Chapter 117: Search

A group of farmers crouched silently on the ground. ()

Surrounded by light cavalry from the city, these light cavalry lined their armor with flannel cloth in the cold weather, and the exhaled air turned into a white mist in front of their faces. The cavalrymen held wooden cups in their hands, which contained hot soup scooped from the hanging pot on one side. Although spring has arrived, it is still unbearable cold, and it is very uncomfortable to come out on a mission in this weather.

Thinking of this, a cavalry captain couldn't help but spit at his feet, and then picked up his leather whip. The captain walked up to a farmer with a wound on his face and struck him twice on the face with the handle of his whip.

"I said, hillbilly, tell us, where did those Easterners go? As long as you say it, my brothers and I will be clean from here in half an hour. Some people say these bastards stayed in your house the night before, say it, huh? ”

There was no expression on the farmer's dull face, only his lips trembled slightly, and he did not dare to look at the soldier's face, let alone the soldier's sword. The farmer's shoulders trembled slightly, and he looked at the peasants squatting beside him, wondering if they could keep their promises as promised.

The farmer is from Suno, from a place called Elindaha.

Until now, the farmer has no regrets. When he heard the panting of the horses and the tired coughing of the people at night, he prayed in his heart, "Let him come to my house." ”

Dozens of days have passed since the battle of the Blue Water River in the north, and people are talking about the victory achieved by His Majesty Emperor Haraus in the south.

Now even Emperor Harauth has taken up residence in Suno, and there are even rumors that Harauth is preparing to move the capital from the sea-vulnerable Paraven to the Suno. All these theories add to the legitimacy of Emperor Haraus, and people imagine with innocent smiles that the new emperor will give gifts--- according to custom, when the situation is stable, the emperor will reward his subjects.

Now the unreasonable guys in the east have been driven away, and it is known that the easterners are hiding in some castles in the south and roasting fires. For the Suno people, at least the martial law has been lifted, and there are no more rumors of unsettling news such as the imminent siege of Suno.

Emperor Haraus ordered the opening of twelve granaries from Paravon to Suno, which were sold to the Guilds of Suno, and the Emperor told the farmers not to worry about the spring seeds, which would be delivered to the villages before they were planted. At the same time, Emperor Haraus also encouraged people to have children. The Emperor met a mother who had given birth to ten children in the palace, and the Emperor affectionately called her the Heroic Mother, "My empire is stronger because of you." ”

In the past, people may have questioned Harlaus because of bloodline, inheritance, etc.; And some families with ancient beliefs are trying their best to avoid Haraus; No matter how hard Harlaus tries, people will have doubts in their hearts, smart people don't make choices easily, and they hope that their support will become more and more valuable and rewarded more and more over time.

But people soon realized that they were wrong, that prices were rising, and that food prices had made people's recipes less and less.

The peasants could not even feed themselves, let alone spare their surplus food in exchange for the beautiful goods of the city;

And the citizens suddenly found that most of their money was already on food, but even so, the citizens gradually could not afford to eat. Rats and cats have boarded the butcher's shop together, and the price has surpassed the best beef before the war;

Because of the war, the requisition of the people has become more and more frequent, and in some areas farmers even spend 20 days a month helping the army to sharpen arrows, transport grain and grass, and take care of livestock.

The lives of all people are deteriorating, at least as they seem. From inside the city to outside the city, the fighting pushed everyone to the edge of hell, and the prisoners in the prison were no longer provided with food, and before long cheap meat appeared around the prison. People try their best to restrain their **, but in the end they can't help but go and grab these foods--- no one wants to think about what kind of meat these are.

People took off their rings, pulled off their necklaces, pulled out their most beautiful clothes from their closets, and exchanged them all for food--- a gold ring? a small bucket of sturgeon with fifteen pounds of flour; A necklace embellished with gemstones? a lamb or two pork legs; A well-made cold silk smock? A bag of wheat mixed with a large amount of chaff.

The continued lack of food has succeeded in lowering expectations, and now, Haraus looks acceptable.

His Majesty the Emperor Haraus won the favor of the city of Sunno with thousands of barrels of flour and hundreds of wagons of jerky. And in the countryside of Suno, the emissaries of Emperor Haraus brought hundreds of carefully selected seeds: plump and dry, fresh in color and fragrant, and it was clear at a glance that if they were sown, they would yield a good harvest.

In addition to doing these things, Harlaus's imposing tour was impressive.

Ironclad soldiers, brightly colored battle banners, handsome knights, majestic kings. Along the way, the people who had suffered from the war looked at this powerful force with great emotion.

Although Haraus is not so good on the battlefield, he understands the human psyche.

Emperor Harauth knew that it was not a good choice to fully display his strength at the beginning, in that case, people would use this as a standard to measure the emperor's future development in their hearts, and once the emperor returned to a normal state, people would be dissatisfied and despise, and felt that the emperor's power had been reduced.

