From Lisadiran, Leon has learned the overall situation of the Noldor elves.
There are currently four tribes of the Noldor elves: Aenor, Finarfin, Finwë, and the 'Darion' tribe, which is not yet considered a formal family.
The most well-known family leaders are Islamandil and Aldarian, who often lead troops abroad.
But these two Noldor lords are not actually Elf Kings.
Three hundred years ago, humans invaded on a large scale. Although the elves successfully defeated the human army, the four major families suffered heavy losses.
Islandil's father was seriously injured and disabled, and then retired. Islandil became the leader of the Ainor family, but he has not been crowned for three hundred years and has always been "His Highness".
And Aldarian's 'Darian Tribe' is not actually a family, because Aldarian is actually a warlord.
He was a warrior of the House of Finwe.
In the war with humans, Aldarian used his unparalleled archery skills to repel powerful enemies and save his family. He became the most outstanding Twilight Knight in the past few hundred years, and once served as the leading commander in the counterattack against the human army. He was also awarded the Noldor elves' treasure, the 'Final Bow'.
This bow was originally in the hands of the Elf King 'Felgoth', but the Elf King had no heirs, and he originally regarded Aldarian as the heir of the House of Finwë.
But in the process of fighting back against the human army, this powerful warrior gradually became an extreme racist and had great hostility towards the humans of the continent of Pendor.
This is understandable, after all, many of his family members and comrades died in the wars launched by humans in those years.
In Aldarian's eyes, humans occupied the land that belonged to the Noldor elves and massacred his compatriots. Some lords even imprisoned the female rangers that the Noldor was proud of in high towers and tortured them day and night.
So he kept sending his patrols to patrol around the Changhe Forest. Once they encountered humans, they would be killed without mercy. Any show of mercy to humans would be regarded as cowardice by him.
But such behavior was not a good thing for the entire Noldor tribe. Aldarian continued to actively attack human civilians, which not only deepened the hatred between the Noldor and humans, but also caused the Noldor to lose more people in the battle.
More importantly, war and hatred continued to deepen, and the Noldor, who were trapped in the forest, would not be able to communicate with the human world at all - no trade, no new knowledge, and even difficult to understand changes in the outside world.
Therefore, after discussions, the Elf Kings of the three major families decided to take back Aldarian's power to lead the army.
Aldarian was dissatisfied with this result. In addition, he was the most powerful warrior among the Noldor elves and had great appeal, so he took away a large number of warriors who were willing to follow him - including people from the three families, and then these people formed a new tribe called "Dalion".
Fortunately, Aldarian did not start any civil war , and his arrows were never aimed at the Noldor elves. He still protected the entire tribe, but in his own way.
He was only bent on revenge against humans, or watching the fights among humans, hoping that one day humans would be weakened by internal strife and the Noldor would have the opportunity to rule the continent of Pendor.
The three Elf Kings were unwilling to lose their people due to internal strife, and Aldarian did have outstanding achievements, so they chose to acquiesce and allocated a territory to Aldarian.
The House of Ainor, led by Islandil, has always been the tribe that inherits knowledge among the Noldor. Their greatest concern is the acquisition and protection of various knowledge.
As for the Finwë family, the Elf King Felgoth-Anr has been concentrating on breeding elven horses and manufacturing various weapons and equipment in the past three hundred years, and has basically no longer appeared in front of people.
As for the House of Finarfin, the Elf King Celeborn Ir was an artist and scholar. He was most concerned with the art and culture passed down by the Noldor and never participated in wars.
Knowledge, technology, and art are the inheritances of the original three major families.
The tribe founded by Aldarian
But the Noldor were still quite united, and there was no civil war among the four tribes.
In fact, the Finwë family is in danger now. The Elf King Felgoth'an has no heirs, and their bloodline is about to be cut off.
Aldarian took away the most people from the Finwe family, which caused the population of the Finwe family to become extremely small. It is said that there are only 800 people now.
