Chapter 193: The Northern Frontier
Things in this world are never as we wish.
This is true for Kedren and Lady Ursula.
Ursula did manage to form an alliance with the Sarleon Kingdom and gain its support - she promised Ulric a marriage and signed an agreement to make Sarleon the suzerain in exchange for an army of 2,000 men led by Reman.
The army led by Leiman was a mixed force consisting of most of the garrisons of Sarleon City and Qicha Fortress, a fairly experienced force.
He and Ursula's route of movement was also to go north through Kwen Village, and then directly cross the Jatu Grassland into the Stern Crow Realm.
If they can capture Xiaofurnace, then the eastern part of the Kingdom of Crowstern will definitely fall into Ursula's hands, and Ursula will rule the eastern part of the Kingdom of Crowstern as a vassal state.
By then, Ulric will marry Ursula gain the right to rule Ravenstern.
Of course, for Ursula, she can also use this to gain the right to rule Sarleon - in a sense, marriage is actually fair to both parties. As for what will happen in the more distant future, it depends on God's will...
But the problem is that Ursula and Rayman failed to capture Xiaolu City as they wished.
The person who stood in her way was Earl Stephen.
Ursula originally thought that Count Stephen would help her because she had previously asked Ryan to inform Gregory IV about the deal with the Jatu people.
In her opinion, if Count Stephen knew the truth, he would most likely support her, or at least not hinder her.
In addition, she asked Ryan to return to Dark Falcon Castle to prepare the military forces, which could form a two-pronged attack with her and Leiman's troops.
If everything had been executed properly, it might have been what she wanted. But the problem was that Ryan didn't get to meet Earl Stephen.
And Ryan was unable to return to Dark Falcon Castle...
Dark Falcon Castle was once the base of the Falcon Knights. After the Falcon Knights were declared an illegal knightly order, the people of Dark Falcon Castle have been hostile to Gregory IV because the Falcon Knights had always been at the forefront of the fight against the Jatu people.
Coupled with the past reputation of the Falcon Knights, in the minds of the people in the eastern part of Stern Crow, the Falcon Knights are even more like a national knightly order than the Dragon Knights.
But a few years ago, in order to secure his throne, Gregory IV sent troops to destroy the Order of the Falcon - or rather, to suppress the rebels.
This is actually understandable. After all, Lady Ursula is the chief knight of the Order of the Falcon, and this order will definitely support Ursula, so Gregory IV will of course classify the Order of the Falcon as an illegal order.
Of course, the consequence of such suppression is that the Jatu invasions became more frequent - the Dark Falcon Castle, which had been resisting the Jatu invasion, could no longer stop the Jatu.
Especially this spring, the Jatu did not launch any attacks into the Kingdom of Sarleon. All the Jatu troops turned to attack the Kingdom of Ravenstern...
The surrounding areas of Dark Falcon Castle and Oldenburg have been severely harmed by the Jatu people in the past few years.
The Lord of Oldenburg is Earl Stephen, and the Lord of Darkfalcon Castle is Earl Stephen's son, Lord Pharamond.
In other words, Earl Stephen and his family suffered huge losses due to the demise of the Falcon Knights.
Earl Stephen was of course extremely dissatisfied with this, but there was nothing wrong with the king sending troops to suppress the rebellion, so even though he was dissatisfied, Earl Stephen could only endure it and formed his own ranger force to fight against the Jatu people.
The Earl's military strength is actually very strong - he is located on the eastern border of Ravenstern. He has to face the Jatu people in the south of the two counties of Oldenburg and Dark Falcon Castle, and the Misty Mountain people in the north. If he was not strong, he would have been finished long ago...
It took Earl Stephen several months to gradually drive the Jatu out of the Stern Crow Realm, and in the process he also annihilated a group of Misty Mountain people - Andongjia's raiding team.
But because Gregory IV was only concerned with how to suppress the rebellion and did not care about the life and death of Oldenburg and Dark Falcon Castle at all, Stephen had a very difficult time in the past few months. In order to protect the people under his rule, the earl almost emptied his family fortune.
