All sorts of clean-up and straight-out work is left to those behind. Bailucheng is now the largest logistics base in the Pantuo River Valley, where Tianhao has concentrated 200,000 troops and more than 3,000 propagandists (working groups, including political commissars). A huge fleet of inland river boats traveled down the river, constantly coming and going between Tiger Pass, Gangwei City and Bailu City. A large number of prisoners and valuables were brought back, and then a large number of immigrants were brought in, and the rule of the newly occupied areas was fundamentally solidified.

"When you lay down a place, you will stand firmly." This is an order of His Royal Highness the Regent and must be obeyed unconditionally.

The replenishment of the fleet lasted more than two hours. The main thing is the replenishment of shells and the replacement of damaged guns. Six cannons were damaged by recoil strikes and overheating of the barrels during the battle, and the ships were resupplied by transport, and the sailors and gunners also took the time to eat and rest. As night fell, Stormtooth issued a new order.

"Anchor, target Iron Jaw City!"

……

Tiger territory, capital, Bloodclaw City.

There were hundreds of steps leading to the palace hall, flanked by Tiger Forbidden Army armed with spears and battle axes. The messengers sent by the Tiger Prison Pass traveled day and night, and finally arrived in time for yesterday evening. The Tiger Clan was in an uproar.

Libin is very young, he is twenty-two years old, but he still has three months to go before his birthday. He was handsome and fair-skinned, but he had a burly and muscular physique, especially the muscles bulging from the arms that were exposed on both sides of his sleeveless shirt. In particular, the left arm is branded with a clear and eye-catching thousand-person headprint.

The atmosphere here was very oppressive, not only the Tiger Clan guards standing on both sides of the staircase, but also the entire city was covered with a dense cloud of anger, shock, fear, panic and other emotions.

As a dragon envoy, Li Bin ignored the murderous gaze of the Tiger Clan guards on both sides and strode into the main hall with his head held high.

Today is not the normal time of the Great Dynasty Meeting, Hu Yao first temporarily summoned the important ministers, just to meet the sudden arrival of the Dragon Clan's envoy.

The atmosphere in the main hall became more and more dull, and dozens of pairs of hostile eyes looked over from different directions, focusing on Libin, watching him go straight to the steps under the throne, and knelt down on one knee without hurry, completing the standard diplomatic etiquette between the northern barbarian tribes.

Regardless of the environment or atmosphere, it did not affect Libin. Tiger King Yao sat on the throne first, stared at the young man with a cold gaze, raised his hand and pointed at the other party's forehead, and said viciously: "Kneel down with both feet and kowtow to this king!" ”

Normal diplomatic etiquette is only kneeling, a law that is universally recognized by all chiefs of the clan assembly.

Libin maintained a kneeling posture on one knee, and his expression was calm: "Your Majesty, I am a member of the Dragon Clan, not your people. ”

Only the Tiger people will obey the orders from Hu Yaoxian.

"So, you refuse?" Hu Yaoxian's eyes flashed with a dangerous light.

"Yes." Libin straightened his chest again.

Hu Yao nodded slowly, and in a twisted smirk, he ordered: "Chop off his leg." Since you are not willing to kneel, this king will never make you stand up. ”

Libin did not argue, nor did he beg for mercy. He smiled slightly: "This is your power. But I promise you'll pay for this order. The great regent will avenge me. Not one for one, but for hundreds, if not thousands, of revenge, even the souls of the dead are terrified. ”

Despite the threat, he spoke lightly, as if he were talking about the weather and today's lunch, rather than the bloody life and death.

An armored Tiger Clan leader pointed at Libin and rebuked angrily, "Bold, you dare to speak out in front of Your Majesty. Do you want to die? ”

An auxiliary minister standing on the right side also shook his head and frowned, sneering and sneering: "How could the Niu Clan send such a guy like you who doesn't know the height of the sky as an envoy? It seems that there is no one in the clan after the death of the Ox King! first engaged in the regent who usurped the throne, and then inexplicably changed the Niu clan to the dragon clan...... Hmph, they're all guys who have forgotten their ancestors, a bunch of useless rubbish. ”

More and more people spoke, and there was a lot of discussion in the hall.

Libin's expression remained unchanged, but if you looked closely, you could see that his eyelashes occasionally trembled slightly, and there was still a little sweat oozing from the skin on both sides of his forehead.

