The Glory of the Seven Gods of Ice and Fire

Chapter 172 Junlin Big Chicken

King's Landing, the best place under the Iron Throne and the most prosperous place in Westeros, is now caught in war.

Yes, war. With the death of Robert, the Red Castle fell into a coup. At that time, no one in King's Landing took it seriously. It was normal for big figures to come and go, but everything that happened afterwards made the whole King's Landing a mess.

The gold cloaks rushed into the streets of King's Landing, announcing at the top of their voices that the leaders of the Antler Guards and the Wall Guards had been executed for participating in the rebellion, and their organizations had been abolished and fully integrated into the capital garrison.

This news can be said to have caused a great stir. Old people in King's Landing still remember the time when the City Guard unified King's Landing. They still remember how bad it was. The City Guard collected money from various districts every day, and never improved public security. The public security of each community could only rely on community self-government. Without community self-government, such places often ended up becoming unmanaged slums - that is, the famous flea nest in King's Landing. The City Guard would never come to such a place.

Therefore, the people of King's Landing are very satisfied with King's Landing after the reforms of Prime Minister Eagle. After two troops were added to King's Landing, the law enforcement force was greatly increased, and the citizens also obtained a militia organization. The law and order in King's Landing is no longer the same as before.

Therefore, when people learned that the City Guard had once again taken control of the entire King's Landing, everyone in King's Landing who knew the news frowned. Everyone disliked the City Guard.

However, the people of King's Landing would not do anything because of this. For these ordinary citizens, as long as their lives or vital interests are not threatened, they will not do anything. However, the subsequent actions of the capital garrison changed the situation.

The Capital Garrison announced that they had received an order from the Queen Mother that all guilds in King's Landing must be disbanded. Commander Genos then sent out a message in his own name, demanding that everyone in King's Landing make up the difference in their contributions over the years - this news was immediately followed by the arrival of the Capital Garrison.

The capital garrison would not care about those who handed it over honestly, but as for those who did not hand it over, the gold robes would simply label them traitors and arrest them in the dungeon of the Red Castle.

The Golden Robes also rushed into various urban areas in the name of arresting traitors, launched a large-scale search, and took away all valuables from the citizens' homes, causing complaints from the citizens. However, as long as anyone dared to resist, the Golden Robes would kill the resister in the name of treason.

This directly caused the entire King's Landing to be shaken. From the very beginning, Genos made it clear that he wanted to retaliate for what had happened in the past ten years. This made everyone feel insecure, especially the leaders of the various guilds and militias in King's Landing.

Genos is a commander of the City Garrison who is famous for his corruption. Under his leadership, the level of corruption in the City Garrison is even more exaggerated than that in the Dragon King era. In order to recover the losses of the City Garrison that has lost a lot of power, he invented a series of tax items that extort money from the land. As a result, the guilds and militias have often fought wits and courage with him, and have also introduced the power of the Wall Camp to cause trouble for Genos, making the frog face of the City Garrison commander turn the color of pig liver.

Faced with Genos's obvious counterattack, the guild and the militia decided not to sit idly by. They gathered their members/militias, dug trenches and built fortifications in their respective urban areas, and took a stance of armed resistance against the capital garrison.

This behavior swept through King's Landing like a gust of wind, and the series of popular autonomous organizations established by Jon Arryn exuded a strong vitality - this vitality should have been used by the monarch of the Iron Throne, but due to the stupidity of the current rulers of the Red Castle, it has become a trouble for the Iron Throne.

Commander Genos immediately realized the harm of this behavior. In order to curb the impact, he sent a large number of gold cloaks to attack the nearest urban area, and captured the urban area closest to the Red Castle at all costs.

The Golden Cloaks drove the soldiers of the Wall Guard and the Antler Guard as cannon fodder and used them to break through the barricades in the city. Then, Genos declared that all of them were traitors and executed them all.

Janos loaded the trench of the Red Keep with a pile of bloody trophies. He told Queen Mother Cersei that these were all the heads of traitors, which made the Queen Mother very happy. Then she told him to do whatever he wanted and catch as many traitors as possible. Only in this way could King's Landing understand the majesty of the current ruler of the Iron Throne - that is, her, Cersei.

