Listening to Vitas' words, Viscount Cisse fell into a long thought.

Ronin bribed the liquor salesman of the Haaland family and obtained the liquor brewing process, and Viscount Cisse was aware of it.

Maybe it's because the interests are too great, maybe it's because the Cisse family is subconsciously stronger than the Haaland family.

Viscount Cisse did not care about the Haaland family, decided to touch the interests of the Haaland family, and easily decided to get involved in the wine industry, and competed with the Haaland family without consulting with other family members.

He never expected Richard to be so ruthless and go directly to hit the seven inches of the Cisse family.

The casino was attacked, many people died, and it had to be temporarily closed.

In addition, it is necessary to pay compensation for the death of the gambler, and the gambling money brought by the gambler. This sum of money is more than three thousand gold coins, which is also a lot of money for the Cisse family.

Although the viscounty of Cisse had been developed for thirty years, it had a population of 120,000, cultivated more farmland than the territory of the Harland family, and imposed heavy taxes on the serfs, and the various revenues added up to about 40,000 gold coins a year, of which the casino profits accounted for 8,000, the grain tax was about 30,000 gold coins, and the remaining 2,000 gold coins were commercial taxes.

On the whole, Viscount Cissé's financial income is not comparable to that of the Haaland family.

The annual trade profits of the Haaland family exceed the financial income of the Viscount of Cisse, not to mention the profits from taxes and grain.

The casino's 8,000 gold proceeds are very important to the Cisse family.

Richard attacked the Cisse family's casino, and Viscount Cisse had to take revenge on the Haaland family and show his strength to protect the casino in order to convince the public.

Only then will it be possible for the casino to continue to open.

The strength of the Haaland family, Viscount Cisse knows it in his heart. After all, Richard had made a lot of achievements, and last winter he expanded his army on a large scale, and now he has 3,000 troops in his hands. The strength is a few points stronger than the Cisse family.

"At that time, I was blinded by interests, and I rushed to the wine trade, and the decision was too hasty."

Viscount Cisse secretly thought that he did not want to conflict with the Haaland family, but his current position forced him to be tough on the Haaland family.

In aristocratic competition, toughness is a necessary quality, and decisiveness is also a kind of subordination.

How to grasp the scale is the real skill of a nobleman.

Richard sent people to attack the Cisse family's casino, although there was no direct evidence, Viscount Cisse immediately made a decision to retaliate, and immediately dispatched manpower to attack the Haraland family's winery, so that the Haraland family also suffered heavy losses in interests.

Viscount Cisse knew in his heart that if the casino was really attacked by the Haaland family.

In the near future, the Haaland family will definitely be on guard, and it is difficult to succeed in attacking important targets, so he is ready to endure for three months first, and wait for the Haaland family's defense to relax before launching a surprise attack.

During this time, Viscount Cisse intensified his infiltration into Haraland's territory and sent many spies into Haraland's territory.

After returning to the territory with the team, Richard reiterated the importance of secrecy to the team members, and then gave the team a bounty of 1,200 gold coins, and the remaining 4,000 gold coins were used as the territory's working capital.

For each member of the team who participated in the operation, the professional received a bonus of 30 gold coins, and the senior cadets also received a bonus of 15 gold coins.

Doing this ticket is equivalent to earning a year's salary.

After returning to the territory, Richard strengthened his defenses in the face of a possible attack by the Cissés.

The Haaland Territory is very wary of outsiders, and although it is not forbidden for freedmen to move in, they must obey the arrangements of the territory and can only live near Fort Vik.

Moreover, the freedmen who moved in were not given a share of the land, and could only engage in commercial or handicraft activities in Vicburg.

In order to divide the land, a five-year slave contract must be signed. After the completion of the contract, the land and house will be divided.

Stopa Territory, where Vickburg is located, is an agricultural territory, and there is nothing to keep secret.

In addition, the Haaland Territory also prohibits the movement of its subjects at will, especially the subjects of the Stopa Territory, and prohibits entry into Fort William and Fort Sophia.

Civil officials will also repeatedly order that idlers and others are prohibited from approaching the factory.

Any stranger who dared to approach the factory was captured and sent to the mine, where they were mined in partnership with the orc captives.

The factory in Haaland's territory not only has security in the factory area, but also has a garrison nearby.

Over the years of opening the factory, more than 100 people who dared to spy on the factory have been arrested, some of whom are spies, and some of whom are simply too curious.

