Mount & Blade: Wind of War

The current situation of the entire continent is that the situation of hegemony among various tribes has taken shape.

The two major forces of the northern orcs, the Hoffman Empire and the Sims Royal Court, both chose the development model that is most beneficial to the orcs: fighting to support fighting, but the result is that one succeeded and the other hit a steel plate and failed.

However, the impact of the million-strong ancient orc army's invasion to the south has never been eliminated until now.

Although a small number of the little emperors who followed them returned to the north with difficulty, the vast majority of the ancient orcs settled down in the wilderness.

There are mountains, wilderness, and wild beasts. As long as there are these, the orcs will not starve to death, but the competition for survival will be more cruel.

On the eastern and western fronts of the continent, the orc-blooded Sims Royal Court alone fought against the two human kingdoms of Raymond and Saint Laurent.

In terms of strategic situation, before Kodar's defeat, the Sims Royal Court was actually at an overall strategic disadvantage, but the result of the final war reversed this disadvantage.

The beast-blooded people have produced many heroes, and they defeated Raymond and Saint Laurent, who were stronger on paper, with inferior forces. Now these two human kingdoms can only defend a corner of the dangerous place and barely maintain themselves from being destroyed.

In this way, among the three major human kingdoms in the past, Styak, which collapsed first, is in the best situation and has the strongest foundation.

I can only sigh that the situation on the continent changes so quickly and strangely, which is really unexpected.

Now the royal families of Raymond and Saint Laurent send various gifts to the Styak capital Fastel every day, surrendering and asking for help, which makes His Majesty Haines, who has just succeeded to the throne, feel happy and painful.

On the one hand, the various conditions offered by the royal families of Raymond and Saint Laurent are attractive, but on the other hand, he has no spare energy to support these two former allies.

At present, from the overall situation, although the Styak Empire has been divided into the Mage Kingdom, the Holy (Religious) Kingdom, the Merchant Alliance and other forces, His Majesty Haines still controls nearly half of Styak's territory, especially the Northern Province. The suddenly rising dragon-slaying Duke Rod Hart split the land and was granted the title of Duke. He opened up a vast territory in the wilderness and was willing to respect and recognize Haines' succession.

In this way, just from the perspective of the size of the territory, although it has suffered a great division, after Haines succeeded to the throne, the size of Styak's territory has not only not become smaller, but has expanded slightly.

But in fact, the expansion of the territory of the Northern Province has no substantial benefits for the current empire. Taxes cannot be collected and troops cannot be mobilized, because the entire Northern Province is centered on the Bright Moon City, and those elves have almost established an independent country, but have not split openly.

In folklore, the image of elves is quite good. In addition, the northern elves governed the Bright Moon City and the upper elves were powerful and could protect the territory and the people. In addition, the KaLS family has been the master of the North for hundreds of years. The elves have successfully built an army that is close to the elves, with elves as the backbone and human warriors as flesh and blood. There is such a force blocking the North.

Duke Rhodes and his Lonely Mountain Castle are equivalent to an enclave relative to the Styak Empire.

Moreover, the Lonely Mountain Castle has just been through several bloody battles. At this time, the Empire does not distribute supplies and replenish troops, but instead imposes taxes and mobilizes troops?

Haines also knows in his heart that if you really push a powerful noble stationed on the border, he will really rebel.

Lonely Mountain Castle, Duke's Mansion.

Rhodes looked at the pile of report documents in front of him and felt a little headache.

Although he did make a lot of money in the grain operation a few years ago, most of it was basically spent in the past few years and several wars.

Fortunately, the basic situation of Lonely Mountain Castle as a military city, Minos City as an agricultural city, Redemption City as a mineral city, and White Stone Fortress as a transit city has gradually stabilized.

And as time goes by, the situation in the north stabilizes, and industries such as commerce, farming, and handicrafts have gradually begun to prosper.

There is no construction without destruction. It is because the Hart family of Lonely Mountain Castle has survived bloody battles that it has given more and more confidence to investors from all sides.

The continent is about to be in chaos, and the big businessmen with a keen sense of smell have already begun to make their own arrangements, or hire more mercenaries, or simply train their own private soldiers, but more big businessmen choose to migrate to relatively safe territories:

Because they also know how much they are worth, and it’s okay to do business and buy low and sell high to connect the continent, but raise soldiers and train soldiers? Decide on the spot and fight against the enemy?

Forget it, if you really have this method, you would have made yourself a nobleman long ago, so how can you still be a businessman.

The biggest difference between businessmen and nobles is that the latter holds violence, and violence is the most primitive power!

If the nobles lose violence, they become merchants. If they lose money, they are nothing.

That night, in the Duke's mansion.

In the reception hall, Ms. Janice, who is beautiful and well-dressed, introduces a fat middle-aged man with ten gems on his ten fingers.

"Mr. Geoffrey Eden."

"In front of you at this moment is the Lord of Lonely Mountain Castle, the witch slayer, the lion who broke through the city of sin, the dragon slayer, the orc slayer, the master of fire and light, and the defender of the original human race in the wilderness, Grand Duke Rod Hart."

Sitting on a high place, Rhode felt tired listening to Janice reading such a long speech below. However, the more Janice spoke, the more satisfied and relieved the big businessman Geoffrey seemed to be.

Most of the merchants in the Styak Empire, led by the former Minister of Finance Marquis Angel, established a kingdom belonging to merchants in the Merchant Alliance.

However, there are still some big merchants who can't get along with them. Some of these people, led by Geoffrey, finally chose to invest in the four cities of Lonely Mountain.

These merchants can be called not ambitious enough, not courageous enough, or they can be called seeing through the weakness of the merchant profession:

It is difficult for an excellent businessman to become an excellent military noble, because the more he calculates the pros and cons, the less courage he will have in his heart.

Therefore, the merchants headed by Geoffrey, they don't want political power and military power, they just want to keep their wealth steadily and find a suitable territory to invest.

They were not optimistic about the prospects of the Merchant Alliance, but they were optimistic about the Lonely Mountain Castle, which had survived several bloody battles. As the situation on the continent gradually fell into chaos, the man in front of them seemed to have a great chance of holding on to the end.

Facing these wealthy businessmen, Rhode could not say that he liked them very much, but he also could not say that he hated them very much. Although many of these guys were greedy and shameless, any force that wanted to develop normally could not do without them.

In Rhode's position, he had to use their advantages and accept their disadvantages.