Chapter 217: Whale Island

"My lord, I think the agreement you reached with the Fisabrun family in exchange for weapons and equipment in exchange for cattle and sheep is extremely unwise, from a strategic point of view, this is simply an act of the enemy......" Schward, who had been holding back for two days, finally couldn't bear it anymore, and took advantage of the opportunity to have afternoon tea to tell Lorist his own opinion.

Lorist took a small piece of honey shortbread and put it in his mouth, and after eating, he picked up the teacup and rinsed his mouth, looking at Schward with a smile.

Schward's face was red, and he waited for a long time to see Lorist reply, and he was a little anxious: "Teacher, you tell me why you want to make this deal with the Fisabrun family, everyone said that you were fascinated by Princess Celivia to make such a decision......"

Lorist hurriedly turned her head to look, fortunately, Miss Theresti was still basking in the sun with the little baby on the grass, and her maid Winnie, although she had grown into a big girl, was still childlike, and was teasing the little baby's little feet, and she didn't hear what Schward had just said.

"Come here, you stinky boy. Lorist sank his face, reached out and kneaded Schward's hair into a chicken nest shape: "When you grow up, you will think about it with a strategic vision, it's amazing......"

"Alright, sit down, it's time for you to give you a lesson. ”

"Schward, answer me a question first, what do you think of the Grand Duke of Fisabrun and the Border Guards?" asked Lorlist.

Schward thought for a moment and replied, "Teacher." Although the Grand Duke of Fisabrun and his border guards are not facing our family head-on, he is a potential opponent of our family no matter what. If we were to attack the Kingdom of Iberia in the future, they would become our enemies. It's not just me, a lot of people think so. ”

"The Iberian Kingdom? Schward, look farther. Don't keep it in front of you. In my eyes, the Grand Duke of Fisabrun and his border guards are not in my eyes at all, they are not worthy of being opponents of our family. "Lorist is arrogant at this moment.

"Teacher, why do you think so, the frontier regiment under the Grand Duke of Fisabrun has seventy-eight thousand elite soldiers, which is almost the same as the total number of our Norton family's armed forces. And after completing the weapons and equipment deal with our family, your combat power has increased greatly, you can't take it lightly!" Schward hurriedly persuaded.

"Hehe......" Lorist laughed: "Schward, tell me why the Grand Duke of Fisabrun gave up his position as regent of the Iberian Kingdom and ran back to his old nest in the Eastern Wilderness Province?"

"That's because, because the lord set up a game for him in the royal capital, the situation in the Iberian kingdom is now in a mess, and the Grand Duke of Fisabrun has no power to return to heaven and has to give ......up," Schward replied thoughtfully.

Lorist shook his head: "You're wrong, Schward. In the face of strength, no matter how conspiratorial tricks are, they are all small tricks that cannot be put on the table. In fact, if the Grand Duke of Fisabrun is ruthless, he can purge the nobles of the entire kingdom and gather them into his own help, and he has the strength. As long as the kingdom is put in order and production resumes, the Iberian kingdom will be reborn in less than five years. Instead of chaos like now, the country is about to die. ”

But the Grand Duke of Fisabrun gave up. Because it was a point of no return, either he succeeded, or the entire Fisabrun family buried him. So, he was scared. I would rather give up the kingdom than perish my own family, as long as I have the border legion in my hands, then whoever comes to power will give the Fisabrun family a face. Even if he's gone. The Fisabrun family is still interdependent with the Border Guards. ”

From this, it can be seen that the Grand Duke of Fisabrun has long lost his ambition, although he was able to establish it because of his support for the Iberian Kingdom, but the current Iberian Kingdom is simply surviving. Grand Duke Fisabrun knew that his departure would mean that he had given up his efforts to save the Iberian kingdom. ”

"Let's take a look at the frontier legion again, the purpose of the original formation was to resist the grass barbarian cavalry on the northeast steppe, but I didn't expect that after the Grand Duke of Fisabrun became the commander of the legion, the strength of the frontier legion increased so quickly, not only suppressed the grass barbarian cavalry, but also opened up territory for the former empire, adding a frontier province to the empire. Therefore, the biggest enemy of the frontier regiment is still the barbarian tribe in the northeastern steppe.

