At this moment, in the Black Castle more than a dozen miles away, three high-ranking Night Watch officials with the title of Chief were waiting with their bellies full of fire for Robb Stark's reaction and handling of Jaime's actions this morning. And Carter Peck had already packed up his things with all his subordinates, and only waited for the next day to return to the East China Sea to look.

They would never have expected that before the complaint of today's incident reached the hands of the Guardian of the North, the accused had already begun to plan an even more shocking and crazy ...... A plan that is so bold that no one will believe it even if they say it.

......

Iger left the office with Kent.

Formally, what he was planning to carry out was a typical mutiny. Sending troops to surround Castle Black and forbid anyone to leave would inevitably anger a large number of Night's Watch soldiers, who thought they were planning to seize power by force, but at this time, the clash that took place in the morning became a key factor in Egger's final decision.

With Carter Pike and Jaime Lannister in the first place to use force, the Night's Watch will see his large-scale operation tomorrow as a demonstration and revenge against Commander Tokaiwang, rather than as an offense and disrespect to the entire Night's Watch...... Although the essence of the matter has not changed in the slightest, the emotional resistance will be much less.

It is true that no matter how small the resistance and disgust is, it will also cause the number of votes that have already been received to fall, but Iger still decided to do this: if there are fewer votes, there will be fewer votes, and he can use the third and fourth batches...... Endless recruits are added to slowly make up for the losses, forcing them to two-thirds. But once there is a problem with the food from the iron vault, no matter how many tickets there are, it will not be able to feed tens of thousands of new landdonors.

People who don't have enough to eat are the most dangerous creatures in the world.

......

It was already completely dark outside, and fine snowflakes were floating in the sky, and a thin layer had accumulated on the frozen ground...... This is the result of someone sweeping it just nowon, and you can imagine what it must be like at this moment in the vast untended wilderness outside the walls.

Walking through the ankle-deep snow in the cold wind at night is tingling just thinking about it...... On the bright side, the snow will not cause mud at least in the cold climate of the north, where the ground is full of frozen ground, and the white, reflective snowfields provide enough visibility of the environment ahead in the dark night without moonlight.

After a few inquiries, they found the Chieftain of Filint, who was sweating profusely, and after a brief negotiation, they settled the problem of the escort team. Filint is the mountain clan with the largest number of people stationed in the Great Wall, if they can be mobilized to participate, there will be a lot less difficulty in terms of troops, but at this moment, when the Long Night Fort is full of northern nobles and soldiers, it is impossible to quietly transfer one or two hundred people.

The visit of the feudal lord made the Long Night Fort more lively than any festival, under the eaves, between the houses, and on the walls...... Torches burned everywhere, flames fluttering in the wind, but they were powerless to illuminate every corner of the largest fortress along the Great Wall. When it was time for dinner, all the guests from the north were invited into the hall, and in the center of the castle, there was only cold wind and flying snow in an instant.

In this darkness, the well-fed and well-fed messenger team came out of the kitchen, and quietly marched to the east gate under the cover of the noisy noise of the welcome dinner, and disappeared into the dim night through the cracks opened lightly by the guards.

In the Long Night Fort, the staggered plans were staggered, and the guests were happy. Outside the Long Night Fort, the cold wind and snowflakes hit the task force's face...... One foot deep and one foot shallow, they began to follow a path that was almost impossible to see, in the direction of Castle Black and Houguan Town.

＊＊＊

There is a joke in the modern world: Why did the ancients have so many children? Because there is nothing to do after dark, and when they go to bed, they can't sleep, so they can only make people.

The joke is vulgar, but it vividly depicts the lack of activity and boredom at night in the world before the invention of electricity. And in the land grants, especially in Houguan Town, the situation is worse than the joke: it's not just that there is no power. Most of the employees and armed forces of the Night's Watch industry are civilian lads who are eager to make a lot of money or make a career with Egger in pursuit of their dreams...... Most of them don't even have wives.

Where there is a need, there are people who live by satisfying it. While Houguan Town is known as the capital of land grants, it is also the area with the highest frequency and the highest density of "skin and meat business" in the north of the entire neck except for Baigang. The trading place is generally in the small cabin or cellar behind the core trade street of Houguan Town, and the women who provide services are mostly women who come from outside the fortress and have lost most of their belongings and even the middle-aged male members of the family, and the customer groups are mainly night watchmen, industrial employees, soldiers, and some mountain clansmen who have more money in hand.

