Buyulin Village is surrounded by a canal at least three meters wide. This is an overflow canal used for irrigation, and the water flow in it is quite fast.
The canal surrounds the village like a moat. It looks like a huge project. It was probably Dean's achievement a few years ago.
There is a small wooden bridge at the entrance of the village, connecting the roads.
There was a brazier lit beside the wooden bridge, and several knights were walking back and forth at the entrance of the village, seemingly maintaining law and order.
Inside the village, some people could be seen sitting leaning against the wall, seemingly moaning softly.
Occasionally, a few coughs could be heard coming from afar.
Seeing the caravan coming, the knights at the village entrance stopped the carriage.
The lord lifted the curtain in the carriage and looked inside. These were members of the Knights of the Glorious Cross, and the cross emblem on their chests was very conspicuous.
Several shining knights were wearing pointed helmets - this type of helmet had a protruding mask at the mouth and nose, shaped like a pointed bird's beak, which looked very strange.
There are some holes on the steel bird beak for ventilation, and the inner layer is filled with cotton fabric for filtration, which can cover the mouth and nose tightly.
This is not only a helmet, but also a gas mask of this era, so it should still provide some protection.
Dean and several plague fighters got out of the car and went forward.
"What's going on? What happened here?"
Because of Cleon, Dean is very familiar with the Knights of the Radiant Cross, and the village of Yublin is where he used to work. He once built canals to irrigate the fields here, so he is very concerned about the changes here.
The Shining Knight came closer with a torch in hand, recognized the Plague Repellents, then looked at Dean carefully and pulled down his mask.
"You are... Lord Dean? Lord, don't enter the village, there is a plague in the village!"
It seems that this glorious knight knows Dean.
After all, his father was the sergeant-major of the Knights of the Radiant Cross, and many knights knew him.
"plague?!"
The exorcists cried out in surprise.
Dean was still calm, but frowned deeply: "Knights, do you need our help?"
"We do need help, but don't go in there, this is the Red Death, and it's serious!"
When the lord heard that it was the Red Death, he became nervous.
This highly contagious disease was the direct cause of the collapse of the ancient Pande Kingdom in a short period of time. It ravaged the continent for seven years.
In just seven short years, the population of Pendor dropped by half.
Especially in those prosperous big cities, social production is basically at a complete stagnation.
The reason why it is called the Red Death and the Bloody Scourge is that the skin of the infected person will gradually fester and fall off, and in the end only blood-red muscles will be left, and the whole person will look like a red bloody demon.
People who die of the disease will eventually look somewhat similar to the Fallen, but when the Red Death patients reach the level of the Fallen with no skin at all, they are basically dead.
This is one of the reasons why people in various countries become extremely nervous once they discover a fallen person, and many people believe that there is a certain connection between the two.
The doctors of the Knights of the Glorious Cross have always been the pioneers in the fight against the Red Death. It was precisely because of the rampant Red Death that they began to recruit plague fighters from the civilian population on a large scale in order to protect the doctors in their practice.
But what’s interesting is that more than a hundred years ago, the first to achieve results in combating the Red Death were not the Knights of the Glorious Cross, but the country thief Alfred and the Knights of the Lion who cooperated with him.
After establishing the Kingdom of Sarleon and maintaining a brief peace with other countries, probably to protect the lives of the upper nobility, Alfred declared that the Red Death patients were all heretics, and he ordered the killing of all the "heretic apostles".
Any village where the Red Death is found will be blocked and no one will be allowed to enter or leave, and all things related to the infected will be destroyed.
Any patient who was confirmed to be infected would be treated as a heretic - killed and thrown into the fire, and many were burned alive.
Perhaps Alfred was only trying to protect himself and the nobles, but his actions inadvertently formed a de facto system of isolation, and an effective forced isolation at that.
At that time, Alfred was the first generation of the Fierce Lion King and a dictator. He always killed anyone who disobeyed him, so his orders were executed very well.
Of course, a large number of innocent people were accidentally killed during this period, and some shameless people took the opportunity to kill and plunder, but no matter what, the Kingdom of Sarleon did suppress the spread of the Red Death in the country in a short period of time.
Sometimes, a more vicious person can solve the problem - at that time, apart from Alfred, no king would massacre the villagers in the country like this.
This is not a secret. Except for the Kingdom of Sarleon, all countries have records of this incident.
But this period of history is recorded as a stain on Alfred - just as he was nicknamed "the thief" by various countries, he was also considered a tyrant by the people.
After all, his order to kill patients indiscriminately was indeed cruel.
However, this brutality actually saved most people...
But strangely, there is no record of the origin of the Red Death, as if it appeared on the continent overnight. It was probably destroyed just like the records of the six months before and after Alfred became king.
After the Red Death was resolved in Sarleon, other countries also began to use quarantine to solve the problem, which allowed the entire continent to get back on track seven years later.
However, other countries did not take overly rough measures to carry out compulsory quarantine, and the implementation was not thorough enough, resulting in many fish slipping through the net, so this terrible plague could not be completely eradicated.
