Chapter 1: The Down-and-Out Family

Kudan

Summer is coming to an end

Daddy Vladimir is waiting for his cargo ship to return, it is approaching the port, its sails have fallen, and it is slowly approaching the port under the guidance of the navigator

Is this the seventh or eighth boat? Daddy Vladimir already doesn't remember too clearly

The docks of Kudan were crowded with vendors from all over the country, Vickyans, Nords, and before the war, Swadias and Rhodoks

These peddlers peddle boiled chestnuts, fresh wheat cakes, and bread drizzled with honey, and in addition to these peddlers, there are others who tear open a piece of cloth to show the people the brightness of their goods, and no one buys these rags of very poor quality, which are not sold in the market, either as thin as birch leaves, or in a mess of threads, and the edges of these cloths must be wrapped up with leather, if they do not do so, The threads that God can't figure out will be revealed

Of course, some people who have a good relationship with the members of the dock patrol, or who have paid for a license, will sell some prohibited items: for example, some books that promote blushing love, and recently a copy of "Great Love" from Swadia has been selling particularly hot, and this book has been sold so well that it has been sold for countless copyists, and it is said that a certain big merchant in the city of Kudan was gathering craftsmen to engrave the Wiki carving plates of "The Great Love", and by that time, a large number of Wiki "The Great Love" It will quickly occupy the market, so for copyists, if they want to make money, they will move fast, and people will not be able to win the machine when the time comes

In order to save money, Vladimir's father has rented a broken shack with a group of copyists from the countryside for the past two days, and if anyone knows that the distant relatives of the lord's family will actually live in this kind of place, they will definitely laugh to death, but he doesn't care much about people's opinions, he is old, and he doesn't want to spend an extra copper coin on himself, as long as he can finish these days, and when the last boat docks, he can leave the dock

These copyists complained all day long, they kept cursing the people of the Ming printing industry, when this technology was first introduced more than ten years ago, Vikia was full of copying, but since the Rhodoks improved the printing technology from the East, the cost of this technology has dropped rapidly, and countless merchants have funded craftsmen to learn this technology, and when there are enough skilled workers, these merchants will take the printing press to a city, and then in just a few months, the entire city of copyists will be cornered

"Swear to Our Lady," said the scribes, their eyes widened, "these fellows are illiterate, but they can make thousands of pages of paper full of words in one afternoon, and these souls will go to hell at the end of the day."

For these people who are destined to be eliminated, Vladimir has no meaning of contempt at all, he even feels that they deserve sympathy, because he knows that there are many people who are abandoned by this era, such as him, such as his poor family

Damn the war has kept the Wikiians running the soup for years

Zhivadine, now known as the Frost Castle, was taken by the Swadians from the west, and this is the jewel of the Vecchians, where so many merchants and scholars gathered in the past, and the abundance of grain and the dense population of ants made the city full of life

Vladimir always remembered that when he went to Zhivadin more than 20 years ago, every morning after the bell rang, people would come out of the various towns, black smoke would rise from the workshops of the craftsmen, and the laundry fù people would gather under the bridge to solicit business, and these women would not only sell their laundry hands, but also sell themselves, and Vladimir remembered that when he was younger, he had a good time with a washerwoman, although after he had no money, the woman left him

Now Zhivadin has become the capital of Eastern Svadia

Vladimir shook his head and sighed when he thought of this, the world is impermanent, it was like this, many years ago, when King Vekia took advantage of the chaos to seize Zhivadin, he should have thought that sooner or later, this place would be taken away by someone else, there is nothing to complain about, but Vladimir can't be so relieved

Back when the current King of Vekia was recruited by Haraus from the east side of the mountain, there were many Vecchians living on this land, and the lord of the Vladimir family was like this, and when the power of the Vicchians swelled here, these old Vecchians did not get much exhibition: the owners who came generally had a contempt for the old masters, regardless of whether the person was his own countryman or not

Many of the military mobs in Wiki rode down the main road on horseback, and as long as there was a manor they liked, they would have people lay the boundary stones, draw the boundary and declare the occupation, which made the old lord of the Vladimir family very angry, because he was also a Wikijan himself, and his family did not get this land through war, but through reclamation and providing soldiers to the kingdom

