Chapter 252: Mobilization

According to the habits of many Swadian nobles, they generally built the castles they lived in on relatively high dirt slopes on the plains, and then the subjects under their rule would build houses with the castle as the center, reclaiming patches of fields on the surrounding wilderness, while the mountain land was patches of orchards, among which vineyards were the most numerous, and there were also supporting wineries.

In this way, a human settlement was basically completed, and it had decent defensive capabilities.

If there was a river, it would naturally be better. Swadian nobles also mastered the technology of utilizing river water and knew how to open water channels to irrigate crops, or even build ports on the river to farm fish.

Before stabbing his brother to death, as a noble youth, Fatis's position only reached that of a cavalry captain. At that time, his father was still alive and hadn't passed the family title to him, but this didn't prevent Fatis from receiving relevant education when he was young.

This also allowed him, who was no longer young, to open up a piece of land that was already quite prosperous to the north of the Running River. This place was named after his hometown, which was Lulunsi. Although Fatis held his position in the city, his family's fief was in the surrounding area.

And on a morning with howling cold wind but relatively bright sunshine, Allen, Holimion, and two young secret agents came to the village under the castle, smelling the pungent smoke from the blacksmith shop, stepping on the muddy country dirt road that was frozen on the surface, preparing to rendezvous with other Twilight Knights, and incidentally stay in Fatis's place for a period of time, because the things that needed to be done here still needed a bit of time to brew.

In this wilderness north of the Running River, there were almost no traces of high mountains. The only ones were a few low hills, and even half of these had been dug out a lot. The stone materials taken out barely built half of the city wall used to protect the surrounding residents, while the material for the other half of the city wall was brick. This was thanks to the brick factory in Fislate opening a branch here, and there was no lack of suitable mud in the surrounding area.

Under such conditions, one shouldn't expect any stone roads. This was truly having the heart but lacking the strength.

Most of the materials for the castle where Fatis lived were still wood, which made him a bit unaccustomed, because in Calradia, only Nord nobles lived like this. But given the current situation, this was already quite good. This was built by Artimenner specifically taking time out of his schedule, and the cost was paid by the Cabinet. There was really nothing to pick on.

And at the very top of the castle, a green banner fluttered in the wind, with a knight charging with a spear printed on it, and above the knight was a crown with three stars. The crown represented Allen's rule, and the knight represented Fatis's family.

"Your Majesty, my lord, this is the condition proposed by Baal." The young Brendon's face was slightly excited, but his performance was very steady. He repeated Baal's words word for word, then stood quietly to the side, waiting for the subsequent instructions.

It was just that he would occasionally secretly look at Holimion standing beside him, hoping to see some emotions from his mentor's face, such as encouragement, approval, or dissatisfaction.

It was just that Holimion's handsome face was always in a calm state and rarely changed. On the contrary, Allen, who was holding a bowl of hot soup, nodded quite satisfactorily.

"You've worked hard on this trip. Drink a bowl of hot soup and go rest. I believe it won't be long before you have to run to Baal's place again."

Although Brendon left Baal's camp first, Allen was slightly delayed because of Lavar's matter, but he and Holimion still returned to Lulunsi first. This was also because the two of them needed to take care of the other two young children, otherwise, they would have rushed back overnight at dawn.

This place was less than two hundred kilometers away from Baal's territory. According to the speed of the Elven horses, it didn't need too long a time.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Watching Fatis also nod silently, Brendon left the restaurant. He had been working here for two years, and these small matters didn't need anyone else's arrangement.

"My lord, if Baal handles everything himself, are we really going to pay double the price to redeem those Dwarves?"

Speaking, Fatis had uncontrollable anger on his face. If it were according to the idea of this Count, then since Allen had already come here, then leading all his troops to rush to the other side of the river and grabbing the Dwarves back was the correct way to do things.

Incidentally, he could also teach those Easterlings who were accustomed to plundering a lesson.

At this time, Fatis didn't want to compromise with any Easterling, even Baal, because ever since he was enfeoffed in Lulunsi, the Easterlings on the other side of the river had never been peaceful.

