Minsk, the capital of St. Nouvi province.

It was once a wealthy city with 300,000 inhabitants, with vast fertile land and convenient and well-developed water conservancy facilities, and was known as one of the granaries of the empire.

In addition, it is adjacent to the Longjiang River, the largest river in the empire, to the north, and has an excellent inland port and commodity distribution center, so the commerce here is also quite developed, and countless merchant ships transport locally produced grain to the north every year, or transport the industrial goods of the north to here.

But now it is in dilapidation, as it once fell into the hands of the rebels. Minsk had been peaceful for a long time, and it was taken by the rebels, who were leaderless, and they were swarming in, competing with each other to burn and loot, and all kinds of horrific incidents continued to occur.

They robbed everything and burned everything, money and killing lost their nature, but their blindness also prevented them from surviving in the city for long, and the food they collected was quickly eaten, and most of it was wasted.

After a thrilling ambush, Crown Prince Jean Sauron did the same and easily recovered Minsk. He didn't have much regular army at his disposal, all of which were local garrisons he had gathered along the way as he traveled south from the Holy City, as well as some of the soldiers he had recruited later.

Most of the Empire's elite regular armies were deployed in the north at this time, and the pressure from the Assyrian Empire was too great to move easily. There is also the Bilisian Empire in the northwest, a militaristic state with all the people in the army, and an old rival of the Eurosocerans, who are also said to want to take advantage of the fire.

When some of his subordinates privately complained about the emperor's lack of kindness, the crown prince explained it with the above reasons. As for what he was thinking, no one could tell anything from his always calm face.

But it is a well-known open secret that the relationship between the emperor and the crown prince, father and son, was poor.

The only thing the crown prince could rely on was the emperor's consent to him summoning a number of middle- and lower-ranking officers from the Guard, which allowed him to build a passable army in a short time.

He was trained in the army at a very young age, starting as an ordinary soldier, strict with himself, doing well in the army, having a good relationship with the senior officers of the army, and his mother came from the military aristocratic Frankish family. As a result, powerful people in politics often believe that the military is actually the crown prince's biggest backer.

In terms of conspiracy theories, this is also the reason why the emperor did not like him very much and was even a little jealous, one example of which is that the emperor could have drawn a part of the guards guarding the holy city and the palace into a formed force, such as a division.

The Emperor is a man who has a great deal of power. Of course, there are also people who see this as a test for the emperor to the crown prince.

Regardless of the rumors of the upper echelons, the crown prince was very attentive to his counterinsurgency work, but after the rebels suffered a great loss of strength after an early period of blind expansion and mutual fire, a powerful leader suddenly appeared.

The leader, nicknamed the Professor, changed the situation of the rebels' blind expansion, eliminated the old and weak, strictly forbade his subordinates to harass and rob civilians, and even provided relief to some homeless people, resuming normal production in some places under the full control of the rebels.

Within half a year, the crown prince's army and the rebels fought many battles, and the two sides won and lost each other, and entered a stalemate.

While holding on to the rebels, the crown prince also has to fight against bureaucracy, weapons, ammunition, food, military uniforms, medicines, etc. are not falling out of thin air, they are all the word "money", and the most lacking thing in the empire is money.

The letter from the emperor and the prime minister to him also talked about money, and it was a strange cycle to exterminate the rebels as soon as possible because there was no money, and there was no money to exterminate the rebels.

From the Holy City to the local level, the crown prince wrote letters every day, urging officials to withdraw money or allocate supplies, and every day officials at all levels wrote back to complain about difficulties and complain about their colleagues.

The crown prince felt that he was about to go crazy, and he felt that he should not be a clerk, but should be with the soldiers.

But he doesn't complain to the people around him, and he doesn't even openly express a trace of dissatisfaction, and he devotes himself to his work every day with full spirit.

He hates complaining, and thinks that's what long-tongued women do best.

The crown prince had his headquarters in a university, and in the whole city of Minsk, this university was the only one whose building was intact enough to accommodate his subordinates and attachés.

The local population either died in the rebellion or fled to other lands. These once wealthy and proud residents are now performing tragedies that have come to an end or are about to come to an end.

As soon as the sun rose, the crown prince came to his office.

This is the office of the unfortunate president, who is said to have committed suicide in public at the gate of the university in order to prevent the rebels from breaking into the university.

The reason why the rebels wanted to come in was to find some books to start a fire for cooking.

As soon as the crown prince sat down, the secretary, Clint Wesson, sent a pile of papers.

His 41st birthday had just passed, and it was a good time for a man to be energetic and accomplished. The crown prince was especially known for his mastery of mathematics and his ability to memorize, and it is said that he could recite 100 decimal places of pi in 1 minute.

So, he quickly figured out a couple of suspicious numbers from a pile of papers.

But in order to verify these figures, he had to spend almost a morning meeting with officers and officials at different levels, and looking through other documents, and although his doubts were finally resolved, he found that he had more questions as a result.

There's never enough work to do.

If Sean was here, he would have doubted why Franco Frank would stay by his side, and with such a leader, his subordinates would certainly not be idle.

