To the south of Blackwater City is a large plain, if it were an ordinary human city-state, it should be a large area of farmland, but here there are only some small pieces of farmland.

What made Bai Qi feel strange was that there was a half-built fortress on the southern plains farther away from these fragmented farmlands, and from a distance, in the early morning sun, there were many ragged people busy in the fortress, and some soldiers in leather armor and war spears were supervising the people who were working.

Bai Qi stopped a rickety old man with a hoe and asked him about the origin of the fortress.

The old man looked at the armor on his body with some fear, and replied respectfully: "Honorable lord, this is the castle built by the city lord, and I heard that the city lord wants to open up farmland there. ”

Bai Qi was stunned for a moment when he heard this, but immediately understood that the city lord in the old man's mouth was likely to be the leader of the Black Water Water Thieves, but what puzzled him was that this plain looked quite fertile, and this group of water thieves had not been entrenched here for a day or two, why did they only think of cultivating farmland now?

After asking for a long time, the old man couldn't say why. Looking at the old man who was about to faint in fright, Bai Qi could only wave his hand to let him leave.

Back in the center of the city, Bai Qi and the two chose a tavern located on the periphery and walked in.

The tavern was full of drunks, and even a big man was sleeping on the large bar of the tavern.

Bai Qi walked to the bar, looked inside, it was empty, helpless, he stretched out his hand to wake up the big man on the bar.

The big man looked up at him sleepily and scolded, "Get out of here, dwarf, it's not open now." ”

After saying that, he turned over and turned his ass towards Bai Qi.

Bai Qi frowned, stirring his qi and blood, and the power of qi and blood fluctuated in his body, and then he punched the big man in the back.

The big man sat up rubbly, glared and was about to scold, when he suddenly felt the strong qi and blood power fluctuations on Bai Qi's body, his face suddenly changed drastically, and he jumped off the bar with a grunt, and the expression on his face also changed one hundred and eighty degrees, and said with a smile: "Venerable Captain, what do you need Buck to serve you?" ”

Bai Qi glanced at him coldly, turned around and walked to a fairly clean table and sat down, this man named Buck bowed his head and followed, touched the table with his oily sleeve, and asked, "Captain, what do you need?" ”

Bai Qi said: "Put a few things on your hands, and then two large glasses of ale." ”

"Captain, wait a minute, I'll serve you wine, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little longer for the food, I'll wake up the cook and give you freshly cooked, freshly baked barracuda and bread, you will be satisfied."

Bai Qi nodded noncommittally.

Buck immediately rushed back to the bar, quickly served two large glasses of ale, and ran through a small door on the side of the bar, where his shouts and complaints were quickly heard.

Bai Qi looked down at the dirty oak cup, shook his head, and decided not to touch it.

Soon Buck nodded and walked over, saying flattering words like asking the two of you to wait.

Bai Qi seemed to inadvertently inquire about the situation in Blackwater City, "I've been out for a long time to do business this time, just now I heard that the people of Blackwater have built a new castle on the southern plain, do you know what's going on?" ”

This Buck also seems to be a talkative person, and as soon as Bai Qi asked casually, he gushed endlessly: "Captain, you don't know, something happened in Blackwater Lake recently, and the golden-scaled fishman tribe in the east didn't know what was going on, and actually built a boat. ”

Speaking of which, Buck made an exaggerated gesture and said, "Oh my God, the fishmen can build ships, you tell me, what a strange thing, although the ship is shabby, but these damn beasts can enter the depths of Blackwater Lake, our fishing boats in Blackwater City are unlucky, and many of them have been attacked by fishmen." ”

"Your Excellency, you know, most of the food in our Blackwater City comes from the aquatic products in the lake, and at most we can get some food from outside and come back to change the taste. In this way, the food source of our Blackwater City will be a problem. Although the lord of the castle sent warships to clear these fishmen, it was really a thankless task to fight with the fishmen in the water, not only did not drive the fishmen back to their lair, but lost several large ships, so the lord decided to follow the practice of the city-state and build castles and open up farmland on the southern plains to deal with the food crisis brought by the fishmen. ”

Speaking of this, Buck made a "you know" expression at Bai Qi and said: "Actually, the city lord has long wanted to learn from the city-state's practices and develop the southern plains, but it has not been carried out under the opposition of several other big leaders, and this incident of the fishman attacking the fishing boat just gave the city lord an excuse. ”

Listening to Buck's words, Bai Qi touched his chin and asked after considering his words, "When did the golden-scaled fishman become so difficult?" ”

Buck sighed: "Yes, although the golden-scaled fish people used to be annoying, but due to the abundance of fish in the Blackwater Lake, they at most occasionally come to our Blackwater City to secretly catch a few fishermen who live on the outskirts of the city, and go back to change their tastes. ”

From Buck's words, Bai Qi heard some unusual information, it seems that this so-called golden-scaled fishman tribe is very powerful, so strong that even the lawless water thieves in Blackwater City have no idea of fighting back after being attacked by the other party.

