Mountain and Forest Kingdom

After two or three days, the sun came out.

The sunshine is accompanied by flying snow slag, cold and dazzling.

Lawrence took a broom and shoveled the last piece of snow in front of the door aside, and let out a long sigh of relief.

"Finally done."

Salil and Sophia are using wooden sticks to knock off the ice debris on the eaves of the sheep house and woodshed. Although the ice debris formed by melting snow is not too dangerous, it is better to knock it off.

"This winter is warmer than last year and not as cold."

Lawrence doesn’t think so, “Whether it’s cold in winter or not depends mainly on the outdoors.”

Sariel said: "The market should not be open today, it was still snowing in the morning."

Lawrence originally wanted to wait until the weather cleared up to sell things at the market in exchange for money to buy something, but now he could only wait a little longer.

"It seems like there is nothing to do in the morning." Lawrence sighed and looked at the mountains in the distance, not knowing what his house was like.

When she was thinking about the stone house under the snow, Sophia shouted loudly: "Master, Emma is here again!"

Lawrence walked to the other side and looked down the mountain. On the mountain road near the foot of the mountain ahead, Emma was leading a sheep and two children.

She was holding one, and another was sitting on the sheep's back.

Did he come here to see a doctor? Lawrence only felt a lot of pressure, he was not a pediatrician!

Lawrence almost wanted to hide in the mountains and didn't want to take on such an incompetent thing.

Emma came quickly.

Salil shouted from a dozen meters away: "Emma, ​​why are you here? We are planning to wait for the weather to get better and go to the market to buy some things."

Emma walked over with the sheep, looked at Salil with an apologetic face, and then looked at Lawrence.

"Saryl, Mr. Lawrence, can you give me some food?"

Lawrence thought he was here for treatment, but he didn't expect that he was here for food.

Lawrence said quickly: "Of course, come into the house and tell us, what happened at your home?"

Although it is Sariel's home, Lawrence has already made the decision.

Emma said gratefully: "Thank you! Mr. Lawrence!"

"I'm going to cook." Salil didn't think there was a problem, so she left the matter directly to Lawrence, and she and Sophia went to the kitchen to cook.

Lawrence usually prepares some jerky and flatbread for eating out. After taking Emma, ​​mother and son into the house, he went back to the room and brought three pie crusts that had been stored for three or four days.

"This is a pancake I made. It's very hard now, but it can fill your stomach a little."

Lawrence handed the biscuit-like dough sticks to the adults and children, and asked: "Emma, ​​is there nothing to eat at home? What's going on?"

Emma took the noodle strip, took a bite of it, put it in her mouth and chewed it, telling the truth with pain on her face.

The new baron was not a good person. After he came, he looted things in the village and took away the bread and meat from many people's homes, as well as their pigs and dogs.

Except for not setting fires, they were no different from bandits. If anyone resisted, they were immediately killed by the Vakiri, and then hung on a rack where furs were dried to warn others.

The town's winter reserves were already missing a part, and now Baron Avari has taken away part of it as this year's winter tax. The remaining people can only think of solutions everywhere.

Lawrence felt helpless after hearing this. It's not that these people don't know how to resist, it's that those Valkyries are stronger than here and can't resist.

"Then what should you do now?" Lawrence suggested: "Would you like to move to the mountains? With the help of your family, we should be able to build a new house soon."

"It's definitely not possible to live here. This is Andrew's house. We can build another house on the mountain."

Lawrence made a good suggestion, at least he thought it was good.

Emma quickly shook her head, "As long as winter passes, it will be fine. The village will go to the beach to fish in a few days. We will avoid the Wakili's territory and go to catch fish in uninhabited places."

"Doug will take us hunting and this winter will be over soon."

Lawrence nodded, "Well, that's good. If you're so hungry that you can't stand it anymore, you can come up and have a full meal."

Emma took the two children and quickly thanked them, and then asked: "Mr. Lawrence, do you still want slaves here? Um, he is very smart."

Lawrence looked at the ignorant little barbarian boy next to him, "No, no need, I'm already well here now, and I don't have time to worry about this."

Emma looked disappointed. This time she actually wanted her son to follow Lawrence for a living.

Lawrence didn't have any extra food here. Fortunately, after Sariel learned about the situation, she generously gave them half a sack of barley, which was at least thirty kilograms.

Emma quickly took her children down the mountain again. Although their family was not strong compared to other villagers, they had an extra way out and could borrow some food from the mountain.

Lawrence sighed: “Once you start paying taxes, you won’t have enough to eat.”

Salil did not participate or interfere in this kind of thing. She quickly put one hand in front of her and touched her chin with the other to think for a while.

"It seems like we can't exchange anything in Pumixiu Town. We'll go to another place tomorrow."

Lawrence asked curiously: "Why?"

Sariel was like a wise wise man, squinting at Lawrence who didn't understand what was going on.

"Now that Pumixiu Town has begun to collect taxes, we have to pay taxes when we exchange things. Don't you understand this?"

Lawrence didn't expect this. He didn't have to pay taxes before. He didn't expect that after Pumexiu was managed by the nobles, there would be new rules for all things.

Salil continued: "Tomorrow we will go to the mountains to find the Clodagh village living in the mountains. The people there accept our material exchange. You can exchange salt, iron and copper ore with them for animal skins and meat."

Lawrence had not heard of this, but he did know that there were many forest barbarians in the Agama Mountains.

Mountain and forest barbarians, ice and sea barbarians, and plains barbarians, these are the three major categories of the barbarian kingdom.

At first, the mountain barbarians were the strongest. Those who failed in the competition went to the northern seaside and the southern plains, forming the other two categories.

The strongest ones now are the business barbarians in the south, followed by those seafarers in Binghai who have made a fortune.

Although the plains barbarians in the south rely on robbery to obtain wealth, they also have fixed trading locations. Many barbarians are actually merchants.

The Ice Barbarians are pure bandits. Not only do they have no place to sell stolen goods or a fixed port, they are also subject to the suppression and jurisdiction of the Luofen Kingdom.

The mountain barbarians are now quiet and honest, and can be called law-abiding farmers in the barbarian kingdom.

Savagery is relative, and law-abiding is also relative. Lawrence is wary and suspicious of any good citizen of this country.

The Kur people, who seemed to be honest before, just bullied the Pumi Xiu people as mountain people.

Generally speaking, the comfortable mountain people have relatively low combat effectiveness. They get stronger as they go north, and they get closer to the core of aristocratic rule as they go south.

Seeing Lawrence thinking, Salil said carelessly: "Don't worry, the people there are very wary of the outside world, but they will feel at ease with the people they know. My father and I have a lot of status there!"

Lawrence nodded, "That's right, you are so strong."