Wu Lin kept his eyes on Libin. He shook his head secretly in his heart———— he was still a young man, although he had good quality and had been trained to deal with similar emergencies, he did not have the rich experience of a middle-aged person.

Coughing vigorously, Wu Lin walked out of the crowd, stood side by side with Libin, bowed to Hu Yaoxian on the throne, and said seriously: "Your Majesty, although this person is unreasonable, he is an envoy sent by the Dragon Clan after all. Even if you want to deal with it, you should listen to him first. ”

Wu Lin is no longer the national teacher of the Tiger Clan. In his current capacity, he is not eligible to participate in the Great Pilgrimage. However, the incident happened suddenly, the northern border was in an emergency, and the direction of the Tiger Prison Pass sent messengers day and night to send a meeting to ask for help, and there was no news after that. Hu Yaoxian convened the ministers to discuss before, most of them were the main battle faction, and thought that a mobilization order should be issued immediately, and a large army should be sent to the Tiger Prison Pass to teach those dragon people who don't know the height of the sky and the height of the earth to teach a hard lesson.

In all fairness, Hu Yaoxian also wanted to fight. But after all, he is the Tiger King, he knows more things than the ministers, and he has some secrets that cannot be leaked.

Last year, Red Moon City was defeated, and the outside world only knew that the Niu Clan and the Deer Clan joined forces, and the detailed battle was blocked by Hu Yaoxian's order, and only a very few people, including Wu Lin, knew that the Niu Clan sent a fleet and used artillery in the course of the previous war against the Deer Clan.

If you fight, you must fight, and there has never been a reason for someone else to directly admit defeat and surrender.

The key lies in the understanding and awareness of the war itself.

As long as Hu Yaoxian is willing, he can dispatch millions of troops at any time. This is the biggest characteristic of the northern barbarians, who are both soldiers and farmers, and even strong women can sign signs to join the army to kill the enemy.

An army of millions sounds cool and enjoyable, but the problem that arises is resupply. Their daily consumption of food alone is a huge astronomical amount, not to mention all kinds of messy accessories. Clothing, shoes, oil that must be applied to keep the weapon sharp, whetstones, ropes, and leather bags...... All of these are indispensable. If a general mobilization order is really issued, the huge supply of troops will drive logistics officers crazy.

If you win, everything will be easy to say.

But if they lose, the Tiger Clan is very likely to collapse.

Because of this, how can we control the war to a degree that is acceptable to our side? How many troops should I send? What is the actual endurance limit of the Tiger Clan's logistics...... Tiger King Yaoxian racked his brains and couldn't find the answers to the above questions. As a last resort, he could only order the recall of Wulin to participate in this grand meeting to meet the envoys of the Dragon Clan.

Hu Yao glanced at Wu Lin first, if he wasn't sure that there was no collusion between the other party and the dragon envoy, he was very suspicious, he would probably directly think that there was a conspiracy between the two.

Wu Lin's words were a step, Hu Yao nodded slowly, he still looked at Li Bin with cold eyes: "You are not allowed to stand up, just kneel and say it like this." ”

Libin didn't argue, he opened the leather bag he was carrying cross-body, took out a letter stamped with fire paint, and held it high above his head with both hands. On the throne's side, a Tiger Clan guard walked over to take the letter away, turned around and presented it to Hu Yaoxian.

The content of the letter is very simple, in addition to the beginning and end of the formal model between the ethnic groups, Tianhao makes two demands: first, to cede the entire northern land, including Iron Jaw City. Second, the Tiger Clan compensated the Dragons with 1,000 tons of gold and 5,000 tons of silver.

These precious metals sound like a lot, but they are actually within the normal reserves of the Tiger Clan. The base computers executed fixed programs to recreate humanity after the cataclysm, and long-term memories derived from genes left important information about gold and silver in the depths of people's minds. Although these two metals cannot be eaten or worn, and are not suitable for the manufacture of weapons and armor, their value cannot be understood by barbarians who have not yet fully entered the age of money. The only thing they could do was to look for as many precious metals as they could and put them in the cellar like treasures to keep forever.

White Southerners developed a sense of finance early on. This is partly due to grains, especially potatoes and corn, two high-yielding crops. The abundant food supply has led to a significant increase in the population, which in turn has created a strong material demand. The unlocking of genetic memory is not as difficult as imagined, and with a simple opportunity, people suddenly discover the correctness of currency circulation.