However, what Genos did did not have the effect he had expected. Some city districts surrendered as a result, but many people were not scared. Instead, their will to resist became even stronger, and they were even busier reinforcing the fortifications - judging from the attitude Genos had shown, he would settle accounts with them no matter what, so they might as well fight to the death.

In this situation, in order to further make an example of someone, Genos decided to attack the Oriental community in King's Landing.

Since the beginning of the expedition, many Orientals have been relocated to Westeros and established their own Oriental community in King's Landing. There are also tens of thousands of people, forming a unique urban area in King's Landing.

The people of King's Landing really disliked this group, but because these Orientals were also very low-key, and after several "fights", the people of King's Landing also realized that these Orientals were not easy to mess with, so peace was maintained between the two sides. But the people of King's Landing were still unhappy with these Oriental visitors.

This is why Genos chose the Orientals to attack. This group is large enough, and the people of King's Landing don't like them. Moreover, the Queen Mother has never liked these Orientals introduced by Robert. It is most appropriate to use them to kill the chicken to scare the monkey. As for the resistance in the East, how could these Orientals have any combat effectiveness.

However, it can be said that Genos chose the wrong target to pick on, as Orientals cannot be bullied easily.

These people were not like the people of Junlin who had been atomized and scattered for a long time. City-state life allowed them to maintain a high degree of organization. Even if they were broken up, even if they came from different city-states, they reorganized themselves in a very short time.

The reason why Genos thought they could be bullied was very simple. Since they were the defeated people who were migrated from the East, the Orientals were extremely low-key when facing the official power of the Iron Throne. It could even be said that they were a bit weak. In this case, Genos naturally thought that the Orientals could be easily bullied.

Then, Commander Genos paid a heavy price for his actions. The golden cloaks he sent to attack the Eastern community were defeated and suffered heavy losses. The Eastern people had a tradition of providing their own weapons and equipment. They changed their equipment very quickly and then attacked the golden cloaks who rushed in from all directions.

Even after the reforms of Prime Minister Eagle, the fighting capacity of the Gold Cloaks had not changed much compared to the Targaryen era. Faced with such a concerted attack by the Easterlings, they collapsed and were completely routed.

The defeat of the Gold Cloaks caused a chain reaction in King's Landing. The people of King's Landing, who were once frightened by the massacre of the Gold Cloaks, took up arms again and took the initiative to attack the members of the City Guard on the streets. Faced with this situation, the original Stag Horn Guards and Wall Guards either defected or fled, leaving the confused Gold Cloaks there to be knocked to the ground or even killed by the militia.

Many of the Antler Guards and Wall Battalion soldiers who resisted being recruited by the Gold Cloaks joined the rebels. Under their leadership, the militia even broke into several armories and seized the equipment of the King's Landing defenders.

In just one short day, the situation in King's Landing collapsed to the extreme, and the gold cloaks were attacked everywhere. Although the streets were generally still controlled by the largest armed force in King's Landing, as long as they left the streets, they would be attacked next.

In this chaotic situation, the remaining royal fleet in the port of Eastcity - Triumph, the new city in King's Landing on the south bank of the Blackwater River, became Eastcity as it was surrounded by the new city walls of King's Landing - killed the gold cloaks who were supervising them, weighed anchor and set sail to join Stannis.

In this chaotic situation, a force in King's Landing that had been ignored stood up. That was the Church of the Seven Gods in the Great Sept of Baelor. The priests carried the statues of the Seven Gods and walked onto the streets. The fat archbishop wore his most gorgeous clothes, surrounded by countless priests and believers. With the efforts of the church, peace was basically restored in the area around the Great Sept of Baelor. There were fewer large-scale battles, and the church began to collect the bodies of both sides in King's Landing.

However, the church only brought temporary peace. Neither the man in the Red Castle nor the militia would allow this situation to last too long. As long as the Red Castle did not change those outrageous orders and did not bow to the people of King's Landing, what is now essentially a truce before another war.

