Little East Lake City.

The last time I came to Little East Lake City, Giovanni and I were sneaking around like thieves, and many places were seen from the rooftops. At that time, the most spectacular wharf in the East Lake area is now no longer a place for business. Many of the storage warehouses have been converted into permanent barracks, all of which are made of white stone, and the walls and columns are very simple to increase the capacity, making them ideal for soldiers. On the pier, soldiers with various accents rubbed shoulders, some preparing to board the ship to the Vlaankov front, while others came down from the ship to recuperate.

The gardens and gardens along the streets were eradicated, and Kalinin spared no expense to widen all the roads and clear all the additional landscaping for easy access. Xiaodonghu City looks much more depressed than in the past, but it also looks cleaner than in the past. Many residents moved out of the city of Little East Lake and into a few newly built annexes in Kalinin outside the city. Giovanni kept the inhabitants of the city strictly around the two markets, and the rest of the area was home to a large number of workshops and guilds: blacksmiths, charcoal houses, ironworks, weapons shops, tool workshops, agricultural implements guilds, liquor guilds, and a brothel built in the mansion of the expelled bishop of the west. Kalinin's actions were supported by several eastern brotherhoods in the city, which were either stonemasons or fishermen, and knew a large number of people in the city and their allegiance. Kalinin was given a lot of information.

Every once in a while, some businessman who colluded with Giovanni was arrested. Many of these people were people who had suffered heavy losses when Kalinin entered the city. They sincerely hope that Kalinin will lose and then be able to recoup their losses. Kalinin's approach was to send these men to the iron ore mines north of Xiaodonghu City to mine until they died.

The ore veins of Xiaodonghu City were excavated. This is something that the princes before Kalinin had already begun to do, and more than fifty high-priced Creelian craftsmen had been working for many years, and the area where they lived had formed a small village. Kalinin gave them more support and arranged marriages for all the artisans, who were widows or poor women who could not make a living in the city. Kalinin hoped that the craftsmen would remain in the city of Little East Lake after the mine was built. Kalinin's move was echoed by the craftsmen, and now Creel was full of slave revolt troops, and the weak Creelians could not afford to raise an army to protect themselves. For many years to come, the Creelians would not want to leave, and when the Kalinin princes arranged their marriage, they swore eternal loyalty to the city of Little East Lake.

Scholars in the city found that while the plague had spread to every corner, the citizens of the slums had been hit particularly hard. Scholars believe it had something to do with their filthy living conditions, with narrow, muddy streets littered with garbage and excrement, and a cramped hut that could often hold more than a dozen inhabitants once one resident contracted the plague. All the remaining people will also be gradually infected, eventually causing a large number of deaths. In the newly built settlement, a tank for storing manure was excavated, and Kalinin was very concerned about this. No one knows why Kalinin cares so much about the city's sanitation. Old streets are being demolished, and Kalinin cites the plan of Swadia's 'Stone City', which means that new houses must be made of more than half of the stone. In the future, the only way to do it is to replace the wood with stone. And not the other way around. For residents who cannot afford to build such houses, Kalinin will give a subsidy for stones. And the citizens who insist on building wooden houses, Kalinin will unceremoniously kick them out of Xiaodonghu City. Of course, this plan greatly exceeded the financial limits of the citizens, and the implementation was much stricter in the city of Xiaodonghu City, and much more lenient in the affiliated settlements after leaving the city.

Streets were to be widened about twice as long as they used to be, twisted alleys were cleared, and houses in the way were forcibly demolished by Kalinin. This approach caused a lot of complaints in Xiaodonghu City, but it was supported by the upper class. Kalinin initially did not care about the loss of their houses and the people living on the streets. But when these residents bred crime on the streets and caused a miasma in Xiaodonghu City, he began to forcibly send these residents outside the city. But trouble is still trouble, and it won't disappear just because you don't see it. Those men soon became robbers and thieves, while many died of cold and hunger, leaving behind many corpses. As a result, when the plague struck Xiaodonghu City for the second time, a large number of residents died in some areas. At this time, Kalinin had to set aside large areas of homestead land and farmland to house these residents. Kalinin's principle is that, when trouble does not come, do everything possible not to solve it, and when it is out of control, solve it fundamentally. Residents with poor memory soon forgot about those who used to beg on the streets, and instead sang the praises of the good deeds of the settled residents of Kalinin.

Kalinin had forcibly occupied the city, but when he offered to make himself the prince of the city, he was met with fierce opposition from all the nobles of the city. This has kept Dadonghu City in turmoil, and Kalinin has to abandon such a plan, and instead support a nephew of the former prince of Dadonghucheng as his puppet. When the puppet secretly colluded with the Parliament, Kalinin immediately deposed him and arranged for a new person to come up.

Every prince of Eastern Wikia has occupied the position of prince for many generations, and it is not difficult to depose a prince, but it is very tricky to end their family's rule completely. Kalinin could not have executed every opponent with soldiers, as he did in Little East Lake. After all, with the exception of Little East Lake City, no city has openly confronted the council. Kalinin could only encroach on the power of other cities step by step, and install his own relatives and puppets everywhere.

Princes, nobles, knights of various regions, and abbots of monasteries knew this, and they did not like the openly rebellious Valans. But he also disliked the powerful Kalinin princes. Many princes had already introduced bills in parliament demanding that the parliament no longer hand over soldiers to the Kalinin commander.

