Chapter 383: A New Quagmire
In June of the 358th year of the Pendor calendar, the Firdsvain launched a surprise attack on Ravenstern, the capital of the Kingdom of Ravenstern.
Lord Haakon of Iron Oak Castle, the 'Solid Shield', led a large fleet to the bay of Crowstern and quickly landed at both ends of Crowstern.
The total number of pirates, smugglers and mercenaries who landed was nearly three thousand.
'Solid Shield' Haakon himself landed in the north of Ravenstern with several hundred troops, guarding the northern bridgehead, ready to stop the reinforcements from the west of Ravenstern.
The Lord of Firzwianson Keep, 'Ironheart' Haravan, and the new Lord of Misty Marsh, 'Fat' Harothgar, landed in the town of Orin south of Crowstern with an army of more than 2,000 people, and led their troops directly to Crowstern.
Ravenstern had only 600 isolated soldiers, and they were all second-line troops. In addition, the king and important lords were all away. Facing an attack from the Firdsvain people, who were four times their number, they could only hold on.
Fortunately, Queen Ursula of Longsong Harbor let bygones be bygones and sent the Falcon Knights to contain the Firdsaway people, which prevented Ravenstern from being captured quickly.
It seemed that the situation was good for the Firdsvain, but King Vidis was furious when he received the news.
"Who the hell let Haakon and Haravan attack Ravenstern?! The Ravenstern are our allies now! And... our ships can't even enter the Lion Lake Inner Sea. Where did Haakon get the warships?!"
King Vidis anxiously stroked his bald scalp and paced back and forth in the camp.
"According to the news from Haakon, Ursula provided you with twenty large and medium-sized warships. These warships originally belonged to the Crowstern people. This is actually a good deal. For us, with these twenty warships, we can completely control the entire Lion Lake Inner Sea. Not to mention Crowstern City, the entire northern part of the continent can only tremble in fear under our fleet..."
'Red Sword' Count Aidin analyzed calmly.
"Warships... Ha! If those warships were in my hands now, I certainly wouldn't mind falling out with the Ravenstern. But Aydin, do you really think Haakon and Haravan will obey my orders after getting those warships? They attacked Ravenstern without my orders, and it's obvious that they want to rely on those warships to occupy Ravenstern and the entrance to the Lion Lake Inner Sea and become warlords..."
Vidis gnashed his teeth and said, "I am the king of Firdsvain. The Crowstern only hate me. Their counterattacks will be directed at me, but what benefit have I gained? I have gained nothing, and I will face the revenge of the Crowstern! Duke Adarian of the Fallen Bay will definitely send troops to the Mist City..."
"The Valkyries are still in the Mist City. They should be able to stop Duke Adarian... Don't worry too much."
Count Aidin said comfortingly.
"Maybe... But they won't go out of the city to fight the enemy unless they are paid enough... But the economy of Fog City has collapsed..."
Vidis looked at his best friend and smiled bitterly. "Aidin, my situation is much worse than you think. I came to attack Sarleon this time just to use Sarleon to pay off my debts... I am about to go bankrupt. If Mist City becomes a battlefield, I will be completely bankrupt..."
Aidin was stunned for a moment, then sighed with understanding: "I'm about to go bankrupt too..."
Most of the great lords of Firdsvain are indeed relatively poor now.
Especially people like Vidis and Aidin who have a little conscience...
More than two years ago, the west coast was plundered by the fleet of the Bacchus Empire. This was Leon's idea. He made a list of fruits for Marius, and then General Sura took the Shadow Wolf Pack to buy a handful at Lingyuan...
Since then, Firdsvain has been gathering his army for battle, which has lasted for two years without a moment's rest.
The tug-of-war in the western part of Sarleon not only brought down the Kingdom of Sarleon, but also the Fierdsvain. The pirate lords on the west coast were not good at developing agriculture. They had always relied on commerce, smuggling, pirate business and fishing to maintain their economy.
Continuous wars have cut off most of the trade routes that Leon established in Changhe Town, and the same is true in Firdsvain - most of their trade routes have also been cut off, and the specialties of the west coast cannot be sold inland at all.
Since most of the troops had to be deployed in the war, smuggling to the Barkley continent became difficult to carry out. The pirates also found it difficult to get any big business in the past two years, and the share of the looting handed over to Vidis was not much.
This made the economic environment in Firthsvain worse day by day, and it was naturally difficult to collect regular business taxes.
In addition, the war continued, and the protracted tug-of-war in the western part of Sarleon swallowed up Vidis's wealth like a bottomless pit, but he did not dare to withdraw his troops at the time. If he withdrew, Agasson and Cleon would definitely pursue him, which would lead the battlefield to the territory of Firdsvain - and then the economy would collapse even faster.
