Chapter 171: Messengers and Alliances

The Blade Mountains, like a steep wall, separated the Norton family territory from the sea.

Lorist stood at the top of the cliff and watched with a grim expression as waves crashed against the black, sharp reefs that were exposed near the shore......

"Are all reefs like this on the shores of the Blade Mountains?" asked Lorlist.

"Yes, sir. Father Balek said: "The Blade Mountains on this side of our family territory are like this, and the ones that can reach the sea are the three openings I have taken you to see, and you can't climb anywhere else." We used to boil seawater and salt from those three openings, bring firewood and a cauldron, and it took about ten days to get it done......"

"My lord, I see what you mean, do you want to find an outlet from here?" asked Father Balek.

Lorist nodded.

"Your Excellency, you come with me. "Papa Balek took Lorist to the top of the cliff for a long time, and reached the other end of the cliff.

"Your Excellency, look ......"

In the distance, a cliff collapsed into the steep mountain wall and fell into the sea, forming a slope. Lorist was intrigued by the fact that some remnants of wooden stakes could be faintly seen on the slopes......

"My lord, in the past, the four major families of Kitano Town also wanted to take advantage of the convenience of shipping to get in touch with the outside world, and they spent more than a year building a long trestle bridge from that slope, deep into the sea, and bypassing those reefs near the sea. At that time, it was the grandfather of the adult who was in charge, and he went to Kitano Town to negotiate with the four major families, and asked for half of the shipping rights. But before the negotiations could be concluded, a storm destroyed the trestle without a trace. The vitality of the four major families was greatly damaged. All the money invested was lost by the storm. The rest is the broken stakes...... "Papa Balleck recounted a family story that Lorist did not know.

"Is there a lot of storms over here?" asked Lorlist.

"Not much, but in April and May, the sea is prone to big tornadoes, and at other times there are strong winds and waves, but there are few storms. Papa Balek replied.

"Forget it, let's go, we've been in the Blade Mountains for almost two months, and it's time to go back. Lorist said.

After Shi Fatzi finished his vacation and took over the family's administrative affairs again. I really couldn't get used to Lorist's work attitude of having something to do and having nothing to do as a secretary, so I happened to encounter a problem, so I forced Lorist to organize a group of people to go to the Blade Mountains a few days in advance to explore mineral resources and solve problems.

The problem that Shi Fatzi encountered was table salt. In the past, the family did not have more than 10,000 people, and if there was no salt to eat, just like Daddy Balek said, bring firewood and bring a cauldron, and go to the beach to boil the sea water for a few days to get enough salt. It's just that more than 500,000 people are pouring into the Norton family's territory, and based on the calculation that one person consumes one pound of salt a year, it will require 500,000 catties of salt, not counting the amount of salt needed for tanning fur and curing meat.

Shi Fatzi received a report from Speer's steward that all the family's reserves of salt would be exhausted in July next year. He took the report and went to Lorist and asked Lorist to go to the Blade Mountains as soon as possible. Find a way to provide large quantities of table salt. Instead of having nothing to do all day banging with Miss Theresti in the office......

For Lorlist, this two-month trip to the Blade Mountains was very fruitful, and the first thing to be sure of was that the deep valley that Daddy Barlek found was indeed full of rubber vines, although the amount was not as good as the more than one million barrels of rubber vine juice produced by the Romon Empire a year, but it could provide nearly 100,000 barrels of rubber vine juice every year and was enough for Lorliste to prepare for the project plan for the large-scale development of the family territory.

The second is Master Sid, who is in charge of the exploration of mineral resources, he found a dark iron mountain in the Blade Mountains, the whole mountain is made of dark iron ore, and also found tungsten gold veins and chromium-silver ore nearby, he was so happy that he danced and let out a big word: "As long as he studies for a while, he will definitely be able to make better armor than the standard equipment of the White Lion Legion......

Lorist thought it was very strange, this is too coincidental to write a book, these three veins seem to be artificially arranged together, but the world is so big, there are no surprises, and I can't figure out the result so I have to put it aside.

As for the salt problem that Shi Fatzi is anxious about, Lorist also has a solution, that is, drying salt, which does not need to be so troublesome as boiling salt. Originally, Shi Fatzi was going to send 3,000 people to cook salt, spend two months to get a reserve of 2 million catties, and then cook it again when there is no more......

Lorist had never seen a pig run but had eaten pork, and he had not visited the salt pans in his previous life, so he remembered some of the principles and steps of how to dry salt, so he chose a wide valley and designed a plan for the salt pans to be put in charge of Papa Balek. The main reason is that the cost of infrastructure is large, but the manpower is not much, nearly 100 people are enough, but the monthly production of salt is expected to reach more than 100,000 catties, which is enough to solve the dilemma of the family's lack of salt.

"Yes, the salt pans below should be filled with earth and stones, then poured with green cement and smoothed, and when the tide rises, open the water inlet of the fence, let the tide flood the salt pans, wait for two or three days, and then get these concentrated salt water into a deep pool and wash it with the mountain water that has been brought in, let those impurities settle down, pour the clean salt water above into the upper salt pan, and then dry it to make it edible white salt......," Lorist explained to Papa Balek for the last time.

