Riding and Slashing

Two days later, the village of Fidner.

The lord only spent three hours recuperating after Serendil killed the python knights, and he basically arrived at Fidner at the fastest speed.

Governor Justus and Alina are no longer in the team, nor is the Freedom Legion.

Justus went to Emperor Lingang, and he planned to meet the serf general Ivaylo.

However, the infantry of the Freedom Legion could not keep up with the cavalry with one man and two horses. In order to set up an ambush before the Snake Cult army, Li Ang asked Jocelyn and Sigismund to follow up with the Freedom Legion, and he brought all the troops with him. The cavalry hastened to Feidna.

Feidna Village is located at the bottom of an unnamed mountain. It was originally a halfway station built at the pass of the continuous mountains, and then gradually developed into a village over hundreds of years.

This is the main road connecting Dilingang and Boshi City, and it is also the only way to pass - if you don't plan to climb mountains and take detours.

Under normal circumstances, the villages that make up the traffic arteries are relatively rich, and the same was true for Feidner Village in the past few years.

But those were previous years...

Today, the village of Fidner looks very bleak.

The fields are barren, the roads are full of bones, the eyes are messy, and the rooms are empty.

There are few mosquitoes and flies in winter, but the vultures all over the sky and the mice everywhere seem to be quite fat.

Ten rooms and nine empties here is not an adjective, but a literal meaning—most of the houses were empty, many houses were set on fire, and the whole village was burned to blackness.

Obviously, it is not certain whether the Red Death has visited here, but there must have been raiders.

"My lord, there are still people in the village. The army of the Snake Worship Sect should not have arrived yet. But... the village seems to be full of old people, and I haven't seen a single young man."

At the entrance of the village, Sadilan, who was exploring the way at the front, came back to report the situation.

"This village must have encountered some kind of looters... But only the elderly? The group with the least self-protection ability survived? This is a bit strange..."

The lord looked around and walked towards the village.

There are several high-walled courtyards in the center of the village, which seem to be the mansions of nobles, and there seem to be people in the mansions looking out.

However, after seeing the lord's army, these people hurriedly closed the door, and they could hear the sound of the door being hit by wooden bolts from a distance away.

Feidner Village didn't see any Snake Worshipers, but there were residents—or survivors here, which obviously meant that the Snake Cult's army hadn't arrived here yet.

Obviously, although Li Ang led the troops to Serendil first to fight a battle and then turned to Fadna, and went around in a circle, they still came earlier than the Snake Cult's army.

The large number of followers of the Snake Cult probably seriously slowed down the progress of the Snake Cult army.

But the reaction of these people in the village is a bit strange. It stands to reason that when encountering the Red Death or looters, the villagers will usually run away.

What's the point of closing the door and hiding at home after encountering the army?

Li Ang asked the troops to stop at the valley entrance outside the village, and asked Li Sadilan to take someone to find out.

After all, I'm not sure if the Red Death is raging in this place, let the Noldor go and find out first, so as to prevent other troops from contracting the Red Death.

Not long after, Li Sadilan returned quickly and brought an old man back.

In other words, an old man was tied back, because Lisa Dilan captured the old man cross-legged on horseback.

The old man was well dressed, with the typical Bacchus ribbon, and looked like a tribune.

But his spirit was extremely poor, and he was thrown horizontally on the horse's back by Lisa Dilan for a while, and he was already out of breath.

"My lord, this is the family that closed the door just now. I was attacked by his spear when I approached, so I had to forcefully break through the door and arrest him... But there are no servants or slaves in his family, and there are no young men."

After Lisa Dilan brought the man back, he threw him directly on the ground, causing the old man to howl miserably.

A tribune of the Bacchus Empire, no servants and young adults at home?
This is quite rare.

Judging by the appearance of the house, this old man should be quite wealthy, so he shouldn't be in such a miserable situation.

"Hero, spare your life... Hero, spare your life..." After being thrown to the ground by Lisa Dilan, the old man collapsed on the ground and only begged for mercy.

hero?

The meaning of this appellation at this time is roughly similar to words like 'hero', right?

Did this old man think that Lisa Dilan was a green forest roader?
But Lisa Dilan's way of forcibly arresting people is probably really like a bandit...

Knowing why people were afraid, Li Ang took off his homemade mask, knelt down and whispered to the old man lying on the ground: "We are not bandits... What happened to you here? Why didn't you leave here?"

Seeing the gentleness and kindness of the lord, the old man stammered twice, and asked tremblingly: "...Aren't you bandits?"

"...When have you ever seen bandits under the banner of nobles?"

Li Ang felt that most of the low-level officials in the Bacchus Empire might have something wrong with them—either bad or stupid...

Well, probably the same in other countries.

"But these Noldor..."

"They are all my subordinates, don't worry, they don't bite people."

The old man seemed to have regained his strength, slowly got up, and looked at Lisa Dilan in fear.

Lisa Dilan spread his hands: "I'm sorry, I was just ordered to find out the situation, and I had to break the door of your house, and my lord will pay you..."

