It's been forty-six days.

Baron Sunderland sat quietly on his own single bed, facing the wall, counting the notches on the wall from beginning to end, and then from tail to end.

He had been in this cell for forty-six days.

As one of the nobles of the South who had risen in response to Count Hossman, he knew that he was lucky to be one of the first nobles to be close to Count Hossman's ranks, so he narrowly escaped the bombardment on Gravel Ridge, and then, also because of his low title, he was left behind by the large army as he fled, and became one of the first nobles to be captured by the Cecil, but suffered less from the ordeal of fleeing day and night in the wilderness.

But he doesn't know how long his "luck" will last.

The rout of the aristocratic coalition seemed to have been the event of the last century, and that exhilarating but tragic expedition had now become a nightmare that had been deliberately avoided but replayed in his mind, and Baron Sunderland knew that all the nobles in the South, except for the Cecil family and a few who had pledged their allegiance to Cecil in advance, were finished—although he had a slight illusion when he was first imprisoned in this cell, fantasizing that Cecil would lose the ensuing battle. and finally reached a deadlock reconciliation with the nobles of the south, but what he finally waited for was one new "cellmate" after another-

Familiar faces were thrown into the cells, each representing a new land in the hands of the Cecil, and when more than half of the nobles in the south appeared in the "prisoner of war camp", the Viscount of Sunderland accepted the fact that there would be no turning point.

Now, like all the other noble captives, he could only stay quietly in this cell, waiting for that Gawain?? Duke Cecil summoned himself one day to give a definite result.

There was a commotion from the cell next door.

Baron Sunderland raised his head, and saw that his "cellmate" Viscount Trier, who was locked in the same room as him, also raised his head, and the two of them listened attentively to the movement in the cell next door, and after a while, they looked at each other, and shook their heads helplessly and smiled bitterly.

"Those who were captured from the Rock Fortress," said Viscount Trier with a wry smile, "it seems that they are not used to the 'rules' here. ”

"We were the same at the beginning," Baron Sunderland also smiled wryly, "listen—they demanded that the guards salute them, and that they demanded wine and pillows, and even stressed the question of ransom...... It's been a long time since I've heard that. ”

The men who lived in the next cell had only been locked in the other day, they were from the Rock Fortress, and Baron Sunderland had thought that they had escaped the Cecil and returned to their respective territories, but now he realized that they had only taken refuge in the fortress to the north.

These new "cellmates" brought startling news to the noble captives in the camp, and according to their accounts, the Rock Fortress had fallen - the legendary fortress had held out for less than two days under the onslaught of the Cecil.

According to some accounts, the real attack lasted only about half a day, and two days was counting the time when the Cecil people were encamped.

Baron Sunderland has been here for forty-six days, and he has settled in and accepted the status quo, but it is clear that it will take some time for those who have just come in to figure it out.

When the commotion in the cell next door finally ended, Viscount Trier asked, "What do you think of Gawain??" What exactly does Duke Cecil want? ”

"Perhaps the unconditional allegiance of all the nobles of the South, just as allegiance to the King," Baron Sunderland said his guess, "and we can already see that he was in fact the one who pushed for this war from beginning to end, and that he clearly wanted to take back what belonged to him - that the Southland would become the Duchy of Cecil again." ”

“…… Duchy of Cecil," Viscount Trier was silent for a moment and sighed, "I thought so after he didn't ask for a ransom for a long time. ”

Baron Sunderland grunted: "It could have been worse......"

Viscount Trier wanted to ask what the other meant by "worse", but before he could speak, he was interrupted by the sound of boots on the concrete floor—the cell door opened, and Cecil soldiers in magical armor stood in the doorway, saying in a cold tone, "The Duke is going to see you." ”

The Baron of Sunderland and the Viscount of Trier raised their heads abruptly and looked at each other in surprise and surprise:

After waiting for so long in fear and confusion, that Gawain?? Is Cecil finally going to summon the nobles of the South?!

……

In Cecil City, in the lounge next to the large conference hall of the government hall, Gawain was waiting leisurely, and next to him were Hetty and Amber, who were not quiet at all.

"Hey, hey, do you think those nobles will be persuaded by you?" Amber glanced at the stack of papers on the table next to her, and couldn't help but lean in front of Gawain, "These things are almost terrible for them—"

"Is it okay to pay a little attention to the rules and etiquette?" Hetty frowned and couldn't help but speak, "This is in the government hall, you must at least be conscious......"

Amber crossed her waist and said, "I'm paying attention, didn't you see me even coming in through the door just now?" ”

The occasional bickering between the two was already commonplace, and Gawain directly ignored these, but said unhurriedly: "Persuasion? I wasn't going to talk to them, and the choice was not in their hands. ”

"To tell you the truth, why don't you just send them all to the mines, dig straight into the rocks until they die, and pull them out so that they can 'voluntarily' give up their noble privileges," Amber said puzzled, "Anyway, their territory has been taken by you, their army has been destroyed by you, and even their people are already locked up in your cell......