A person who is too hardworking can only be a friend, but it is better not to work with him.

It was almost half past eleven, when the crown prince finally looked up from the pile of papers, he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his sour eyes, which he suspected had deteriorated considerably.

At this time, Clint Wesson brought a cup of hot tea in time, and the crown prince glanced at it and said strangely:

"Clint, I remember the pot of tea that Philip gave me, which I had drunk three days ago. ”

Wesson replied, "Yes, Your Highness. It was sent by Lieutenant Frank and it is said to be the personal collection of Viscount Sean Connelly of Genoa, and it is definitely the best tea. ”

"Sean Connery? Oh, I know him, the Genoese have finally invented something useful that can be popular throughout the country. The crown prince suddenly said, "Speaking of Viscount Connery, has Franco sent a letter?"

"His messenger arrived half an hour ago, and he brought the tea, and is now waiting for your summons, so I have temporarily revised the schedule for today, so that you will not have time to see him until 14 o'clock in the afternoon. "Now, would you like to take a break?"

"No, then let him come over now, and I'll take it as a rest. ”

The crown prince immediately changed his mind.

"Yes!" Wesson turned to leave.

I took a shallow sip of the tea, and the slightly bitter taste had a hint of sweetness. Watching the green shoots stretch in the hot water, the crown prince's tired brow also relaxed.

He never liked the romance of the moon before the flower, thinking that it was a murder of life and time, but the mist rising in front of him, misty, swirling and slowly drifting, created an elegant and tranquil temperament, which made time seem to pass very slowly, and even calmed down the irritability in his heart.

This seems to be the reason why the drink has quickly become popular among the upper class and those who need a lot of brain power. Whether it's a feast to relieve hangover or greasy, or a lot of mental work in between, people like to have a drink.

Because it was sought after by the upper class, tea was produced in very small quantities and sold at a very high price, and it was much more expensive than the best and most expensive wines by weight.

The crown prince even heard that officials were discussing the possibility of a luxury tax on tea – the empire's increasingly difficult finances had led them to find ways to expand the source of the tax.

Not much time was coming, and the messenger of Lieutenant Franco-Frank arrived. Lieutenant Frank is an officer of the Crown Prince's Guard, and if you count by kinship, Lieutenant Frank is his nephew, so Lieutenant Frank is one of the closest people to the Crown Prince.

The messenger crown prince also had the impression that he was a servant at Frank's side.

"Your name is Theodore, isn't it?" the crown prince spoke first.

"Yes, Your Highness, you have a good memory. The messenger gave a small compliment.

"Thank you for bringing me the tea. The crown prince looked at the other party's dusty appearance and nodded in gratitude.

"This was brought by the lieutenant to me by the way, I just ran errands. "The Lieutenant salutes you, and has asked me to bring a letter to present to your Highness!"

The crown prince is an unsmiling person, and it is not easy to get a thank you from him. This is not to say that the crown prince is unkind, but that His Royal Highness has always been cold, so that his subordinates dare not be presumptuous.

Wesson took the letter and handed it to the Crown Prince's desk. The crown prince personally opened the letter, quickly read it, and found it a little incredible:

"The Genoese Civil Defense actually wiped out all the werewolves entrenched in the Ultra Mountains?500 werewolves?There are so many!"

The messenger excitedly said, "It's true, Your Highness, I saw it with my own eyes. In my opinion, those werewolves are nothing remarkable, fighting in the plain position, they are no opponent at all, they can't even beat the Genoese. ”

"Franco's letter does not describe it in detail, since you have seen it with your own eyes, then give me a detailed description of the whole process. "Also, don't despise werewolves or Genoese, just as we don't despise rebels made up of farmers and professional hooligans." To despise an opponent is to despise oneself. ”

"Your Highness is taught. The messenger hurriedly made a gesture of obedience, "It starts with the terrible disease of smallpox......

"Wait!" the crown prince called out abruptly, and motioned to his secretary, "Clint, you can find me the Quds Journal five days ago, which I remember about the discovery of smallpox by Genoese scholars. ”

Wesson quickly found the newspaper that the crown prince needed, and the Al-Quds Daily was on the front page, detailing the great discoveries of Nolan, a professor at the University of Poitou.

In the second and third editions, some of the leading scholars of the Holy City analyzed and commented on Professor Nolan's important discovery, all of which praised and vigorously praised this astonishing discovery.

Reading between the lines of these scholars, there is a kind of jealousy and regret, because Sean Connery is a Genoese, otherwise it is likely that such a great achievement was made by their Holy City scholars.

The crown prince suddenly remembered that he had a younger brother, but unfortunately he contracted smallpox and died when he was six years old, and it was because of this that his dear mother was depressed and passed away.

The messenger is a very clever person, otherwise the Frankish family would not let him follow Franco to serve the crown prince, and he introduced the process of Sean's encirclement of the werewolves in great detail and vividly, even the crown prince couldn't help but admire:

"The name of the wizard seems to be worthy of its name. ”

Then he said to his secretary, "Clint, write it down, and if I have the chance, I will meet this viscount." ”

"Yes, Your Highness. ”

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