Bai Qi asked tentatively, "Didn't you think about trying to fight back?" ”

Buck spread his hands and said, "Of course I thought about it, the two leaders of Blade and Bloodsail once led their powerful fleet to sweep those simple fish-man ships near the Fish-Man Peninsula, but they were scuttled by the other party with a few precious warships, and also lost two powerful Chosen Warriors, so they couldn't oppose the Blackwater City Lord to build a castle in the south." ”

Bai Qi showed an incredulous look and said, "I used to patronize and do business, but I didn't even notice that we had such a powerful neighbor." ”

The exaggerated expression on Buck's face also became a little heavy, "Who says it isn't, I only knew that there was a group of fishmen in the east, and the fishermen who went to fish in that direction would occasionally disappear. After a recent conflict with these damn beasts, everyone suddenly realized that this group of fishmen was so powerful that Cheng Dù did. ”

"I heard that the fish-man peninsula in the east is not only very large and gentle, but also has a larger shallow water area around the peninsula, which not only isolates the natural enemies of the fish-people such as blackfish, but also breeds rich aquatic products and feeds a large number of fish-people."

"I once heard from some guests that there were probably tens of thousands of fish-people on that peninsula, and some people said that the fish-people had established a kingdom on that peninsula, and I heard that it was called the 'Golden Scale Kingdom'. Hey, if those fishmen are really so powerful, what will we do in Blackwater City in the future? ”

Listening to Buck's words, the disbelieving expression on Bai Qi's face was no longer a disguise, during this time, Bai Qi exterminated no less than ten fish-man tribes, and he also had a lot of understanding of this cruel creature, fish-people have a certain amount of wisdom, but they are far from being compared with humans, they have no writing, and the language of communication between each other is also very simple, which should not be enough to form a complex political system like a country.

Suppressing the doubts in his heart, Bai Qi asked again: "Since this group of fishmen is so powerful, why did they rarely come to harass Blackwater City before?" As far as I know, humans are very high on the fish-man diet. ”

Buck said: "I heard from the guests that it seems that because in the lake between our Blackwater City and the Fish-Man Peninsula, there is a deep water area like a canyon, and there are a large number of Saluo black fish living in this deep water area, so the fish-people cannot approach our Blackwater City from the water, and the fish-people want to approach us by land, they have to cross a highland hundreds of miles wide, it is said that there is no river water source on that highland, and the terrain along the lake shore is relatively steep, and it is impossible to go down to the lake. You know, although the fish-man is an amphibian, it can't actually leave the water for a long time, and once you can't touch the water for more than a day, you will become weak and your scale armor will dry and crack. ”

Bai Qi nodded, probably understanding the shape that Blackwater City was currently facing.

Although the unusual behavior of the Black Water Fishman is very strange, it has nothing to do with him, although he is curious, it is nothing more.

Then Bai Qi asked what he was really interested in, and he first threw a silver coin to Buck before asking, "Do you know who has a good warship in their hands lately?" This time I went out for a good business, and I plan to change to a real warship. ”

Buck smiled and took the silver coin, stuffed it into his arms, and replied: "My lord, although I haven't heard of anyone selling warships, but I heard that the new batch of warships built by the Blackwater Shipyard is about to be launched, and if you go now, you may be able to book the next batch of warships." ”

Bai Qi frowned and said, "The next batch?" What is the shipbuilding cycle at Blackwater Shipyard? "He didn't want to stay in Blackwater for too long.

Buck said, "My lord, it takes about a year for a large warship to be launched. ”

Listening to this cycle, Bai Qi's brows furrowed even tighter, this cycle was twice as long as the shipbuilding cycle in Leoni City.

The large warships manufactured by the shipyard of Leoni were not sold to the public or privately, but were only sold to the city-state fleet, and only a medium-sized and fast warship called the Thief Hunter was sold to the nobles of the city.

In fact, this kind of thief ship is designed to deal with fast and flexible pirate ships, its size is about the same as that of pirate ships, and its speed, flexibility and other aspects of performance are also comparable to those of pirate ships, allowing the nobles of the city to have this kind of medium-sized fast warship, just to deal with water thieves.

The cycle of Leony City Shipyard to manufacture this kind of thief hunting ship is half a year, and Bai Qi handed over most of the loot seized by this sweep of the fishmen to Adrian, and asked her to go back to the city to dredge up the relationship.

He himself came to Blackwater City to try his luck and see if he could exchange the cargo ship in his hand for a pirate warship here.

Judging by the news that Buck got here, it was impossible to order warships directly from the shipyard, and in a year, the daylily was cold.

Fortunately, Bai Qi didn't have any hope for this, it was impossible for a shipyard in a thief's den to build faster than a regular city-state shipyard.

Originally, Bai Qi was still planning to take a fluke to see if he could add some of the previously captured loot to the cargo ship in his hand and replace it with a warship, but judging from what he saw on the dock and the chaotic Cheng Dù in the city, this road obviously did not work.

In this city of water thieves, the status of warships is obviously much higher than that of cargo ships, and almost all of those large bandit gangs are equipped with warships, and if you want to trade with people fairly in this chaotic place, I am afraid that you will be treated as fools.

Since the transaction doesn't work, let's rob it, anyway, this is a den of water thieves, and robbing them Bai Qi is definitely not a little burden.