Li Ang glared at Lisa Dilan, took out a few dinars and handed them over: "As you can see, the Noldor elves are very sensible and good people... What's going on with this village now? The Red Death Is it? Who is the lord here?"

The old man didn't take the money, but looked at Dinar and sighed: "Forget about the money, it's useless to have money now... This village didn't have the Red Death, but it was worse than the Red Death... "

The old man was indeed the local tribune.

Perhaps it was fate, but the lord of Feidner Village turned out to be Li Ang's acquaintance - Fabius.

That is, the son of Governor Levius.

In fact, most of Fidner Village is owned by the Livius family, and Fabius became the lord here because no other lord dared to work on the territory of the Livius family.

After Levius and his son were caught by Li Ang last year, Li Ang packaged them up and sold them to his good brother Ramon for wholesale, and let Ramon, a professional ransom broker, do the business.

Speaking of which, the father and son were lucky. Since it was a resale transaction, they made a trip to Singal, and the long journey took a lot of time.As a result, Levius and his son received a great benefit—after they returned to China, it happened that the Bacchus Empire was in internal and external troubles, and no one cared about the trouble of this defeated general.

He was defeated and captured under the White Hart Castle with a superior force, lost the Shield Wind Fortress, and not only lost his troops, but also lost thousands of people to Li Ang...

If this was normal, Emperor Marius would definitely take the opportunity to push Levius to the end and replace his cronies as governor.

Like Kryon or Agathon...

But in the current situation, it is natural not to take care of these things.

In fact, due to too many major events recently, Levius and his son were almost forgotten... Even if they were not forgotten, no one in the entire Bacchus Empire thought about them for the time being.

So, after Levius and his son returned to Feidner, they found that no one cared about them...

Then, they discovered that there seemed to be wars everywhere in the Bacchus Empire.

The father and son took advantage of the domestic turmoil to think carefully.

Levius actually knew very well why he sat in the position of governor. People who can occupy high positions usually understand the simplest truth-there is only a strong waist when you have soldiers in your hands.

However, the father and son together now only have [-] slaves and [-] soldiers in their hands, which they feel is not enough.

These are actually the private property of the Levius family.

Most of his original subordinates, those captured shadow infantry soldiers, were redeemed by the infantry soldiers' own families after they were transferred to Ramon by Li Ang.

Livius didn't redeem the people after they were captured, so those soldiers naturally didn't return to Livius's hands.

Therefore, when the country was in crisis, Levius planned to "start from scratch" and build a large army. He wanted to "save the Bacchus Empire from the fire and water"...

Anyway, he said so himself.

And it seems that this is really how it is done—the so-called forming a large army from scratch is to take the young and strong into the army, which is referred to as arresting the strong...

He does this job often and has a lot of experience...

As for saving the Bacchus Empire from fire and water - if Emperor Marius killed Hilayuzas in Siyuan City, then Emperor Marius' Bacchus Empire would be saved.

But if Sheila Youzas' rebel army wins, then Lord Levius will naturally save Sheila Youzas' new Bacchus...

Anyway, Levius is also a member of the Shadow Legion, and he has some friendship with General Sheila.

This is not because Levius is naturally rebellious or loves to be a fool. In fact, this is the consistent behavior of any wealthy family for thousands of years, and it has been the same in all dynasties.

This is the case even in the case of alien subversion of the regime.

There is a word in the East called 'family, country, and world'. Obviously, the home is at the front and the world is at the end.

Therefore, what the rich and nobles of any country have done for thousands of years basically revolves around the same logic: investment.

Or called betting.

When the country is in a state of great unity, powerful and famous families will use family power as capital to invest in court power, and finally control the country by controlling nobles and bureaucrats.

Therefore, the place with the most disputes in a unified country is around the prince... The nobles will bet on the prince they support, which is to use their own resources to invest in the future king.

Rather than the time of great unification, when facing a divided continent in a state of war, the rich and nobles will shift their investment methods to local areas-from controlling resources such as knowledge and official promotion to controlling land, population, and private soldiers.

Of course, the essence remains the same, after all, it is to control more combat power.

No one is an idiot. In fact, everyone knows that power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

It's just that when the authority of the Central Committee is relatively large, everyone dare not be a warlord, for fear of being targeted by the king and killed, so they will have a tacit understanding.

And once the world is in chaos, the aristocrats who are a little bit smarter will hold on to the soldiers in their hands, and then invest and bet.

In fact, for nobles, the so-called allegiance is actually investing in shares.

Join a more powerful faction that can fight and team up to achieve a monopoly - that is, control of the country.

Low-level civilians only pay attention to loyalty, while high-ranking nobles only pay attention to return on investment.

Moreover, the logic of most nobles is the same as the mentality of many venture capital institutions.

To put it simply, it is to be optimistic about a certain project and think that it is possible to achieve a monopoly, so you invest resources and become a shareholder. After the project is successful, you can obtain greater benefits.