Gawain smiled and shook his head, then looked at Hetty: "Hetty, you explain it to her." ”

Hetty glanced at Amber helplessly, although he didn't want to deal with the shame of this elf, but the elders still had to listen: "The population migration and new urban construction projects proposed by the ancestors are underway, and at present, the renovation and construction of Hossmann City, Leslie City, Gülen City, and Kant City are all entering a new stage, but with the continuous concentration of the population and the continuous implementation of new decrees, the resistance from various places is gradually revealed.

"The three districts of Leslie, Gülen, and Kant fared better, and the greatest resistance came from the Hossman region, and almost all the old aristocratic domains outside of these four new towns.

"The legacy of the collapse of the old aristocracy is still there, and it is quite tricky, many of the local rich peasants are still suspicious of the new lord, and a considerable number of local scholars and merchants are still supporting the old lord, or simply the 'personal belonging' of the old lord, and it is very difficult for the second-level government office to recruit people in those areas, and at the same time there are many obstacles to the transformation of commerce.

"In the western region of Pebo and in the northern part of the Carol region, some of the exiled knights and nobles have been converted into bandits, they do not dare to approach the garrison of the Cecil legion, but they will frequently raid the countryside, and due to the limited manpower of the Cecil legion, the strangulation of these exiled knight bandits is not satisfactory. To make matters worse, some of the Knights in exile in the Northwest are approaching Luan City, and they may be transformed into the armed forces of Luan Cathedral. ”

Amber's eyes widened: "And exiled knights and noble soldiers?!" Aren't they all killed or caught!? ”

"Seventy thousand, running around on the plains, there will always be those who slip through the net," Gawain shook his head, "and the 70,000 people that Hossman pulled up at the beginning can't be all the aristocratic army itself, each nobleman must leave at least a few knights and soldiers in his castle to guard the door, right?" After the news of the rout of the noble coalition returned, the more astute of the remaining knights ran away almost immediately, and they became exiled knights. ”

"What a trouble...... Amber was furious when she heard about this kind of thing, "it won't take you a few days to defeat the South, so why is it more troublesome to maintain order than to take down the entire South......"

"Governance itself is more difficult than occupation," Gawain glanced at Amber, "I will pull you off the windowsill for a second, but after more than a year, won't you still jump out of the window and enter the house?" ”

Amber: "...... Hey, I'm messing with you......"

Gawain ignored Amber's protest and just said to himself: "All these troubles we are encountering are indeed very tricky, and some of them, if not handled properly, may even lead to regression and repetition in the construction of our new order, and some of these troubles will last for a long time, maybe even a whole generation or two...... But I'm not worried at all. ”

There were many footsteps from the next hall, and Gawain smiled and stood up.

"Except for the problems that must be solved by time, such as the difficulty of changing folk customs and the difficulty of cultivating people's hearts, most of the other problems are actually focused on those nobles and the traditional order they maintain, and I am the origin of those nobles and traditional order."

The attendant stood in front of the door of the Great Council and shouted in a loud and powerful voice—

"Guardian of the South, Pioneer of Ansu, Founder of the Kingdom, Ruler of the Duchy of Cecil, Gawain?? Grand Duke Cecil to—"

Sitting at the long table in the large conference hall, their faces full of anxiety, the southern nobles who were still whispering a moment ago closed their mouths almost at the same time, as if dozens of invisible hands were stuck in their necks at the same time, making these people raise their heads neatly and turn in the direction of the hall door.

They craned their necks like dozens of funny ducks.

Gawain, dressed in a black duke's coat, walked into the hall, he looked at the southern nobles who were stretching their necks on both sides of the long table - these people had been deliberately hung in the prisoner camp by him for a long time, and the longest had even been in it for more than forty days, except for a few people who had just been captured from the Rock Fortress, the remaining nobles had already been greatly frustrated, and the moment he saw their eyes, Gawain knew that today's affairs would be easy.

The aristocrats got up one after another, and although they had been in prison for dozens of days, the ceremonial actions engraved in their muscle memory still allowed them to complete the most standard salute process almost instinctively.

Gawain calmly accepted the salute of these losers, and strode to the head of the conference table, he did not politely say any nonsense, but waved his hand to the clerk who followed behind him: "Send it to them." ”

The two clerks, holding dozens of documents in their hands, began to distribute them to each of the nobles present, who watched the scene in amazement and curiosity, and even had the audacity to whisper about it—a very different process from the "summons" they had expected, and this "Cecil-style" rule left them at a loss.

The nobles who received the documents immediately turned their attention to the prints in front of them: they first noticed the incredible uniformity of the prints, the impeccable precision of every character, every line of text, and every segment that even the best engraver could not have carved such plates, but soon their curiosity about the "prints" was dispelled by the specific contents of the documents.

The nobles who saw the contents of the document all showed shocked expressions.