After Talanji left, Li De didn't waste any more time and led everyone to Alterac the next day.
Because there were more people this time, in addition to Li De and a few personal guards, the thirteen paladins led by Dathrohan, and the herald sent by Lordaeron.
What the herald carried was a letter of appointment signed by all the leaders of the alliance. Only after the letter of appointment arrived in Alterac and was read out in public, Lothar could truly take over Alterac.
Due to the complexity of the personnel, this time we go to Alterac, we cannot go directly across Lake Lordamre like we did last time. It would be too informal.
If you take the official route to Alterac, there are usually two routes.
One way is to take the land route, passing through Andorhal in the East Wilder region and heading south into the Alterac Mountains; the other is to take the water route, from the merchant ship of Lordaeron Port, to bypass the north of the mainland and reach Hillsborough.
Disembark at Nanhai Town in Ryder Hills, and then head north to Alterac from Nanhai Town.
The water route was relatively more cumbersome, so Li De and the others chose to take the land route. In fact, there was another reason for going this way. Trollbane would also be traveling with them for a part of the way to Alterac.
After arriving in Alterac, Trollbane will continue south to Hillsbrad Foothills, then head west through Thoradin's Wall and enter the Arathi Highlands, which is the territory of Stromgarde.
The Alterac issue has been resolved, and the leaders of various countries have returned to their countries to handle government affairs. Greymane took the road to the Silverpine Forest west of Tirisfal; Archbishop Antonidas was more convenient, arriving from Lordaeron.
Laran, there is a directly connected portal.
In comparison, only Trollbane's path was more troublesome.
"The distance is obviously so short in a straight line, but we have to take so many wrongful paths."
Li De can now really understand Stromgarde and why monarchs of all ages have wanted to capture Alterac. Because communication between the East and the West is really inconvenient, and they really need a dry dock that facilitates communication.
Sure enough, Li De's words immediately resonated with Trollbane, and he couldn't help but complain.
"The first half of the road you are walking is pretty good. The second half of the road I am going to walk next has to cross the Tarren Mill River.
The Arathi Highlands are actually very fertile, but the transportation is too poor. To the south is a large swamp, to the north are rolling mountains, and to the east is the Forbidden Sea.
If you want to do trade, you can only do business with the west. But even doing business with the west is very difficult."
Since the end of the war, Li De has brought too many things to the Alliance. The vast amount of cotton spinning thread in Kul Tiras comes from Li De's territory, and it is almost a semi-open secret now.
In the eyes of Trollbane, Li De had long been qualified to communicate with him on an equal footing. He took the initiative to tell Li De this, just to see if Li De, who was proficient in trade, could give him some good ideas.
Li De didn't hide it either.
"If you want to improve the current situation of Stromgarde, solving the transportation problem must be your top priority. Of course, even if the transportation facilities are strengthened, the geographical environment of Stromgarde is not suitable for frequent small commodity trade.
The more frequent the trade, the higher the transportation cost. The best way to pressure transportation costs is to reduce the frequency of transactions and increase the single transaction volume. The larger the single transaction volume, the lower the transportation cost.
However, correspondingly, the larger the single transaction volume, the higher the warehousing cost. If the goods are not competitive enough to ensure smooth shipment every time, the huge backlog of goods will put a country under pressure.
Broken.
If you want to develop trade, I will take people to your place for inspection when I have the opportunity in the future. See what local specialties are suitable for large-scale transactions, and then start considering development issues."
After Li De finished speaking, Trollbane showed an expression of enlightenment on his face.
"You are so amazing. You explained something that I have never been able to understand in just a few words. You learned this from the goblins under you?"
Trollbane's compliment made Li De a little embarrassed, so he could only nod his head. Trollbane said it with deep approval.
"That's how it should be. Goblins are a race that is good at doing business. Since you lead some goblins, you must learn how they do business.
Otherwise, those cunning goblins would not be honest. Before the war broke out, there were always goblins from the south who passed through many obstacles to reach Stromgarde, which shows how good they are at making camps.
As a leader, if you don’t understand business, you will definitely be deceived by them.”