As the Iron Throne's control over King's Landing has declined, the public security in many areas of King's Landing has deteriorated to the extreme. There has never been a shortage of people willing to take advantage of the situation. If we don't seize this opportunity now, it will be difficult to get such an opportunity again.

Ordinary citizens were thus caught in the double threat of life and property, but no one cared about their opinions. The opinions of these guys who dared not fight with swords were meaningless in the chaotic King's Landing.

The situation in King's Landing had deteriorated to such an extent that Cersei was naturally furious to the extreme. Commander Janos was called to the Red Keep and reprimanded many times. The frog-faced commander was scolded badly every time, but he could only promise that the problem would be solved soon in response - it was a pity that he made too many such promises and Cersei no longer believed them. If he had only this army at hand, Cersei would have asked him to get out long ago.

The situation was so bad that the atmosphere in the Red Fort naturally became increasingly tense, and this naturally gave some people room to maneuver.

Varys felt depressed.

Ever since His Majesty the King fell seriously ill, nothing that happened has gone as he wished. In fact, if he hadn't felt that Stark was a little unreliable and deliberately held back from getting involved, he would probably have become a cellmate with Lord Eddard now.

But even so, Varys did not expect that Cersei would actually do that, and would literally turn the entire King's Landing upside down. The chaos in King's Landing now was something he could never have imagined.

Varys is a man of indifferent character, who does not have much pursuit for anything. He came to the West only because of a commission from an old friend, and that commission was left unresolved as his old friend changed his mind.

However, as a person who participated in the Eagle Prime Minister's reforms throughout the whole process, he still felt heartbroken to see old Arryn's legacy being squandered and even ruined in this way - even if these things were to be destroyed, they should not be destroyed so ridiculously. If Jon Arryn knew everything here, he would probably be so angry that he would come back to life!

The garrison and the militia were fighting fiercely in the streets, and the guilds were defending their halls. If he had not persuaded the Archbishop to come forward and temporarily ease the situation, King's Landing would probably have literally been a river of blood - although it had already happened once before.

Varys couldn't help but think that he had just saved Gendry. Alas, His Majesty the King had so many illegitimate children in King's Landing, and he only saved this one in the end. Moreover, he couldn't find the missing Stark girl.

Fortunately, he is the oldest illegitimate child and the most suitable to inherit the Iron Throne. If we keep him, there will always be opportunities in the future.

Yes, Varys supports letting King Robert's illegitimate son take the throne. The reason for his support is very simple. For him, whether it is Joffrey or Stannis, it would not be a good thing for him as a eunuch if they take the throne. Only by letting the king's illegitimate son take the throne can he have the possibility of keeping his power.

Power is the only thing Varys has now. After his old friend's plan was suspended, it is the best placebo for him.

However, in the current situation, he can only protect the king's illegitimate son. As for ascending to the throne, he dare not even think about it. He can only continue to wait for an opportunity - because someone is rushing to the capital with all his strength, his name is Tywin Lannister.

After Robert issued the will, Varys knew that Tywin's spy in King's Landing, Pycelle, would definitely send the news of the will to Casterly Rock. And given Tywin's character, he would definitely come to King's Landing as soon as possible to stabilize his grandson's position and the power of the Lannisters.

That's exactly how things developed. The Lannister army moved out faster than he had expected. Less than two days after the message was sent, he received the news that the Lannister army had crossed the riverlands. The river lords who were passed by the Lannisters were not annoyed, but welcomed it instead - because Casterly Rock had spent enough money - only Riverrun was furious.

By the time Tywin's army arrives at King's Landing, the Lannister position will be completely stabilized. Tywin will definitely release the Starks to appease the North, and the king's illegitimate children will have no chance at all.

However, he can wait. Varys has plenty of time. As long as he waits, there will be a chance after all. Things are still under control. He can still mobilize these great nobles. He has not completely failed.

However, what Varys didn't expect was that the Queen Mother of Westeros would be more capable than he thought.

(End of this chapter)