The Swordsman of Faerûn

Chapter 823 Conquering the Far Mountain City ([-]) (No Repeat)

Far Mountain City is one of the largest cities around the Moon Sea, and only Zhentil Castle and Moormaster can slightly win in terms of city size and population.

At its most prosperous period, Yuanshan City had a population of nearly 5000, and its business atmosphere was very strong. Whether it was sea trade or land trade, it was by no means inferior to Zhentil Castle, the most active city in the Moon Sea.

When Yuanshan City began to compete with Zhentil Castle in an all-round way, the gap between the two was actually not that big. At that time, the total population of Zhentil Castle was less than 5. Ranked first in the world, but Yuanshancheng and Moormaster are definitely not inferior.

It's just that after nearly half a century of competition, Yuanshan City has gradually declined under the suppression of Zhentil Fort. Not to mention other aspects, just in terms of population changes, Yuanshan City's population in the past half century Not only did the population not increase, but it dropped sharply to less than 4.

The population of Zhentil Castle, the opponent, has risen to as many as 7000. With such an increase and decrease, the gap between the two sides has almost widened to the point where Yuanshan City is desperate.

There are many reasons for the gradual decline of Yuanshan City in the competition with Zhentil Castle. If you analyze it from the most intuitive point of view, it is that in the competition that lasted for more than half a century, the lord of Yuanshan City and the Decision makers are always fooling around, but Zhentilburg people have almost all the right ways in contrast.

And in the process, the secret leadership organization of the Zhentilburg people—the Zhentarim Society, has been engaged in an anxious battle of good and evil ideas with another world-wide secret organization—the Harper Alliance.

In other words, the people of Zhentil Castle didn't even use half of their strength to suppress the distant mountain city.

The two cities have developed from being evenly matched to suppressing the gap. Are the people of Yuanshan City too bad, or the people of Zhentil Castle too strong?This has long been a question on the minds of scholars and politicians across Faerûn.

Many people, including most members of the Harpers, even believe that evil is too powerful and good is not enough.

In fact, the root cause of the gap between the two cities in the long-term competition has nothing to do with good or evil, but the difference in the leadership system.

The political system implemented in Zhentil Keep is a centralized and cruel elite selection system.Anyone, no matter whether he was born in a noble family or a slave, as long as he shows talents that are different from ordinary people in the process of growing up, he will be reused and will compete extremely cruelly with other elite talents.

In the process of this competition, each elite will get some kind of substantive task. In the process of carrying out the task, the winners will have no merit or fault, those who make mistakes will be punished, the losers will be killed, and those who eat inside and outside will be doomed.

By the way, the real rewards and promotions are only for those who achieve major victories outside of the established missions.

If an elite can defeat all competitors and obtain unexpected achievements, then he (or she) will definitely gain real high positions and real power, including the position of lord of Zhentil Castle and the command of the army .

This also means that every Zhentil Fort official and elite will show subjective initiative beyond ordinary people in many cases.

But Yuanshan City is another look.

Yuanshan City implements a large council election system called freedom-democracy.

The Great Council of Yuanshan City was formerly a large business group called Crimson Feather, and the selection of members was an access system based on property and contribution values.Only those who have a house with a fixed area or more and a certain amount of assets in Yuanshan City, and donate property to the Great Council in exchange for a certain contribution value, are eligible to become a member of the Great Council.

The lord of Yuanshan City is elected by all members of the Great Council.And if the lord makes a major decision-making error during his tenure, the members of the Great Council will also be removed through a vote of no confidence.

The system of Yuanshan City looks very beautiful, and it is almost difficult for those incompetent people to pass the vote monitoring of the Great Council and ascend to the position of lord of Yuanshan City.Only elites who are recognized by the vast majority of councilors can become the leaders of the entire city. After all, the eyes of the masses are discerning.

But in fact, the lords of Yuanshan City selected in this way almost always refresh people's cognition in unexpected ways.

Stupid, incompetent, selfish, greedy, short-sighted!Except for the first two lords, the later lords of Yuanshan City can hardly escape the category of five negative evaluations.

