At the end of 1668, all the lords of the Eight Great Knights Hall gathered in Arthur's palace and began to report on the implementation of the "Knight Training Program" for that year.

In the process of reporting, Arthur's nephew Gao Wen first sang a hymn: "After a year of hard work by His Excellency the Grand Duke, coupled with the cooperation of the Eight Knights' Palace, the security of the Madeira civic area and the civilian area is improving day by day, although this year's tax report has not yet been counted, but it can be predicted that it will increase, which is all the credit of His Royal Highness Arthur." ”

However, in addition to the hymns, there are also people who raise troubles, and the knight who raised the troubles is Lancelot, in the development of 1668, Lancelot's knight's hall deservedly became the best developed knight's hall, and even the surrounding security is also the best, and even Lancelot has vaguely become the second only person in the knights after Arthur.

"Before making a report, I sorted it out with others and thought that there are two main problems in the Knights' Hall now, one is that those villains are gradually fleeing to the slums, which makes the security in the slums worse day by day, affecting the civilian areas, and the other is that the operation of the Knights' Hall is too expensive, and it is not a way to go on like this. ”

Hearing Lancelot mention the slums, the images he occasionally saw when he passed by the slums immediately appeared in front of Arthur.

I remember that as a knight, I went to inspect a civilian area where the knight's hall was located to observe how the situation was. When he set out, the guards of the Grand Duke's Mansion were still full of complaints, and kept shouting that Arthur should not go to the civilian quarters.

It is true that patrolling the civilian area is not a good memory, and every time after patrolling the civilian area, he will be covered in mud and sometimes step on dirt, but Arthur still meticulously implements it.

Because every time Arthur heard the civilians in the civilian area blessing him, Arthur's mood would be happy, this is his own people! The knight apprentices of the other knights' hall can take root here, why can't they themselves? Do you want to become a different person?

Therefore, even if the usual government affairs are hard and tiring, Arthur must spare a certain amount of time every three days, sometimes with people, sometimes alone, to fulfill the obligations of knighthood, punish the evil and promote the good, and help the weak.

However, it was during his patrols in the civilian area that Arthur came into contact with the slums, which in fact would be more appropriate to call them.

It was a purgatory-like place (the place where the gods were said to punish the wicked, unlike hell), and the "houses" were dense rows of low, wooden sheds less than a meter high, which Arthur might have had to bend down to squeeze into, and the entire slum was made up of such wooden sheds.

The conditions in the slum were also extremely harsh, and when Arthur was still about ten meters away from the slum, he was smoked back a few steps by a stench. Why do slums stink so much? Because Madeira's sewer outlet is here, and the garbage heaps and manure pits are all here, so naturally it stinks.

What frightened Arthur even more was the people in the slums, the poor people, in that brief contact, Arthur only saw two types of people in the slums, one was the poor with cunning eyes, the sinister eyebrows, and the scabies, and the other was the poor who were stupid and ignorant, like a piece of rotten wood.

After seeing the slums a few times, Arthur stayed away from the slums, so the distribution of the eight knights' halls was evenly separated from the slums.

In Arthur's view, the land of the slums is sinful, so the people who grow there are also evil people, and Arthur's second part after the eradication of the villain's guild is expected to eradicate the slums, whether it is to settle in the mines or migrate to the border, it is much better than staying in the slums.

"Can people live in a place like a slum?" Arthur, who came back to his senses from his memories, asked, "Those villains are not badly fed and clothed, and are they willing to run to a place like that in the slums?"

"Your Highness, don't you know, the slums are actually divided into high and low, and there are also high and low," the person who reported was still Lancelot, and it was obvious that he had done some research before the meeting, so under Arthur's encouraging gaze, Lancelot continued.

"How do you distinguish between the high and low in the slum? The way to distinguish the high and low is to go into the wooden shed and look for the basement, and if there is a basement, it means that it is the master of the slum. ”

"The slums also have their own guilds, with a series of names such as the slums' guilds and the gangs of villains, and most of them are bound by the guilds of the villains in the civilian areas and civic areas, so after the guilds of the villains are attacked, they run to the slums, probably to find the gang they are detaining. ”

Arthur thought for a while and asked, "Then you said that the villains would run into the slums, and it was the strong dragon that did not suppress the head snake,"

With a bang, Arthur's conversation was interrupted by the sound of the door being slammed, and a messenger ran over panting to deliver an urgent military situation: "Grand Duke Arthur I! Frontier Emergency! The Gorissa and the anti-tax mob are in league and have begun to raid the border towns on a large scale! The military urgency is special level 3!"

There are seven levels of urgency in the Duchy of Merochu, the seventh level is a mob rebellion, the sixth level is a town rebellion, the fifth level is a border invasion, the fourth level is a civil war between the nobility, the third level is the civil war of the Merochou family, the second level is a royal attempt to cut the feudal domain or a foreign invasion, and the first level is the "Third East Coast War".

It stands to reason that a normal border invasion belongs to the fifth level, but since it has been reported as a special third level, it means that the scale and destructive power of this border invasion are very large, so that it needs to be specially upgraded to the third level.