Baal hadn't done anything out of line, but there were still other Easterling tribes that forcibly crossed the Red River to hunt in Rhovanion, or even found opportunities to plunder the surrounding manors.

For this, Fatis led cavalry units to repel wave after wave of harassment. It was just that the Easterlings seemed not to fear death, constantly sending small squads to infiltrate.

This situation continued until the warships of Long Lake Town were formed and began to appear on the Red River in formation, which was then alleviated.

Because after that, most of the time, the Easterlings couldn't cross the river. When building bridges or making boats, they would be nailed to death on the riverbank by arrows and crossbow bolts flying out like rain from the warships.

After that, no Easterling was willing to take the risk, because in their view, that was completely suicide. Even if there were rumors that the land on the other side was very rich, full of wheat ears that couldn't be picked and wild animals that couldn't be hunted, but now that they couldn't even cross the river, there was no need to try.

It was just that the Easterlings who came to harass before still caused huge casualties and losses to Fatis's territory. Even though the Count of Lulunsi was not a warlike noble, in order to regain his face and give an explanation to the knights and commoners in the territory, a war of revenge across the river was inevitable.

However, this needed Allen's consent. Fatis, as well as Alayen, although they were regional lords possessing their own fiefs and private armies, did not have the right to actively launch a war against other forces.

This was Middle-earth after all. Allen would never distribute this kind of right to his subordinates. Otherwise, what would be left to him would inevitably be a mess that could never be cleaned up. Even if nothing happened while he was in power, it would definitely be a difficult-to-solve future trouble later.

Distributing power was easy, but wanting to take it back was a matter of extreme difficulty.

"That of course won't happen. I just need Baal, this greedy hyena, to point out the direction for us. If he had accepted my conditions from the beginning, I might not have been willing to do anything. After all, fighting a war is also an extremely labor-consuming and money-wasting thing. Since we have to pay something anyway, why should we choose that dangerous method?"

"But now, I have heard many things in the surrounding villages, and there are also some people who consider themselves to have face who came to me to complain, saying that you are a cowardly ruler. It has indeed been difficult for you during this period of time. However, Fatis, I think you can already issue the order for war mobilization."

From the beginning, the order Allen gave Fatis was to cooperate with the warships to hold Rhovanion along the Red River and absolutely not to forcibly cross the river to actively provoke the Easterlings.

Such a decision of course had its reasons. Although Allen didn't know much about the Easterlings, he also knew that during the War of the Ring, the Easterlings gathered by Sauron's order attacked Rhovanion. With their superior numbers, they directly crushed the human army of Dale and finally even surrounded the Dwarven Kingdom of the Lonely Mountain, even killing the two Kings of humans and Dwarves.

Such strength could not be said to be weak. The current Rhovanion didn't have the capital to confront this strength, so Allen had to order Fatis to act cautiously.

It was just that as time passed, a large number of Easterling prisoners of war were willing to accept Allen's rule, and through active labor, they obtained free status, which could be considered as striving for a relatively stable life for themselves.

And Allen also gained a deeper understanding of the chaos in the Rune region through communication with these people.

Just like Haradrim was just a collective term for various ethnic groups living in the south, Easterlings were actually the same.

Just like the Bartra people ruled by Ashur, the Wainriders who had once invaded the old Kingdom of Rhovanion, and the Baierkousi who were more fierce but had blood relations with them, they were all Easterlings.

But there was actually no relationship of mutual subordination between them, and sometimes conflicts would even occur. The strong would drive the relatively weak tribes out of the relatively rich places in the Rune region, letting these weaklings fend for themselves.

Even one ethnic group didn't necessarily have only one tribe. When power distribution was improper, splitting was also a common occurrence. Even the Kingdom of the Numenoreans had such things happen, not to mention these Easterlings with more backward cultures.

And the Easterlings who had been invading Rhovanion these years were just that small part living in the eastern part of the Rune region who were relatively poor. And those powerful tribes living in the core area of the Rune region, without Sauron's order, basically wouldn't travel thousands of miles to attack Rhovanion.

