The "respectable" Marquis Frey had several great wishes in this life.

Among them, letting his own bloodline spread to every corner of the Seven Kingdoms has been roughly completed through the tactic of marrying the son Z Palace, and improving the image of the Frey family's "nouveau riche" has also begun to get on the right track through marriages with old nobles such as Robb Stark and Ruth Burton.

That is, to get rid of the aggrieved status quo of being pressed by the Tuli family, and let the family's political status go to a higher level.

The second condition given by Iger can be said to have scratched the itch of the old marquis, so that Wald Frey, who only planned to provide some food and grass in exchange for peace, and did not intend to wade into the troubled waters at all, also trembled, and finally made an impulsive decision to intervene.

After waiting for about two hours in the cold wind that was already noticeably damp in the Riverlands, the gates of the Twin Rivers opened, and Robb Stark, who had gone to negotiate, returned with the good news that the Freys had changed hands and agreed to join in.

The Red Dragon Banner, a symbol of the Targaryens, was quickly planted on the walls of the two twin forts, and the strikers of the Land-Grants with black flags quickly poured into the castle to take over the cross-river passage, and the Land-Grant-North coalition forces arrived on the south bank through the stone bridge, where they were stationed in place for a short rest for half a day and a night.

The Frey family is worthy of being the most powerful prince in the Three Rivers Valley, and for the sake of Egger's light and fluttering promise, he not only took out the amount of materials provided by the Boton family, but also mobilized thousands of infantry in an instant, joined the coalition army, and fought for the queen.

As a result, the number of men available to Iger rose to eight thousand. While the army was gathering on the south bank of the Green Fork River, countless letter crows in the castle also flew to the rest of the six countries except the northern border with the transcribed "Declaration of the Twin Cities...... In his brief free time, Egg was finally able to put into practice a few things that he had already thought about but had never had time to do.

First of all: it was publicly announced that the salaries of the soldiers of the land-grant army would be doubled.

For a long time, the salaries of land-grant practitioners and service personnel have been kept at a very low level, which is of course due to the fact that Egger bullied the mountain clans and the people outside the country have no concept of money, but the wartime supply system of the land-grant itself is not open to marketization and does not consider profits, and the income matches the price, and everyone's life is completely comfortable. But now the situation is different, and the soldiers gradually begin to contact the outside world with the troops from the north, and they begin to have to interact directly with the sky-high prices in the war in the south.

Even if it is the doubling of the military salary, it is still at a lower level, but Iger understands the "three and four" gameplay, and he has decided: the remaining salary increase will be slowly released in the form of victory rewards - first doubled, and then a little higher for each victory, so that the financial pressure will not increase sharply, and the soldiers can intuitively experience the tangible benefits of winning for themselves, and they will have a bright and good future expectation of "fighting the world for the queen", and can always maintain strong morale.

Then it was to reorganize the army, reform the framework of the command system, adjust and streamline the structure, and assign the chief officer and adjutant - the former was responsible for receiving orders from his superiors to command the troops under his jurisdiction, and the latter was specifically dealing with soldiers, similar to the "political commissar" in the army of the former Celestial Empire or the "chaplain" in the Western army. While in Winterfell, the land-giving military kitchen was unwittingly infiltrated by Varys's people, which really made Iger break out in a cold sweat, and he realized that he had been too superstitious about the deterrent power of his heroic image, and neglected to pay attention to the psychological state and thinking movement of the soldiers.

If the system does not give the people below a channel to express their demands, then there is no other way for people to try to realize their desires, and the solution can be summed up in one word: blocking is better than sparse - even if you can't quickly meet the demands of the soldiers, you will at least have the opportunity to draw a big pie and postpone the outbreak of contradictions.

Finally, preparations for the formation of an independent intelligence service began.

The Great Wall is sparsely populated inside and outside, all information has to rely on reconnaissance, and the living will not pit their own people in the war with the ghosts, so there has been no full-time intelligence department in the land grant, and the related work has been carried out by the rangers and Houguan Town patrols for a long time, but the southward conquest of the Seven Kingdoms is a fight with people, and different needs naturally require different ways and personnel to deal with them.

In the short term, the so-called intelligence services will be an empty shell, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and it is better to start later than not to start anything useful.

......

After concluding their hearts, the army continued south to the second stop in the Three Rivers Valley.

Haijiang City is not an ordinary aristocratic castle, but a war fortress built to defend against the invasion of the Iron People. The Mellister family, the lord of this place, is completely incomparable to the Frey family in terms of wealth, but it is the opposite in terms of bravery and good fighting - if you have to choose the most backbone family among the short ones in the scattered sandy riverland, it is obviously the Haijiang City family.