At the same time, Firdsvain is an alliance country, and the relationship between the lords and Vidis is not a loyalty relationship in the conventional sense, but an alliance cooperation. In other words, they are actually equal in status with Vidis.
After all, before being elected as the leader of the alliance, Vidis was just a big pirate leader, not much different from other pirate lords, except that he was the most popular and had the most friends...
King Vidis is actually more like a marshal, because he cannot force any lord to send troops, and he has to bear most of the money and food when he summons the lords to send troops.
Although he could get a big share of the spoils, the problem was that Firdsvain hadn't gotten any decent spoils in the past two years.
They did occupy a lot of land, but those lands were either deserted or poor...
Long Howl Castle had been massacred, and the lord was Inna, who was not very obedient to orders;
Short Howl Village was once plagued by a group of drunkards, and has never been very popular;
Keineburg was once occupied by Brunus and had experienced several heresy crossings. It was extremely poor and had no food to eat. It even needed Vidis to pay for military rations.
Later they occupied Azgod, which was originally a prosperous place, but after several months of fighting, only refugees and ruins remained in Azgod.
Until a few months ago, Cliff Bay and the Misty Swamp Castle surrendered to Vidis. Vidis originally thought that his luck had finally turned and he was going to get rich - Cliff Bay was one of the richest places in the Fierce Lion Territory, with a large population and much arable land. It has always been a good place with abundant money and food.
But unexpectedly, the main reason why Qiaoyanwan came to him was actually because they had no food to eat - the three prophets had been entrenched here before, and in order to deal with Roland, they created a lot of uncontrolled Fallen.
As a result, no one dared to farm the vast area around Cliff Rock Bay and Mysterious Swamp Castle, all the way to the remote village. The fields had been left idle for two seasons, and the grass had grown taller than a person. Cliff Rock Bay had long since run out of food...
Vidis originally thought, if there is no food in stock, at least there should be dinars, right?
But when he took over Cliff Bay, he found out that the dinars in the hands had long been used up by Brunus and the three prophets...
Moreover, even if one had money, it was difficult to get food in Firdsvain - the entire west coast was short of food, and only the farmers around Lake Quay in the east of the Bay of Lights were good at farming, and the food was never enough.
The domestic economy collapsed, food production was insufficient, the war continued, and merchants were afraid to do business, which caused the prices of food and daily necessities in the entire Firthsaway to increase several times rapidly.
Both Vidis and Edin have consciences. They are unwilling to plunder the civilians under their rule, nor do they want to mistreat their soldiers - they all know that if they plunder civilians at this time, it will be even more difficult to recover the economy.
So they became very poor in these two years.
Especially Vitesse, he is already borrowing money everywhere.
In order to maintain the situation, he borrowed a lot of money, food and supplies from the wealthy merchants in Fog City, and also owed a lot of military pay to the pirate lords.
Firdsvain is no different from other kingdoms. Vidis must repay these debts, otherwise his reign as king will be over - he borrowed the debts using Mist City as collateral.
His attack on Sarleon City was actually to pay off his debts.
Sarleon is the center of the entire continent, and the best fields are all around it. Vidis plans to move a large number of residents to the vicinity of Sarleon, use his own Mist City to pay off debts, and then organize farming around Sarleon.
In this way, he could solve the food problem in just one harvest season and free the entire country from the economic crisis.
Even if we cannot capture Lieshi City, at least we can occupy the area around Luxin Lake. As long as we let the troops stay near Balanli and hold out until next year, the problem can be solved.
But unexpectedly, before the battle for Sarleon City began, something went wrong in Cliff Rock Bay - Haakon's attack on Ravenstern at this time was equivalent to forcing Vidis into a desperate situation...
The Kingdom of Ravenstern and Fierdsvain were originally allies. Before that, the Empire of Bacchus and the Kingdom of Sarleon formed an alliance. Of course, Vidis can only form an alliance with the Kingdom of Ravenstern to fight against it.
Now we are tearing up the alliance and attacking someone else's capital. This is a mortal enemy!
A pirate leader like Haakon might not be very sensitive to this kind of diplomatic situation, but Vidis could tell with his toes that the Crowstern would retaliate at all costs. Regardless of whether Crowstern would be captured or not, at least Iron Oak Keep and Mistcage would definitely be counterattacked by the Crowstern.
That bastard Haakon got twenty big ships. He wouldn't care too much about Iron Oak Castle. He could hide on the sea and live freely, but the foggy city of Vidis would definitely become a battlefield.
This is not a question of whether Fog City can be defended, but a question of not letting Fog City become a battlefield, otherwise Vidis will go bankrupt directly...
In other words, Vidis must withdraw his troops to save the Mist City, and the war cannot be allowed to spread to the Mist City.
"Should we withdraw our troops? Is there any other solution?"