Traveling thousands of kilometers with the tribe was not a joke. Moreover, after you left, the territory that was vacated would immediately be occupied by others. This was basically having no retreat at all.

Ashur, who was defeated and fled back to the Rune region, still relied on Sauron's care to barely master the right to dialogue with other Easterling leaders.

Gradually understanding all this, Allen also thought that he didn't need to be as cautious as before, treating the Easterlings who invaded him with passive defense.

Since Fatis's rule here needed a war to prove himself, then according to the known intelligence, Allen would naturally support his friend, vassal, and marshal, letting the Easterlings who invaded him experience the taste of counterattack.

However, this needed a suitable time to start all this.

Under Fatis's order, a large number of messengers carrying the mobilization order began to gallop on the plains north of the Running River. The knights who received the order began to make preparations before the battle. They often left an attendant to take a few militiamen who were armed, managing the manor for them in the days to come.

One couldn't abandon the management of the territory because of the war. There were still some prisoners of war in shackles here.

And the knights themselves would take another attendant, as well as two or three auxiliary soldiers who could also fight on horseback, to report to Lulunsi. Being able to take out such a configuration naturally needed to thank Allen's policy.

Because the weapons and equipment of these knights and attendants were directly borne by the Cabinet. This also included maintenance after the battle. At the beginning, this work was not easy to complete, until the transport ships of Long Lake Town began to be put into use, transporting various materials and parts became much easier.

If it didn't work, they could report directly to replace them with new ones. After all, Allen ordered one thousand sets of heavy cavalry armor from the Dwarves, and currently only four hundred sets were in use.

Because there was no burden of weapons and armor, the manors managed by the knights, after reasonable farming, had some surplus besides feeding everyone. Now, in an environment where enemies often invaded, these knights naturally tended to cultivate more combat power, which allowed Fatis to gather more troops.

As the weather became colder and colder, the cavalry units gathered in Lulunsi became more and more numerous. After the knights completed their reporting, they would often choose to go to the castle to see Fatis in pairs, incidentally asking for a cup of wine to drink. They were old superiors and old subordinates with the Count here.

It was just that Allen, who was also here, made them feel a trace of nervousness in addition to shock. After all, the knights they had become already shouldered responsibilities that were not just following Allen to charge and fight. Whether the manor was managed well or not was also a test of them by the King. If they didn't do well, they would be recalled to Fislate to be scolded at any time, and there was also the punishment of having their titles taken back.

Because of the inconvenience of communication, Allen, in a situation where there was no other way, borrowed many relatively suitable policies, such as the Knight Manor System, enfeoffing the vast land east of Mirkwood to the soldiers who had made contributions on the battlefield. While giving them power and status, it could also be considered as rebuilding this land that was once prosperous and rich.

But unlike the proper hereditary fiefs, the manors possessed by these knights were semi-life-long, and attached with corresponding responsibilities and obligations. Besides managing the manor well, they also needed to cultivate a heavy cavalryman to inherit their obligations and territory before they didn't have combat ability.

Whether it was management or fighting, these were all things that needed to pass an assessment. It wasn't that after the land was enfeoffed, it had nothing to do with Allen.

This obligation and responsibility was the charm of power. It was just that as the founding monarch, Allen possessed powerful royal power. The rules were all formulated by himself, and the final interpretation right belonged to the royal family. After paying compensation, they could be changed at any time.

These were all written in the contract. As long as there was powerful strength as a backing, when a minister was deprived of his title because of a mistake, other vassals wouldn't think this was tyranny. This was the insurance Allen set after implementing the enfeoffment system.

It was just that before the great war, Allen looked at the cavalry units gathered in Lulunsi and was still relatively satisfied. This was several hundred cavalry more than he had originally envisioned. Although their combat effectiveness was still lacking compared to those attendants who had received complete training, they were more than enough as auxiliary soldiers.

Therefore, this time, Allen didn't intend to assess the political achievements of these knights. ===== CHAPTER 253 =====