This weak family possessed the Noldor's elven horse and equipment forging technology, and the Elf King also had different ideas from warlords like Aldarian. It should have been easy for accidents to happen.
But in fact, no vicious incidents occurred in these three hundred years. On the contrary, Aldarian deliberately protected the Finwe family.
Similarly, if Aldarian's tribe needed war horses and equipment, the Finwë family would fully support them - although there were ideological conflicts between the two sides, the friendship still existed, and Aldarian was not regarded as a traitor.
However, after suffering his first defeat in life, the most powerful Noldor warrior in hundreds of years inadvertently brought the greatest danger to the House of Finwë.
The territory of the Finwe family is actually located in the dense mountains and forests two hundred miles east of White Hart Castle.
Each group of Noldor had its own territory, but the boundaries were not so clearly defined.
Now the forests are to the Noldor in much the same way that cultivated land is to men.
Because most of the Noldor elves are vegetarians, the fruits and nuts produced in the forest are their staple food.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that they don’t eat meat or pasta, but mainly because it’s not suitable to cook in the forest…
So the Noldor elves rarely killed animals in the forest for meat, but they still had hunters who specialized in shooting birds and beasts.
The food chain in the Noldor Forest is not very complete, and there are not many ferocious beasts. The top of the food chain here was originally bears, timber wolves and goshawks.
However, since the northern side of the forest is close to the Jatu grassland, and the Jatu people particularly like to use wolf teeth to make ornaments and arrowheads, this has led to a gradual decrease in the number of wolf populations.
Goshawks are semi-migratory birds. In cold seasons, they fly south for the winter. However, the Bacchus people in the south like to make headdresses with eagle feathers and like to catch goshawks and raise them as falcons. The Bacchus people even use falcons for their military flags. However, their love for eagles has directly led to a sharp decline in the number of goshawks.
There are many wild men in the Misty Mountains in the east. They love to hunt bears and sometimes go into the forest to hunt...
The result is that the biological balance has been disrupted, natural enemies have decreased, and herbivorous animals have become more rampant.
Therefore, the Noldor elves would organize young people to shoot those excessive birds and beasts, otherwise the forest would sooner or later be eaten up by the rapidly reproducing herbivorous animals.
This is also a way for the Noldor elves to grow, and their archery skills are also practiced in such an environment.
Now the lord is in the forest, looking in surprise at the many animal carcasses that have not been cleaned up.
Lisadiran was leading the way in front. In this primeval forest, only he could fully grasp the direction.
"Risadiran, did your people shoot these animals? Even if they don't eat the meat, why don't they skin them?"
When he saw the relatively fresh body of a wild badger lying dead under a tree, Li Ang finally couldn't help but ask.
"Because there are already too many leather materials... We can't trade with humans, so there's no need to bother. We might as well let them return to the earth..."
Lisadiran looked back and shook his head: "Besides, we don't like to use fur. Even after nitre treatment, we can still smell the stench of fur."
"I thought it was because the Noldor loved animals..."
Anson, who was accompanying him, seemed a little disappointed.
"Ha, a tribe that is always facing the crisis of extinction will always consider survival. The fishy smell of fur will attract wild beasts and bring danger to the tribe members..."
Risa Dillan explained.
"But considering the skills of the Noldor, they should not be afraid of wild beasts..."
Anson still didn't quite understand.
"Because there are too few wild animals in this forest, we are reluctant to kill them. Too few wild animals will cause other animals to reproduce in large numbers. When I was a child, I shot and killed many animals according to the instructions of our elders. There are standards for which animals to kill and in what quantity. All of this is for the survival of our people in the forest. Only by ensuring the balance between species can this forest remain vibrant for a long time, thus ensuring that our people can get enough food. This is no different from humans planting crops and weeding."
Lisa Dilan is in a much better mood now and talks more.
"I see... then what about this? What's going on with this?"
Anson pointed to a dead bear cub in front of him.
