Chapter 250: The Butt Determines the Head
My Lord doesn't know what the more evil enemy is.
But he felt that the goddess's words "our territory" had some other meaning...
us?
The Goddess of Order can use this word. It seems that she is planning to bind herself to me?
So, I, the 'Messenger of the Goddess of Order' that was boasted by Amy and Sarah, have been recognized by the Goddess herself?
The lord suddenly felt like he had become a charlatan - after all, the title of 'messenger of a certain goddess' usually appeared in cults.
But at the same time, Eunomia's wording also implies great danger.
After all, among the territories occupied by Leon, the only area that the goddess could call "our territory" was actually the eastern part of the Kingdom of Fierce Lions, which was the area from Changhe Town to White Deer Castle.
This is basically telling Leon that there are terrible heretics planning to cause trouble in Leon's territory.
Naturally, we should take the goddess's clear warning seriously.
Therefore, Leon did not delay any longer in the Bacchus Empire. He directly appointed Anson as the temporary governor of Karen Deer Castle, asked Jocelyn to help Anson manage military affairs, and then led his troops back to Changhe Town.
The reason why Anson was asked to take charge of Cullen Deer Castle was mainly because Anson also had to manage the prevention of the Red Death here.
Although there is a vaccine, if people are infected before being vaccinated, there is still no cure, and it will take a long time to vaccinate everyone in Sarleon.
During this period, we must pay more attention to the prevention and control of the Red Death and not relax for a moment.
As the doctor who knows the most and is best at identifying infected people, Anson must stay in Karen Deer Castle to continue to build a prevention and control center and establish multiple border checkpoints on the border between the two countries. Before the vaccine is popularized in Leon's territory, he must ensure that the Red Death in Bacchus will not be spread to the north of Karen Deer Castle.
There are now more than 10,000 people around Karen Deer Castle, but fortunately, these people are basically all previous slave rebels, and most of them are able-bodied men.
The lord was kind to these people. Not only did he give them a way to survive, he also gave them food. So they were actually very easy to manage and they all cooperated with Anson's series of projects to build checkpoints.
Amy brought most of the villagers of Fidena Village to Shieldwind Fortress - Leon gave her a task to rebuild Shieldwind Fortress.
Come to think of it, Shieldwind Fortress was originally burned down by Amy... Now it is rebuilt by Amy's organization, which can be considered a kind of fate.
Occupying these two territories was actually Li Ang's plan from the beginning, and it was also a condition he had discussed with Alina before.
At that time, Alina was holding the flag of Emperor Marius, representing Emperor Marius himself. The conditions confirmed with Alina were naturally equivalent to the recognition of the Bacchus Empire, which could be regarded as a transaction.
For the Kingdom of the Fierce Lions, this meant that Leon had "captured" the frontier territory of the Bacchus Empire, expanded the territory by hundreds of miles, and gained the dominant position for the Kingdom of the Fierce Lions in the face of the Bacchus Empire.
Not only that, they also deployed heavy troops at two key points, threatening the Bacchus Empire at all times...
This attitude is a must.
Emperor Marius naturally would not really regard Leon as a mortal enemy. He also needed to recuperate and would not provoke a war during this period. It was estimated that the border would be able to maintain peace for a long time.
As for the Kingdom of Sarleon, everyone from the king to the lords would have nothing to say about Leon's "achievements" - Leon conquered these territories alone without any reinforcements, so they naturally had no reason to interfere in these new territories that Leon had obtained.
They could only praise the kingdom for having a famous general who was more powerful than Count Oden, and in order to ensure that Leon could withstand a possible counterattack from the Bacchus Empire, the King and lords of the Kingdom of the Fierce Lion would not hinder Leon at this time - otherwise, if the good situation was ruined, Ulrich himself would not be happy.
So the lord will say that he is a loyal and capable general of the kingdom, and the king will not deal with him at this time unless he is stupid.
Moreover, he might really be appointed as marshal - if they want to fight against Bacchus, they must launch the attack from Leon's territory. In this case, it would be unreasonable not to let Leon be the marshal.
However, the news of the great war between the Lord and the Snake Cult in Bacchus had not actually spread to the Fierce Lion Territory - there were no telephones or the Internet in those days, and there were not even newspapers. Any news that came out had to be spread by word of mouth, which was quite inefficient.
Furthermore, those who know about these things are very busy now and have no intention of spreading the praises of the Lord's great achievements in the Fierce Lion Territory.
Most of the villagers in Fidena Village are engaged in civil engineering and real estate construction in the remote place of Shield Wind Fortress. That place is hundreds of miles away from any village or town, so there is really no place to find people to brag to.
Sarah has been spreading the word everywhere, but she is mainly spreading horsepox. Popularizing the Red Death vaccine is her current main task. The fact that the lord buried the Snake Cult army is more of a myth around the city of Boshi.