Aidin sighed: "Although we may not be able to capture Lieshi City, we can definitely occupy the farmland around Luxin Lake... But if we withdraw now, Li Ang's troops may chase us all the way to Changxiao Fort, and we will lose the territory we occupied before."
"Just throw it away. If I can't save the Fog City, I'm afraid I'll be thrown directly into the sea..."
Vidis' face was full of depression. "Now we have no allies... Ursula, humph, that woman Ursula is nothing! If supporting her could bring benefits, I would have helped her kill Gregory IV long ago! Haakon, that idiot, was blinded by twenty ships!"
Honestly, this can't be blamed on Haakon. Twenty or more medium-sized warships could deceive most people in that era...
Even if a country puts all its efforts into it and spends three to five years, it may not be able to build so many large and medium-sized warships.
Many kings would consider it a good deal even if they exchanged a big city for dozens of warships.
Haakon stopped Amy at that time and negotiated with her on the condition that he planned to capture Ravenstern and Ursula in exchange for these warships.
However, there was no time to wait for King Vidis's consent, so Haakon took the business privately.
To this end, he demanded twenty warships as a "down payment" and asked "Ursula" to stay in Cliff Rock Bay, using Cliff Rock Bay as a guarantee to ensure that he would not run away with the ship.
At the same time, Ursula, with four hundred men in the Rocky Bay, could also prevent Haakon from killing people and seizing ships .
In order to make the deal, the two parties exchanged positions.
Therefore, Qiaoyan Bay is now controlled by Amy.
Oh no, it was controlled by 'Ursula' - anyway, the falcon flag was flying at the port, and the person trading with Haakon was 'Queen Ursula'.
"I think that Chief Haakon will not really capture Ravenstern... He is probably just pretending. The friends he found are either smugglers or mercenaries. It is impossible for this mob to capture Ravenstern, right?"
Bao Daisi said.
"I don't care whether they can capture Ravenstern or not. It doesn't matter if they just pretend to attack. I just need him to attack Ravenstern... Even if he attacks with all his strength, it is impossible for him to capture Ravenstern. Ursula will definitely go to rescue it. I sent a message to Ursula, asking her to send people to support Ravenstern. She will definitely go."
Amy was at the port of Cliff Rock Bay. Looking at the dozen or so warships left in the harbor, she turned to Bao Daisi and said, "Destroy the port and drive the warships to Lion Lake City. Our goal has been achieved. Take away all the supplies in Cliff Rock Bay. Nothing should be left."
"Ah? Aren't we going to occupy Cliff Bay? We really gave them twenty ships! We paid such a huge price, and we're just going to leave like this?"
Bao Daisi was stunned: "We can definitely occupy Qiaoyan Bay now. They only have more than a hundred people left here. We can handle them."
"No need. We can't hold it even if we occupy it. Haakon's attack on Ravenstern is equivalent to the Firdsvain tearing up the agreement and declaring war on Ravenstern. Even if Haakon is just pretending to complete the deal with us, the Firdsvain army will have to withdraw from Sarleon... If we stay here, we will be surrounded by the Firdsvain people."
Amy shook her head. "Don't get hung up on a city or a place... We have already achieved our goal, don't be so greedy. Ships... Haha, how can ships be as important as food? If the whole country can't eat, what's the point of having more ships?"
After saying that, she took off Ursula's helmet, stuck it on the railing of the dock, and walked towards the battleship.
Amy spent a lot of effort to deceive people, paid twenty battleships, but got nothing. It seems like she lost money?
Bao Daisi thought about it.
But Amy didn't think so.
Her perspective is different now.
What would Haakon or Haravan or any other Vanskerry pirate leader do after obtaining twenty warships, especially after obtaining these warships in the inner sea of Lion Lake?
What would they do if they not only had warships but also occupied Cliff Bay or Ravenstern?
Will they still obey Vidis' orders?
Actively sending equipment to the enemy, even large amounts of strategic equipment, sometimes does not make the enemy stronger...
Just like Emperor Marius provided two "reinforcements" when Sarleon was in its most difficult time, the support of Agasson and Creon did not make Sarleon stronger. Instead, it made Sarleon unable to escape the quagmire of war and was deeply trapped in it until Amy abandoned Sarleon City.
And now, 'Ursula' gave the warships to the Firdsvain, allowing the Firdsvain to attack Ravenstern, and the war between the Firdsvain and Ravenstern can only continue .
At the same time, Firdsvain will lose all his allies, and the real Ursula will not regard them as her own - Ursula is in Longsong Harbor, and if Ravenstern is in danger, as long as Ursula wants to become the true queen of Ravenstern, she will definitely go to support it and will definitely be an enemy of Firdsvain.
In other words, Amy, with her own strength, once again created a new quagmire of war among the forces of Firdsvain, Crowstern, Ursula, and Haakon.