The civilization of the northern barbarians has evolved slowly, and the understanding and use of money is still in a state of ignorance. The Lion King is the most capable of learning among the many upper positions. He felt and understood the meaning of money, and then implemented it throughout the tribe, and wanted to use his personal influence to promote the monetary system to other tribes.

Unfortunately, less successfully.

Over a long period of thousands of years, the collection and storage of precious metals by various tribes has reached an extremely large number. Taking the Niu clan as an example, after Tianhao became the regent, he found more than 8,000 tons of gold in the palace treasury, as well as an extremely large amount of silver. There was no industry based on precious metals in this era. For a long time, they could only be locked in the depths of the treasury with the concept of "precious". Every barbarian knows the preciousness of gold and silver, but no one can say why it is precious.

When he first saw the mountains of gold and silver in Necuri, Tianhao felt a little dazed, and he couldn't help but think of a story he had heard before he went to sleep: it was the first time that the country issued a large banknote with a face value of 100, and a child from a wealthy family took the banknote to the commissary to buy candy. A crook passes by and gets the child's idea. He took out ten dimes and exchanged them with the child, saying, "I'll exchange ten for one of yours." The child looked at him with disdain: "I have *** on this one, do you have yours?" ”

Hu Yao slowly put down the letter paper in his hand and stared at Libin with fierce eyes. At this moment, he released a momentum comparable to that of a beast all over his body, as if he was in a state of hunting, and he could tear his target apart with his sharp teeth at any time.

"How dare you make such a request?" He raised the letter in his hand and let out a palpitating sneer: "You'd better give me a reasonable reason." ”

"The Tiger Clan must compensate the Dragon Clan." Libin was very serious, and he kept a serious diplomatic tone: "You sent people to kill our great master, which is why His Royal Highness the Prince Regent declared war on the Tiger Clan. ”

As soon as these words came out, the atmosphere in the hall became fierce again.

"What do you say? We sent someone to kill the national teacher of the Niu Clan? When did this happen? ”

"It's a slander! That's impossible! ”

"Joke, why should we be responsible for the death of the national teacher of the Niu clan? It's obviously your own internal strife, what does this have to do with us? ”

"Nonsense!"

Wulin has returned to its original position. He didn't participate in the comments, just stood there and watched coldly. To be honest, Wu Lin also despised the young dragon envoy, and although he hadn't read the letter in Hu Yaoxian's hand, he could guess part of the content. What really changed his impression was what he had just said. Of course, not to the messenger Libin, but to the regent who was far away in Black Horn.

The civil strife of the Niu clan has long been spread. Especially last year, through different channels, especially the word of mouth of the merchants who traveled between the various tribes, it had already spread throughout the northern part of the mainland. No matter how complex or intense, it is equivalent to the annual blockbuster of the civilized era———— two princes vendetta against each other, the conspiracy of the princess, and the death of the national teacher...... There was a lot of curiosity about these things, because they involved the royal family, and there were many different versions of the story.

From Tiger King Yaoxian to the ordinary civil officials of Bloodclaw City, no one took these rumors seriously. After all, it happened in a foreign tribe and had nothing to do with the Tiger Clan, even if the rumors were mixed with plots such as "The Tiger Clan conspired with the princess and sent a killer to kill the national teacher of the Niu Clan", no one cared, let alone thought of curbing this rumor.

After all, Wu Lin is experienced, and Li Bin's simple words, he was shocked, and almost immediately figured out the key.

There is no doubt that the source of these rumors is the Niu Clan, which is now the Dragon Clan.

If no one was behind it, it would not have been possible to spread these rumors to the tribes in a short period of time.

It is precisely because everyone treats these rumors as jokes and never takes them seriously, so there is no official countermeasure.

Now, retribution has come.

Wu Lin, who figured out the joints, couldn't help but gasp. He lowered his hands and looked at the dragon envoy with a complicated gaze. Through this young stranger, he seemed to see the young regent.

Not to mention that he quelled the internal strife of the Niu clan with his strength and stabilized the situation in the clan in a very short period of time. The mere fact of spreading rumors and using people's psychology to create a fait accompli shows the cleverness of the whole plan.

Dragon...... The name still feels a bit awkward. From then on, they had an excuse to start a war, and they were able to send high-sounding envoys to ask the Tiger King for compensation. It feels so cool to occupy the moral high ground, no matter what you do, there is nothing wrong with it, and no matter what you do, it represents justice.