The Lord and Lisadiran walked over quickly with frowns on their faces.
It was a bear cub, certainly less than a year old, lying under a tree with two arrow holes in its chest.
"This was done by the Jatu people!"
"Everyone prepare for battle!"
The Noldor would not shoot bear cubs. Like Lisadiran, most Noldor elves were taught from an early age the importance of the ecological balance .
Bears have almost become protected animals in the eyes of the Noldor elves. Unless they actively attack the Noldor, the elves will not actively harm them.
But the bear cubs obviously did not have the ability to attack the Noldor. Now that they encountered a shot bear cub, it naturally meant that the Jatu people who invaded the forest from the grassland were not far away.
…
At the same time, Changhe Town had become a scene of chaos.
Leslie was rushing to White Hart Castle to report the news.
Because two days ago, Godric's troops fought a fierce battle with the Duke of Alma's troops in Changhe Town.
This was a true civil war.
It starts with Godric chasing after the Red Brotherhood members.
Around the same time that the Lord captured Levius again, Godric and Charles's troops followed the fleeing members of the Red Brotherhood and chased them all the way to the vicinity of Payne Village, southeast of Lion Lake City.
Later, they found traces of the Horn Call Rangers.
There are more than 400 members of the Horn Call Rangers here, most of whom are Ralph's rangers.
The appearance of the Rangers in this location was obviously very strange, and Godric and Charles could certainly sense that something was wrong.
Moreover, after seeing the bandits fleeing, the Horn Summoning Rangers immediately began to intercept and kill them.
This caught Godric off guard, as he had originally planned to chase these Red Brotherhood members all the way to find the mastermind, or at least capture the leader of these bandits.
Godric had no intention of killing these bandits. Even if he wanted to kill them, he would at least capture a few leaders alive.
Of course, the fact that these bandits have now run seven or eight hundred miles and have arrived at Payne Village, which is only a hundred miles away from Lion Lake City, is very telling.
However, Godric wanted to capture them alive - and now the rangers were killing the bandits without leaving a single one alive, it felt like they were silencing them!
So Godric planned to stop this behavior and sent a number of soldiers to order the Rangers to stop attacking and capture prisoners.
But what was unexpected was that the Horn Summoning Rangers completely ignored his orders.
The local knights of Changhe Town actually ignored the orders of the Chief of Military Affairs of the Eastern Region. It was obvious that something was wrong with this group of rangers.
So Godric led an army of more than a thousand people to surround these rangers.
But what was even more strange was that after killing those bandits, the rangers did not leave, but waited where they were, and even laid down their weapons and surrendered, allowing Godric to surround them.
Later, Godric found Ralph, who was seriously injured, in the village of Payne.
Since Raphael was held hostage by Duke Alma, Ralph had no choice but to obey Alma's command and lead the Rangers to help Alma form a military deterrent, retake Lion Lake City, and follow Alma to prepare to go to Brave Shield Castle.
But he did not expect that Duke Alma's real target was not Yongdun Castle, but Changhe Town!
Duke Alma initially brought out more than half of the Lion Lake City's military forces, and together with the Horn Summoning Rangers, a total of 2,500 troops, he led the army westward, claiming that he was going to rescue Brave Shield Castle.
But just as they reached the north of Payne Village, another scout came to report that "Baron Leon had committed treason in Changhe Town" - at that time, the news of Leon's treason was indeed widely spread.
So the Ranger Group was divided into two factions.
Half of the people, including Ralph, thought that Baron Leon would not do this and that this must be fake news.
The other half thinks that no matter whether it is fake news or not, they should return to Changhe Town first. Going back to Changhe Town first to make sure that everything is fine at home should be in time before rescuing Yongdun Castle.
So Duke Alma took the other half of the ranger group, plus his own troops, more than 2,000 troops, and went to Changhe Town, letting Ralph lead the rangers to "support Brave Shield Castle."