Vladimir's lord approached the Vicchian soldiers and asked them not to touch their property for the sake of their countrymen, which had a certain effect, and while many of the Svadia lords were driven back to Dehrium or the Suno plain, Vladimir's lord kept part of his estate, of course, the most féivo places had been plundered by the generals, and this was not to be returned anyway

However, the lord's family can always slow down, especially the kind of family that has lasted for hundreds of years, they are like bears in the winter, quietly relying on their thick fat to survive the long winter, and then wait until the opportunity is right to become the master of the world

The lord of the Vladimir family slowly began to recover his family business after the situation stabilized

The tyrant lords seized the land with their swords, but lost it inch by inch on quills and sheepskin bills, and old Vladimir watched his lord and all his members restore the land of their ancestors through legal and commercial brilliance, and every time he thought of his youthful experience, Vladimir couldn't help but laugh proudly: there is nothing to be proud of than saving an old and excellent family

The years gradually dyed Vladimir's head white, and he had begun to ride a mule in the city of Zhivading looking for a cottage with a garden, ready to buy it for the elderly, the winter here is very cold, it will be better in the city, and when you are older, you will be a little unbearable in the country manor, it is okay to go to escape the heat in summer, but you will have to shed your skin in winter

Just as Vladimir was preparing to spend his old age in peace, the war broke out

The prince of Svadia swept through Zhivadin like a terrible storm, and only a few months after the start of the war, the situation in Zhivadin had deteriorated to the extreme, and hordes of Svadian soldiers began to appear around the manor, filthy and pungent smell, and they demanded food, drink, and women

The hard-won peace was hit again

Vladimir had to follow the master around the manor every day, and when he met the soldiers, he tried to satisfy them as much as possible, and then beat them away, but every time the Swadia soldiers left, the Vekia soldiers would visit again, and the armies on both sides told their soldiers to try to solve the food problem on their own, which made the old lord exhausted

One night in the winter of that year, a group of soldiers rushed into the manor and plundered it, and Vladimir couldn't help but sigh at the thought of it

That day, the old lord carried a sword in his hand, and took Zhuang Ke and a few village soldiers wearing chain mail to check, but the soldiers regarded the old lord as a soldier from the opposite camp under a scuffle, the old lord's thigh was seriously injured and not serious, but the weather that night finally took the old lord's life From that night, the old lord never recovered, he stubbornly lasted until spring, and amazingly arranged the spring ploughing, but in the summer, the old lord could not get out of bed, Before the first leaves of autumn landed, the old lord, who was once in the prime of life, breathed his breath surrounded by a group of family members

The lord's family in troubled times has no chance to be sad at all

Vladimir didn't like the Svadians, but he didn't like King Vecchia either, he just wanted one side to win as soon as possible and end the war

In the end, Fidelik had the last laugh

Fidrei soon made Vladimir's illusions disappear, due to the rebellion in the country, Fiderick suddenly had countless landless lords' subordinates, in order to settle these people, Fidrich could only stab the old local lord, and the lord of the Vladimir family soon received an order: take everything you can take with you, and then go back to Vikia from here

Back to Wikia? If you are only away for twenty or thirty years, then you can still find your way back, and you can still find your hometown, but Vladimir's family has been away from their homeland for a hundred years, and they have long taken root in Zhivadin

The widow of the lord of the Vladimir family went to see Emperor Fiderick in person, hoping that he would sympathize with a family of lords who had been cornered

The lady said, "You can take everything from the land, but leave the land to us, okay?" ”

Xiang shook his head, "Madam, my situation is as difficult as yours, I can't make a bad precedent with you, then I won't be able to ask for other lords, you should be able to understand that, and, I know, you still have some territory in Vekia, don't tell me that there is no Madame, I think your family will find its rightful place in the kingdom of King Vekia, maybe it won't be long before we will meet again in the land of Vekia, I swear, at that time, I will definitely give priority to providing land for your family so it would be nice to see you there, ma'am."