If, on the other hand, the initial weakness is shown and only a limited effort is made, then people will not have much hope for Emperor Haraus at the beginning. On the contrary, the emperor's setbacks will be understood. When the enemy is the weakest, Emperor Haraus will show his strength and ambitions again, and appear as a pro-people image, the people will be shocked and moved, and unconsciously put themselves on the same position as Emperor Haraus, even the subjects of the lower status will vaguely feel a sense of mission between the restless, as if Emperor Haraus has reached the peak of power and has his own merits.

Soon, the entire Sunoh Plain was cheering loudly, "Long live His Majesty Haraus."

However, there are still some things that make people a little uneasy, such as the eastern part of the Sunoan Plain, where a group of Kugit people has been driven into a black forest. It is said that the leader of these people was a young man in his twenties, and they hid in the forest several times to break through and run to the army of the Frost Fort in the east or south, but as soon as they came out of the forest, the farmers of Suno would report their location and call in a patrol to kill them, so these Kugit were not a great threat.

But there is another group of people who are a little more troublesome.

Several Frost Fort officers were still resisting on the north bank of the Bluewater River, and these people had become no different from the Green Forest bandits. From time to time, they burned down some strongholds of the Western Army, and through this practice, they undermined the morale of the Western Army and warned the ordinary people that they should not make a decision about whom to be loyal to lightly, because the war was not over yet.

For this kind of small group of harassment, the Western Army tried to clean it up a few times, and the effect was not bad. On the plains, these people have no cover, they are easy to find, and they have no external supplies, and if they go to the villages in search of provisions, they will definitely be found. Therefore, after taking the initiative to attack a few times, many of these small forces were wiped out, and some of the officers of the Frost Fort were also killed or captured.

The reasons for the rapid demise of these troops were similar to those of the Kujits, who did not have the support of the farmers in the first place, and whose later atrocities made the peasants angry with them, and sometimes the peasants would organize themselves to attack them before the patrols arrived. The farmer's attack will not do any real damage, but it will slow down the pace of these people, and in serious cases, it will reduce the morale of these people. Returning to the south is full of difficulties, with many watchtowers, and the guerrilla warfare that remains between villages will be exhausted by the constant fighting between villages.

There is reason to believe that the activities of these 'rebels' should be stopped.

However, there are exceptions, to be exact, there is an exception.

There is a general of Frost Fort who is still living on the plains of Suno.

To be honest, this man's team did not pose much of a threat: they did not burn the outposts, they did not loot the villages, and even a passing grain convoy was not attacked when it encountered them at night. These people seem to be just loitering, only striking back when attacked.

A group of recruit archers encountered them when they went to change their comrades on a fort, and without hesitation, the recruits began to shoot, and the rags-looking men immediately dispersed and outflanked the archers from both flanks. The courage of the recruits crumbled before they could make contact with the enemy, and for the first time the recruits discovered that training and fighting were not the same thing, the men dropped a bunch of weapons and turned around and fled, several of them were left behind for questioning before being released--- it would be inaccurate to say that they were released, and the group tied the hapless recruits to trees to prevent them from reporting their whereabouts.

Rao was so, and these ragged soldiers marched more than ten miles north first, and then went west.

The archers summoned a bunch of light cavalry to hunt them down that evening, but they had no clue. The light cavalry had to take a few archers with them to check the news.

The archers were sure that there were more than sixty bastards, and they were well armed.

The light cavalry, however, was not very convinced, and the armed forces of more than sixty people dared to swagger around, and they had already been wiped out, and those people would not exceed twenty at most, so as to ensure basic combat effectiveness and be easy to move quickly. The psychology of the archers to exaggerate the strength of the enemy is understood by everyone.

"Okay, okay." The captain of the hussars interrupted the archers' chatter and curses, "Why are you sure they are going south? ”

"That group of idiots, one of them actually asked where the Green Water Swamp was. Everybody knows that the Green Water Swamp is in the north, and they must have wanted to confuse us and make us believe that they went to the north, so they must have gone to the south. ”

The hussar captain frowned and did not express an opinion.

At this time, a light cavalry returned from the top of a path, and the light cavalry reported his discovery. After hearing this, the captain looked at the archers contemptuously, perhaps taking the archers on the road was not the right decision in the first place.

The archers suddenly received an order to go on the road and go to the north.

The recruits were puzzled and asked the cavalry captain what was going on.

But the captain of the cavalry ignored them, and the captain rode his horse to the north with his loud hooves, and the cavalry behind him rumbled after him.

The cavalryman, who had just returned from the group, smiled and explained to the archers: "They were found in a village to the north. Let's go, brothers. ”

"Huh? Did you catch them? Is there already a fight? One of the archers asked, a little fearful.

"No, they're gone. A couple of informants said they had stayed overnight at a farmer's house the night before and had left yesterday morning. But," the cavalryman coughed, and continued, "but the farmer would not say anything. Damn, I've met this kind of farmer a few times, and you say that these farmers are evil. ”