But in fact, the task he gave Ralph was to kill all the members of the Red Brotherhood he could see along the way. As long as this was completed, he would release Raphael.
Ralph's only son was in Alma's hands, so on the surface he could only obey the arrangements - but with the last experience of Alma settling in Changhe Town, he already knew what Alma was going to do.
So, after Alma left, Ralph told the Rangers about the situation he was facing.
After all, Ralph had been the Knight Commander of the Horn of Call Rangers for twenty years. The rangers trusted him very much and knew that he never lied.
Whether Changhe Town will eventually be controlled by Alma or Leon, that is an internal struggle among the kingdom's lords, and the Horn Summoning Rangers have no interest in participating.
Anyway, any lord who controls Changhe Town will not harm the civilians, as long as his hometown is not harmed by the Jatu people or bandits.
But if Raphael was rescued, at least Ralph would not be controlled by anyone, and Lion Lake City was right next to him, so it wouldn't take much time.
So the Rangers decided to save people first.
Ralph and the Rangers believed that Raphael must be imprisoned in Lion Lake City.
Therefore, this half of the Horn Summoning Rangers planned to try to send an elite team to sneak into the city to rescue Raphael.
But Ralph failed.
Although more than half of the Lion Lake City garrison had been taken away, the First Flag Guard had remained in the city, and the flag bearer, Granlong, was not an easy person to deal with.
Most importantly, Raphael is not in Lion Lake City Prison.
Ralph and Granlong fought to a draw, and the elite team of the Horn Summoning Rangers was almost wiped out. Ralph was seriously injured and finally escaped from the city.
Ralph was seriously injured and almost unable to move. He originally asked the Rangers to go to BraveShield Castle and leave him and Raphael alone.
But the Rangers were still loyal to him. Not only did they not abandon him, they also followed Alma's request and killed all the Red Brotherhood members they saw - they were originally sent out to suppress bandits, and to be honest, Alma did not lie to them.
Knowing all the circumstances, Godric had no choice but to temporarily incorporate the Rangers into the army and then rush to Changhe Town.
He was more worried about Changhe Town than Ralph - because most of the Changhe Town garrison was currently in his team, and there were only two or three hundred defenders in the city.
When he arrived at Changhe Town, the Golden Lion flag was still hanging on the city wall and the city was quite peaceful. Godric originally thought that Alma had not succeeded.
But just as he led his troops into the city, a huge net fell from the sky.
It was a large fishing net. Changhe Town and Shihu City were both backed by lakes and the sea, and there were many fishing nets - and Shihu City was actually backed by a large inland sea, and fishermen had been using this kind of net to catch big fish for a long time.
Godric was very skilled and was not seriously injured, but no matter how skilled he was, he was helpless against the net and was captured.
The ones who attacked him were the troops from Lion Lake City, Alma's men.
The moment the big net fell, the gate of Changhe Town was closed when the troops were halfway in!
The troops of both sides engaged in a brutal battle in Changhe Town, but Godric's troops were certainly no match for the enemy, and soon the town was flooded with blood.
Charles, on the other hand, was quick to see the opportunity. He was walking behind and when he saw the city gate closed, he immediately ran out with the Red Arrow Longbowmen around him, and he actually managed to escape.
But then the troops from Lion Lake City began to chase Charles all the way and deliberately stopped him from running to the southeast - it was obvious that the enemy knew about his relationship with Leon.
Charles couldn't run towards Maixiangling. He saw that there were only two hundred brothers following him, and there were at least a thousand enemy soldiers chasing him. He was unable to fight against them, so he simply let all his brothers run away separately.
He himself fled west, while most of the Red Arrow Longbowmen headed northeast towards their hometown of Fletcher.
Charles was a brave man who lured the enemy. The troops from Lion Lake City chased Charles all the way and basically ignored the fleeing soldiers.
However, Charles was not caught up. He fled to the village of Kerwin, the home of the Countess, who did shelter him and hid him in the wine cellar.