During this period, many venture capital institutions will invest in two competitors in the same industry at the same time - any company that defeats the other will become a unicorn, so the venture capital will hedge its bets.

Because any company successfully monopolizes the market, as an investor, it can reap ten times and a hundred times the benefits.

Governor Levius, on the other hand, planned to hedge his bets at this time.

But betting always requires capital, and the more capital you invest, the higher the status and benefits you will get in the future.

The Levius and his sons didn't intend to help anyone fight the war, they just wanted to invest in the winners.

In other words, after Emperor Marius and Xila Youzas finished fighting in Siyuan City, they would bring their soldiers and horses to attach to the victor.

Therefore, in order to make their own soldiers and horses look a little bit more—that is, to get a higher status when they lick the winners, the father and son went around abducting the people and becoming an army again.

Anyway, it's for attaching to the victors, for gaining status, not for fighting, so it doesn't matter what the degree of combat training is, as long as there are more people.

But for violent recruitment, the young and strong must be disobedient, and they might mutiny at any time, what should I do?

Levius naturally has means...

To be precise, this method came from his son Fabius.

He probably learned what Li Ang did when he hooked up with those peasants in White Deer Castle. He didn't only recruit young men this time.

He moved with his whole family, taking away his young and strong family members and placing them in designated settlements.

In this way, with hostages, these young adults can only obey obediently.

And Fabius did it very thoroughly - the entire Fidner Village and the surrounding area, with a total population of about 8000 people, except for the elderly, he was all violently recruited!
Yes, regardless of whether those people were civilians or slaves, and they were forcibly recruited together with women and children.

This is really done relatively well.

After all, whether they were civilians or slaves, they all belonged to various noble lords. In this era, the people can be regarded as the property of the local lords - forcibly expropriating all the population is undoubtedly robbery, and the robbing is still under their own rule.

Of course, this will offend everyone in the area.

However, Fabius, who had lost the hearts of the people, immediately encountered the Snake Worship Cult's large-scale chaos after he had just completed the forced conquest...

Because he is competing with the Snake Worship Cult for population resources...

This is going to be troublesome now, the news of Siyuan City has not been transmitted yet, Levius and his son don't know who will win and who will win, so there is no way to post it to lick it...

But they forced nearly 8000 people under their own rule, offending the whole territory!
At the same time, among the 8000 people, many of them are people who have already joined or plan to join the Snake Worship Cult.

So the Levius father and son felt quite uneasy, and couldn't sleep at night-the danger had to be resolved, or they might be killed at some point.

So, they gradually killed nearly 3000 people in batches within half a month-in fact, they were not sure whether those people were Snake Worshipers, but as long as they thought they were, they would kill them.

It is true that it is better to kill three thousand by mistake than to let one person go.

Of course, there are rare cases where Levius fell in love with other people's wives...

But this approach did prevent the Red Death from appearing in this village—the Snake Worshipers here were indeed killed off in batches.

However, after the Snake Worship Cult's chaos was resolved, the father and son still felt very uneasy, because they had not been able to see the battle situation become clear.

And the remaining 5000 people in their hands have no real combat capability...

If these people are forcibly recruited, it means that no one can engage in production, and the daily food consumption is horrifying, and their food reserves are obviously not enough.

Neither Livius nor Fabius dared to release the 'army' that had been conscripted by force.

On the one hand, they need these people, which can give them a sense of security.

On the other hand, since these people had already formed a relationship with all the nobles and commoners when they were forced to recruit, if they were sent back, maybe these people would form an army and join forces to kill themselves!
So the father and son simply broke the pot and smashed it. Not only did they not release the forced conscripts, but they forced all the young and strong into slave soldiers, and asked his trusted soldiers to dispatch the surrounding food again!

Everyone knows that food is life in troubled times, and no one is willing to pay food!
So there were little skirmishes here and there.

And to be able to do such a thing as forced requisition, one can imagine the quality of the subordinates sent to collect food.

It must be impossible to be a kind person who serves the public with a smile...

There was a conflict in grain collection, and the first reaction of Levius' subordinates was to suppress it!

This repression turned into looting and massacre.

The bones all over the ground were not made by the looters, but by Fabius, the lord here.

Every family was robbed and every household was slaughtered, just like locusts crossing the border, more bandits than bandits.

Only some local nobles or officials survived - such as this elderly tribune.

But there is no doubt that everyone's food has been robbed...

That's why the tribune said the money was useless...

There are only a few elderly people left in the whole village. They have neither the ability to work nor enough food to survive, nor the ability to travel thousands of miles to migrate to other places. What is the use of money?
There is no food to buy around...

"Where are those people who were forcibly recruited now? 5000 people... this is not a small number!"

The lord feels that Levius and his son have refreshed his three views again, and they are definitely representatives of unscrupulous nobles, but he doesn't want to meddle in this matter now. After all, the Snake Cult army is coming, and Li Ang only hopes that the father and son will Don't spoil his business.

"In the mountains... that bastard father and son took them and hid in the mountains to the east. I don't know where they are."