The villagers near the iron ore field then used the leisurely evening to transport iron ore, when they were lucky, they could run twice a night, and they could run all the taxes of the whole year in 50 days. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The weaving crowds, the bustling night market, the nervous blacksmiths, there is not the slightest hint of pre-war tension in the tower fortress, and the crowd inside does not show the slightest fear that the Kazakhs will break through the fortified fortress.

Alice, the Kazakh envoy who had followed the guards to their bedrooms, stopped, and stood in the corridor high above the castle to see the bustling scene below, the sky glowing red with the continuous light of the fires below.

"Who are these people? What are they doing down there? ”

Looking at the scene of the hustle and bustle inside the outer walls of the castle, Alice did not expect to see this scene in this well-defended fortress, which did not look like a heavily guarded fortress at all, but more like a bustling medium-sized town.

This time, Alice, who served as the envoy, was not only the envoy of the negotiations, but also the task of reconnoitring the defense of the fortress.

"The world is big, and the food is the biggest!"

Kazakh agents had already figured out that several large grain-producing regions in the south of the empire were transporting large quantities of grain to the fortress, and it was conservatively estimated that the grain piled up in the fortress could exceed a million stones, enough to feed all the Kazakh troops for two years.

For Alice, who is in urgent need of food, Zhao Hu, who has occupied so much food, is a big customer, as long as he can exchange one-third of the food from his hands, he can let all the Kazakhs return to the steppe without going hungry.

Alice found that the former dilapidated tower fortress had been re-fortified by the Roman Empire, and the 10,000 or so defenders mentioned in the spy newspaper were still conservatively estimated.

Looking at the large military camp below, which covers an area of nearly two miles, and the numerous ranks of soldiers walking back and forth, Alice thinks that there are at least about 15,000 people. If you count the peasants and merchants who stayed in the fortress, the strength of the fortress will definitely exceed the 20,000 mark.

Twenty thousand! Almost two-thirds of the total number of Kazakh invasion troops, and the soldiers are all well-dressed in chain mail, even when drinking, they do not forget to put their weapons within the range of their own access at any time, and the weapons glow red under the light of nearby torches.

Despite the hustle and bustle below, there were still dozens of soldiers patrolling the neighborhood in an orderly manner, and Alice knew from this that these were not ordinary peasant soldiers, but well-trained professional soldiers.

Alice secretly weighed in her heart, without more than 15,000 elite Kazakh soldiers, the thought of capturing this well-guarded, heavily guarded fortress was simply a fool's dream, and it had to be the most elite steel-armored warriors.

The main force of the Kazakhs was already mired in the siege of the imperial capital, and it was simply impossible to draw extra troops to storm a heavily guarded fortress.

Even a cavalry corps stationed in the town of Hittelu was only brought by Alice from the royal court, and the Kazakh king had a strict order that even if all his people were cut down by the fortress side, that legion must not attack the fortress without authorization, because it was a cavalry unit that the Kazakh royal court last guarded.

This is also the helpless background of Alice's negotiation here, if there were tens of thousands of elite soldiers in hand, the Kazakhs would have already begun to attack the tower, and there would still be negotiations with the tower fortress.

Alice, who was full of confidence, did not expect that Zhao Hu, the iron tower with a large amount of food in his hand, did not have any sense of redemption, but put on a rogue face that only recognized money, which made Alice, who was responsible for the heavy responsibility, feel a headache.

The Kazakhs robbed a lot of money when they went south this time, but most of it was in the hands of the king of the left guard, who was responsible for outflanking the outflanking, and some of it fell into the hands of Prince Hasas, the deputy commander of the royal court guard, and finally remained in the hands of the royal court guard for a maximum of 600,000 yuan.

The royal court attaches more importance to the number of captives in his hands, that is the golden lump that can be exchanged for a large amount of gold coins, instead of marching with heavy belongings, it is better to follow the golden lumps who can walk on their own.

However, Alice now finds that the royal court is wrong, the emperor of the Roman Empire is surrounded by himself like an iron bucket, and the 200,000 defenders of the Roman Empire are worse than the Kazakhs, and it is said that they have reached the point of cannibalism, and it is impossible to take out food.

The Iron Tower Fortress, which controlled the food, was not interested in these captives at all, which made the more than 100 noble captives useless waste except for consuming the little food they had.

Zhao Hu did not know that the pride of the Kazakhs, the news that the famous son of the eagle had fallen in the Sodalai Mountains in the south of the empire three months ago had caused a lot of shock among the Kazakh leadership.

