War is coming, which may not be clear to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, but in King's Landing, even a random beggar on the side of the road is sure of it.

From the port, they could see the seized foreign merchant ships moored tightly, and from the streets, they could see the members of the capital garrison ready to go, with serious faces, and they could also get a trace of information from the various bureaucratic doors.

People talk about it a lot, indifferent, afraid, disgusted, and expectant...... Emotions represented the attitudes of the various classes, but before the war could actually come, several events in quick succession drew the attention of the people of King's Landing.

First of all, the Crab Claw Peninsula on the edge of the royal realm, it has been five months since the betrayal of the Iron Throne was exposed, and the previous amazing bounty has caused a lot of discussion in King's Landing, and at this moment, the bounty, or the plan to defeat the Crab Claw Peninsula, has come to fruition-

Originally, there were six or seven lord families large and small on the peninsula, but now only three families have died, and these three families have officially submitted a letter of submission after consultation.

So far, the Iron Throne has paid a total of 7,615 golden dragons.

It seems like a lot, but it is very rare to start a war, and at the same time, the operation did not put any burden on the Iron Throne, except for a few necessary soldiers around the peninsula, as well as "working" personnel.

Obviously, this was a complete victory, and while the outcome of the victory might bring hatred of the natives of the Peninsula to the Iron Throne, no one cared about it, because the Crab Claw Peninsula had not been on the side of Baratheon before, and had been on the enemy side.

At the same time, I don't know who revealed that this plan was proposed by the Minister of Justice, and for a while, Lan Li's name was repeatedly mentioned by people, admired, feared, feared, and disgusted, no matter how you look at him, but on the whole, his reputation among ordinary civilians is still very good.

This is due to the increasing law and order in King's Landing.

In addition to the incident of the Crab Claw Peninsula, there was also the incident of monsters attacking the caravan in the riverland, and a caravan of 100 people who went to the north to trade disappeared into a forest not far from the Twin River City in the riverlands, and no one saw them again.

This made the rumors about the already cooled Riverlands heated up again, and through the mouths of many merchants, the people of King's Landing learned about all kinds of special situations, what humans could transform into wolf shapes, what small witches with green cloaks, what iron pots boiled in the forest boiling human hearts, etc., because they were far away, and no one in King's Landing had seen them with their own eyes, these things were still treated as rumors or anecdotes, and most of the people talked about them with curiosity, and no one was afraid except for children.

The things of the Riverlands seem to be separated by a veil, hazy and unsure of anything, but the people can clearly understand a recent incident about the archbishop—

The archbishop, affectionately known as the Fat Man, was suddenly kidnapped by a gang of masked bandits while traveling in a sedan chair, and then stripped naked and thrown into King's Landing Fishermen's Square in public.

Fishermen's Square is where King's Landing fishmongers sell fish, and many King's Landing people also buy fish there, in other words, there is a lot of traffic in Fishermen's Square on a daily basis.

So when the naked archbishop descended from heaven, it caused a sensation, and it didn't take long for the news to spread throughout King's Landing.

What archbishop is so frightened that he is and urinating, and what archbishop screams like a fat pig to the slaughter...... This kind of discourse can be regarded as telling the truth, and there are even more unreliable rumors.

For example, the archbishop secretly visited the kiln and was retaliated against for not paying, or ran to cheat with a noble lady in the city and was found out by the man, or he was found out by the lady who was cheating with the man......

The Church was disgraced, and the fat archbishop was also disgraced, and he resigned as an archbishop in shame (in fact, he still wanted to rely on it, but was forced to the palace by the archbishops), and then the seven archbishops of the church began a battle for the position of archbishop.

As a result, for some reason, the ugly secrets and scandals of the archbishops were reported in the city, so that the true pious people were furious one by one, and there were screams in St. Baylor's Cathedral for a week.