After the lord's widow returned with a sad brow, the family was in a great turmoil

The servants stole their belongings and fled, leaving only the faithful servants and the lord's guard

Fortunately, Emperor Frederick was soon given Dehrim, which slowed down the Emperor's repossession of the land, only a little: the Emperor allowed the lords to leave within two years

This meant that the manor could be planted for two more years, all the land that had been rotated was activated, all the best seeds in stock were planted, the tradition of showing compassion for the physical strength of the animals was put on hold for the time being, and the pre-exile family had to prepare enough food for themselves

In the process, the members of the lord's family continued to petition on the one hand, and on the other hand, they stepped up to squeeze each gold coin out of the land

Eventually, the emperor's icy will made the family no longer harbor illusions

Emperor Fidderick will forever lose the support of a family, this is a family that Vladimir has served all his life, Vladimir himself has the blood of this family, and it took a hundred years for the Svadian culture to transform this Vecchia family into his own model, but Emperor Fiderick forced the family to return to the wild eastern steppe within two years

As the time of departure approached, many family members began to migrate north, and the huge family became a myriad trickle, injecting into the cold land of Vekia, where there was very little land belonging to the family, and it was simply not enough for the family to support itself

It seemed that there was only one way, and when this crazy idea was first proposed, it was met with great resistance: a Wecchian cavalryman who had fled back from the east side of the mountain said that on the other side of the mountain, the native country of the Vikians had been completely defeated, and that a prosperous country had swelled along the river valley to the side of the Vikyans' territory

It is a country that is culturally close to Svadia, arrogantly calling itself the only civilized nation on the eastern plains, and treating the city-states of the Vecchians on the other side of the mountains as barbarians;

It despises the religion of the Wikibians, but sympathizes with the Swadians of the West in terms of God's identity;

It claims to be the Swadia of the Eastern world, a beacon of civilization;

Its cavalry flew on its back, known as hussars, and the kingdom had cornered the loose Wecchians on the eastern side of the Great Mountain with the spears of its hussars

The Vecchian cavalry said: "Over there, a large area of land is deserted, and there are as many opportunities as there are dangers over there, if there is no more chance on this side of the mountain, my lords, let's go to the east."

The members of the family, accustomed to the warm life of the West, accused the cavalry of being the devil and "wanted to bring the family to the fire"

But the lord's wife was silent, the blood of the Wikibians burned in her veins, and the Wikibians didn't care about the hardships of the conditions, but the Wikibians needed land

Don't give the Vecchian swords and horses, or he'll use them to conquer every land in the world

After a lengthy family meeting, the lord's wife agreed to let the family members decide for themselves whether or not to go to the East together to look for opportunities

There, there are endless forests and fields; There, there are self-righteous rival kingdoms and unfathomable blood relatives; There, there is hope for the future of this family, or indeed the whole of Wikia

Slightly less than a third of the family members agreed to cross the mountain to the east

The Lord's Lady presided over the expedition with great energy, and she assigned this man to recruit willing craftsmen and soldiers, let that person go to the Salander slave traders to buy serfs and orphans, and then personally preside over the auction to sell all the extravagant and useless goods of the family

Vladimir was responsible for bringing all the family's surplus furs, grain, koji, cloth, plush, cheese, paper, reed pens, shovels, silver cutlery, etc., to the port of Kudan, and to be transported by cargo ships to other countries, especially those cities where the Nords were prosperous, were always able to absorb all the goods, like a swamp that could not be filled

Today, Lord Vladimir is about to welcome his family's last cargo ship, which has sold its goods to the distant port of Fendra, and it should be returning in two weeks, and finally, even this cargo ship will be sold

After that, the poor goods were sold out, and Vladimir would use the money to buy everything he needed to cross the mountains, and then return to a small town in the south to meet with his family members who were about to leave for a long time

The most lacking thing is manpower, and all the reclamation farmers and craftsmen will be scared away as soon as they hear that they are going to the east of Dashan

Only the guilty vagrants and the adventurous madmen are willing to run to the other side of the mountain to try their chances

Vladimir shook his head and sighed, the family had reached such a difficult situation

At this time, the ship finally came to shore, and one of his nephews stood on the boat and appeared at him, waving his hat

"It's been a long time since Daddy Vladimir"

Vladimir smiled, coughed up a mouthful of phlegm and smeared it on the ground, "You don't have to separate in the future, you can't run away from the old man if you want to, dear Alyosha, is it going well all the way?" ”

"Well, it's not bad, and I've got what we're missing the most, Daddy."

"The title deeds of the Swadia Palace?"

"No, we found a boy on the river, an orphan, a healthy child, a boy who can follow us to the ends of the earth," the man called Alyosha blushed with excitement,

"A Boy"