The low-rise housing area in the west of Besançon is a refuge for the poor who live at the lowest level of the city.

In a long-vacant hut, five or six men in shabby clothes and muddy faces gathered around a campfire boiling vegetables and wheat paste.

A man dressed as a laborer stirred a few times in the copper pot with a wooden stick, fished out a few piles of unsold cabbage leaves, and then threw the wooden stick and lost his appetite, "Otherwise, you will sell bacon and dried fish instead, and eat these rotten vegetable leaves that can't be sold every day, and I will almost vomit when I smell the vegetable leaves." ”

Stanley glared at the complaining man, "How about I get you some honey-white bread with tapenade and podol wine?" ”

"This~There's no need for this~ This is a slum, wine and meat are easy to reveal their identity, just green vegetables and wheat paste is very good~" The man heard Stanley's angular words, immediately stopped complaining, and immediately picked up the wooden stick and continued to stir.

Stanley withdrew his gaze and continued to say to Oliver: "We can't go on like this, it's been three whole days, and we can't even set foot in the side door of the Earl's Court."

Oliver was the shorter vendor who was selling vegetables across the side door from the Earl's Palazzo Bernard's mansion, and their original intention was to approach the back kitchen as a vegetable vendor and even become a vegetable supplier to the Earl's Palace.

However, this time Oliver did not have the same good luck as selling firewood in Thorne City, and took his men to sell outside the mansion for two days, and the kitchen staff of the Earl's Mansion did not even look at it, and in the end, Oliver spent two copper coins and learned from a servant who went out that the Earl's Mansion of Bernard never buys any food from strange vendors, and there are designated vendors in the kitchen who have made a special trip to purchase "absolutely assured" materials for the Earl's Court.

A plan to break into the kitchen and act in the name of a greengrocer was aborted.

"Otherwise, if we think of other ways to enter the mansion, if we can't do it, we will pay a lot of money to buy off the servants in the back kitchen and let them bring things in." Oliver proposes to carry out the conspiracy by bribing the servants of the Earl's Court.

"It's not safe, not to mention whether it can be sold or not, even if you buy it, you can rest assured that others will do this kind of thing? It's better to have our own people in there. Stanley dismissed Oliver's suggestion.

Before the two could discuss deeply, someone knocked on the wooden door.

"What's going on? How come there is no alarm at the sentry post of Wài Wéi! Stanley pulled out a crossbow pinned to the inside of his belt and wound it to the door, and several other people also scattered, each pulling out a short knife bǐ shǒu and other weapons.

"I'm Redbeard, the Scarlet Tomahawk." A soft greeting came from outside the door.

When everyone heard that it was Redbeard coming, their guards were lowered, no wonder there was no alarm at the sentry post.

The man by the door opened the wooden door, and a man in a black hooded cloak with a completely covered face walked in, and lifted the hood to reveal a chubby face covered with a red beard.

"Redbeard, why are you here?" Before going out, Art repeatedly emphasized that he should respect the Hawkeye leader, so Stanley spoke with respect.

This Redbeard is the tavern owner who was beaten into a pig's head by Angus because he asked for more of Art's "arrears", but Angus, who was born in Besançon, and Redbeard have been neighbors since childhood, and they know each other's roots, and their relationship is not shallow.

Angus sobers up drunk, and Art begins to assemble an intelligence network, after which Angus personally finds Besançon and develops the fat man into one of Art's Hawkeye leaders in the Northlands.

Redbeard took advantage of the tavern's large number of people and his unique ability to climb as a merchant to provide a lot of information for Art to collect.

Of course, he also gained a lot of money and goods because of this.

Redbeard, who had always been smiling, entered the room without his usual smiling face, nodded to Stanley, and sat down on a stone by the campfire.

"I heard you sell vegetables outside the Count Bernard's mansion?" Redbeard asked.

"Yes."

"Although the secret letter I have given me does not mention all of your plans, I have already guessed the purpose of your trip. If you're going to poison the kitchen or stab you in the mansion, it's useless. Redbeard's tone was solemn.

"Mr. Redbeard, why is this~?" Stanley asked.

"The Count of Bernard is a cunning old fox, and it is impossible for an outsider to enter their mansion, even the back kitchen. Even if you can get in, it's useless, the guards in the mansion are a hundred times stricter than you think, and if you want to assassinate, it is estimated that your weapons will have already landed before they are unsheathed. As for poisoning or something, it is almost impossible, there are servants in the Earl's Mansion who specialize in testing poison, and the food eaten by Bernard will be given to the servants to try the day in advance, and there are also special poison-making doctors to test Bernard."