Regardless of the 78,000 elite soldiers of the Frontier Legion, in fact they need at least half of their strength to defend against the invasion of the barbarian cavalry. The Grand Duke of Fisabrun had previously been able to suppress opposition in the Kingdom of Iberia with three or four regiments of border rangers. But after our family wiped out the 100,000 army of the second prince in a battle, Grand Duke Fisabulun has realized that with this little force in his hands, it is afraid that it will be difficult to deal with the four major families that have risen in our northland. ”

"Ordering 100,000 sets of standard equipment from our family is actually an olive branch handed to us by Princess Celivia on behalf of the border guard corps and the Fisabrun family, which means that the Fisabrun family has no intention of being our enemy, of course, there is also a temptation to see if our family has the strength. We took the deal, which also means that we don't regard the Fisabrun family as an enemy, and our family doesn't care how much the 100,000 sets of standard equipment will add to the combat power of the border guards.

Many people in our family are worried that these 100,000 sets of standard equipment will greatly increase the combat strength of the border guards, and if they become our enemies, it will be tantamount to asking for our own hardship, but in fact, they are too lacking in self-confidence or afraid of the prestige of the Grand Duke of Fisabrun as the military god of the steppe. Schward, I ask you, do you think we will be defeated if our family is now facing the entire Frontier Legion?"

"Impossible, with the strength of our family's armed forces, the border guards have almost no chance of winning against us, whether it is the quality and equipment of the soldiers, we can crush the border guards. "Schward is confident in the family's armament.

"So, if the Border Guards are equipped with the standard equipment they procured, will they be able to draw with us or defeat our family's forces?" Lorist asked again.

This time, Schward thought for a long time, and finally shook his head: "They still have no chance of winning, our family's logistics support is much stronger than theirs, even if they don't use strategy, step by step, steady and steady." Even if they win a few battles with ingenuity, they will still lose in the end...... But my lord, in this way, they will cause a lot of damage to our family's weapons, and I think this is what this transaction refers to when it comes to the enemy's behavior......"

Lorist nodded: "Schward, you are very thoughtful, and the teacher is very pleased." But one thing you have to remember is that once you go to the battlefield, you must regard your soldiers as numbers, and as a commander-in-chief, you must always keep a calm judgment of the situation on the battlefield, and not affect your mind because of sympathy and anger. How to defeat the enemy and how to avoid your own casualties is something that you should consider as a commander, but as long as the battle begins, you can't change your mind because the casualties are too heavy, because if you can't win the war, the casualties you pay are useless, and you must be decisive. Only victory can make sacrifice more valuable......"

"What you just said is that there is some truth, these 100,000 sets of standard equipment can indeed increase the combat strength of the border defense corps. But you worried people have forgotten the most important point, this is the deal, you have to see what the Fisabrun family and the border guards have paid for these 100,000 sets of standard equipment. For our family, these 100,000 sets of standard equipment are only the output of a year's and a half years of ordnance production base, but we can exchange it for nearly two million head of cattle and sheep.

Two million heads of cattle and sheep are equivalent to two million-level Warcraft tides. The Fisabrun family and the border guards simply could not afford it. Donghuang Province and Makinohara Province, two major pastoral provinces, produce up to 500,000 cattle and sheep a year, but they cannot hand them all over to us. Because they also have to sell these cattle and sheep in exchange for food, cloth, salt and other necessities. And I signed a five-year agreement with them. In the past five years, they need to deliver 400,000 cattle and sheep to our family every year, and we only need to deliver 20,000 sets of standard equipment to two border ranger regiments every year.

Therefore, the Fisabrun family and the border guards put their minds on the grass barbarian tribes in the northeast steppe, preparing to plunder the cattle and sheep of these grass barbarian tribes. But are those barbarian tribes easy to mess with? Those who have more than 100,000 head of livestock are all tribes of tens of thousands of people, and all of them are soldiers. Even if they are wearing the standard equipment that our family trades, it does not mean that all the soldiers of the border guard regiment are invulnerable, they will also have casualties and equipment will be lost. I guess five years from now. The Frontier Corps may also need to be supplemented with 20,000 or 30,000 sets of standard equipment......

In a sense, signing this deal agreement is equivalent to five years of work for our family by the Fisabrun family and the border guards, and they will also form a life-and-death feud with the grass barbarian tribe in the northeast steppe. Even after five years, they got all the standard equipment, and their combat power increased greatly. The only way to focus is on preventing the retaliation of the barbarian tribes. And our family, after five years of development, may still have the same strength as it is now? I am afraid that you will not take the border guard corps seriously. ”

"Five years?" Schwarder touched his head and laughed embarrassedly: "Teacher, I really forgot this, time is also the key ......"