In the end, under the dazzling attention of the people, a monk named Goyle from a flea nest was promoted to the position of archbishop, which surprised many people, but it was only ordinary people who were surprised, in fact, the upper nobles knew that the monk named Gower was able to ascend to the throne because the respected King Robert personally appointed -

Since the loss of its armed forces, although the influence of the Church has not diminished, it has become more and more constrained by the Iron Throne, and there have been cases in history when kings appointed archbishops, so it is only natural that King Robert can do the same today.

After the new archbishop took office, the news about the church died down for a while, and the devout people of the gods were looking forward to the new archbishop being able to do something good, and there were many people waiting to see the excitement.

In this case, the news of the disappearance of the captain of a foreign merchant ship in the harbor would not have gone unnoticed, but it was enough to change the situation of the upcoming war.

……

"This is the bones of a mammoth, from the north of Westeros, beyond the Great Wall of Desperation."

After a period of smuggling and sailing, a missing captain finally arrived at the location of Kohor, one of the nine free-trade city-states, a month later, in a palace as white as a bone support, reporting to several powerful people in rich black clothes on the stairs.

On the stairs, an old man in black looked down at the bone fragment in his hand, and didn't feel anything unusual, but another middle-aged man with thin cheeks next to him suddenly shrank his pupils when he saw the bone fragment, and then hurriedly looked at the captain below.

"Where did you get this?"

"From a merchant from the North."

The captain replied respectfully, "And he was traded from the wildlings." ”

Northland, wildlings, these were unfamiliar words to the former Kohor higher-ups, but they had been familiar with all aspects of Westeros since they had been looking for the door.

For example, the North is one of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, and the Wildlings are the collective name for the humans at the end of the Northern Border, who are blocked from a frozen Great Wall.

And not only that, but they know even more.

"Savages believe in the Old Gods."

After carefully understanding the process, the emaciated middle-aged man who asked the question couldn't help but say to his colleagues: "The old gods, the gate of the old days, this seems to be very connected. ”

"We didn't look into this before."

The old man, who didn't notice anything unusual about the bones, retorted when he heard this: "The old gods are the names of the Westeros people in order to distinguish the seven gods of the Andals, the seven gods are the new gods, the previous gods are the old gods, the old gods originally had no names, and they are not really called the old gods." ”

"But this fragment was found in the land of the Old Gods."

Before the emaciated middle-aged man could speak, a chubby old man on the other side spoke: "The name of the old gods is originally derived from legends, maybe what you said is right, but who can be sure?" ”

"I think we can send people out there to take a closer look." Another said, "The Land of Eternal Winter beyond the Great Wall of Desperation is not under the Iron Throne, and no one there can kill our people anymore. ”

"How could it not be, the wildlings are more unreasonable than the Iron Throne."

"The wildlings are outdated, we can send soldiers to follow." The emaciated middle-aged man said: "They naturally cooperate well, and they have to cooperate if they don't cooperate." ”

"That's right."

"I agree to investigate."

"It's been more than ten years, and there is finally such a clue, how can it not be carefully investigated?"

……

The black-clothed colleagues on the left and right all expressed their opinions on this, and although the old man in the center didn't feel anything special about the bone fragment, he didn't dare to say that he hadn't found anything, and after thinking about it, he also nodded in agreement, but expressed a different opinion.

"It's not our business to find the door, we should inform the others."

This provoked the approval of others, so the old man looked at the bald middle-aged man dressed as a guard at the bottom of the stairs: "Savik, go and summon Neken, and say that we have found the clue to the door." ”

Neken is the name of a red-robed monk, and although most of the people of Kohor believe in the Black Goat God, there are also a small number of people who believe in the Lord of Light, and Neken is the leader of the priests of the Lord of Light here.

However, after the words fell, the guard did not move, but spoke: "My lord, I was just about to report to you that Neken is dead. ”

"Dead?"

These words caused a group of black-robed men to look at each other, and one of them frowned and asked, "How did you die?" ”

"I'm sick and dead, my lord."

"And who's in charge now?" Emaciated middle-aged asked.

"A red-robed woman named Melisandre, my lord." The guard replied.