Ride and Cut

"Let me start from the beginning—going downstream along the Raging River, the river water will flow into a saltwater lake, which we call Bayeux Lake." Annie stretched out her fingers to dip some water, and drew a brief gesture on the table. A meandering curve connects to a sphere that looks like a tadpole.

"This lake is full of undrinkable bittern water, and people can float in it without using force. A long time ago, someone tried to use the lake water to dry salt, but it was found to be poisonous. After that, no one paid much attention to it."

Annie tried to draw a skull with her nails dipped in water, but it turned out that there were more pig heads than skulls, and she quickly erased it casually pretending not to care.

The lord saw it, covered his chin with his hand as a cover, and curled his lips secretly.

"However, six years ago, by chance, we at Woya Company discovered that there were actually a large amount of iron ore distributed at the bottom of Lake Bayeux. So we contacted a familiar dwarf tribe and quietly excavated the ore to smelt iron tools."

Li Cha suddenly realized, "No wonder you are transporting so much coal to the wilderness to smelt iron."

He felt a little strange when he came early. The two previous convoys that Woya Trading Company passed by loaded a lot of coal. You must know that this kind of cargo should be very unpopular, because there is no shortage of fuel in the wilderness.

But if that makes sense, ordinary fuel doesn't burn hot enough to smelt the ore, so coal has to be brought in from Pompeii.

"Yes. Smelting iron in the wilderness, selling it to the natives, collecting fur and herbs as compensation, and then transporting it back to Pompeii for sale, this business route has also made a lot of money in recent years."

There is almost no iron production on this barren land in the wilderness, and the export tax of Pompeii iron is so high that it is like robbery, so iron is very expensive among the indigenous tribes. And the fur and blades of grass, which are not very valuable in the wilderness, have a big market back in Pompeii

A batch of goods makes money twice, plus the cost is very low, the profits in this are just as lucrative as you can imagine with your toes.

"This is a good deal." An emotion called jealousy ruthlessly gnawed at Li Cha's heart, and the sourness in his tone could corrode steel into slag.

"Otherwise, how can our Woya Trading Company grow so fast in the past few years? The timber business is a joke, so how many gold coins can we earn?"

Annie's complacency lasted only for a short moment, and soon collapsed into a sad face, "But not long ago, a bear tribe called the last quarter moon discovered this secret. Richard, you may find it hard to imagine what kind of temptation an iron mine is to wilderness people. It is completely worth betting everything to be crazy about it."

"They squeezed out all the war potential of the entire tribe-abandoning all the old people who could not fight, the warriors blinded one eye to show their determination, slaughtered the cubs and female animals to store food, and mobilized all the warriors to attack the dwarf tribe."

"That's not right." Li Cha reached out and knocked on the pine wood tabletop, interrupting Annie's impassioned speech. While listening to the story, he didn't let his nitpicks fall, and he almost grabbed the melon seeds.

"The dwarves mine and forge themselves. According to their urination, their warrior equipment must be extremely sophisticated, and their own strength is not bad. Why don't they beat the beggar-like bear man into a pig's head?"

He himself has a deep understanding recently, and the impact of good or bad equipment on combat effectiveness cannot be overstated. In particular, dwarves and bearmen are very powerful fighting races. The more masters fight, the more difficult the gap caused by the equipment gap will be.

"Can you stop interrupting, I haven't finished yet - the Waning Moon Tribe is a member of a tribal alliance called Crescent Moon, and their abnormal behavior has attracted the attention of other members."

"The situation collapsed very quickly. Now besides the dwarves and the last quarter moon, there are five other tribes of the crescent moon alliance involved. It is conservatively estimated that seven or eight thousand warriors participated in this war. Alas..." The half-elf is also very particular about appearance, and this is the first time Richard saw Annie slumped on a chair and rolled her eyes.

"The ten tribes haven't dealt with the dwarves yet? Your ally is a bit too strong." The lord continued to criticize.

If Annie had half or even a quarter of her usual shrewdness, she would definitely be able to hear that Li Cha was deliberately using words to induce her. But now her head is full of lawsuits, and her desire to confide has long overwhelmed her reason.

"Li Cha, you think too highly of the natives." Annie leaned back in her chair and smiled helplessly. "Facing the fatal temptation, how could the loose alliance of the Wilderness people survive?"

"Now there are more than a dozen tribes fighting, and the alliance has long since ceased to exist. Everyone is attacking other tribes indiscriminately, and some tribes even split into several factions within themselves!"

"Be good!" Li Cha quickly took a sip of tea to suppress his shock, "Isn't this just a fight to see who can resist the bloodletting to the end? I estimate that at least one-third of these tribes will be expelled after the fight."

As a military commander, his resume is still very poor, and he has never commanded even a hundred people. It is hard to imagine the scene of ten thousand people fighting in more than ten factions.

I'm afraid that just the rout of soldiers can easily gather hundreds of bandits and cause disaster. No wonder the other pioneer lords returned to Cologne honestly. In this situation, even the most elite Three Lions Legion in the Northeast Province may not be willing to suffer from bad luck.

Of course, this does not mean that the regular army can't deal with thousands of tribal warriors, but that there is no need to work hard to stop a dog-eat-dog.

"Yeah, we were planning to reinforce the dwarf allies, so we had to withdraw first. This situation is no longer within the control of a business." Annie held the tea and looked at the table and sighed infinitely. "Fate is like a pouring rain. Passers-by are walking in the wilderness, how can they avoid it."

"Where are the dwarves? Why didn't you join us?" Li Cha wanted to see if he could hug a few dwarf blacksmiths. Although Alpine Fort Military Industry has a few centaur Busmi backing it, the production speed is still not enough.

"Stick to the iron mine and don't want to leave." Annie sighed, and the expression on her face perfectly explained what it means to be unloved. "I persuaded them to leave quickly, but you know that dwarves are more stubborn than stones. Even if they die, they will guard the mines given to them by God."

"As expected of Ao Dunzi, you're really tough!" Li Cha put up a thumbs up pretendingly, and couldn't tell whether it was a compliment or a mockery.

"After so many years of business, it's all over." Annie lay weakly on the table, her index finger twirling around on the table, "We'll have a rest overnight, and we'll leave for Cologne early tomorrow morning. If you find it inconvenient, we'll try to stay as far away from Alpine Castle as possible."

"It's not inconvenient, just feel free."

"Li Cha, now you know how tense the situation is." Annie raised her head, "So are you going to withdraw to Cologne with us?"

She advised Li Cha to have her own selfish intentions. The lord's guards in Alpine Fort are undoubtedly strong. If they can go through the last few days of the trip together, the safety will undoubtedly be improved a lot.

"Let's talk about it." Li Cha smiled meaningfully.

I have a fever of thirty-nine degrees five degrees, and I have been dizzy all the time. The writing may be a bit rubbish, please bear with me.

It is said that it has been burned several times this year...