Even many lords had a very good reputation as businessmen before they came to power, shrewd and wise, far-sighted, tough, decisive... etc., but when they took that position, they quickly changed The appearance is almost two extremes from the performance before the ascension.

This kind of abnormal performance is usually invisible, but when it comes to competition with the Zhentil Fort people, especially in terms of external strategy, it feels like the undercover agent of the Zhentil Fort people.

Whenever there is some kind of direct and fierce competition between the two cities, the lord of Yuanshan City always makes some kind of decision that seems to be beneficial or loses less in the short term, but is absolutely stupid in the long-term strategic perspective.

When the idiot lord's idiot decision had terrible consequences, when he wanted to wake up and want to correct it, the no-confidence vote from the Great Council directly let him go.Then a new lord came to power, continuing a nearly similar course to the previous one.

It is said that in the most extreme period, Yuanshan City changed nine lords within ten years. It was also during this period that Yulas, who was separated from Yuanshan City and Zhentil Castle, was killed alive.

There was also Tesen Valley, which was once the closest to Zhentil Fort, and it was completely conquered by Zhentil Fort during this period. A brave bunch.

For a long time, many thoughtful people have wondered whether the leadership of Far Mountain City was infiltrated by the spies of Zhentil Castle, especially after the incident of spies rising in Shadow Valley (referring to the fraudster Yodo Han was exposed and killed by the black rod Kelben), this suspicion has almost become a consensus.

In order to confirm whether this terrible suspicion is true, the benevolent organization headed by the Harper Alliance united many elites and city-states, and used some kind of gladiatorial ceremony as a cover to conduct a surprise search of Yuanshan City.

After countless spell tortures and extraordinary appraisals, people found out embarrassingly that the so-called doubts were not true. The reason why the lords of Yuanshan City were stupid was because they were really stupid when they made decisions. A kind of stupidity coerced by profit and greed.

There are indeed Zhentil Castle spies in Yuanshan City, but there are not many of them, and even these spies often do not do their jobs properly.

As a result, the entire raid turned into a ridiculous oolong incident.

Since then, Yuanshan City has become tense and sensitive. They are extremely repulsive to outsiders. Anyone must be approved by the Great Council or the lord of Yuanshan City to enter, otherwise they will all be blocked.

The reason why the Chasing Spray cannot enter the port of Yuanshan City is the result of this xenophobic policy.

According to what Anador said, Yuanshan City is currently undergoing another lord change.

Of course, this time it was not that the old lord made a wrong decision, but that since the magic net was disconnected, the lack of magic has brought the commercial activities of Yuanshan City into a period of stagnation or even decline. Drain and start to get bored with that mediocre lord.

Then a vote of no confidence knocked the erstwhile lord from his throne.

Now the candidates for the new lord are being elected, and it is said that a businessman and wizard named Miles has a high voice.This is a shrewd and ruthless man who likes to be alone, but he can always earn an enviable amount of wealth.

However, Anadol knew that this wizard named Miles had always been the manipulator behind the scenes of Scarlet Feather. Even though Scarlet Feather had transformed into the Great Council of Far Mountain City, it never escaped from Miles' true control.

The disastrous defeat of Yuanshan City in the competition with Zhentil Castle was not only the result of the battle between the two cities, but also a manifestation of Myers's fear of the leader of the Zhentarim Society, Archmage Manson.

However, Miles is arrogant and arrogant. There are several strong men in the valley, especially Shadow Valley, who can fight against Manson, but Miles refuses to bow down and ask for help.

Right now, a group of red-robed mages from Searle are trying to contact Miles and seek the possibility of cooperation.Miles was intrigued by this, thinking that the mighty red mage would be his most powerful ally in the fight against the Zhentarim and even the dreaded Manzon.

The reason why Anadol knew the inside story was not because he was well-informed, but because the pastor's niece happened to be Miles' secret mistress and right-hand man.

She is very clear about Miles' thoughts and recent situation. In order to ensure her safety and reserve a way out, the female mage named Zeria Talladim secretly told her these secrets. uncle.

At this critical time of the change of lord, Yuanshan City's xenophobic policy became more radical than normal.

As far as the current situation of William and his party is concerned, they are absolutely unable to enter Yuanshan City in a legal way. arrive.

