King of The Wall

2021-10-15

Chapter 655 "The Curse"

Margaery feels oneself is under a curse, the name of the curse is: Everything When it comes to marriage, it is bound to fail.

At first, the family struggled to get him to marry Joffrey Baratheon, which can be explained as King Robert's determination not to let the Tyrell family become relatives, which is understandable;
Later, the King's Landing note incident triggered the Vale Lords Declarant rebelled. She took advantage of the six kingdoms' gathering at Bloody Gate to propose a pillow to the snatchers as her lover, and was persuaded to go to House Stark, but she never thought that Robb would fall in love with Roslin Frey in a blink of an eye. This was an accident;
Immediately after, the scandal of House Lannister's golden siblings led to the upheaval of King's Landing, Reach plucked up the courage to elect Renly as king after Robert's death, Margaery was successfully promoted to queen and joined the Red Keep... everything was beautiful A dream, how could a beautiful dream turn into a nightmare in the next second - before the consummation and the birth of a child, Husband breathed one's last under the poison of black Magic, which made her carry the notoriety of a widow and Kefu inexplicably, and also implicated her. The whole Reach became a rebellious and embarrassing situation;

Finally, the Tyrell family, who had experienced hardships, seized the life-saving straw that emerged out of thin air. , once again regained the qualifications for the post-ranking position, and even thought for the best - this time the husband's surname that can be named is more ancient and noble, and even the legal system is more upright than Baratheon.
The result?
The wedding was bombarded and devastated. On the way to evacuate, they were chased by the tail. The couple were scattered by the chaotic army and were almost captured by the Dorne army. Finally escaped back to the safety of Reach, King Aegon was stationed in the Bitterbridge area to gather the troops and prepare for the possible next attack. As queen, she, Margaery, was supposed to accompany her husband to support him through this difficult time, but she couldn't. Don't preside over another more important thing - coordinating resources, urgently researching imitation gunpowder, and breaking the land-grant army's monopoly on thermal weapons.

As long as the overwhelming advantage of the enemy is destroyed and the strategic situation is restored to balance - advancing, Reach can fight to the death with the Queen's army; retreating is also enough to negotiate better peace conditions as a bargaining chip. No loss!

Yes, this job could be done by someone else, but Margaery dared not.

She was born smart, and was personally raised and disciplined by the "Queen of Thorns", and was educated and cultivated according to the queen's template... These positive "causes" will inevitably lead to good "effects": As a teenager, Margaery gradually began to be wiser, more decisive, and more inner-strength than most people—both men and women.

Because of the weakness of the father and the pure integrity of the brothers, the Tyrell family can be said to be in the hands of two women, mainly grandmother Olenna and her Margaery.

It is true that among the servants in the castle and the bannermen outside the family, there is no shortage of excellent men who are not inferior to or even better than her in one or several qualities, and who can confidently explain the affairs and entrust the burden. Women...

But, at the moment, this is related to Reach's future and destiny, and it requires both fame, identity, brains, and carefulness, as well as a little bit of flexibility and innovation. Without anyone who could possibly do better than oneself, I can't give it to others with confidence!

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Combining the information disclosed by Neil inadvertently and the analysis of the industrial material throughput data of Night's Watch that Reach merchants can access, Margaery quickly eliminated some disturbances. Lock: The raw materials of gunpowder are sulfur, nitrate, and charcoal.

But figuring this out is just the beginning.

Among the three major raw materials, except for charcoal, which is readily available, the other two require ideas to be collected. Among them, sulfur, as a common alchemy raw material, can barely be obtained on a large scale, and the last item of nitrate is a real rare resource-the Reach people who have never realized its strategic value have neither discovered it by accident nor learned from it. I didn't try to find the saltpeter mine, so I wanted a Final Struggle to find out: there are only two ways to get this substance.

The first is to follow the example of Night's Watch industry to establish a nitrification plant, and to extensively collect manure manually. This method is obviously efficient and reliable, but without first mentioning the detailed technology of nitrification, the Reach people did not get it (actually, they didn't do it at all, because there was no profit). The long production cycle is also an unacceptable huge pain point... After ruling out one of the only two options, Margaery was surprised and embarrassed to find that the last way to get out of trouble urgently now is only the second way - from the scattered people Obtain!

Extensively mobilized grass-roots vassals and the masses, using the simple self-defense and regional unity enthusiasm of the Reach people, to go deep into the cattle and sheep sheds, stables, toilets, caves and cellars of each household...with the most stupid, The most brutal and primordial manual scraping method, relying on the advantages of huge territory and population base, to use force!

It took a tremendous amount of call and action to carry out this project, but fortunately - it was not difficult to achieve with the current enemy and the unity within Reach. However, even if enough raw materials are successfully collected over all odds, it is only the 1st step to catch up with technology.

Second Step: Do a lot of trial and error to quickly adjust the material ratio, approach the perfect value as soon as possible, and start mass production of gunpowder.

speaking of which is simple, and there is no turbulence in actual operation. There is only a small episode when the result is close: when the artisan and Alchemist work together, it is difficult to determine the proportion of nitrosulphur charcoal It should have been around 10:1:2 when the pro-Reach faction lurking within the Night's Watch industry suddenly went in circles and sent back a printed internal document that was said to be used for the expansion of Night's Watch Arsenal's production, which was described in detail. The precise ratio of artillery production technology, data and gunpowder!
Only excited by the news for less than half a day, Margaery was annoyed to receive a report: Although this information looks true and reads like it is true, the most critical data is wrong! According to the above statement, the prepared gunpowder to detonate the formidable power is less than half of the undetermined plan, and has no practical value at all.

King's Landing went to great lengths to create a fake leak, just to waste less than half a day of Reach people? Margaery wondered in his heart, although he had vaguely aware that this was a trap for someone or some people, but it was too late to feel sorry for that or those acquaintances or hidden allies who might be hooked and killed in this fishing... Because the more difficult The Third Step was right in front of her.

Since the proportioning data is fake, it is not necessary to read the information of the artillery. But in this case, although gunpowder is barely available, they still have zero experience in how to use it.

An overbearing enemy force is approaching, and Margaery must quickly find a way to maximize the use of the inferior gunpowder in his hands. But at the same time, the fourth fact is very serious, and another big problem that is only temporarily covered by the main contradiction of life and death is also exposed: her marriage has come to the brink of collapse and failure.

The wedding is over halfway through, but the most important part of ceremony itself, the most crucial part of a political marriage - the mission of entering the bridal chamber and leaving bloodline children has not yet been completed. Under this circumstance, "running around" and "playing with alchemy" around the Reach without thinking first, instead of accompanying Husband inseparably, even if a reasonable explanation was made publicly and privately, it still aroused the audience's attention in the end. Doubt: Did the Queen of Thorns instruct Margaery to avoid her husband and not actually marry him? Does Reach intend to choose the big over the small and make peace with Daenerys at the cost of giving up Aegon and the Queen's position to protect the overall interests of Reach! ?
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(end of this chapter)