The Stanley crowd gasped, they could not have imagined that Bernard had been so cunning.

"Mr. Redbeard, how do you know this?" Oliver asked.

Redbeard's face was colorful, "As early as the beginning of the formation of Besançon's Eagle Eye, the Lord gave me a secret order to send people into the Count of Bernard, although our people never got in, but I caught a steward in the Count Bernard's mansion, and now we have become "friends", of course, these news came out of his drunken mouth. ”

Stanley and Oliver's eyes lit up.

"I know what you're trying to say, it can't be. That guy is a drunkard and greedy, but he's never going to do that, and I'm not going to put this eyeliner at risk, which costs a lot of money and energy. Redbeard rejects the two of them's unblurted plans.

Stanley and Oliver were a little frustrated in an instant, and the hidden poisoning and assassination in the mansion would not work, and they couldn't go back empty-handed.

Redbeard didn't just come to hit Stanley and his party, he coughed softly twice, and said, "I have a plan that may succeed, but I don't know if you have the guts to do it." And I also have a small condition. ”

"Plan?"

"Condition!"

Stanley and Oliver asked.

"Mr. Redbeard, we don't have a lot of military expenses for this operation, don't count on us if you need a lot of money." Oliver said with a pout.

Redbeard laughed, "If I need money, I will naturally apply to the adults, and I will not ask you for it." ”

"And your conditions~?"

"I hope you will add my name when you report after the war, so that I can also take credit for it."

"This~ What's the use of this?" Stanley and Oliver couldn't see what Redbeard's move would do.

The Count of Burgundy was already in turmoil, and as the Hawkeye leader of the Northlands, Redbeard was getting more and more news, and this task force suddenly went north to carry out a mission that gave him a premonition that the Northlands were about to become a chaotic land.

Redbeard has a wife and children, and he wants to escape from the whirlpool of trouble, so he needs to be qualified enough to propose to Art to move his family south to avoid trouble and get protection from Art, and Red Beard is also very interested in Art's growing trade in southern goods

Stanley and Oliver turned their heads and muttered a few words, then turned around and replied, "No problem, we promise you."

Receiving an affirmative answer from Stanley and Oliver, Redbeard beckoned the two of them, and the three heads came together

On a hill beside a delicate farm estate outside the northern city of Besançon, a tightly wrapped red-bearded man led Stanley and his men to lie down in the grass half a man deep, looking out at a plump lady with heavy makeup who had been helped out of the farm mansion by a servant.

Redbeard pointed to the plump lady at the bottom of the hill and said to Stanley, "That woman is the Earl of Bernard's new qíng fù, the farmer's woman."

The skinny monkey named the locksmith beside Stanley laughed lewdly, "This woman's breasts are almost on the ground." I heard that Bernard is in his fifties, and the old guy should not be killed by the giant of qíng fù. ”

Stanley slapped the locksmith on the head with his backhand, "Think of something useless." ”

Redbeard also laughed twice, and continued: "Bernard's old fox does have a different appetite, his qíng fù are all like this, this woman is the biggest, and Bernard comes the most."

"The Countess of Bernard is a thin old woman from a French aristocracy, dry and deflated, and I guess that's why that old fellow of Bernard has a soft spot for big fat women."

"Can you find out when Bernard came to meet Qíng Fù? I guess Bernard won't swagger over with his retinue of guards. ”

"Bernard comes here twice a month, on the first Friday and the third Saturday, and each time he comes at noon and leaves in the evening."

Stanley turned his head to stare at Redbeard incredulously, "How do you know in such detail, can you still follow Bernard?" ”

Redbeard pointed to another middle-aged man who came out of the peasant mansion and said, "That man is the farmer, and every time Bernard goes to the farm to find his wife for a "secret talk", he will go to Besançon City to get drunk, and by the way, find a Yingyan to comfort himself. The wine in my tavern may not be the best in town, but my girls are certainly the most soothing. ”

"What a wreck! His wife had a secret meeting, but he himself hid in the city to buy a drunken girl. Oliver glanced with disdain at the lean farmer down the hill.

"Deputy steward, you don't understand this, that guy is not a wreck, he used a fat woman to exchange a lot of benefits from the Earl of Bernard, and there is a southern goods shop in the city that the Count gave him." Redbeard actually had a hint of envy, and if his wife was plump enough, he would be willing to send it to Bernard in exchange for a share of the family business.

"Since you can feel the time of Bernard's coming, let's start preparing"