"Vrankov is the Vrankov of the parliament. Kalinin, in the short-sightedness of some of us, seized the throne of Varankov. But this wolf can't be fed! "Angry Maharaja de Nia to the parliament. In the face of the dismayed nobles, they shouted, "Now he has lost Varankov, but he has gained Little East Lake City." He should be satisfied! The parliament could satisfy Giovanni, and although the Duchy of Valan was nominally superior to the princes, in reality he was only slightly stronger than the ordinary princes. Once he renounced the title of prince, it would not be difficult for Valankov to return to parliament without bloodshed! But this Kalinin, he occupied the city of Little East Lake. In the Riverlands, he occupied a county and three fortresses. Those guys in Dadonghu City and Ryazan Fort will only be Kalinin's mouthpiece. Once Giovanni fails, everyone! Once Giovanni fails, you will face a terrible Kalinin. The area he actually controls, plus the area controlled by the puppets, is half of East Vekia. At this time, can the prince still satisfy him? Or are you ready to say long live to a king? ”

"Kalinin is better than that pseudo-king." A pro-Kalinin nobleman said.

"You say so. It's just because your daughter and Yuri are messing around! The Princesses of Denia immediately retorted, "Your Excellency, haven't you thought about the Baroness of the Riverlands?" Yuri climbs into her bed and cheats her of inheritance. Then she broke her neck! ”

"Yuri didn't inherit the barony."

"Their family has a lot of illegitimate children, and it is enough for these people to inherit. Yuri's wife didn't die for a few days before she wanted to climb into your daughter's bed again. How good do you think the results could be? ”

The earl who was questioned only frowned, "Lord Prince." It's a good idea to be mindful of what you say and do. ”

"Your daughter, Lord Earl, had better keep her legs shut."

The Count was courteous. But that doesn't mean he's a coward. He immediately jumped out of his seat and got into a fight with the prince of Denia, which became the biggest news of the day for Ivangorod, but the decision to sanction Kalinin was still not passed. But a few days later, the prince of Denia withdrew one hundred of his cavalry and five hundred infantry from the besieged camp outside Vrankov. Instead of going to East Lake via the banks of the river and boarding a boat back to Denia, he walked back on foot from White Harbor to the town of Little East Lake, looting many undefended villages and settlements, robbing two herds of Kalinin, taking with him more than 900 sheep and more than 100 cattle.

Under the leadership of the Maharaja of Denia, more than 2,000 parliamentary soldiers evacuated Valankov one after another. The remaining parliamentary soldiers were less than 3,000 men, and many of them were wounded and unable to participate in the battle.

Kalinin several times indicated to the parliament that he would renounce the title of lord of Valankov and give it to someone approved by the parliament. All he wanted was to defeat Giovanni, Prince of Valan. This proposal made many nobles think it was a joke, everyone knew that Valankov's place was not for everyone, and they simply proposed that Kalinin say that they were willing to continue sending troops, but let Kalinin abandon the small city of East Lake and return to Valankov. In this way, everyone believes that Kalinin is fighting for the parliament, and not for himself.

The quarrel did not solve the problem for the parliament, but only made it weaker.

Some time ago, Kalinin suddenly received a large sum of money, which he used to hire a Burke mercenary army of 700 men from the border between the Riverlands and Burke. The addition of these soldiers has temporarily filled the gap left by the council soldiers. The mercenary soldiers' formidable fighting power soon dwarfed the council soldiers. The mercenary soldiers' daily salaries could feed two council soldiers, unlike the council's conscripts, who were served with black bread and fish soup, and the mercenary soldiers were to eat beef and white bread, and to drink a bitter cider, and in addition, the officers of these mercenary soldiers had to cook every piece of meat with spices, and if they could not do so, these people refused to fight. Such an expensive army was also worth the money, Giovanni's last battle out of the city, more than 700 Valan soldiers and the same number of armed inhabitants routed more than 2,000 council soldiers, but when the Burke mercenaries launched several charges, Giovanni was routed, but fortunately, the Valans were extremely terrible discipline, and they resisted the Burks to the death, until most of them returned to Valankov, and they slowly retreated into the city. Angry and angry, Kalinin ordered all the crossbowmen to concentrate on shooting at Prince Valan, and some Burke mercenaries were accidentally wounded, but Giovanni was not hurt in the slightest, but the mercenary soldiers almost mutinied, and they cursed Kalinin, saying that they were ready to go directly to Giovanni. Kalinin had to be anxious to reconcile the relations so that the Burks did not riot.

The Vrankov front had become a lifeless siege of ditches and ramparts.

Except for the occasional courier and spy sneaking in or out of the city, the Varan soldiers and the Vykia Council soldiers were now demoralized, sitting on mud, covering their heads with blankets, and indifferently letting the rain fall on their heads.

Xiaodonghu City was a little surprised when it found our barge carrying grain that was not registered, but it still sent a navigator to take us into the harbor.

The council officer with us was talking to one of the soldiers on the docks, and the two of them looked at me from time to time.

After a while, the soldier turned to leave, and we waited on the boat.

I thought I'd have to wait a little longer. Unexpectedly, a few minutes later, a pot-bellied old man walked over.

"Victor the bitch! I'm going to cut your bones off! Haha, I heard that you were taken away by Giovanni, and I thought you were gnawing on the bark of a tree in Valankov! ”

This greeting naturally proves who I am. The soldiers around me nodded to me, and I stood up.

It turned out to be Vladimir's father, who was in a good mood, wearing a gray linen blouse with grease on his cuffs, and was smiling towards me.

I also got off the boat with a few Kugits and Copernicus.

When he saw me, he frowned and looked at me a few times, his eyes shining fiercely. He touched the wound on my face with his rough hand and patted me twice on the face.

"Victor. It doesn't matter who did it! "Daddy Vladimir said, "I'll pull his intestines out!" (To be continued.) )