After thinking about it for a long time, Schward's eyes lit up: "Teacher, in fact, as long as they sign this agreement, it means that in five years, the Fisabrun family and the border guards can only get along with us amicably, and it is absolutely impossible to be our enemies again." Because they had to use the most elite troops and well-equipped soldiers to rob cattle and sheep on the prairie, they would instead want to convince us in the next five years, first, to avoid being enemies on both sides, and second, we had the initiative to provide them with standard equipment......"

"Yes, that's the truth, so the worries of those in the family who only see the people in front of them are in vain......" Lorist smiled and picked up the teacup.

Pat rushed to Lorist with a dusty family soldier: "My lord, the sailor battalion has an urgent report, three training ships were attacked by whales when they went to sea for training, and two of them were overturned, and the sailors suffered heavy losses, and more than three hundred and seventy people are currently missing, and their whereabouts are unknown......"

"What did you say?" Lorist stood up with a thud of surprise, knocking over the teacups and teapots on the table.

......

Lorist set out overnight with the guard battalion and arrived at the Hornhorn Bay Naval Barracks in the afternoon of the next day.

The Golden Knight Farea was full of shame: "My lord, it was my incompetence that betrayed your trust and caused the sailors to suffer such heavy losses......"

Lorist patted him on the shoulder: "It's none of your business, you have put a lot of effort into preparing for the construction of the sailor barracks, and you are not on board this time when the three training ships sail, and the unexpected events are not under your control." I'll get something to fill my stomach with the guards, we haven't had a little hot food yesterday afternoon......"

In mid-October, the three training boats were delivered to the sailors' battalion, and at first they were just walking around the bay to familiarize themselves with the water conditions and the performance of the boats. But after ten days in a row, everyone was a little tired of it, so they decided to drive out of the bay to have a look. In this way, every class of sailors who came on board drove farther and farther. Until three days ago, a small island was found in the sea about a hundred miles from Cow Horn Bay, but there were many whales playing around the island.

This small island does not exist on the map, which means that the island is not large, and it has been ignored by the magicians who drew the map, so the location is not indicated on the map that has been handed down. So the sailors gave the name of Whale Island based on the whales frolicking around the island.

Farrea also went to see Whale Island on a training boat two days ago, and at that time he also refused the sailors' request to go to the island to see, mainly because there were too many whales around the island, and the training boat rushed over for fear that something would happen. But I didn't expect that a group of sailors who went to sea for training yesterday couldn't help but be curious and wanted to go to the island to have a while, three training boats, one boat with 200 people, a total of 600 sailors drove three training boats to Whale Island happily.

On the sea less than ten miles away from Whale Island, the two training boats in front were attacked by several whales, the largest whale was comparable to the size of the training ship, jumped, collided, and the huge whale body overturned one on the spot, and knocked over another. The sailors on the training ship that fell behind were frightened, and hurriedly raised their sails and turned the rudder to avoid them until they were spared. When it was safe to reach a safe distance, only 23 people were rescued by putting down the small lifeboat to rescue, and 377 of the 400 sailors on the two training boats in front were missing......

Farea's voice was low, and everyone in the room understood what it meant to be attacked and disappeared on the sea, and only a few lucky ones might still be favored by fate and have a chance to be rescued, but the vast majority had already left this world.

"Whales are not monsters, so why would they attack our training ships?" asked El, the commander of the guard battalion.

"I don't know why. Farea shook her head: "After yesterday's incident, I went to the shipyard and asked a few old boatmen, as well as a few old fishermen, according to them, it is very likely that the waters near Whale Island are the places where those whales nurse their offspring, so our training boats were attacked by them when they violated their territory. ”

"Now the morale in the sailor camp is very low because of yesterday's incident, my lord, I wonder if it is not to punish the captain and sailors of the only training ship that came back yesterday, it is their curiosity and recklessness that caused this tragic incident......

"If you formally order that sailors are not allowed to approach the island, I have no objection to you punishing those who disobey the order. Lorist said.

Farea thought for a moment, "No, I didn't order them not to approach Whale Island......"

"Well, sailors are on board to emphasize discipline, but it's not a bad thing to be curious and have a strong spirit of exploration. Although such a tragedy occurred when the sailor camp was first built, it did not stop our family's determination to go to the ocean. What whale island is the territory of whales, even the sea, is also the world of our Norton family's fleet!

Fareia, you pacify the sailors first, I will let the shipyard start building the whaling ship immediately, and when our family's whaling ship is launched next spring, we will let that whale's territory become a whale Jedi......." Lorist slapped his hand hatefully on the table.

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