Whether it is a spy sent by other nobles or a person who is too curious, as long as they are sent to the mine and accompanied by orcs, they basically do not live for too long.

In the mines, there are many innocent souls.

Richard attacked by disguised caravan mercenaries, so he was naturally a little wary of the caravans coming in from outside.

All caravans from outside were not allowed to enter Fort William, Fort Sophia and other secret castles, and could only trade in the market outside Fort Vik.

The market is built on a flat land, surrounded by a high wall on all sides, and there is a garrison at the entrance.

After the goods are counted in the market, the gold coins will be cleared immediately, and the caravan will return with the gold coins, and cannot move around the territory at will.

In recent years, Haaland has led a number of businessmen who are messing around.

Richard didn't care about the pleading of the nobles behind him, and all those who did not follow the rules were sent to the mine.

Haaland's territory is a typical mountain territory, and there are very few roads to access it.

Generally speaking, there is only one mountain road, one flat road, and three waterways.

A mountain road from Barony Sharp to Fort William passed through Fort Iron Hill, and there was a squadron garrison on the way, which did not allow caravans to pass at all.

The flat road is from the Barony of the Dirham to the Barony of Stoppa, which leads all the way to Fort Black River, and is the main route taken by caravans.

Through the three rivers, ships can get close to the brick factory, Fort William, Fort Sophia, etc., and the garrison of the Ka is also forbidden, and foreign ships are forbidden to enter the territory.

In the Kingdom of Grant, the rights of the lord are very heavy, and if Richard objects, even official ships cannot enter the Harland Territory.

Because the territory was very restrictive to outsiders, Richard was not afraid of Viscount Cisse sending people to attack.

A brigade garrison was stationed at Fort Vik.

Although the Haaland Territory Brigade is very small, it has only trained four and a half squadrons, less than seven hundred people.

But a regular army of seven hundred men was enough to defeat most of the attackers.

Unless Viscount Cisse sends a few hundred elite generals, he can launch a surprise attack to defeat the Vicburg garrison.

But hundreds of strong men entered the Haaland territory, and the intelligence department was not dry, and they would soon discover the abnormality and deploy troops in advance to eliminate the invading enemy.

Three months passed slowly, and Viscount Cisse was ready for everything, but the information he needed never came.

Viscount Cisse placed more than a dozen intelligence officers in Haaland's domain.

Because of the policy of restricting the free movement of the people, these intelligence agents could not penetrate the core of Haaland's territory at all, and could only survive near Fort Vik.

Although Vikburg has a large population and good agricultural conditions, it is not the core of Haaland's territory.

Most of the top officials of the territory are in Fort William, and even Sophia and Margaret returned to Fort William after the war ended last year.

Sophia's magic labs have been moved to Fort William.

They can't enter Fort William, and they can't get in touch with the high-level leaders of Fort Vic, and these hidden spies can't find any useful information at all.

But the urging from above was very tight, and in desperation, I could only make up information to fool around.

And Vitas, the intelligence officer of the viscount of Cisse, is quite shrewd, and these fabricated information can't hide from his eyes.

Because Haaland's territory restricts the movement of people, intelligence officers are very guarded.

Vitas also has no good way, so he can only collect some public information through the people who infiltrated Vikburg to analyze the military, political, legal, and economic intelligence of Haaland's territory.

As Vitas learned more about Haaland's territory, he became more frightened and felt that the odds were slimmer, and began to dissuade Viscount Cisse in the hope of stopping the attack.

Because without exact intelligence, the attack was difficult to succeed.

Once again, Viscount Cisse summoned the officials of the realm and asked Vitas to act and come up with accurate information.

"Dear Viscount, the Haaland Territory is a closed territory that does not welcome outsiders. They are very guarded against intelligence infiltration, and they also have a capable intelligence force within their territory.

It will take a long time for our personnel to slowly infiltrate the key sectors of Haaland's territory, and there is no useful information at all now.

It is only known that the Harland family's steel plant is in Fort Iron Mountain, and there is a garrison nearby.

A large-scale brick kiln factory was established in the Haaland territory, which produced a large number of bricks every year, and even the roads near Vikburg were paved with bricks. The kiln factory for the production of bricks, located less than twenty kilometers from Vikburg, is also off-limits to outsiders.

Through open intelligence analysis, we know that Fort Wilhelm had four infantry brigades, one cavalry brigade, and a certain number of auxiliaries in each castle.