On the contrary, Ursula provided Stephen with some intelligence support during this period - of course, Ursula was actually just making a gesture in order to win Stephen's loyalty, mainly to prevent Earl Stephen from dealing with her rebels.
But there is always a danger of comparison. On one hand, the king, who was responsible for protecting his vassal, did not help him at all. Instead, he was focused on suppressing the rebellion when facing the invasion of Jatu. On the other hand, the weak rebel army, which was already in danger, extended a helping hand to Stephen, even though the support was not much...
Under such circumstances, Count Stephen became increasingly dissatisfied with Gregory IV and even began to protect Ursula's rebels.
Although Earl Stephen is kind and gentle, and has always been extremely loyal to the Kingdom of Ravenstern, even the most kind-hearted people have tempers.
However, in Gregory IV's eyes, he could not find Ursula and could not wipe out Ursula's rebels because of Earl Stephen's unwillingness to cooperate. The king felt that Earl Stephen lacked the necessary respect and loyalty to him...
At this time, Gregory IV received news of civil unrest in the Kingdom of Sarleon, and heard that Fothert had openly pledged allegiance to Ursula and was given the title of "Grand Duke of Lion Lake".
Of course, Baron Kedren was the one who introduced Fothert to Ursula. However, they didn't know that this was an "opportunity" that Ursula took the initiative to create for Gregory IV .
This was of course a great opportunity for Gregory IV, because this meant that Ursula's rebels were in Lake Lion City, and Lake Lion City's surrender to Ursula also gave him a great excuse...
If we can seize the opportunity to capture Lake Lion City, we can kill two birds with one stone - we can deal with Ursula's rebels and capture the northern part of the Sarleon Kingdom!
In addition, the Kingdom of Sarleon is in civil strife, so the chances of success are quite high!
So Gregory IV did not waste time. He reached an agreement with the Jatu warlord Zakar, exchanging Count Stephen's Oldenburg and Dark Falcon Castle for the support of the Jatu people.
Gregory IV is going to march towards Sarleon, so Earl Stephen will naturally have to obey the call. This is equivalent to transferring Earl Stephen's army and giving Oldenburg and Dark Falcon Castle to the Jatu people!
He could directly cross the Jatu Grasslands and attack the northern part of the Sarleon Kingdom, and quickly capture Lion Lake City before the Sarleon Kingdom could resolve the civil unrest and react.
In fact, in the eyes of Gregory IV, it was worthwhile to exchange Oldenburg and Dark Falcon Castle for the cooperation of the Jatu people - Ursula's rebels had been active in this area for a long time, and this area was originally the rebels' territory.
And Earl Stephen's family was "harbouring the rebels".
For Gregory IV, using these rebellious territories, which were originally disobedient, for trading could be considered a way of "utilizing waste."
Count Stephen naturally didn't know about this deal - if he knew, he would probably rebel immediately...
Therefore, if Earl Stephen could know about the existence of this deal, he would definitely return to expel the Jatu people and fully surrender to Ursula.
Ursula can bring the military forces of Oldenburg and Dark Falcon Castle, plus Rayman's troops , to easily capture the relatively empty Xiaolu City.
Not only that, she can also cooperate with Earl Stephen to block the return of the Crow Stern Kingdom army - if they want to return to Crow Stern, they can only go through Oldenburg or Dark Falcon Castle.
In other words, Ursula was not only able to occupy the eastern part of the Kingdom of Ravenstern, but was also confident that she could keep it!
But things in this world are always full of surprises...
A few days ago, before Sir Ryan arrived at Earl Stephen's camp, Leon had led his troops to fight a not-so-fierce head-on battle with Earl Stephen.
——The two sides have equal numbers of troops, but there is a huge difference in their levels of eliteness, so the battle is not intense at all.
The bows and arrows of the Noldor elves controlled the battlefield from a distance of one hundred meters. The precise rain of arrows prevented the two sides from advancing to the stage of close combat. The battle ended in just a few minutes.
Count Stephen lost more than a hundred people again, and then withdrew directly with this cavalry unit.