Jon Snow had reported this to Egger, believing that this chaos was offensive and had turned the land grant into a miasma, and had tarnished the image of the Night's Watch, and demanded that Iger order a ban on this carnal trade.

It wasn't an outrageous request, but Iger shook his head and vetoed it for the simple reason that things mattered.

In this small society that has not yet fully taken shape, it is impossible for oneself with limited resources to set up a welfare system and distribute free food to feed everyone. The new donors had to serve and work in exchange for food to feed themselves.

Iger and his trusted subordinates did everything they could: men built houses and roads, enlisted in the army, and women cleaned, did laundry, and cooked...... However, even if they racked their brains, the logistics department was only able to create jobs and jobs equivalent to a quarter of the number of new land donors.

This means that a quarter of the new donors who are lucky enough to get a job will have to feed the remaining three-quarters of their compatriots and families. Under these circumstances, following the example of Stannis Baratheon's strict ban on the meat business would be tantamount to pushing orphans and widows who have lost their family breadwinners in battles with the Strangers or in the attack and defense of the Great Wall, and who are not competitive themselves.

What's more, when the ban is issued, someone has to enforce it...... And Egger really doesn't have the resources, energy, and manpower to devote to solving such a non-lethal problem.

What sounds reasonable doesn't work everywhere and at any time. At the very least, at a time when the land grant, when Iger was officially elected commander-in-chief, and when he was firmly in the position of the de facto supreme leader of the land grant, and did not find a way to provide everyone with the opportunity to support themselves, he rashly did something to sweep H first...... It's simply putting the cart before the horse, and there is no distinction between the important and the heavy.

However, not prohibiting does not mean being completely laissez-faire. Iger still made a few binding rules: the leather and meat business was not allowed to be put on the table, it was strictly forbidden to enter the walls of Houguan Town, and systematic organizations and roles such as brothels and professional pimps were never allowed to appear, and as middlemen made the difference, they became parasites of this new society.

＊＊＊

Of course, the above has nothing to do with the variables that are about to happen at the moment.

No matter how energetic and eager you are, you won't get it late at night, not to mention that Houguan Town has to be closed at night, and it is strictly forbidden to enter and exit inside and outside the wall.

So, when the welcome dinner at Fort Long Night was at its climax, the daytime bustling and busy land-giving capital had gone dark and fallen into a dormant silence, leaving only the sentries on duty at the top of the wall still awake.

Cold.

It's cold.

It's so cold.

Standing guard on the top of the city wall in such weather makes the human brain seem to freeze, and there is no room for anything else than this thought. With chattering teeth, Hatch tightened his cloak and shrunk into a sheltered corner.

He is the squad leader of this sentry and is responsible for ensuring that the sentries are doing their duty. If he, the supervisor, is caught lazy sleeping or something while on duty, although he will not lose his head, he will be properly fired and sent home.

Theoretically, there was no one to supervise him, but he did not dare to desert.

Although the armed forces of the Night's Watch are not formally military organizations, they have stricter rules of military law than any other army in the world, and the commanders call it discipline. This "discipline" is as strict as ...... Even as one of them, he often had to enforce discipline and criticize and punish the soldiers under him, which Hatch occasionally found a bit of a fuss.

But no one complained...... At least no one dares to complain publicly.

The salary determines the employee's attitude towards the boss.

Every month, all the industrial employees in the crown town will run clean after tomorrow.

Ten silver deer every month, at least half of the people will be secretly thinking "boss, I am your father" while casually coping with the chaos.

But if it is a hundred silver deer per month, it is enough to force everyone to endure the complaints and work hard.

The soldiers of the "Night Watch Industrial Security Guard" have a total income of nearly one gold dragon per month with their salaries, living expenses, and subsidies for serving in the land grants.

What is the concept of a golden dragon?

In poorer places and villages with fewer people, the monthly taxes that knight-level small lords can collect are of this order of magnitude.

Such a salary, in such a world, can definitely make 99% of people calmly accept thousands of miles away from home, in the ice and snow...... and a whole bunch of rules that are very strictly enforced.

