Chapter 194

Prince Quentin

Wū'ěrzī pyramid

Yuánlú Dàren

Wālántísī alliance

Queen's Hand

Mílín

Jísī people

Pāntuōsī

Āsītǎbō

Sinner, sinner, what does it matter? Another voice of the old knight burst out: As long as you fulfill your duty and do the Queen's Hand's work as well as you can, after he leaves, even if this place becomes hell on earth again, and with the old knight far away in Westeros, soon the Queen's Hand destined for hell—what does it have to do with?

On this land where evil and heretical gods run rampant, and vile, shameless conspiracies and assassinations play out repeatedly, a land where bloodshed and brutality are as common as everyday life, only true deities can save these civilians trapped in hell. The frail, aged Sir Barristan Selmy is not their savior, nor does he have enough wisdom to guide them; the queen is not their true protector either—the queen has already given them emancipation, brought them freedom, and they must protect themselves.

Sir Bālìsītǎn Sàīěrmí

Gélācízédé

What Meereen truly needs as the Queen's Hand is Grazdan, for he is truly a wise man. However, like the Great Master, he is a true Ghiscari, and they even retain the surnames of Ghiscari nobility; the queen has reason not to trust them, yet she chose him as her Queen's Hand.

Héwāndì

Bàofēngdì

Jūnlín

He grew up in the Harvest Hall of the Dornish borderlands, located in the mountainous region where the Riverlands, the Stormlands, and Dorne meet. In the mountain valleys and plains, the climate is warm and moist, neither as hot and dry as Dorne and the Riverlands nor as storm‑ridden and fierce as the Stormlands, making it a good place for farming in the whole Stormlands. He remembers running about easily as a child there, the breeze carrying the scent of wheat past his ears; when he grew a bit older, he lived in King's Landing, spending most of his time in the Red Keep, where the cold wind from the Narrow Sea often woke him in his sleep and often made him feel the stone walls' icy chill while on watch.

Xiáhǎi

sons of the harpy

Unsullied

Tiger Cloak Army

Black Dragon

Golden Dragon

Green Dragon

Loyal Spear

Following the advice of Red‑haired Charles Joel, he divided the slaves into several groups according to their strength, assigning the strongest to the Black Dragon, forming a force of about fifteen hundred men, whose soldiers he personally selected. In the rebel Tiger Cloak Army he asked Risca to serve as commander of the Black Dragon Legion, and had him recommend the commanders of the remaining legions.

After the legion commanders and their officers were confirmed, each newly formed legion began selecting men from the prisoners, a process that took a full three days before they reported the results to him: the Gold Dragon Legion received two thousand men, the Green Dragon Legion twenty‑five hundred, the Loyal Spear Legion three thousand, the Black Fist Legion two thousand, and the Caster Legion the remaining prisoners, fewer than fifteen hundred.

The Queen's Hand, on behalf of the queen, issues appointments to the legion commanders, deputy commanders, and all officers that have been nominated, and on behalf of the queen receives their pledges of fealty. These activities will also be reconfirmed by the queen during subsequent training and preparation, and they will personally declare their allegiance to the queen.

Hóngfā Chá'ěrsī Qiáo

For these newly formed legions, he placed orders in the queen's name with every smithy in the city—for spears, swords, armor, and shields—purchasing all military supplies from them and issuing orders according to his needs, and at the same time he generously paid a deposit exceeding half the total price in advance.

Black Dragon regiment

Golden Dragon regiment

Loyal Spear regiment

Black Fist regiment

Kǎisè regiment

Sir Sàīěrmí

Jísī merchant

Sīkǎzhádān River

Wǎléilìyà language

Queen Dānnílìsī

He sold the unusable armor, swords, and spears seized on the battlefield to all the blacksmith shops in Meilin City at extremely low prices, and at the same time placed military supply orders with them that might take them ten years to finish, so that the sound of hammering on the streets never ceased from morning till night.

The old knight felt that the future rulers of Meilin would certainly include this hard‑working group of blacksmiths.

The blacksmith shops were just one of many changes. After the queen confirmed her intention to go west, following the advice of the little devil, he likewise issued orders in the queen's name to every clothing shop in Meilin City, for everything an army needs—undergarments, outerwear, leather armor, cloaks, and all other items—fully stocked. He generously paid more than half the deposit and stationed an entire legion to guard these shops—because some shopkeepers, after receiving the deposit, simply left Meilin and never returned.

He needed to intimidate these merchants in some way.

The transformation of the clothing shops was far slower than that of the blacksmith shops. The blacksmith shops had received materials from the queen's hand, but he could not provide even a single bag of the wool, cotton, or linen that the clothing shops required.

