Major General Lane struggled to find Samuel in Hawa's governor's palace. Half a day earlier, the Governor of Hawa, Fistivara, led the last remaining Falais soldiers in a small but equally brutal battle with the Kalins in the Governor's Palace, and after his subordinates were killed and wounded, the Governor, known for his debauchery and cowardice, still refused to surrender, and chose to end his life with handcuffs, many times stronger than the thousands of Falais soldiers in the captive camp outside the city.

But Samuel did not come here to pay homage to this respectable opponent, he was only interested in the vast amount of possessions stored in the Doge's Palace. The Karlin army did not require soldiers and officers to surrender all the booty, and soldiers and officers could take a considerable portion of the booty before handing it in, while Samuel, as commander of the fleet, received a large share of the booty and had the highest priority in the selection of the booty.

When Major General Lane approached Samuel with his bag of papers, the commander was examining the huge gem. It was a black oval gem the size of an apple, and it was clearly of great value in the most prominent place in the Doge's treasury. But after studying for a long time, Samuel didn't figure out what kind of gem it was, but that didn't prevent him from using his priority to detain the gem. After taking the strange gem out and placing it in the cloth bag next to him, Samuel finally turned his attention to Ryan.

"Huh, what's the matter?"

"I received two letters from the Ministry of Defense. Major General Lane handed the document to Samuel and asked him to read it for himself.

The first message was a commendation order for the 23 Fleet for excellence in the Battle of Hawa. As a commendation, Fleet Commander Samuel, Deputy Commander Lane and Chief of Staff Gustav were all promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral. Samuel even changed from acting commander to commander, and successfully removed the word "deputy".

The award was expected by Samuel. In the strategic planning of the Ministry of Defense, there has never been an operation to storm the fortress of Hawa. The operation took place solely because of the unexpected advantages that Samuel had achieved in the immediate area over the past year or so. The plan to attack the fortress of Hawa was proposed by Samuel, and he successfully carried it out, and the success of this operation completely established the absolute superiority of the Carlin air force in this area, and if such credit could not be promoted in rank, it would inevitably attract the discussion of the air force officers.

The second document came as a surprise to Samuel. It was a top-secret document sealed in fire paint, and it was transferred from the Kalim Territory to the 23rd Fleet through teleportation circles several times. The entire 23 ships were read only by Samuel, who was the commander. Samuel pressed his thumb to the fire paint, and after holding it for 1 second, the fire paint began to glow faintly, and then ignited a light blue flame. It was a magic flame that had no temperature, didn't burn Samuel's fingers, didn't damage the letters, it only vaporized the fire paint itself. Of course, if someone tries to break the bag and take the document out of it, then the fire paint will burn the bag and the document together.

The contents of the document made Samuel frown. It was an operational order that required the 23rd Fleet to make peace with the 26th Fleet in nearby airspace to form the Hawa Battle Group, with Samuel as the commander of the battle group. This improvised battle group had only one mission---- intercepting the 31st Floating Fleet of Falaise that was about to pass through the nearby airspace, and delaying its journey to Württek Airport to meet the main force of Falaise Fleet as much as possible.

The bag also contained several pieces of information about the 31st Fleet, but it was not complete, suggesting that the operation was improvised rather than planned.

Samuel pondered for a while, and probably figured out what the Ministry of Defense was thinking.

This war has been fought on and off for 7 years, and both sides are a little unable to drag on. Due to the neglect of overseas layout before the war, Falaise has almost reached the point of exhaustion today, although the main force of the fleet still exists, but Falaise's finances are no longer enough to support them in long-term operations. Therefore, the Falais planned to complete the battle in the New World, gathering all their main fleets to force Carlin to fight a decisive battle. Carlin, though in a slightly better condition than Falais, was exhausted, and the two sides hit it off, so a duel of the main fleet was about to break out.

Compared to Falaise, who took the initiative, Carlin's fleet movement was half a beat slower, which could cause him to still be unable to assemble all available fleets in the decisive battle, so Carlin had to try various methods to slow down the assembly of Falaise's fleet.

The 23rd Fleet, which had already captured Hava, could have joined Carlin's main fleet as a mobile force, but after more than a year of high-intensity combat and this expensive fortress attack, the 23rd Fleet's existing supplies, especially the magic crystals that served as fuel for the magic furnace, were no longer enough to allow the 23rd Fleet to go to the meeting point of the main fleet. Therefore, Carlin's Ministry of Defense retreated and asked the 23rd Fleet to intercept and delay the 31st Fleet of Falaise, which was preparing to go to the rendezvous point.

Due to lack of preparation, the Ministry of Defense could not even provide detailed information, and Samuel only knew that the 31st Fleet would pass near his defense area in the near future, but the exact date and route of the march were unknown.

Even more tricky for him was the 26th Fleet, the commander of the 26th Fleet, Jerit Julius, who was about to join him. This is one of the most favored sons of the current Emperor Kalin. Samuel had several encounters with Jellett and clearly felt the other party's contempt for him. This could be a noble-born officer's disdain for a commoner-born general, or an orthodox general's dislike of a privateer-turned-general. All in all, Jellett and Samuel have a bad relationship, and the former makes no secret of it.

But Samuel did not dare to disobey the orders of the Ministry of Defense, so he had to cooperate with Jellett. Fortunately, this time I appeared as the other party's boss.

He handed the order of the Ministry of Defense to Lane, ordered the fleet to prepare for the resumption of sailing, and asked the staff officers to come up with a preliminary plan as soon as possible.