The central radicals, led by the Emperor Zuowei, believed that the mountainous and hilly southern part of the country was not conducive to large-scale cavalry warfare, that it was easy to be ambushed by the cunning Roman Empire, and that attacking the south was itself a wrong plan, and that Prince Hasas, who now advocated going south, confirmed this speculation with his own life.

At the suggestion of King Zuowei, who advocated the capture of the central region, the royal court had to abandon the plan of dividing troops to the south and concentrate his forces to advance into the central part of the country, which led to the bloody siege of the imperial capital.

If Zhao Hu of the Iron Tower knew that it was his own unintentional move that made the Kazakhs abandon this possible plan to conquer the entire Roman Empire, I don't know what he would think.

Alice knew from the Roman Imperial Army that she had intercepted two months ago that her nemesis, Prince Hasas, had died at the hands of the obscene Zhao Hu of the Iron Tower.

And now judging from the construction situation inside the tower fortress, it is estimated that a large amount of property plundered by Hashas has not escaped the clutches of this dead Zhao Hu, and he can't help frowning, and his face is blue and scolding: "Hashas, a big fool, has been busy for half a year, and he actually picked up a cheap Zhao Hu who can't help but be weak, it is really a shame for the Kazakhs!" ”

If you want money, you want food, and you still have tens of thousands of elite troops in your hands, if you are afraid of it, you will not care about the life or death of the captured nobles. Alice sighed secretly in her heart, this mission is really not easy!

"Those are the refugees who have been settled by my family and the merchants who have come with the army, they are always so enthusiastic, such trade activities usually continue until dawn, I hope these people will not disturb the rest of the envoy?" The guard who led the way saw the sadness on Alice's face, and thought that he had offended the envoy, so he quickly replied respectfully.

"Merchant? Why are these merchants in the fortress? Hearing the guard's explanation, Alice's face became even more confused.

"Our adults say that the army needs food, weapons, and supplies, and these merchants can provide us with these things we need, and we can also hand over the things we don't need or the spoils of war to these merchants to deal with, which is a matter of killing two birds with one stone, and can save us a lot of unnecessary expenses!"

"Grain? Defending the city? Merchant? Dealing with loot? Whenever you need it, when you need it, you need it at any time Transporting it yourself? What do you mean? Alice struggled to connect the dots in her head, and her mind became a mess.

That night, Alice in the dream saw arrowheads, stones, and rolling logs raining down on her army from the towering walls of the iron tower, and groups of merchants risking the arrows to carry all kinds of materials to the city towers, and the materials for defending the city increased compared to the previous one, and the corpses of the Kazakh warriors under her command were higher than the city walls. 、

A river of blood flowed out of the bright red human blood under his feet, and an extremely obscene Zhao Hu was holding the meat crumbs in his teeth with a small wooden stick in his hand, standing on the city wall with a contemptuous face and smiling at himself.

"Ahh

This unbelievable scene caused Alice to let out a crisp scream, and she sat up only to realize that she had a nightmare.

"A garrison can get supplies from suppliers at any time, is this battle still going to be fought?" Alice muttered to herself, got up and came to the window of the castle, pushed open the wooden window frame, and there was a noisy entertainment outside the window, suddenly a night breeze blew, Alice felt a chill behind her, touched it with her white hand, and the cold sweat wet the clothes on her back.

The next day, negotiations on grain were still in the halls of the tower.

"Except for the captive, we can talk about other conditions! I am a kind person, I believe that there is nothing in this world that cannot be exchanged, it just depends on whether you have this value. ”

Alice saw Zhao Hu, who had just finished breakfast, walking in with a satisfied stomach, picking his teeth with a toothpick in his hand, and a smirk from last night's dream.

Seeing that the beautiful Alice had arrived in the hall before him, Zhao Hu, who had led his subordinates in, bent over with an embarrassed face, made a noble hand-holding salute, and sat on the chair arranged in advance.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't expect Miss Alice to come so early, although our two countries are now hostile, but after all, you are a guest of our Tower, and it is very rude to let guests wait for the host in our Roman Empire, in order to express the apologies of our Tower people, we are willing to reduce the original price by one percent, I hope Miss Alice will not refuse."

Zhao Hu not only did not blush when he told a lie, but his face was sincere, hearing that Zhao Hu was willing to reduce the original price by one-tenth, Alice, who had a straightforward personality, almost jumped up with joy, and found that this dead Zhao Hu was not a philistine lord who only recognized money as he thought.

Just to apologize to herself, she was willing to reduce the amount of food by 100,000 gold coins, and she also saluted like herself in a chivalrous manner, which made Alice's heart feel a strange sweet feeling, fluttering like in the clouds.