dognovel Chapter 259: Lord of the Manor
Chapter 259: Lord of the Manor
"Forward! Forward!"
Amidst a burst of shouting, an army was gathering on a plain somewhere in the Southwestern Governor's Territory.
In the army, colorful flags fluttered in the wind, and under the flags were a large number of militiamen dressed in peasant clothes and a small number of soldiers wearing armor.
Looking at this seemingly makeshift army, the army's commander and lord Cade was riding in front of the army, waiting for something.
At this time, the sound of horse hooves came from a distance. A scout rode up to Cade and said:
"My lord, the teams of Knights Lund and Nak will be here soon."
Looking at the flag in the distance, Cade couldn't help but smile.
A few days ago, the tax collector sent by Cade to the neighboring village was sent back with a letter, which explained the purpose of the new official from the neighboring village and clarified his legal right to manage the territory directly under the royal family.
But what Cade could not understand was that this newly appointed official, whom he had never met before, actually asked Cade to return the serfs that he had driven into his territory.
In his opinion, since he sent troops to protect the village when there was no army guarding the royal territory, he should be given equal powers, such as taxation and management of the village's manpower.
As a result, a few days later, the neighboring village actually replied again. The letter said that the territory belonged to the king, so the people in the territory naturally belonged to the king as well. Cade's behavior was an illegal embezzlement of national property, so he had the right to take it back.
Based on the nobles' contempt for the common people and Cade's belief that the officials of the neighboring village had provoked him many times, Cade went straight to the point of anger. Since the reason was not enough, he would use force to make his point.
Of course, he did not send troops to attack directly, but first issued a warning to the other side in the manner of a noble, and threatened that if the other party did not apologize and compensate him, he would directly declare a noble war, and sent people to observe the number of troops in the village.
"Okay, you decide the time and place."
This was the last letter Cade had received so far. Since the other party had agreed, Cade had an excuse to fight. As for the Lana people on the other side of the mountain, he would wait until they reached him and then decide.
According to his estimation, the official only had fifty soldiers. Even if they included their few strong laborers who served as militia, there were only about a hundred people at most.
He brought a team of 150 people with him, plus the foreign aid he spent money to recruit, the total number of troops can reach 300 people. With a score of 3 to 1, Cade was confident of winning.
As for whether there would be mercenaries joining the war from the other side, Cade had already inquired about this. There were only a few mercenary groups in the entire southwest region. The capable ones either went to the southwest peninsula where there were many conflicts, or went to the southern battlefield where the fighting was fierce. The rest were basically small teams of a dozen people.
"Good day, Knight Cade."
"Good day, Knight Lund. Good day, Knight Nak."
After the two sides exchanged greetings, Knight Cade spoke first:
"How many people did you bring?"
"Nak and I brought a hundred militiamen and all our servants. It should be enough to deal with those people on the opposite side." Knight Longde said.
"After the war, I will take away all the remaining people in that village." Knight Nak has even begun preparing for the distribution of the spoils after the war.
"Okay, I'll take the armor and equipment from the battlefield."
Looking at these two colleagues who came up with conditions, Cade did not get angry. Instead, he planned to let the other team charge first after the war started. Although there were few people in the village next door, those professional soldiers were equipped with armor. If his people went up, it would take more than ten years for them to recover naturally.
"Uuuuuu——"
Suddenly, the sound of a horn was heard from the distant forest. After hearing it, the three nobles immediately turned their horses towards the direction of the sound and ordered their troops to form a battle formation.
Soon, the opposing army walked out of the forest, but it was not the one hundred militiamen that Cade had imagined, but a black torrent that almost filled the open space outside the forest.
Looking around, almost all the soldiers were wearing black armor. In addition to the infantry, Cade discovered that on the right side of the infantry, there was a black heavy cavalry of 100 people. The only white in this team was their flag. Even if Cade was stupid, he knew that this was the flag of John Hohenzollern, the Governor of the Southwest, General of Midland, Captain of the White Wolf Knights, and the Northeast Overlord of Midland.
However, the following scene made him break out in a cold sweat. Several gaps appeared in the opposing formation, and cannons were pushed out one after another, with the black muzzles facing Cade's army.
At this moment, Cade no longer thought about the war. He only wanted to go home, return to his castle, sit by the bedroom window and look at the pastoral scenery of the territory.
"Hello!!!!"
Just when Cade didn't know what to do, a loud shout was heard from a distance, and then a bald man holding a battle axe rode a black horse that was much taller than an ordinary horse and galloped to the center of the team.
"Are you going to fight again?"
When the shouting sounded in Cade's ears again, Cade immediately did what a normal person would do.
"No more fighting, no more fighting, I surrender!"
So under the mediation of Charlie, the leader of the Black Watch mercenary group, Cade returned the detained serfs and gave a large sum of money to the White Wolf Knight in charge of local management. After dealing with this matter, Charlie led his army to Mont-de-Marsan, passing through many noble territories on the way, giving these mercenaries who only knew how to guard the manors a little shock. At the same time, it was also to give Black Watch a good start in entering the mercenary market in the southwest.
A week later, Charles arrived in Mont-de-Marsan and met his lord John at the embassy.
"It's been over a year since we last met. How are you doing in Saint-Remy?"
John asked after he and Charlie hugged each other.
"Stop talking, Lord John. After the plague, Saint-Remy is more like a circle of walls than a city. There is nothing inside. It's only after more than a year of construction that it's showing some signs of improvement." Charlie couldn't help complaining.
"By the way, what do you want to see me about this time?"
"Nothing much else, it's just that now the business has grown, and the original old brothers are a little insufficient, not to mention that some people have been injured and returned to the territory, and now we are even more short of people, so I thought of asking you if you can recruit some people."
"Oh, recruiting people? No problem. How many do you plan to recruit?" John realized that it was time to expand the recruitment so that there would be Black Watch in every territory of Midland in the future.
"I thought I should recruit younger ones first to cultivate their loyalty. Nowadays, everyone is a swindler and does no good. Recruiting such people would definitely cause trouble. It would be better to pay some cost to recruit some children with clean backgrounds."
Hearing this, John suddenly thought of the refugees who had gone north before, so he readily agreed:
"It just so happens that I have a lot of people here, so you can recruit those who are suitable."