It's no wonder that Papa Barek kept asking, for thousands of years Guelintea had never heard of the need to dry salt, and the most important point was that it did not cost a lot of firewood to boil salt, and how to bring firewood to the sea had always been a difficult problem in the past.

The Blade Mountains face the sea with steep cliffs, but inside are gentle slopes covered with grass, there are basically no miscellaneous trees, and some have already been cut down by people who come to boil salt to make firewood, and down the gentle slopes are faced with strange rocky peaks, people have to go around the bottom of these peaks around a few bends and then go uphill and downhill, and take the mountain road to leave the Blade Mountains.

Miss Dressy and her maid Winnie Jr. were picking wild flowers on the gentle slope to make a flower crown, and they were bouncing up and down like two ungrown children.

Ever since she had been forcibly developed by Lorlist, Miss Theresti had lost her usual reserve and modesty, and had become interested in men and women. Especially after she found that the menstrual cramps that had always been distressing her were greatly relieved. began to take the initiative to hook Lorist. Yes, it's fun to be in the office.

The only thing that bothers Lorist is that no matter how much Miss Tristi him in the office, she is willing to try new tricks, but no matter how much Lorist tries to persuade her, Miss Tristi just refuses to agree to marry him, and it is okay to be a lover, but it is not necessary to talk about being a wife......

Miss Theresy didn't want to come to the Blade Mountains this time. But Lorist said that it is better to travel thousands of miles to read a hundred books, and your mother used to go deep into the primeval mountains and forests to explore the ruins, but it was not like you stayed at home all day reading books. So Miss Theresy had a trip to the Blade Mountains.

Seeing Lorlist's bad face, Miss Theresti understood that Lorist was disappointed again, this section of the Blade Mountain Range was a black mud swamp, and it was already over, and Lorist still hadn't found a suitable outlet to the sea in these hundreds of miles of Blade Mountain Range.

Kissing Miss Theresty's cheek gently, Lorist said gently, "Honey." It's time for us to go back. I really can't believe that you can stick to this trip to the Blade Mountains, it's been almost two months. It's not a small harvest. ”

Unlike Lorlist's search for an outlet to the sea, Miss Trysti is interested in the flora and fauna of the mountain region, the growth of medicinal herbs, and the geography of the Blade Mountains.

Tsundere snorted, and Miss Theresti said, "I'm not a petite girl, and I can do what my mother can do." ”

Holding Lorlist's arm as they descended the slope together, Miss Theresti said, "Locke, to be honest, the two months of investigation and research in the Blade Mountains have made me firm in my thoughts. That is, the Blade Mountains could never have been formed naturally. It's as if a god used his divine powers to build a barrage to the western part of the Northland to keep out the storm and tsunami, and that's a great miracle......"

Lorist just smiled and didn't answer, his little lover's book was always full of whimsy in his head, so he just listened to it.

......

When he returned to Rock Castle, it was already October 28th, and Lorist originally wanted to go to Maple Grove Villa for two days to see his precious son, but what he didn't expect was that one after another messengers were waiting in the camp, urging Lorist to return to Rock Castle as soon as possible.

It took more than ten days for Lorist to go to the Blade Mountains for the last time to investigate, and in this period of time, several groups of messengers have come to the camp outside the mountain, and the news they brought is varied, in general, there is a lot of envoys from the nobles of the territory to the Rock Castle, and the two most important ones are the messengers sent by the second prince, and the other is the Viscount Kenmax who has personally visited, and has been in the Rock Castle for half a month.

Lorist received Viscount Kenmas for the first time, and besides, the guests who came to Rock Castle respected him as well. On the contrary, Viscount Kenmax suggested that Lorist had better meet the messenger sent by the second prince first, and that he was not in a hurry and could wait until the end.

The envoy sent by the second prince was a personable middle-aged nobleman who claimed to be Viscount Hinderson and sent a letter to Lorist on the orders of the second prince and asked for a handwritten reply from Lorlist. Nothing else was said.

Lorist was very curious to open the letter from the second prince, the letter was very long, and he wrote several pieces of vellum paper. The first two pieces of paper are written about the deep fighting friendship between the second prince and the Norton family, and express the grief and nostalgia for Lorlist's eldest brother who died on the battlefield, which is very touching to read. But on the last letterhead, the greedy heart of the second prince like a hungry wolf was revealed.

The second prince believes that the war between the Norton family and the Grand Duke of Northland, Duke Lukins, is very regrettable and tragic, and it is precisely because of the strife between the nobles within the kingdom that the kingdom cannot gather all its strength to revive the great cause of the former Cresson Empire. At present, the second prince has punished Duke Lukins for provoking the war, but he has also announced the following punishments for the Norton family who ransacked the Grand Duke:

First, the Norton family must hand over nearly 300,000 gold fords looted from Duke Lukins' private treasury and hand them over to the second prince as punishment for the ransacking of the Grand Duke. The second prince gave up holding Lorist accountable for coercing and relocating more than 200,000 of the Grand Duke's people to the Norton family's territory.

