readx;? Unlike the snow-capped and silent northwestern part of the continent, the vast elven forests in the southeastern part of the continent are still lush and full of life. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Especially in the southern part of the Elven Forest, there is a huge lumberyard about three miles wide and nearly thirty miles long, if you look down from the sky, it is more like a wide passage, starting from the border between the Papal States and the Elven Forest and extending in the direction where the city of Rasbel is located, it is even more crowded and lively, like a large construction site, and at the same time like a busy market.

He stood on a tall pile of timber near the end of the passage, staring at the busy logging scene in the distance and the passing horses and carts under his feet, and the scene before him did not look like a war at all, but like a scene of labor in full swing, or more precisely a scene of logging and transportation.

Now Gutsian didn't dare to use the fire method casually, although the speed of fire was faster, but the large amount of smoke produced would cover the passage that was only three miles wide, and it would be very dangerous for the elves to launch a surprise attack under the cover of smoke. Even if the elves have given up the counterattack, but with the deepening of the felling progress, many plants in the elf forest contain toxins, and the smoke produced by the burning of these highly toxic plants will cause poisoning to the inhalers, and even fatal, when they don't know the situation, there have been hundreds of people in the logging army who have been poisoned because of inhaling the poisonous fog, so if you continue to use the fire attack, the smoke generated will gather in the passage and cannot be dispersed in time, which will lead to the collective poisoning of the soldiers and civilians involved in the logging, then the logging army will be self-defeating. In order to increase the speed, Gutesian not only recruited more people, but even sent a part of the soldiers to participate in the logging army, these soldiers did not belong to the Templar Order, they were the defenders reinforced from nearby towns, and belonged to the local army of the Papal States, whose main responsibility was to maintain local security.

In principle, there is an essential difference between the local defenders and the Knights Templar, the local defenders belong to the Papal States and are only responsible to the Pope, which is the army established by Tis Hepburn after the establishment of the Papal States, which is equivalent to the adaptation of the army of the annexed countries and is used to maintain the internal rule of the Papal States, while the Knights Templar are not subordinate to the Papal States, but to the Holy See, which is very different. The Holy See is a religious organization, the Papal State is a real form of government, the emergence of the Holy See is because of the will of God, and the emergence of the Papal States is because of the will of the Pope, to be precise, it is Dice Hepburn who single-handedly planned the establishment of the Papal States, because the establishment of the Papal States has played a positive role in the spread and popularization of the belief in the God of Light, so the existence of the Papal States has also been recognized by God, or the Holy See.

Compared with the Papal States, the Holy See has no geographical restrictions, it is only responsible to the congregation, and where there is a belief in the God of Light, there is the existence of the Holy See, so the members of the Knights Templar are not only from the Papal States but also from other dioceses of the Holy See, they are fighting for their faith, they are not only responsible to the Pope, but also accept orders from the Paladin, and even many times the orders of the Paladin are more preferred, but the Paladins spend most of their time in retreat, so this army is equivalent to being in the hands of the Pope.

On the other hand, the local defenders of the Papal States were also a supplement to the Knights Templar, as the area actually controlled by the Holy See was so large that it was not enough for the Knights Templar to maintain such rule. It was also unrealistic to expand the Templar Order, whose military spending was far from comparable to that of the local defenders, and if the scale exceeded a certain amount, it would exceed the financial capacity of the Holy See. The local defenders were different, they consumed very little military spending, and they could be fed directly from the local treasury, and with their presence, the Knights Templar could safely crusade against the heretics without worrying about a fire in the backyard that no one would extinguish. And when needed, it's okay to let them rush to the front as cannon fodder.

Considering that this expedition to the Elven Forest would take a long time, and that it would be too expensive to use all the Templar soldiers, the Pope ordered a part of the local defenders to be recruited to cooperate. In addition, Gutsian also intended to use the local defenders as cannon fodder, setting up their camp between the Knights Templar and the Elven Forest to block the cold arrows of the Elven marksmen when necessary, but later found that the elves were too lazy to shoot cold arrows, so he waved his hand and simply let them join the logging army.

Outside the passage, timber merchants from the Papal States were waiting to buy the trees that had grown for countless years, sort them and transport them to all parts of the continent, where they would eventually become carpenters' buildings, ships, furniture, and equipment, and even some leaves and grass roots that could be sold as medicinal herbs. Most of the funds obtained from the sale of trees and grass became the income of the Holy See, and in order to stimulate the enthusiasm of the people, they could also get a small half.

Even without considering the political significance of this military operation, the cutting down of the Elven Forest from a purely economic point of view has made the Holy See a lot of money. And because there is money to be made, the people are also very hard, and the news of logging to make money spreads, people from the surrounding villages and towns have flocked to join the logging army, and some even the young adults of the entire village have been collectively dispatched under the leadership of the village chief.

Gutsien did not refuse to accept those who took the initiative to join, but in order to pursue the speed of cutting, these people could not cut everywhere, they had to cut down in the innermost part of the passage to the north according to the command of the Holy See army, so now this arrangement caused the passage in the forest to become wider and wider as it went in. If you calculate carefully, there are more than 90,000 people inside and outside the passage, not to mention the army, and even if there is no fire, the speed of this felling has not slowed down much.

So, Gutsien was now standing on the pile of timber, smiling. He is very satisfied with this progress, the current progress of the Hig army and civilians in the west is not even one-fifth of theirs, as long as the current rate is maintained, it will not take two years, he can lead the army to open a direct passage to Rasbel City, and then he Gutsian will become the first person in the history of the continent to conquer the Elven King City, and his name will inevitably be forever recorded in the annals of the Holy See, as soon as he thinks of this, Gutesian has a feeling of blood boiling. However, while being excited, he still had some doubts, except for the fact that the elves had launched a counterattack at the beginning of the war, but they quickly gave up, and there was not even a sneak attack, if it weren't for the occasional Pegasus knight flying into the nearby air to reconnoitre, Gutesian even doubted whether there were still elves in this forest.

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