This is the family that raised Sir Dennis Mellister, whose long history has made them value reputation and shame, and the strong walls, rich defensive experience, and cold of winter give them the courage to fight - after the Shadow Tower Commander Dennis and the fortress lived and died heroically, Iger once asked someone to send a "Lightbringer" to his family Talking about the condolences and affirmation of the hero's family, he still wanted to rely on this relationship to almost persuade Haijiang City to change banners, who wanted to put a hot face on the cold ass: the uncle and the night watchman who had not seen him for forty years and had a little relationship with Egger could not defeat the mad king's brother-killing revenge at all, and the current head of the family, Earl Jason Mellister, not only closed the door and did not even let the negotiators in, but also loudly declared on the wall that Daenerys was the remnant of the mad king, and Egger West was a shameful thief and rebel. Baratheon is the true and legitimate monarch of the Seven Kingdoms.

In this regard, Iger didn't say much nonsense, and directly ordered the artillery to be rolled out and began to bombard the city gates.

The artillerymen, who had been itching for a long time, finally got a chance to play, and in the rumbling cannon, not only did the troops of the northern realm and the Frey family experience an unprecedented shock from the sidelines, but the pride of the Mellister family was also shattered. After several volleys had shattered the gate and the walls attached to it, Iger commanded the forces of the North and Frey to take an offensive stance and issue an ultimatum.

After all, the cannonball is harder than the mouth, and the nobles of this era have no consciousness of broken jade at all, seeing that the castle that relied as a barrier is so unbearable in the face of the enemy's "witchcraft", the "first hard gas in the river" finally bent its knees under the savage power of gunpowder, quickly raised the white flag, and surrendered to the coalition army.

Iger did not intend to target the families of the martyrs who fought against the Strangers, but there were always people who had to pay the price for the previous insults and the gunpowder consumed by the land-giving army, and after a round of consultations, the final disposition decision was made: the former patriarch, Earl Jason Mellister, abdicated his son to make way for his son, and went to the Great Wall under the escort of the Stark family to wear black clothes, and then to atone for his crimes by developing the outer territories; Mellister.

Settle the richest Frey family, gnaw the hardest bones of Mellister, and the next Three Rivers Valley march smoothly to the point of no one: the Blaywood family in Raven Tree City and the Brecon family in Stone Fence City have all fallen in the wind, and the beauty set has already "taken off his pants and pouted his ass" when the army arrives (Harvey's original words, because the town took the initiative to hang the Red Dragon Banner), and the good news also came from Bolton on the South Road: the Terror Fort army not only successfully took the town of Earl Harroway, coerced and subdued the guard knights of Saltworks Town, but also easily occupied the almost undefended Harrenhal......;

On average, it took less than a day to surrender to one place, and by the time the coalition forces crossed the Red Fork River and marched west along the Hejian Avenue to the bottom of Benliu City, half of the three river basins had already hung up the Red Dragon Banner. Faced with an invasion from the north, which was completely unexpected, the titular ruler Tully had no time to do anything, and was close to becoming the commander of the bare pole. In the end, Robb, his own nephew, combined with the same words that Iger fooled Frey, promising the Tully family that after the war, "they would not lose their identity as guardians of the Riverlands...... After twenty years, the Trout family has once again joined the Targaryen banner.

Conquest of a puddle of mud would not give Iger a sense of accomplishment, in fact, most of the credit for being able to conquer one of the Seven Kingdoms in just one week goes to Robb - because the Tully family is too weak, most of the Riverland nobles actually use the Stark family as their spiritual leader and the weather vane of the team, and seeing the Wolf Banner appear in the besieging army, this is a devastating blow to the morale of most of the Riverland nobles.

With all the enemies on his back surrendered, the grain routes unimpeded, and the strategic objectives of the first phase approaching to be fully achieved, according to the original plan, Iger should turn east at this time, go along the riverside road to the king's territory, and join Daenerys' army of the Unsullied to surround King's Landing. But to the surprise of all the nobles who accompanied the army, after stopping for the night under Riverrun, Egger actually ordered the army to continue westward towards the Golden Tooth City, the gateway fortress between the rivers in the west.

"My lord, this is completely different from your previous plan. Even Robb, who had been silent for a long time, finally couldn't help but question, "The coalition army is no more than 10,000 people, and if you want to attack the western border, even if you have the advantage of gunpowder, I am afraid that it will be very difficult to fight!"

"Rest assured. Egger smiled and reassured, "This trip to Golden Tooth City is not for combat, just for you to accompany me...... Just go to an appointment with an old friend. ”

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