As a result, over the next hundred years, the Red Death continued to recur, but it never reached the terrifying scale of covering the continent.
The Fierce Lion Realm is now also the place where the Red Death is least found - this is indeed thanks to the previous killings, which cleaned it up more thoroughly.
The helmets of the Lion Knights were the first to be changed to pointed helmets, but it was not for epidemic prevention at first, but to avoid bad smells.
Because most of the people who carried out tasks such as blockades and killings were members of the Lion Knights, they changed the traditional helmets into pointed mouths and filled them with cotton fabrics or sponges. This was mainly because people infected with the disease would emit a foul odor, which would be even more stinking when burned.
However, the knights later discovered that wearing a pointed helmet seemed to make them less susceptible to infection. The Order of the Lion had been carrying out missions facing patients for a long time, but very few of them were infected with the Red Death. As a result, many knightly orders began to follow suit.
Especially the knights who originally belonged to the ancient Pande Kingdom, basically all of their helmets had pointed bird beaks.
The Knights of the Radiant Cross were the earliest imitators.
They have more medical knowledge and understand better than others that masks can filter the air and play a role in epidemic prevention.
Leon jumped off the carriage and stood next to Dean: "Are you sure it's the Red Death?"
"Yes, I saw several bloody patients with my own eyes... This plague spreads very quickly and there is no cure. We can only seal off this village. This place is too close to Dilingang. If it spreads to a big city, the consequences will be disastrous..."
The Shining Knight sighed and shook his head.
"If that's the case, then you'd better send someone to find more manpower. I'm afraid that with only a few knights and plague repellents, we won't be able to seal off this village."
Leon looked towards the entrance of the village, where there were only a few knights and seven or eight plague fighters guarding it.
The knight nodded to Leon and Dean and said, "We have sent people to spread the word. Someone will be here soon. I hope you can help us. Just stay at this intersection for a while until our knights arrive."
Li Ang nodded without hesitation and shouted to his men, "Everyone, come down, let's block this intersection."
"My Lord, you'd better not stay here..."
Hearing Leon's order, Klose hesitated a little, but still led his team out of the car and lined up in a row.
Although Klose had never experienced the Red Death, he knew that any plague was extremely terrible, and he didn't want Leon to face this risk.
"We must help with this kind of thing. If a few infected people escape, it may endanger the entire continent. This is not a matter of one country or nation, nor is it a matter of one knight order. This is a matter for everyone. We cannot let anyone in the village escape!"
The lord spoke to his men in a very serious manner, then he pulled down the curtains in the carriage, tore them into face towels and distributed them to everyone, asking them to fold them into two layers and tie them around their faces.
This curtain is made of plush and linen, which may help.
A group of people followed Li Ang's example and covered their mouths and noses with cloth.
Le Ang didn't know how the Red Death was spread, but since the pointed helmet could provide protection, this homemade mask should also be able to do the same.
Although it is impossible to have the filtering ability of modern masks, it is at least better than no protection.
People of this era already knew the role of breathing and air, so it was understandable that they would cover their mouths and noses when encountering a plague - this was because of the bloody natural disaster more than a hundred years ago that gave people such common sense.
"Thank you for your selfless help, sir. May I ask your name?"
The knight saluted Leon and Dean.
Dean began to introduce: "This is Lord Leon, a kind nobleman."
Well, someone actually said that Li Ang is kind.
But Li Ang shook his head directly: "I am not a kind noble... I just want to protect my own safety. If the situation here is not under control, the infected people may spread to my territory..."
The Glorious Knight frowned and thought for a moment: "Sir Leon, I seem to have heard this name somewhere..."
But then he shook his head and stopped thinking about it, and put on his bird-beak mask: "You are right, Lord Leon, this is for the safety of everyone... Such an idea itself is the greatest kindness. If every noble thought like you, the Red Death would have been eradicated long ago."
He finished speaking in a muffled voice and was about to turn around, but he looked at the carriage behind Leon and turned around again.
As he was speaking, there seemed to be a commotion in the village, and a sound was heard from afar.
"Don't abandon us! Please heal us, please..."
That should be the voice of a middle-aged woman.
"Sorry, we can't..."
Another deep voice came.
The Glorious Knight sighed, said sorry, and hurried over with his men.
As soon as he arrived at the entrance of the village, a group of people who looked like farmers ran out in a panic. The farmer in the lead was shouting as he ran: "They want to lock us up here! They won't give us medical treatment, they want us to die here..."
Several shining knights stopped them with their shields and pushed them into the village: "You can't leave here! Go back!"
Several plague-repellents also picked up their shields and short-handled hammers and rushed forward without saying a word. It seemed that they had seen this kind of scene before.
But they had too few people, and it was too difficult for a dozen people to completely block hundreds of villagers. The leading farmer struggled desperately to break out of their blockade.
"Is this the Knights of the Radiant Cross? You just want to kill us! Not only do you not heal us, you also want us to die here!"
The guy ran out of the village dancing and shouting as he ran.
Then all the villagers became noisy and began to rush and attack desperately.
The Knights Radiant tried their best to stop them, waving their hammers to intimidate them, but no one took any strong action.
