Our family is in decline

As for the three-day holiday for the festival, Hamlet now needs to recuperate.

After experiencing extreme darkness and the blood moon, their spirits were too tense, and now they suddenly relax. If they directly enter work and cannot adjust, problems will arise.

Just like a serious illness, even if it gets better, it must be nursed back to health, otherwise it will be troublesome if it leaves sequelae.

Another reason is that adjustments need to be made below, as well as those above, because the death of the ancestor means that the previous decisions made around the main contradiction of "killing the ancestor" have become invalid.

This means that the next policy will definitely be different from the previous one, but work will be resumed immediately now, but according to the previous arrangements, changes will come within a few days.

And if this difference falls below, it will be suspected of "changing orders overnight", which not only damages work efficiency, but more importantly, people's hearts.

Taking a few days off will just leave a space buffer before resuming work, allowing senior executives enough time to adjust strategies and make new decision-making arrangements. Then they will directly develop according to the new decisions.

Anyway, it has been stopped for so many days, so it is not less than these two days.

Lance backed off without much nonsense, returning the joy to them.

It's just that ordinary people can be happy, but Lance is not, because what happened to Hamlet after he left was revealed to him through a detailed report.

To be honest, Lance didn't see the blood moon, because it appeared when he opened the portal to connect the dark dungeon and reality. It was most likely the projection of his ancestor.

Later, the ancestor disappeared, and the so-called blood moon naturally disappeared. When Lance walked out of the dungeon, it was daytime, and there was only one sun in the sky.

A disappearing thing is not worthy of Lance's attention. He is more concerned about the losses caused by the blood moon.

Many people were affected, and more importantly because of this, most of the adventurers in the town in front of the ruins were lost.

Now that it is open, I am afraid that the situation will be even worse. Even if various messages have been released, it will be of no avail. If the same trick is used too many times, it will become immune, and Lance will run out of leeks.

What's even more troublesome is that the blood moon caused wild beasts in a large area of ​​Hamlet to go crazy and attack humans. The rats in the ruins also became bigger and crazier, and began to overflow, making them more difficult to deal with than skeletons.

"I knew those adventurers were unreliable."

Lance could only complain at this time, but he was not angry at all. The original purpose of developing the ruins and introducing them was to attract the attention of the cultists and provide a cover for him to take a detour and sneak attack on the old house.

Now let alone Laozhai, all the ancestors have been killed, and their role is no longer so important.

The only pity is that I can't cut leeks. I originally wanted to use this to promote development, but now I'm afraid I have to change my method.

Lance didn't really care about the beasts in the wilderness and the mice in the ruins, but the following information made him pay more attention to them.

According to the information sent back by intelligence personnel stationed in the surrounding areas, the surrounding territories have finally taken action, but the situation is a bit special.

In order to respond to the call of the cult leader or ancestor, those cultists may have been really desperate and did not have time to slowly infiltrate, so they could only encourage some people to invade Hamlet.

But according to the intelligence, these people were not mobilized in full force, but more like they were mobilized by themselves, and the local lords probably allowed the following behavior to test Hamlet's intentions.

Of course, those nobles inspired by the cult wanted to occupy more land, so they wanted to capture those areas that were not covered by the Darkness first.

The cultists definitely can't do it. They just want to attack Hamlet directly. It is this chaotic situation that causes them to have passed the blood moon and has not yet arrived.

These messages have been around for a while, so I don’t know their specific circumstances now.

After daybreak, after receiving the news, the army began to ask Laura and Boslake to lead the reconnaissance forward. It is estimated that the news should be obtained soon.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Lance summoned Hamlet's senior management to discuss the matter.

Army commanders like Leonard and Barristan were called over not long after they returned home.

Barton also rushed back from the small town ahead, and more and more people gathered. They seemed to understand that this holiday had nothing to do with them.

After all, he has been with the lord for so long, so he knows somewhat about Lance's habits.

"Although we have defeated the cult that corrupted Hamlet and ended their poisoning of this land, victory has not yet come. Now the remaining cultists are colluding with the surrounding territories and preparing to launch an attack on Hamlet. This is something we cannot bear. "

Lance unfolded the detailed map left by his ancestor, "This is the real Hamlet area, and where are we now? Most of it has been invaded by these guys. They are enslaving our people and destroying our land. This It’s intolerable!”

Everyone seemed to feel something when they heard this. Don't they know that Hamlet was occupied?

In fact, everyone present knew that even people from the military had proposed to regain the territory many times, including Leonard.

Because in the military's enlightenment courses, there is a story about Hamlet being invaded. For those soldiers, the lord's humiliation is their humiliation.

It's more or less as fanatical as the church that went so far to launch a holy war just to take back the so-called holy city.

But they were all suppressed by the lords, who put aside those issues and focused their main efforts on dealing with the cult.

The simplest thing is that the Knights of Bastia came to fight, but they still collected money and settled the matter.

Now that the lord has mentioned this change, it shows what the wind direction will be.

And Lance did not intend to hide it, and revealed his goal very directly.

"I asked you to come here today to tell you that I will recover the entire territory of Hamlet next."

And the army was excited when this sign appeared. After all, they should fight for Hamlet if they enjoy this treatment. Only war can create their glory.

Others did not have too many opinions on this, because they could not change the lord's strategy in this general direction.

"The army will stay, and the rest will go back to sort out the details of the period of extreme darkness and blood moon as soon as possible. This is related to the formulation of policies later."

"Yes!"

Everyone responded, and most of the people in the meeting room left directly, leaving only Patton, Reynard and others.

Lance generally does not like to drag things out. Since the next main task has been decided, he will start to describe the situation on the map.

"Hamlet is surrounded by the sea to the east, ruins to the north, and mountains to the northwest, so..."