Some people say that Earl Leon can use ancient magic power. He can cause the sky to collapse and the earth to split apart with a wave of his hand, cause landslides with a simple stomp of his feet, and swallow up clouds and mist. He swallowed tens of thousands of Snake Worshipers with just one mouth ...
They even speculated that Leon was a Sindar elf - because it was said that the lord was leading an army of Noldor elves.
I don’t know who came up with this statement, but to be honest, it is very close to the truth.
Therefore, the current lord has become the biggest enemy of the entire Bacchus Empire as he wished, both in terms of fame and actual territory.
In other words, he is an opponent - a large number of Bacchus people who hate the Snake Cult do not regard Leon as an enemy, but they also understand that there is no friendship between countries. Leon is the lord of the Kingdom of Fierce Lion, and can only be an opponent after all.
Emperor Marius also publicly stated in Siyuan City: "With a formidable opponent like Leon lurking at the border of the empire, all Bacchus people must unite and rebuild the empire into the strongest country in the shortest possible time!"
As a result, the Lord became the driving force for the reconstruction of the entire Bacchus Empire, and also became a shield for Emperor Marius - even the fact that he had abandoned Siyuan City was rarely mentioned. Facing such a formidable opponent as Leon, the Bacchus people were indeed more united than before.
At the end of February in the 356th year of the Pandeli calendar, Li Ang returned to Changhe Town.
During the time when the lord was away, places like Changhe Town and Bailu Fort had gradually become stable and prosperous.
Today, not only is there no voice opposing Li Ang in Changhe Town, but even bandits have basically disappeared.
This stable and peaceful situation is of course closely related to the fact that the Lord used Fothergill to eliminate most of the people with ulterior motives at one time.
When there is no one in the territory doing things behind the scenes and hindering others, and everyone is focused on making money, farming and construction, the local security will naturally be much better than other places.
In fact, the more population, the better. The more people who obey management, the better. There is a reason why the Goddess of Order calls Leon's territory "our territory".
Changhe Town is now very orderly, because those who don't follow the order have been killed by Fothert, and even those who owe money and beggars who don't want to work have been expelled by Eric...
The purpose of expelling those who cause trouble is naturally to obtain more available people. If a territory is well-ordered and has excellent public security, there will always be many people willing to obey the management and move in.
This winter, many people moved to Changhe Town from all over the place.
Pand Bank's lending business also gradually became popular during this period.
Leslie had always been worried. She was afraid that the bank would absorb too many deposits but would not be able to lend out money, which might cause the bank to be overwhelmed by the deposit interest and eventually lead to a bank run, causing the lord to go bankrupt.
But in fact, nowadays, except for 20% of the bank's savings that are kept as reserves, the rest of the money has all been loaned out.
In addition to the forced loans during the previous tax period, most of these loans were actually borrowed by civilians and merchants who moved to Changhe Town.
Newcomers are always short of money. It is better to borrow money from a bank than from a loan shark. The interest rate of the Pender Bank is like a gift from God compared to the loan sharks these days - the difference between a 2% interest rate and a 50% interest rate...
Moreover, most of the time, when people go to banks for loans, they are not actually doing it in the conventional way of borrowing money.
For example, Anson made the largest loan in Karen Deerburg, but he did not use any currency such as dinars - and this was before the lord opened a branch of Pend Bank in Karen Deerburg.
When the lord returned to his territory, he left the first batch of war horses for horsepox at Karen Deer Castle. Although most horses would not die from the Red Death, they would still be weakened for a period of time if they were infected with the disease.
Alice was one of the strongest war horses, but she was still too weak to ride for two days. Only Jocelyn's huge war beast was alive and kicking from beginning to end...
After the horsepox vaccine was spread in the areas of Boshi City and Karen Deer Castle, General Cleon recalled the main forces of the Knights of the Radiant Cross as quickly as possible, intending to quickly organize the production of horsepox vaccine in Boshi City and Dilingang Port.
But there was a shortage of horses near the city of Boshi, so General Cleon went to Karen Deer Castle and planned to buy three hundred horses from Anson...or rather, he originally wanted to borrow three hundred horses.
The horses staying at Karen Deerburg were in the recovery period after vaccination, which means that the horsepox was forming scabs, which was the most suitable time to serve as a vaccine carrier. Moreover, the vaccines from these horses have been proven to be safe for humans.
The Bacchus Empire has always lacked large livestock such as cattle and horses. The Bacchus Empire has no land for raising horses. The only large grassland in the country is at the foot of the high mountains in the southeast of the Bacchus Empire, deep in the mountains hundreds of miles east of the village of Fidenne.