Since Earl Stephen retreated northward, the lord did not order a pursuit. His goal was not to annihilate the Ravencrows, but to ensure the safety of Fletcher and BraveShield Fort - he knew that the Jatu had arrived, because several miserable Ebony Gauntlet Knights had fled to Fletcher Village, and a beacon was lit at BraveShield Fort.
Three beacons, which means the number of Jatu people may be beyond imagination, or even difficult to count!
Dumbledore returned to BraveShield alive, but only thirty or so of his best knights, the Ebony Gauntlet, were left with him.
He had tried to lure the Jatu people before, just to make a show and see if there was any way to get some spoils, but no one expected that the Jatu people would actually send out such a terrifying number...
Baron Leofric allowed him to leave BraveShield, but now Dumbledore no longer wanted to run away - the losses were too great, and there would be no good outcome if he returned to Cliff Bay, so it would be better to stay in BraveShield to fight against the Jatu people.
When Sir Ryan arrived near Fletcher Village, there were no more Ravenstern troops there, only Jatu tents - countless tents!
Thirty miles north of Fletcher Village, where Earl Stephen's original camp was located, it stretched all the way north to the end of the sight. Everywhere you looked, there were Jatu tents - the kind with wheels that could be pulled by draft horses!
Judging from the size of the camp, the Jatu people must have sent out at least five thousand people. It doesn't look like they are going there for looting, but more like a migration of the entire clan!
Ryan had no way of knowing where Count Stephen was, and he did not dare to look for him.
In fact, he had no intention of looking for it at all - he was discovered by the Jatu people as soon as he arrived here, and was chased for more than ten miles.
Of course, Ryan fled towards Fletcher Village, because the other directions were all grasslands and he couldn't escape...
But he was unable to escape towards Fletcher. His troops could not outrun the Jatu people on the grassland and were caught up by two Jatu centuries a few miles away from Fletcher village, and were subsequently besieged.
However, Sir Ryan was lucky and was rescued by an army flying the flag of a black background with a gold griffin.
This is a female army unit.
The ones who saved Ryan were the Griffin Sword mercenaries led by Amy and Sarah.
When being rescued by the female soldiers, Ryan vaguely thought that he had encountered Falcon Claws - except that they were not wearing sky blue falcon smocks, the female explorers looked really like Falcon Claws overall.
They were all women, all used ladies' crossbows, wore the same adventurer's helmets, fought in the same way, and had courage and fighting ability that was no less than that of any man.
When the Jatu cavalry saw this female soldier unit, they gave up the siege of Renne and withdrew directly - this behavior was not normal. The difference in military strength between the two sides was not that big. Based on the previous practices of the Jatu people, they would most likely use two hundred-man teams to hold back this female soldier unit, and then continuously send reinforcements.
This immediate retreat seemed like they were not willing to start a war. Ryan probably just ran into them by accident and was beaten up.
"Thank you for the rescue, ma'am..."
Ryan, still a little dazed, kept looking at this group of female soldiers. He saw Amy leading them, but Amy was observing the Jatu Centurion team going away and did not approach Ryan.
"Rescue? Maybe... Blue-clad Golden Eagle... Are you the Falcon Knight? If I remember correctly, the Falcon Knights seemed to have been destroyed by Gregory IV a few years ago? Why would the Falcon Knights chase Gregory IV to fight?"
Sarah walked up to Ryan, looked at his shield and horse robe, waved her hand and asked the female soldiers to surround Ryan, with an unfriendly look in her eyes.
She thought that Ryan's small group came from the cavalry under Earl Stephen.
"I am Falcon Knight Ryan... But I am not following Gregory IV, ma'am, you may have some misunderstandings... I am not from the Kingdom of Raven Stern now."
Ryan looked at the ebony military swords in the hands of the female soldiers and spread his hands: "It seems that you are not Falcon Claws... I thought it was Ulvett, the god of the North, who guided me to find the remaining soldiers of the Falcon Knights."