When it was learned that the third-level military information had been transmitted, Arthur immediately announced the adjournment: "Adjourn the meeting now! There will still be some time before I deal with the military situation and officially send out the troops, and we will postpone the meeting until that time." ”

The so-called Gorissa people are actually barbarian villagers of the Gosamo. The barbarian mercenaries recruited by Sharo in the war were called Gomana, and the Goshog people, where Suriver was located, belonged to the same kind as a thousand years ago.

After the formation of the Gosamour group, the Gomana people near the Goshamo people gradually separated from the Gomana people in the west, and formed an independent Gorisa people in the late 14th century.

As for the concept of the "anti-tax mob", which is a name imposed by the aristocracy on those citizens who refuse to serve and pay taxes, it can be said that it has a long history, and it has not disappeared with time, but the number of this group has become more and more numerous. And these "anti-tax mobs" were also deeply hated by the aristocracy, and they used all words to insult them.

In this invasion, the two forces converged, the Gorisa were barbarians with a fighting spirit that was not afraid of death, and the "anti-tax mob" was very familiar with the Duchy of Merochu, which was not an easy battle.

As a result, Arthur mobilized the armies of various nobles and prepared to launch a severe blow against the invading barbarians, and the nobles also agreed with Arthur's decision, and the elders of the Duchy of Melocho made a death order: "The third war on the east coast is not far off, and the power of the barbarians and mobs must be severely suppressed before the war breaks out!"

As a vassal loyal to the king, he sent a report to King Gosamodo while recruiting at home. A few days later, the instructions of the king of Gosamodor also reached Madeira: "Allow a large-scale military movement of the Duchy of Merochou, and send three thousand troops to the aid of it." ”

As a region with a high degree of autonomy, the Principality of Merochu enjoys the right to freely change personnel, the right to levy taxes, and the right to reduce and reduce taxes, so naturally it will have to pay some price. Therefore, unless the first two levels of military situation occur, the military operations faced by the Duchy of Merochu need to be handled by themselves, and they must not turn to the royal family of Gosamoredo, and this time Arthur can get some military support, or for the sake of Liao Dekuan II is his father-in-law.

"Your Excellency, I have some thoughts about this military situation," Lancelot approached Arthur before the meeting, "I think this barbarian invasion is so menacing, and the actions of our knights' hall have a lot to do with it." ”

Arthur quickly understood what Lancelot meant, but because of this, he couldn't believe what Lancelot said, and he gritted his teeth to contain his anger and asked, "Are you sure?

Lancelot nodded: "Eighty percent sure." Your Highness Arthur I, do you remember the two major troubles that the Knights' Palace faced the other day? The second trouble is that the operating capital consumption is too large, and it cannot make ends meet. ”

Obviously, although Arthur is the Grand Duke of the Duchy of Merochou, he can't be too partial and tilt all his resources to the Knights' Palace. For more than a year, Arthur Pass has spent a lot of money on the purchase of land to build the Eight Knights' Palace, not to mention the follow-up maintenance costs, training costs, publicity costs, and the costs of doing good deeds.

In the early days, it was only by personal donations, and those naïve and kind nobles, such as Arthur, did not even have a dowry from Gnavier, and all of them invested in the construction of the Knights' Palace. In addition, there is a wave of funds, which are donations from the citizens, especially those whose children are selected to become knightly apprentices.

The largest source of funds was the increase in taxes after the improvement of law and order, and Arthur raised funds from the treasury of the Duchy of Merochu to support the construction on the grounds that these taxes could be collected because of the existence of the Knights' Palace. This means that although the Knight's Hall helped to increase the tax, the increased tax was filled into the construction of the Knight's Palace.

Finally, Lancelot concluded: "After the start of the war, the income of the Knights will definitely shrink greatly, and if there is an influx of refugees into Madeira, the Knights will have to provide assistance, in which case the Knights' Hall will be even more dangerous." ”

Therefore, at the last meeting of the Knights of the Round Table before Arthur's expedition, Arthur said to the eight knights who remained behind: "After staying behind, you will listen to Lancelot, and I will appoint Lancelot as the temporary Knight Captain, responsible for the care of the Knights of the Round Table in my absence, do you have any opinion?"

Gawain was the first to speak, and he said with a look of indignation: "Why is Lancelot the Temporal Knight Captain? Don't forget that Lancelot is Bonvay Leean."

Arthur sharply interrupted Gawain's speech:

"Knight Gawain, don't forget that you are a knight! Is there any connection between Lancelot's appointment as temporary knight captain and the fact that he is the son of the Bonwai Leon clan?

"No, no," Gawain suppressed his voice, though still resentful.

Seeing that there was no objection, Arthur asked Lancelot to stand up and handed him the scabbard Avalon: "The scabbard represents the guard, Lancelot, and you will guard the knight's hall while I am away." ”

Lancelot knelt down on one knee and respectfully accepted the Avalon from Arthur's hand. Avalon did not have any rejection of Lancelot, which shows that Lancelot was still a noble knight. After taking Avalon, Lancelot replied respectfully: "Yes, my lord, I will eradicate the darkness of Madeira!"