dragon-slaying team. The team suffered serious damage that time, which was because the human species in the high magic world had strong endurance. If they were sprayed by the dragon's flames, they would only faint if they had fire-resistant armor, and there were also flying species to cooperate.

The most regrettable thing was that after finally defeating the dragon, its materials fell into the lake and were sucked away by the whirlpool.

It was after that time that Viserys realized that manpower was sometimes limited. Instead of spending a lot of effort to organize a dragon-slaying team, it was better to directly hire a legendary swordsman with extraordinary abilities.

Having said that, knowing that the enemy was prepared, Viserys would not be stupid enough to attack face to face even though he knew this. He had magical means of high-altitude combat. And he did not intend to attack King's Landing.

Just after sending Grolai and his son away, there was news from the sea.

The news came from the raven of Stoneyon Castle, which had just been incorporated into the rule of Dragonstone Island. The patrol longboat sent to the sea near Stoneyon Castle discovered a Tyroshi fleet consisting of five large ships heading towards the throat, two three-hundred-oared ships and three one-hundred-oared ships.

The fleet of three hundred-oared ships is very noteworthy. After all, if three hundred-oared ships hide soldiers and horses, they can hide nearly a thousand people. If they change the flag, they will be a small fleet. According to the current response method of the Dragonstone Navy, if these ships are destined for Dragonstone, they will be forced to stop by the sea patrol fleet when they are close to Dragonstone to clarify the situation.

Thanks to the fact that the commander of the first fleet of Viserys brought back enough ships from Pentos, the Dragonstone Navy has become a little bit better and is no longer stretched.

Otherwise, the new ships of the navy can only wait for the new ships built by the two vassals of Chaotou Fort and Crab Island in their respective shipyards, but it is unknown when the new ships will be launched.

Speaking of which, the ships in Viserys's fleet now belong to Grolai except for the captured Lys warships. He is also a loyal minister among Viserys' vassals who raises a fleet with his family's strength to serve as the king's vanguard.

The merchant fleet of five Tyroshi large ships made Viserys pay attention to it, and asked the castle's observation post to pay more attention to the situation near the coast.

The news received by the castle was quickly sent to the port. Viserys could see from the castle that his offshore patrol fleet quickly formed a mixed fleet under the call of the trumpet and headed for the outer sea of ​​Dragonstone for patrol.

Viserys's requirement for offshore defense is that the patrol should only go as far as the castle can see, and he will not care about anything farther, so as to avoid him not being able to rescue in time if something happens. As for the vassal's territory, as long as they can send a raven, Viserys can rush to rescue.

The distance between Stoneyon Castle and Dragonstone is not close on the map, but half a day passed after the news was transmitted before the castle's observation post saw the sea patrol and a merchant fleet meeting at sea from afar with a telescope made in Myr.

It seems that the destination of the Tyrosh fleet that Stoneyon Castle warned was indeed Dragonstone.

In order to prevent accidents, Viserys went to the observation post to observe in person.

Fortunately, it seemed to be a merchant ship. After being forced to stop, only one ship was allowed in, and the other four were persuaded to go to the port of Tide Head Island or Point.

The reason why only one ship was allowed to enter the port is that the dock policy implemented by Dragonstone has not changed. Dragonstone is still implementing strict "port entry control". Passing merchant ships can only enter the port if they are confirmed to be doing business in Dragonstone and have a guarantee from the town's merchants. Otherwise, they are not allowed to enter the port. The ships that are parked must leave at the agreed time and are not allowed to extend their stay.

And today, there seems to be only one pier vacant.

Despite such strict entry control, the port of Dragonstone was still full every day some time ago. It took a long time to queue for a berth at the port dock, which forced Viserys to make changes again, so that the ships coming to Dragonstone queued up to enter the port. When the dock was really not enough, the merchant ships had to go to the Point and Tidehead to queue up. Viserys certainly knew that many merchant ships had impure purposes, but there had to be a way to deal with them.

Dragonstone is a small place with a small dock, unlike the big ports of King's Landing, Oldtown, and the Free Cities, which have several large docks.

Many things are better to be unblocked than blocked. Now, the tense period of docks and docks has passed.

After all, Dragonstone is a town and a castle, so there are not so many commercial activities. Now the dock is basically in the stage of calming down. Although there are still occasional insufficient berths, it is much better than before. Viserys thinks that in the near future, the "port entry control" policy can be slowly relaxed and return to normal.

Viserys didn't know at this moment that these ships were sent by the Lord of Tyrosh, and there was a Dornish Red Viper, Oberyn Martell, on board.

The Lord of Tyrosh did not inform in advance that he would visit Dragonstone, so the Tyrosh envoys were uninvited guests.

But it was a matter of time.

At first, Viserys visited Tyrosh by writing letters, and now the Tyrosh envoys had to go through this to see Viserys on Dragonstone.

And Jorah Mormont, the envoy sent by Viserys to Dorne, was a surprise to Dorne, and now it was the turn of the Red Viper of Dorne to surprise him.

In the original book, Sam said that the distance from Oldtown to his hometown, Horn Hill, was about 100 leagues, which was about the same as the entire length of the Great Wall. 1 league was equivalent to 3 miles, which was about 4.8 kilometers. That is to say, Oldtown is 480 kilometers away from Horn Hill, which is about the same as the distance from Shanghai to Lishui, Zhejiang. It takes 2 hours by high-speed rail, 5-6 hours by car, 2-4 days by bicycle, and 6 days on foot at 80 kilometers a day.

The distance from Dragonstone to King's Landing and Storm's End is about 100-200 leagues.