"As far as I know, Falcon Claw doesn't believe in Ulvett, and the God of the North may not be able to guide you in Sarleon... You are not from the Kingdom of Ravenstern 'now', ha... Knight Ryan, you are certainly not a Ravenstern now, because you have been captured by me."
The one who spoke was Amy. She looked at the dozens of riders under Ryan who were wearing the iconic short skirts of the Kingdom of Raven Stern, then looked back at the two Jatu Centurions who were going away, and spoke thoughtfully.
Afterwards, Sir Ryan was taken to the camp where the lord was.
When passing the bridge, Sir Ryan stared with wide eyes as another team that shocked him came out of the village to join Sarah - that was the Noldor troops led by Neuer. He was swapping shifts with the female soldiers of the Sword of the Griffin, replacing the returning female soldiers to patrol the other side of the river.
"...The size of the Jatu people is beyond our imagination. With their military strength, they can launch an attack directly, but why do they stay and camp on the opposite side..."
At this time, the lord was discussing with Raphael and others in the camp with a serious face.
But even Raphael, who was most familiar with the Jatu people, didn't know what the enemy's intentions were, and everyone could only shake their heads.
"Sir, we are back..."
Sarah and Amy brought Ryan to Leon: "We met him on the other side of the river being besieged by the Jatu people. This guy brought dozens of Raven Riders with him, but he said he was not from the Raven Kingdom... These Raven Kingdom men really don't lie..."
Li Ang turned around and handed Amy a glass of water: "Didn't the Jatu people set any traps in other places?"
"No, we circled around and found no Jatu people anywhere except in the north. We just encountered this guy being hunted... and the Jatu troops besieging him behaved strangely..."
Amy described to the lord the scene where the Jatu people retreated when they saw them.
"Have the Jatu people changed their nature? Seeing so many women, they actually retreated?"
Raphael walked over with a puzzled look on his face. "This situation has never happened before. The Jatu people usually kidnap women, and they will not give up even if they suffer losses. Their fighting style usually results in huge losses, and they have always relied on kidnapped women to reproduce!"
"I think I know why the Jatu people do this... Your Excellency the Lord!"
Sir Ryan finally had a chance to speak, and he also realized that Leon was the boss here.
"What is the reason?"
The lord motioned for Ryan to continue.
"King Gregory IV of Ravenstern has reached an agreement with the Jatu warlord Zakar. The Jatu will pretend to attack the Kingdom of Sarleon, but in fact their army will enter Ravenstern and occupy Darkfalcon Hold..."
Ryan was hostile to both the Jatu people and Gregory IV, so he would naturally not hide this news.
"So, the Jatu people are setting up a false attack? Just to cooperate with Gregory IV to attack the Beibu Gulf? No wonder they don't attack us..."
Li Ang reacted immediately, but then he shook his head: "But we went out to test it, and the thousands of tents set up by the Jatu people are real! They really have come with several thousand people! If Gregory IV simply allowed the Jatu people to plunder the Dark Falcon Castle, I am afraid that he might not be able to make the Jatu people spend such a huge price to cooperate with him..."
"Gregory IV provided the Jatu people with more than just ordinary looting opportunities... He wanted the Jatu people to completely occupy the Dark Falcon Fort. He would give the entire county to the Jatu people! At the same time, he also promised that after occupying the Northern Gulf of the Kingdom of Sarleon, he would give all the land west of the Eagle Claw Fort to the Jatu people for horse grazing. He would give all the hilly grasslands over hundreds of miles to the Jatu people."
Ryan said quickly: "I heard this with my own ears. They were negotiating on the bridge south of Oldenburg, and I happened to be hiding under the bridge at the time. I swear on the dignity of a knight that what I said is true."
The lord's face gradually became gloomy : "Gregory IV... can you still be considered a king if you do this? Giving the country's land and people to looters?"
"My Lord, I can understand the intentions of the King of Ravens..."
At this time, Andongjia raised his hand and pointed to the map on the wall: "He probably wants the Jatu people to block the Misty Mountain in the Dark Falcon Castle... The north of the Dark Falcon Castle is where we went down the mountain before."