"Oh, yes. We found a group of Kalin merchant ship crews in Hawa's prison, detained by Falaise's air force for a deal with Dareus. Ryan remembered something before leaving, and turned to Samuel. "They deserve it, they could have bought all the parts and then left directly, but due to the recent increase in the price of parts in the Gray Harbor area, they went to the White Shark Bay area to buy it, and they encountered the Falaise patrol fleet on the way, so they were arrested. ”

"Oh?", Samuel couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

Dales was an important colony of Falaise in the New World. A few years ago, Falaise banned Dales from trading with any foreign caravanserais. The Falais, who had exclusive rights to trade with Dales, made great profits by selling manufactured goods to Dales at inflated prices, which caused serious discontent among the Dalesians, who secretly traded with foreign caravans in large quantities in order to obtain cheap manufactured goods. One of the important participants in this trade was the Carlin merchants. The Falaise Air Force showed no mercy to foreign caravans that dared to trade with the Dalles, seizing merchant ships, goods and men at the worst and sinking them on the spot. This was one of the important triggers for Carlin's war with Falais.

Even though the two countries have been at war for many years, there are still a large number of Kalin merchants who disguise themselves as the Fallais merchant fleet to engage in smuggling activities. And this group of unlucky businessmen in front of them were seized by Falaise's patrol fleet because of this.

The middle-aged man named Harnick in front of Samuel was the leader of this merchant fleet. He looked haggard and tired, obviously not having a good time in prison, but considering that Falaise had a tradition of executing foreign smugglers, he was lucky to be able to save his life, not to mention that due to the rush of time, the Falais people had not had time to dispose of their ships and cargo, and were still in the docks of Hawa Fortress.

"General Samuel, thank you for saving us", Hanik bowed to Samuel, thanking him.

Samuel waved his hand at him, indicating that he didn't need these politenesses, he didn't have much time, and he needed to get straight to the point.

"I heard that the price of parts in the Gray Harbor area has increased several times some time ago, and I want to know what is going on. I'm also interested in other relevant information that you know. ”

Hanik paused for a moment, not expecting the other party's focus to be so strange, but since the other party asked, he still planned to tell the other party everything he knew.

"We don't know exactly what happened, but we were transporting a shipment of grains and vegetables to Grey Harbor, where the hurricane caused crops to be lost in many areas. But to our surprise, the prices of both cereals and fruits and vegetables have fallen sharply. It is said that three days before our port, a caravan had brought in a large quantity of grain and fruit from the south. We didn't make much money because the price had dropped so much. To make matters worse, many of our ships have been damaged in the storm, but the prices of the magic blackwood, shadow steel, and other spare parts used to repair the ships have risen significantly. ”

"In this way, our business is seriously losing money this time, and in order to be able to reduce the losses a little, I decided to buy only a small number of parts in Grey Harbor to repair the most damaged ships, and then sail to several ports in the White Shark Bay area to buy parts at lower prices. As a result, on the way, they were interrogated by the patrol fleet, and the entire fleet was seized, and then they came here. ”

Even though more than a week had passed, Harnick couldn't help but sigh when he thought of what happened on this voyage. He didn't notice that Samuel didn't feel the slightest sympathy when he heard what happened to him, but felt in a good mood.

"You should have a list of the prices of goods at the port, right?" Samuel asked with interest.

"Indeed, if the Falaise hadn't already disposed of it, it would still be somewhere on the ship. "Caravans like theirs, every time they approach a port, they carefully record the price movements of various commodities in the recent period of time in preparation for the next business.

Unlike Samuel, however, he was more concerned with whether the ships in the caravan were intact.

"Don't worry, the Falaise haven't had time to dispose of your ships yet, and those ships are staying in the harbor now. Perhaps sensing Harnick's concern, Samuel comforted him, and did not forget to tell the soldiers next to him to look for the list of commodity prices in the ship.

"And we've recently intercepted quite a few of Falaise's merchant ships, and if you're interested, I can deal with them at a discount." These captured merchant ships could not be incorporated into the fleet as warships, so they were scuttled if buyers could not be found. It's not impossible to ship it back home and sell it, but shipping itself is costly, and there is a risk of being attacked by the Farlaise privateering fleet.

These merchant ships are a shame for the army to eat, but they are a rare treasure for smugglers like Harnik. The Falace merchant ships are convenient for them to disguise themselves as Falace caravans, not to mention that this time it is still discounted, even if they don't use it, they can be sold to other caravans to make a difference.

When Harnick picked up the treasure, he was overjoyed. The recent troubles have been completely forgotten by him.

"But before I do, I need you to do something for me," Samuel said, glancing at him.

Hanik secretly screamed in his heart, I knew that these greedy air generals could not easily give themselves benefits, and began to silently calculate how many benefits they needed to satisfy the young general in front of them. According to the usual practice, he can make tens of millions of imperial gold dollars from this transaction, so the "gift" to this general should be around one million.

But what happened next was a bit beyond Harnick's expectations.

"I need you as my temporary advisor, and it could last a week or two," Samuel said, staring into Harnick's eyes.

"Don't worry, I'll pay you," he added.

“...... Huh?" replied Hannick, his eyes wide, a little confused. He didn't know why he, who had never received any formal military training, had become an advisor to an air force general.

Samuel was not interested in explaining it now, he waved his hand and asked Harnik to be brought aboard, and then left to attend to other things.