Second, as the new head of the Norton family, Lorist must rush to the Grand Duke's city of Gildusk before the end of November to swear allegiance to the second prince, who is currently living in the Grand Duke's mansion, and the second prince will consider raising the Norton family's title as a reward.

Third, the Norton family must also provide the second prince with two fully formed corps to assist the second prince in pacifying the Northlands. And before July next year, under the command of the second prince, he will launch another attack on the Duchy of Madras. Make due contributions to the revival of the Krisson Empire.

There are three conditions. Lorist laughed. I have to admit that the second prince is more insidious and cunning than that bullshit grand duke, these three conditions are very lenient, and they have not hurt the foundation of the Norton family. But Lorist believes that once he agrees to the second prince's request, these three conditions will become three nooses around the necks of the Norton family, dragging the Norton family into the abyss step by step.

Lorist was not interested in making a false deal with the second prince at all, since his eldest brother died on the battlefield for the second prince, the second prince ignored the Norton family. Sitting back and watching the new territorial nobles, the Kenmas family and the Norton family have a territorial dispute, they still refuse to mediate. The rumors about the temperament of the second prince have long been well-known, and it is better to believe that the second prince might as well believe that the sow will go to the tree......

Now Lorist is focused on the development and construction of his family's domain, and has no interest in occupying the Northlands and the so-called hegemony of reviving the kingdom of Cresson. He picked up a blank piece of vellum paper, wrote two simple words in reply, and then thought about it and printed the new family crest representing the earl's title on the reply. Then he folded the reply letter, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it to Viscount Hinderson.

Viscount Hinderson took the reply and immediately took his leave, he had been waiting at the Rock Castle for more than ten days, and he wished to go back early.

The seven or eight envoys of the lords and nobles that Lorist received next were represented by the envoys sent by Baron Philim of the Pegasus family, and they all came to the Rock Castle for the same purpose. I just want to buy good weapons and equipment from Lorist's hands, such as iron armor and crossbows for defending the city......

Requests for these messengers. Lorist replied in one word: sell. If you don't have money, you can also trade with grain and grass materials, the more the merrier, and then send them all to discuss the price with Shi Fatzi.

Eventually, Lorist invited Viscount Kenmax over, and he wondered how so many nobles from the realm would come to buy weapons and equipment from the Norton family......

The first thing Viscount Kenmax told Lorist was: Northland's troubled times have come.

Viscount Kenmax then told Lorist about the current situation in the Northlands. Ever since he escorted Duke Lukins back to the Grand Duke, the Grand Duke of the Northlands had fallen ill. And because the Knight Henneid mastered the dependents of the original Northland Legionnaires, he kept seducing the soldiers of the Northland Legion who were still stationed at the Frend Fortress Castle and the Hendry Ford Rope Bridge checkpoint, and as a result, more than 3,000 people ran to join the Hennell Knights, leaving less than 1,000 soldiers to defend these two fortress checkpoints It was a drop in the bucket, so that the second prince's troops scattered in a hurry when they pressed the border, so that the second prince's troops easily occupied these two strategic places.

The second prince was defeated and withdrew from the Duchy of Madras to return to the royal capital when he heard the news brought by the merchants who returned from the Northland, he was very sensitive to the opportunity, so he sent the only frontier guard corps under his command that still maintained the formation to the Northland, and sure enough, it was easy to occupy the two fortress checkpoints that were previously regarded as moats, so the second prince did not return to the royal capital, and went directly to the Northland, occupied the Grand Duke's Mansion, and ordered someone to send the Grand Duke Lukins to the royal capital to recuperate.

Immediately after that, the second prince kept giving orders and began to loot the Northland nobles, but he annoyed the knights of Henned, who were entrenched in the castle of Sakura Manor, and led the Northland army and the second prince's men to have a very small armed conflict, and the second prince lost more than 2,000 people and suffered another big defeat.

That's why the nobles of those territories in the Northland sent people to the Rock Castle to buy weapons and equipment. The Norton family drove out the Duke Lukins, the sitting tiger, and as a result, the second prince, a hungry wolf came to the Northlands, which was actually a good time for those ambitious territorial nobles to strengthen the family.

The purpose of Viscount Kenmeth coming to meet Lorist was very simple, he wanted to form an alliance with the Norton family, and reported a news to Lorlist, their family spent more than five months, spent countless gold coins to finally build a chain bridge connecting the two sides in the east of the Northland, so that the supplies to the Northland did not need to pass through the Hendry Ford Rope Bridge in the hands of the second prince.

This is good news for Lorlist, at least in the case of the Blade Mountains that can't find an outlet to the sea, it's also a good thing to have an extra access to the outside world. Lorist said that he would have to discuss it with his knights and give Viscount Kenmax an answer.

...... (To be continued.) )