Anadol claimed that if William was willing to take him in, he could use his niece's influence to secretly arrange for him to sneak into the city of Far Mountain, and even make that Ms. Zeria his spy, providing William with a lot of secret information.

William can't deny this, he still needs more information, not only the internal intelligence of Yuanshan City, but also the views of outsiders on Yuanshan City, including the senses of the people of the Elf Tree towards Yuanshan City.

William visited around the Elven Tree, chatting with many locals or foreigners who came here, and tested people's views on the distant mountain city during the conversation.

What was more in line with William's expectations was that most people had a bad impression of Yuanshan City. Stupidity and rudeness were almost everyone's first impression of Yuanshan City, as well as being greedy and short-sighted, defiant, domineering, and like to bully the weak and outsiders .

It can only be said that the fools of Yuanshan City have managed their image so well that many people are happy to see Yuanshan City and her people suffer.

William is very satisfied with this result, which means that his conquest plan has external conditions for its implementation, and the next thing to look at is the reaction of the people in Yuanshan City during the implementation process.

And the information provided by Anadol gave William's plan a greater certainty.Of course, he didn't expect that Lady Xeria Talladim to be his spy, and William didn't need any intrigue.

Sometimes a hard bridge and a hard horse can be regarded as an effective means.

Before the implementation of the conquest plan, William still met with Anador's niece.

Zeriya is an astonishingly charming lady, with a glamorous face, a graceful figure, and a unique temperament that makes people feel good. Anyone who sees this lady for the first time will feel this. Lady Zeria is trustworthy.

In fact, Zeria was even more surprised by William's youth. A young man who looked less than 20 years old, even with the peculiar greenness on his face, actually claimed to conquer the distant mountain city. The female mage felt that this The boy is crazy, or his uncle is crazy.

It's just that after William spoke out about his problems, Ms. Zeria stopped paying attention to William's age.

Zeriya is not only outstanding in appearance, but also extremely intelligent. She has a very good influence in Yuanshan City. Of course, this influence is not among the upper class, but among the bottom people of Yuanshan City.

William asked Zeria a lot of questions, including the population distribution, industrial economy, internal power and class division of Far Mountain City, people's living standards, means of earning a living, education level and so on.

These questions made Xeria feel very difficult, many of which she could not answer, and she was also very surprised that William was able to ask so many seemingly tricky questions.

So Zeria couldn't help being curious and asked William how old he was.

William ignored Zeria's curiosity, but he was thinking about the social situation in Yuanshan City in his heart.

In fact, the interior of Yuanshan City is also full of contradictions.

Crimson Feather, or the predecessor of the Great Council, was a super large business group with as many as 5000 members. The richest one-tenth of the 5000 people formed the core members of the Great Council, and the rest were often elected in turn. seats.

This is the upper class among the nearly 4 people in Yuanshan City, and it is also a class with vested interests.It represents the interests of nearly 5000 families and [-] people in Yuanshan City.

These people control various high-value or high-profit industries such as foreign trade, store operations, handicrafts, fisheries, and shipbuilding in Yuanshan City.

Then there are more than 2 civilians, these people live a relatively ordinary life, farmers, sailors, loggers, fishermen (fishermen are not equal to fishery, just like farmers are not equal to agriculture), craftsmen in certain low-end industries, Hawkers and even thieves, nightingales, and gangster thugs are their main occupations.

Of course, there are also some outsiders who take up jobs that the locals are unable to do or lack.

The army and security team of Yuanshan City generally recruit elites and officers from the Scarlet Feather, and then recruit a small number of reliable and motivated personnel from the civilian population as supplements.

There is an extremely prominent contradiction between the common people and the upper elite represented by the crimson feathers. The poor people both yearn for and hate the rich. a member.

It's just that due to the recent closure of Yuanshan City to the city, the wealth of the upper class has been greatly lost, and they have also increased the degree of oppression of their lower class compatriots, making the life of the civilians inside even more difficult.

To use a more anthropomorphic description, the whole city is full of hopeless hostility.

Although Zeria didn't fully answer what William wanted to know, William was still quite satisfied. At least the lady's information gave him a more intuitive understanding of the city.

(End of this chapter)