Chapter 53 Zhivadin

Zhivading was founded 1,400 years ago. ()

At that time, the ancestors of the Chanda had just migrated, and they were attacked by the Karad, who were still barbarians at the end of the snowy field. At that time, the Karad people moved south along the river and destroyed several settlements established by the Chanda people one after another. Shortly after the attack, the Chandars brought in a legion from overseas, which crushed the Karadian forces and drove them back into the icy snow.

In order to protect the settlement, the legions of the Chanda people built a fortress here, called the Frost Fortress.

It took centuries for the Frost Fortress to become a major settlement from its humble beginnings as a military fortress. During this period, the rate of Zen transformation of the Karad people became faster and faster, and more and more Karadians fled from the swamps or snowy fields, and these people became the most loyal people of the Zen people for a time. But when the Chanda people were in decline, these people rebelled first, and at that time the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Frost Fortress were Karadians, and even some of the descendants of the Chanda people did not know the difference between themselves and the Karadians.

Zhivadin became one of the first regions to break away from the Kalad Empire.

After the establishment of the state of Svadia, the Zhivadin people soon chose to join Svadia, and the Imperial Frost Fortress was renamed Zhivadin. Now if you go around the city of Zhivadin, you can see the spacious council halls and lavish public baths from their old town--- the remnants of the Zenda period.

One of the things that Zhivadin envied most about the rest of the continent was that its sewer system was top-notch in the entire continent. Zhivadin is at the end of a snowy field, surrounded by intricate waterways and swamps. More than 1,000 years ago, the engineers of the Zen masters used unimaginable techniques to construct an intricate system of low drainage, which allowed Zhivadin to 'not have a single toilet that smelled of stench' in the summer.

There have been explorers who have tried to go down to the end of the waterway, and they have gone all the way down, and when they have reached the sixth or seventh underground level, they have not dared to go any further. The swarthy passages continued to stretch to the center of the earth, but these brave explorers thought that no one was far from the gates of hell if they went any further, and no one wanted to take the risk.

Inside the tunnels, the explorers discovered several miners' lounges left behind by the Zendas, and found some maps and blueprints inside. If these design drawings had been carried out, the explorers had reached less than half the depth of the entire project. Inside the pile of old papers, explorers found many tool blueprints, which inspired the mining of the Vicchians from ancient times.

Even now, in the Vikia region, mining pits left over from the Chanda period abound, and the inhabitants of the Vikia region are very good at excavating. People can get a glimpse of what it was like to be a Zen master at his peak.

Then again, as history continues to move forward, Zhivadin was the hinterland of Svadia for a long time, but since more and more of the Nords migrated here, the situation that had been stable for a long time began to gradually become turbulent again.

The North Sea War summed up all the contradictions, and Zhivadin changed hands several times, going back and forth between the Swadians, the Nords, and later the Vecchians. If you take a closer look at the newly built walls of Zhivading over the years, you may be able to see a relief from the Republican period, or the regimental insignia from the Imperial period--- which have been polished into square bricks and then neatly embedded in the city walls. I don't know how the dusty, finely carved stonemason artists would feel when they saw this situation.

After the end of the North Sea War, there was a Great Depression in Zhivadin, and many of Zhivadin's residents fled to the south with their children and their children. In the space of a decade, the population of Zhivadin shrank to one-fifth of its heyday. So much so that when Marshal Vecchia was stationed in Zhivadin, 'all the soldiers were arranged in the dwellings, and there were still empty houses in the city'.

However, after the war, the Wikibians brought a large number of immigrants from the east of the mountains through recruitment or captivity. Coupled with the fertile land and excellent agricultural base of the Zhivading region, Zhivadin became prosperous again. Under the dominance of the Wikibians, the architectural style around Zhivadin became rough, and the original fine and rounded architectural style obviously did not meet the requirements of the new owner. Now the new buildings of Zhivadin are atmospheric and angular, and although the people of Karad scoff at the new buildings of Zhivadin, the city of Zhivadin still looks very interesting.

In the surrounding countryside, the Wikibians did not like the variety of orchards, and they left them to their Swadian tenant farmers, who did not bother with it themselves, but only one request: to grow the grapes and make wine

Everywhere the Wikians go, they try to keep the price of local alcohol down.

In Vecchia, some consumables, such as cloth or porcelain, tend to be much more expensive than Swadia and Rhodok, and spices are ridiculously expensive. But only alcoholic beverages can be used as water by Wikibians. Vikia was the first country to make a daily ration of one liter of wine the basic treatment of ordinary soldiers. This makes the Wikians a dream country for drunkards on the continent.

In addition to wine, Salander's tequila, gin; kvass drink brought by the Iron Shield Cavalry; Soju and barley liquor of the Swadias; Rhodoc liqueurs and rums, and even Nord wild fruit wines and fishy herbal liquors can be found on Vikchia---, and once the Vecchians succeed in making them, they will reduce the price of the liquor to the point where all foreign wine merchants are outraged within a few years.