The lord frowned. It seemed that the guy was inciting the villagers?
He pointed at the guy and said to Amy who was standing next to the carriage: "Shoot that guy!"
"A bunch of hypocritical liars..."
“Bang!!”
The leading farmer rushed out of the village while shouting. When he was about twenty meters away from the lord, a loud noise made everyone shut up.
Amy was just behind Leon, her sword stuck in the ground with a musket mounted on top of it, and a large cloud of smoke almost completely obscured her figure.
The sound of the muskets seemed extremely loud in the night, and for a moment the village entrance became silent.
The guy who had been inciting the farmer had an egg-sized hole in his chest caused by a lead bullet, and he fell face up on the road.
This is the effect of muskets of this era - if the person is not wearing armor, the lead bullet will deform after hitting the body directly, forming a frontal wound that is much larger than the caliber. As long as it hits the torso, it will usually kill the person instantly.
If the person is wearing armor, the lead bullet will shatter when it hits the armor. If the armor is penetrated, irregular shrapnel will remain in the body.
If the bullet penetrates the armor and hits the target, it may not be fatal on the spot because the speed of the bullet is slowed down.
However, the wounds caused by these irregular shrapnel are quite troublesome. With the medical technology of this era, it basically only increases the pain of the person and it is still difficult to save the life in the end.
However, the leading farmer was obviously not wearing armor, and he was shot dead by a single shot.
The lord was obviously much more ruthless than the Glorious Knights. Regardless of whether this guy was deliberately inciting, his actions did play a role in inciting others. So the lord should just let Amy kill him, so as to control the situation in the fastest way.
Amy fired the shot without any hesitation. The lord had made it so clear that the guy should be shot to death.
Li Ang had never given her any orders before, because she was not Li Ang's subordinate, but a disciple seeking to learn.
Although they have a very good relationship, she is actually not on the lord's team list yet.
But now Leon has given Amy the order to kill someone, so Amy naturally understands that this man must be killed.
She always had a round ready in the chamber, so all she had to do was light the match, aim and fire.
This was the correct way to prepare for battle with a musket in this era. After all, this was a matchlock gun, and it was impossible for an accidental discharge to occur as long as the primer was not poured out and the match was not lit.
The match would only be lit before a battle, and the primer would only be poured into the powder pool when fighting, but there would always be a round of ammunition already loaded in the chamber so that the gun could quickly enter the battle.
In fact, this is the real reason why the muzzle of a gun should be pointed upwards when marching - this habit started in the matchlock era and was used to prevent the compacted ammunition from loosening and falling out while walking.
Amy waved her hand to clear the smoke, lowered the butt of the gun to lift the barrel, cleaned the chamber with a cleaning rod, tested the temperature of the barrel, and began to reload.
"Everyone, retreat! My temper is not as good as the Shining Knights!"
The lord took a few steps forward, walked to the side of the corpse, drew his sword and drew a line on the ground.
"If anyone dares to cross this line, I will kill them without hesitation!"
All the people of Mettenheim also drew their greatswords and stood behind the lord, forming a row behind that line .
The corpses on the ground have proved that this is not a lie. The big sword shining with cold light is right in front of them. More than a dozen tall and strong men have sackcloth scarves covering their faces. They look like a group of gangsters.
The image of the bandits was obviously more intimidating, and the villagers retreated back to the village in fear.
The members of the Glorious Cross Knights also slowly retreated outside the line with their shields raised, and stood in the front row of the greatswordsmen.
The knights obviously agreed with Leon's quick and decisive approach. In fact, if it weren't for this shot, their shield wall would have been broken.
"You should have acted decisively... I thought you would be more experienced than me."
The lord said to the leading shining knight.
"It's useless for us to take action. It will only cause a bigger conflict... The deterrent power of the short-handled hammer is not as good as that of the musket and the broadsword. Thank you for your help, Lord Leon, you acted very timely!"
This glorious knight was obviously a sensible man. He nodded at Leon and raised the mace in his hand.
Sure, their maces are a threat to knights in plate armor, but commoners won't be afraid of them...
The loud noise and smoke from the muskets, as well as the large and long sword blades, can intuitively scare ordinary people.
"Is there any other exit from this village?"
Li Ang nodded to show his understanding and began to think about how to completely seal off the village.
"There is another exit behind the mountain. The rest of the place is surrounded by canals. It's not easy for people to escape. We left some people there."
The Radiant Knight pointed in another direction.
"Take your knights and patrol along the outskirts of the village. Load the crossbows of the plague-repellents. If you encounter a situation like the one just now, don't hesitate!"
Leon stared at the eyes of the Glorious Knight seriously.
The Shining Knight nodded and rode away with several other knights.
Lord Dean looked at the canal and the small wooden bridge at the entrance of the village, and said to Leon: "I remember that there are more than 3,000 people living in this village! If it is completely blocked, they may..."
The Lord shook his head with a heavy face: "There is no other way. The Red Death has no cure yet. Blockade and isolation are the best way. We can't just let them spread the disease everywhere..."
Dean sighed deeply and began to pray to the goddess Damia.