He had already dispatched an envoy team accompanied by some merchants to purchase supplies from the tribes upstream of the Skahazdan River, but whether good news would come was hard to predict, for previously only a few oligarch families inside Meilin had dealt with these tribes.

Promoting production was difficult, but everything was moving in a good direction.

The real difficulty was the judge. All kinds of complaints and quarrels kept being brought up to him for resolution.

For some of these cases, he could hardly even repeat the dispute in words, let alone relay it to the queen herself. In fact, most of the time he doubted whether he truly understood their arguments—he knew a little Valyrian, but could not possibly comprehend these thick‑accented dialects, and translators always made him feel somewhat untrustworthy.

Gods, please save me.

"Can't we just carve the rules into stone and let them judge themselves?" he occasionally thought.

He did not understand business rules. Before Queen Daenerys, the precedents and customs were those of slave masters, and her subjects need not follow them; after Daenerys, all these cases were entirely new, and he urgently needed to distill universal rules from the myriad complex cases—this clearly exceeded his ability, and he did not believe anyone could really summarize them in a short time.

Time was what they lacked most.

"When will these reorganized troops be able to fight for us?" the queen asked as he climbed the high pyramid once again.

"They have received training; as long as they can quickly familiarize themselves with their comrades, they will soon be able to fight under your banner." That was true, but to become an invincible army they at least needed proper leather armor, metal armor, suitable spears, longswords, and short swords, to hold light yet sturdy shields, and to learn to coordinate with the surrounding infantry, to understand various different bugle calls and commands. And if they were archers or javelineers, they at least needed to be issued sufficient bows and arrows and javelins. He did not want to speak of cavalry. All this was very costly, far beyond what the city of Meilin could afford, even with the queen's rich spoils.

"I will excise the abscess of Meilin—the Jhisc troops still lingering in the east." The queen said to him, "I do not have much time."

"Yes, Your Majesty. Meilin has many wounds; overland trade consumes too much for Meilin, so the real abscess is not on land but at sea. We have captured many soldiers, but we have captured no ships—three of Yunkai's warships surrendered to us, the slaves on board rebelled and killed the officers, yet we cannot expect the besieged enemy warships to lift the blockade because of this."

"We can build ships; Meilin has enough sailors."

"Of course, Your Majesty, but building a ship takes far too long, and shipbuilding at Meilin's dock is also dangerous; moreover, the cost is not small—Your Highness's gold, I have been spending it rapidly lately, and I truly fear it might suddenly run out; I often have nightmares about this at night."

The queen smiled upon hearing that.

"I heard from Grolai that we have no wood for shipbuilding."

"Our navy commander's talent lies in directing naval battles; making him build ships is truly difficult for him." The Queen's Hand dislikes this navy commander; as a subordinate, his complaints toward the queen and the Queen's Hand are too many, but he has endured hardships to bring Bevos and him to the queen's side, so he can only feel grateful.

"If he had half the sense of your lordship, perhaps I wouldn't need to worry about the ship matter."

"He is your navy commander, not the chief shipbuilder."

"He is the person sent by Illyrio to assist me; he has indeed done much for me, and out of gratitude I can only place him in this position."

"Speaking of Illyrio, Tyrion Lannister is also someone Illyrio arranged to come assist you; how would you like to arrange him? Really send him to Ser Jorah's side?"

"I don't want a kinslayer appearing before me; if he can still complete the task, perhaps I will consider arranging a job for him according to his actual wisdom and ability." The queen supported the old knight's arm and walked slowly outdoors, saying, "Let us not mention this poor fellow any longer. Let us properly discuss the Gis soldiers and the enemy ships outside!"

"Of course, as you wish, as long as we don't judge by height and appearance." He smiled and spoke, feeling slightly sorry for Tyrion, "We lack sufficient cavalry; if not for the special terrain of western Meereen, perhaps we couldn't have achieved such a victory, but eastern Meereen is different—with dragons we can crush them, but to deal them a heavy blow we need sufficient cavalry. Enemy forces at sea are similar; we cannot rely on dragons to capture enemy ships. Moreover, Viserion is merely a small dragon, unable to endure long on the battlefield, and at sea it faces even greater danger."

"I understand." The queen said, "But I don't have much time to wait for Viserion to grow larger; I need Jorah's help."

"You are taking a risk." He sighed.

He felt he was truly unqualified. The Queen's Hand should be like a battlefield commander, constantly giving people confidence rather than the opposite.

"But I will eventually have to take this step." The queen said to him.

"Yes, Your Highness." What else could he say? "After all, you are the mother of dragons."

"I feel that it has returned."