The Vycians even refer to the Zhivading Plain as the 'Great Barrel', rather than the 'Great Granary' as the Swadians are accustomed to.

After repelling the cavalry of the Iron Shield River in the forest south of Zhivadin, and having routed an unknown number of infantry with fire, the Svadia soldiers gathered speed and headed towards Zhivadin.

The Iron Shield River cavalry did not suffer much damage, for the cavalry hastily withdrew from the battlefield after seeing that their infantry had been heavily damaged, and the extent of the damage to the Vecchians caused by the woods set by his father could only be known after they approached Zhivadin.

The fire burned all the time, with some scouts reporting that the flames had been carried by the wind to the east and had affected several villages there.

Some of the officers suspected that the smoke might obscure the sky and leave the next year completely sunless, and they swore that the wheat harvest would be gone the next year, and that storing bread now would make a fortune; Some say that the flames will continue to burn until the flames burn out the pastures of the Kujits; Others say that the flame is witchcraft and will continue to burn unless someone dissolves it.

In fact, according to reports from the battlefield, the fire was extinguished on the third day after the Swadias cautiously moved north along the riverbank--- at most on the fourth day---. The scouts found more than 400 corpses in the flames, a terrible occasion that led to the belief that the flames had cost the Wikibians at least a thousand soldiers, including many of Vekia's elite guards, which was a fatal blow to the Wikifans.

This great victory brought great honor to the general on the flank, but the general did not take credit for himself, and honestly told the prince that it was the second general Arcadio who commanded the fire. This made the prince a little curious, as this low-ranking skirmish leader had excelled in several battles.

Soon after, my father was invited to a simple dinner in the Prince's tent.

At the dinner, Lagrange introduced my father to the crowd and affirmed: "As long as Arcadio studies hard, it is still possible to become a second Lagrange after many years, so don't lose faith and give young people the opportunity to show themselves." ”

In short, the dinner party ended in everyone's pale faces, and the prince felt that Lagrange was too much.

Although the prince did not directly allocate soldiers and equipment to his father, he gave him the position of centurion, which made his father and Dimitri the same rank. Dimitri was glad and brought his father some food for recruiting soldiers, while General Wright had him tell him that he could go to his men and transfer thirty men to expand the ranks.

My father had injured his head and shoulders in two wars, and he would feel chest tightness after riding his horse for a while, and the place where the wound was applied was itching uncomfortably under the breathable armor.

The mountains are full of flowers, the view is wide, and the weather is very cool, and if the soldiers raise their eyes and look around when they are marching, they will find that the surrounding scenery is very beautiful, and there is an air of optimism in the ranks, as if they are not fighting but changing stations.

Since the beginning of the war, the Swadias have been very lucky, and in both battles Swadia has won great victories at very little cost. This victory made the Swadians almost unconsciously think that the next war would be as easy as the previous two. Only some experienced generals will not be fooled by the victory in front of them, knowing that after the siege, huge casualties will begin.

A siege is a nightmare for any army, and if it can be avoided, then abandoning the siege will be the choice of all generals. This time, however, the prince made the capture of Zhivading a strategic goal, and added political pressure to this goal. In this way, the generals had to put casualties on the back burner.

Fortunately, a few victories have weakened the Wikibians, and if the defeated Wikiians appeared behind the solid walls of Zhivadin, they would be a hundred times more difficult to kill, and that would be a real nightmare for the Svadians.

The best-case scenario is for the Wikiians to continue to fight like this, fighting the Svadians in the field in small groups and then being eaten by the Svadias.

After several decisive battles, the Swadias found that the Vycians did not know whether there was a problem with the coordination or lack of preparation, and their combat effectiveness was much weaker than that of the ironclad torrent more than ten years ago, while the Swadians were a new talent that had just emerged from the war with the steppe people. Under the trade-off, the Wikibians are clearly at a disadvantage in the field.

However, the solid walls of the Frost Fortress have always been the reason why the generals' brows are difficult to stretch, and the fortress that the Chanda people built to defend against the barbarians is now turning to protect the barbarians, which is a rather ironic scene when you think about it.

Moreover, even the prince had to admit that the Svadians lacked experience in siege, and although the Svadians had the best craftsmen and engineers, it was one thing to be prepared, and quite another to fight. For example, the father can train a soldier to stand in a line a thousand times, but the importance of the line has to be placed on the battlefield for the soldier to understand thoroughly between blood and fire.

His father had participated in the battle against Garmic, and in his mind, as long as he thought about it, it would not be so difficult to conquer a fortress.

It wasn't until the day he arrived in Zhivadin, when his father's war horse passed through a wood, that he changed his opinion.

At the end of a flat field, the walls of the Frost Fortress of Zhivading --- towered into the sky like a church, and the Vycchian flag fluttered slowly above the walls.

"Spring ends here, winter begins here".

With his head tilted back and his mouth open, his father suddenly understood the murderous aura hidden in the verses.