It can be clearly seen from the map that the areas occupied by Hamlet are mainly in the west, southwest, and south.

Among them, Bastia is mainly located in the west. Of course, it actually includes a large area of ​​land, which is the strongest in military strength, but many of them are plateaus and mountains.

Owendo is in the southwest, which is the throat of Hamlet's old road leading to the outside world. It is for this reason that it was controlled by the emperor of the empire and wanted to lock Hamlet, but now it has changed.

Everyone is familiar with the first two, but the south has not produced a count, but three barons.

The strength of the territory has nothing to do with the title, but with courage.

Bastia was not originally a countship, because the barbarians pressed on the border, he repelled the barbarians, and made the border stable for more than ten years, forcing the emperor to make him a count.

The three guys in the south also annexed and developed during the Great Cataclysm, taking advantage of the decline of Hamlet. If you really count, their territories are larger than those of the Viscount.

So there is a big difference between nominal and actual control. The feudal aristocratic system of the empire has too little restraint, not to mention that the entire Hamlet area is far away from the core of the empire and belongs to the northern border, which makes this situation even more obvious.

However, the location of these guys means that they do not need to deal with the threat of foreign enemies, so the war preparations are relatively general, and they mainly rely on the system of aristocratic war.

In other words, the main combat power is still those noble knights with fiefs, and serfs will be recruited when the war starts.

Intelligence estimates that the three of them can probably gather more than 50 noble knights together, and give them one or two squires. Some families have fathers and sons on the battlefield, and at most less than 200 can get on the horse.

In addition, the local lords should have some cavalry or archers on hand, counting them as one hundred, that is, 300.

From this, it can be inferred that the war potential of the three families is 200 knights, 100 cavalry, and 200 archers.

The core combat power is only about 500 when gathered together.

However, An Yi has not fought a war for so many years, and Bastia has neglected its war preparations. They are probably not much better, and their combat power has to be reduced.

As for the serf soldiers, according to the population, the three families can probably mobilize 2,000 to 3,000 people, and it is not impossible to mobilize 5,000 people.

However, the above are all calculated for the three families together. Can the three families really be combined?

There is no shortage of dirty tricks among the nobles...

"These are just estimates based on intelligence and can only be used for reference. The actual situation may be more complicated, because I can't say whether there will be extraordinary people involved. This is an uncontrollable variable."

Lance looked up and gestured to everyone, "Tell me, what do you think?"

"Bastia's terrain is mainly mountainous, there are strong cities, and it is better prepared for war. I think we should eat the fat meat first and then gnaw the hard bones."

"But don't we give Bastia more time to prepare? If we take down Bastia first and rush to Owendo with victory, the rest will not be a big deal."

"Indeed, Bastia can really unite the power of the territory, and those who have their own interests may not be able to unite even if given time..."

All parties gave their opinions and discussed, and Lance was also thinking.

Because future battles will be more artillery-based, he feels that he should take this opportunity to really fight a big war, not to knock on skulls and other things, but to touch the real core of the aristocratic system, the knights.

Only by crushing them can we truly represent the arrival of the times.

"I want to fight a real hard battle."

When Lance spoke, everyone else put down their arguments and looked at the lord waiting for orders.

"Even if the guys in the whole south unite, they only have 5,000 troops, most of whom are serfs. I, Hamlet, have 3,000 professional soldiers, which is more than enough to deal with them.

This time we have to..."

"Sir, don't we leave some soldiers to guard and be responsible for security? Especially in the ruins, there are also more attacks in the wilderness."

Someone reminded him, don't forget that there is a "bomb". If all of them are withdrawn, it may cause instability.

"The army has always been for external affairs. There are police and armed police inside, as well as reserves and militia. Leave these things to them."

The reason why Lance is so confident is very simple. He didn't plan to let the guards go out, but kept them inside.

While preparing to retake the territory, Lance also prepared to sort out the internal affairs.

Because no one in Hamlet could understand it better than him. In order to concentrate the forces, many problems had been ignored or even suppressed before, and these needed to be solved.

"Now all the soldiers are on vacation, and the action time is set in three days, which is the end of the vacation. The code name of the action is [Big Cleaning]. We have to clean the house and have a good year."

Lance really has no interest in the war of mortals, so he just plowed through it in the simplest way.

"I emphasize again that our main task next is to retake the entire Hamlet. I don't care who is in front of us, crush them for me!"

"Yes!"

"Now let's talk about these cult remnants that ran in..."

In terms of military affairs, Lance has always been the sole power, and neither Greendale nor Baldwin intervened.

But the army launched a war, which must be inseparable from the support of all parties.

Otherwise, there would be no such saying as "the army has not moved before the food and grass", and what is faster than military action is the public opinion offensive.

The history of the occupation of the Hamlet area, the miserable life of the Hamlet people under the rule of those nobles, their oppression, and other topics began to spread.

But this is not enough, Lance is waiting.

Waiting for the remnants of the cult to come, for this reason he even suppressed the news about those guys, at least most people don't know.

Lance is ready to let those guys rush over and give the people of Hamlet who are on vacation a little shock, as long as the situation is under control.

It is very simple for him to do this, because Hamlet has lost those places for too long.

According to the current saying, more than ten years have changed a generation, and the current Hamlet people are also from other places.

It can be said that there is no relationship between the two sides. From the perspective of ordinary people, it is difficult to understand why the lord has just stopped and wants to go to war again.

So we have to thank the cult, even at this time, give him a reason.

Nothing is better than the cult. Those guys support the invasion of the cult, so they must be bad people.

This is the importance of having a legitimate reason, he needs to get widespread support.

Soon, Laura and others who went out for reconnaissance returned to Hamlet with the news... (End of this chapter)