But it was not grassland, but wetland meadow, suitable only for raising pigs…
Most of the soldiers in Bacchus' main legion were infantrymen. This was not because they did not like riding horses or had no knightly tradition, but simply because they really lacked horses.
Only elite guards such as Shadow Centurions, Iron Ring Centurions, and Imperial Knights were qualified to use horses, because they were all centurion-level leaders and grassroots military officers before Emperor Marius launched the reform.
The price of horses in Bacchus is more than three times that of the Kingdom of Sarleon.
Therefore, three hundred horses were actually a huge sum of money for the Bacchus. If converted into dinars, it would be about four hundred thousand.
General Cleon was a poor man, and of course he couldn't afford so much money to buy it, so he originally planned to borrow it.
To be honest, Cleon was indeed a cunning general - the lord had just left the Cullen Deer Castle, and he ran to Anson to buy money on credit. It was obvious that he thought that Anson, an honest child, was easier to deal with than the lord.
But Cleon probably didn't expect that many times the butt determines the head... If he really talked to Leon himself, he might be able to borrow the money, and Leon probably wouldn't ask him for money.
After all, the lord does not care about interests when facing the Red Death. In Leon's eyes, the prevention and control of highly infectious diseases knows no national boundaries.
But Leon just left, and now Anson is the acting consul.
Anson was not the owner of these horses - the owner of the horses was Leon. Anson also knew that once he lent them out, he might not get them back. As a consul, he could not let the lord suffer losses.
So General Cleon had to do it in the name of buying. He knew that a kind person like Anson would definitely be willing to sell, as long as Leon did not suffer any loss.
But since he had no money, General Cleon asked for credit - Emperor Marius would definitely pay back the money anyway, and His Majesty the Emperor's credit was still very good.
To be honest, Cleon probably still wanted to buy it for free... Anyway, he is nominally an enemy of Leon now, so taking away a few hundred horses can be considered as dealing with the enemy.
But Cleon probably didn't expect that, as a conscientious doctor, Anson would certainly be willing to provide any support he could for the control of the Red Death without compensation;
But as an archon, Anson quickly learned to change his mindset and bargain...
Perhaps this has something to do with what the Lord has been teaching by example. When he first met Anson, Anson brought a group of tough guys to protect Leslie for a week without charging any money, so the Lord has been reminding Anson that not charging money is not the style of the Glorious Cross Knights...
So now, as a reserve knight ready to join the Order of the Glorious Cross at any time, Anson has gradually learned the necessary conditions for being a Glorious Cross Knight - he has to charge money, and the money is quite expensive.
Three hundred horses, each of which was priced at 1,500 dinars by Anson, plus the corresponding labor and technical guidance, the total price was 500,000 dinars. Then Anson himself acted as an intermediary and approved the first credit loan of Pender Bank to General Cleon, and required that the loan be made with the credit of Emperor Marius.
I don't know if this can be considered a national debt, but General Cleon agreed to it readily. In his opinion, this was no different from buying on credit.
For this purpose, Cleon specially found Alina to sign the loan - Alina had just been brought back from Imperial Port by Sigismund and was investigating the strange rituals of the 999 people.
At this time, Alina was still the envoy of Emperor Marius. She had not seen Emperor Marius since leaving Siyuan City, so her status as an envoy was naturally not revoked.
Seeking a loan from the lord of the Kingdom of Sarleon is a diplomatic matter, and Alina can make decisions on these matters on behalf of Emperor Marius.
In order to control the Red Death, Alina, like General Creon, naturally didn't care how much it would cost...
So Emperor Marius, who was far away in Siyuan City, received a large debt bill.
Although His Majesty the Emperor felt that the loan was worthwhile, the problem was that this operation made him very uneasy - this loan was five hundred thousand, and the Red Death vaccine needed to be popularized among the entire population. At this rate, how much would it cost to vaccinate all the Bacchus people?
For the first time, Emperor Marius felt that his country might go bankrupt before it could even rebuild itself...
Of course, this kind of thing cannot continue to happen. Emperor Marius is very clear-headed.
He felt that getting horses to make a red death vaccine was a must, but there was no need to buy horses if there was a shortage of them...
Doesn’t the neighboring Principality of Dexia have a lot of horses?
In addition, Governor Kairos chased the monster in the temple all the way to the border of Desha.
Due to the previous domestic unrest, there are many illegal armed groups roaming around near the border, which is also a hidden danger that needs to be solved...
So the quick-witted Emperor Marius sent people to incite a group of illegal armed forces that were originally wandering around in the name of "eliminating the culprit of heresy" in the name of the goddess of justice, and encouraged these unstable factors to enter the Principality of Desha to eradicate heresy.
The Shadow Wolves under General Sura secretly followed the illegal armed forces into the territory of D'Shar, and followed behind the illegal armed forces to specifically kill the D'Shar people's horses...