Their brewery is near Fort William, and Fort William is also the core of their territory, according to the analysis of some public sources, the Fort William garrison has four squadrons of infantry, as well as a cavalry of three hundred people, and the number of Warcraft cavalry has reached one hundred.

Our intelligence officers were only able to infiltrate Fort Vik, a castle garrison with a brigade, and the Harland Territory Brigade was smaller, with only four and a half squadrons, about seven hundred men.

That's all we can do in a short period of time. ”

For more than three months, Viscount Cisse tried a lot of ways, but he still couldn't restore the gamblers' trust in the casino.

After all, quite a few people died in the casino that day.

Conflicts broke out between Viscount Cisse and such bigwigs as Viscount Richard, and gamblers did not dare to go to Viscount Cisse casino to avoid getting involved in the conflict.

There are no gamblers in the casino, so naturally they have to close their doors.

Viscount Cisse heard about the conflict between Richard and the Holland family, and also sent someone to the royal capital to contact the Holland family, which can be regarded as joining the camp of Prince Felix.

Under the impetus of the Holland family, Wang Du set up a casino robbery investigation team.

The investigation team communicated with Richard, but as a result, he did not even see Richard in person. Instead, he was told that Haaland's territory was in rebellion and that Viscount Richard was quelling the rebellion.

If the investigation team leaves Fort Vic, their safety will not be guaranteed by Viscount Richard.

The official investigation could not shake the deep-rooted aristocracy at all.

Moreover, the Grant royal family has no tradition of being involved in aristocratic conflicts. Prince Felix, only a small number of people can be mobilized.

Richard also found someone in the royal capital, and the Haaland family sided with Prince Chris politically.

Anything that Prince Felix supports, Prince Chris will definitely oppose.

The official investigation team came to a standstill, and the casino business faced competition again.

Due to the closure of the castle of Elena, many powerful people in the castle of flames have already taken action, setting up a new casino in the castle of flames to compete with the Cisse family for the market.

The Cisse family has deep roots in the Flame Castle, and the last Viscount Cisse served as the commander of the Legion of the Wild Lion for twenty years.

But it has been more than ten years since the commander of the Cissé regiment stepped down, and many of the people he promoted back then have retired from active duty.

The main roots of the Haaland family are in Blackriver Castle, and their relationship in Flame Fort is far inferior to that of Viscount Cisse.

But when it comes to conflicts of interest, many times human favors don't work, especially those more than ten years ago.

Once the Flame Castle establishes a casino, it will inevitably have the protection of the high-level of the Wild Lion Legion behind it, and the security will surpass that of the Elena Casino, and the Cisse family will have no way to compete.

The situation has come to this point, unless the Haaland family nods and admits defeat, abandons the liquor business, and resolves the conflict, the casino can be restored.

But the Flame Fort casino has opened, and it will be difficult for the Cisse family to compete with the high-ranking officials of the Lion Legion.

The casino business is bound to decline, and Viscount Cisse has a clear understanding of this.

It is simply not feasible to give up the liquor business.

Since he couldn't get information and couldn't attack the roots of the Harland family, Viscount Cisse could only start a trade war.

He dispatched the professions in the territory to attack the commercial sales staff of the Haaland family everywhere, killing many people at one time and snatching thousands of gold coins.

When such a thing happened, Richard, of course, would not show weakness. Immediately retaliate, and the same pros were sent to attack all those who had anything to do with Baron Cisse.

Over the next few months, hundreds of people were killed and wounded in the two realms, and even the professionals, the two viscountdoms combined, killed more than a dozen.

The contradictions between the two sides have affected the stability of northern Xinjiang and alarmed the high-level of the royal capital.

King Charles communicated with the noble council and sent high-ranking officials to mediate.

The mediator was none other than Richard's old acquaintance, Jeram Holland. Someone from the Holland family was sent to intercede, which shows King Charles's tendencies.

After receiving this news, a hint of coldness flashed in Richard's eyes, and he kept this matter in his heart.

The royal capital has sent people to mediate, and Richard must make a gesture of agreeing with mediation and willing to reconcile.

In the downward direction of Jeram and others, the royal mediation team finally decided to divide the liquor market, the market in Gascoigne Province was assigned to Viscount Sisse, and the markets in Geda Province and Lahe Province belonged to the Haaland family.

(End of chapter)