What's more, they were soldiers in the establishment of the Night's Watch estate, but in the land grants, dozens of them were actually officers. They have all received systematic training and drills in the industrial park of King's Landing, and only after excellent grades can they be selected to be sent to Houguan Town, each of them has five or six or seven to ten mountain clans or land-giver warriors to deploy, and if a situation arises and a large number of troops need to be gathered, this number can become fifty or one hundred at any time.

They are the product of the military part of Egger's grand blueprint, and when needed, a clan or land-giver with basic training can be assembled with the skeleton of the Night's Watch security team and an army can be formed overnight - and this has been proven and feasible in the fight to expel the Iron People from the north.

A commoner with no family background and special skills, in the face of such treatment, does not dare to casually say such arrogant words as "there is no place to keep a master, there is a place to keep a master". Having lost his current job, which was a little hard, but decent, well-paid and seemingly promising, there was no big man in the South who could be as big as the Night's Watch industry: he only valued ability and attitude, not his surname or his origin.

If you go home to farm or wander around flea nests and do odd jobs to make a living, you will have to live a harder life for the rest of your life, and you will have no future.

......

Hold on, hold on for another hour, and he'll be able to go back to his warm room with peace of mind and sleep until noon tomorrow.

Just as Hatch shivered and silently counted, waiting for the next sentry to take his place, something happened outside the wall.

A row of several points of light appeared at the end of the north view, approached along the King's Road, and braved the fierce wind and snow through the opposite street of Houguan Town, which was lined with houses on both sides, and came to the bottom of the north gate.

It was not an enemy, it was obvious: the comer did not hide his intentions at all: a dozen or so people were heavy, panting like oxen, and all of them looked exhausted. Less than half of them were carrying torches, and all of them had snowflakes and fine ice cubes on their clothes, hats, eyebrows, and mustaches. They laboriously "waded" through the snow from the King's Road to the south, and trudged all the way to the bottom of the city gates.

"Open the door!"

After countless night shifts, it was the first time that Hatch had encountered such a swaggering person calling the door in the middle of the night: "Who? When is this? If you want to enter the city, wait until dawn tomorrow!"

"I'm Kent! Lord Yam ordered me to hurry to the Long Night Fort in the afternoon to report the news, and I have now brought back an urgent order from the Chief Logistics Officer!"

"Kent?" Hatch frowned, the Night's Watch industry had more than a hundred regular employees in Houguan Town, and of course he knew each other. But knowing it doesn't mean that you can break the rules: "Emergency order? Hou Guanzhen is sleeping at the moment, except for the guards on night duty, even if it is true, who will accept the execution order? I advise you, it is better to find a hotel to spend the night, and talk about it tomorrow morning." ”

"Do you understand the lingua franca? Emergency instructions are emergency instructions, which need to be executed before dawn, and you can't afford to delay the chief logistics officer's major event!"

"Rules are rules. Hatch wasn't intimidated at all, but he didn't dare to take it seriously at all: "In this case, I'll put a hanging basket down, hang the military order paperwork up, and I'll hand it over to the commander for you." ”

"Time is urgent, there is no complete paperwork, the details need to be conveyed orally! you pull me up, and I will personally go and explain to Lord Yam!"

"Hmm...... That's fine. ”

Hatch wasn't worried about what would go wrong with his well-known colleagues, he was suspicious of the dozen or so strong men who were following Kent. It wouldn't be good if they were wandering savage robbers who had kidnapped the industrial staff and tried to infiltrate Houguan Town to wreak havoc.

Fearing that it would soon prove to be superfluous, he called a few subordinate sentries of the same class, and after hanging down the rope, Kent climbed the rope alone and was pulled up the wall, and with him came more than a dozen people without the slightest intention and action to obstruct it.

Brushing off the snow from his body, Kent greeted several sentinels and hurried down the city wall to the lodgings in Houguan Town.

Ten minutes later, Egger's orders were sent to Humphrey Hishan, the Night's Watch logistics officer in Houguan Town, and Mayor Yam.

Half an hour later, when the banquet at the Long Night Fort, which was more than 20 miles away, came to an end, the participants gradually dispersed, but Houguan Town, which had long been dormant, gradually woke up and became lively.

——