Trollbane didn't have anything nice to say about goblins. When he was a prince, he was deceived by goblins and spent a lot of money to buy a stone that could be seen everywhere.
Li De was snickering on the side, thanks to the fact that there were no goblins following him. Take Nyx as an example, if he heard it, he would secretly put a bomb on Trollbane.
All joking, but Li De still admired Trollbane a little, and this conversation changed his view of this king with a martial spirit.
"You are also very impressive. As far as I know, Stromgarde did not pay much attention to business before. You can take the initiative to develop business and improve the lives of the people. It is really worthy of admiration."
Trollbane spoke modestly, but he couldn't help but smile bitterly in his heart.
If possible, he wouldn't want to do this. Stromgarde has always had a strong folk custom and is famous for its highland warriors. How has it ever produced merchants?
But now times have changed, and the emergence of the Alliance made him realize that there will probably be no large-scale wars among the human races in the future, and the martial Stromgarde will probably be useless.
They alone cannot change the general trend. If they withdraw from the Alliance, Stromgarde's future will be even worse. In order to find a way out, they must adapt to the times and make changes.
Seeing that Trollbane didn't speak any more, Li De seemed to realize what he was thinking.
"The establishment of the alliance has brought us a benefit. We can communicate with the outside world as a clan. The introduction of griffins from the Wildhammer dwarves is proof of this.
The Bronzebeard dwarves and gnomes have cutting-edge technologies that we don’t have before. Through in-depth exchanges in the future, the mountains, deep valleys, swamps and jungles may become a common path.”
Li De's words greatly encouraged Trollbane and cheered him up a lot.
"You're right. It seems that the first thing I have to do after returning to China is to learn how to control a griffon. This way, I won't have to go through so much trouble when I travel by myself in the future."
It's really surprising that Trollbane, a heroic warrior, still doesn't know how to use a gryphon.
Perhaps it is also because of his status as a monarch that he has been unable to lose face and accept new things.
Only in recent times, the opportunity for him to change, in addition to the new style Li De brought to the alliance, was also his nephew.
King Trollbane's full name is Thoras Trollbane, and his nephew is called Danath Trollbane, who has been fighting alongside Turalyon and Khadgar.
After joining the Alliance Army and leaving the Arathi Highlands, fighting in the North and South for more than two years, the exchanges between countries within the Alliance opened the prince's eyes.
Occasionally, when the army passed by his hometown, Danas would eagerly share it with his uncle. For this young prince who lost his father, the uncle who accompanied him when he grew up was almost like his father.
In fact, during the conversation with Trollbane, Li De never mentioned one thing on purpose, and that was magic.
Trollbane himself does not understand magic, so he has no concept of magic improving life. But Li De is very clear about the impact that magic will have on life if it can be popularized.
However, since ancient times, several crises in Azeroth have been caused by the misuse of magic. This has caused not only others, but even the mages themselves, to become more conservative and obsessed with secret politics.
If the teleportation circle can be turned into an infrastructure throughout the world, people's lifestyles may change beyond imagination. Of course, the prerequisite for this is to make arcane magic harmless.
Historically, the Burning Legion was able to lock the location of Azeroth through arcane energy, which shows that there must be an internal connection between evil energy and arcane energy that is currently unknown.
Of course, Li De is not a mage, and his understanding of arcane magic is by no means an expert. But fortunately, he and Antonidas have always had a good personal relationship, and because of this crisis, Dalaran is also studying the evil energy mastered by the orcs.
, maybe you can ask Antonidas for advice later.
With so many people walking and chatting along the way, time passed very quickly. The unhurried traveling speed allowed everyone to finally leave the East Wilder territory and enter the Alterac Mountains in the afternoon two days later.
The peaks on both sides have begun to show a natural landscape with a rock bottom in the lower half and a snow top in the upper half.
Li De carefully reminded everyone.
"Although the marshal has led troops to garrison, there are a lot of ogres outside the city, and as the city's defense strength increases, we have to be careful about the possibility of those ogres escaping to other areas.
We need to conduct reconnaissance before we can decide whether to continue moving forward. If there is danger on the road ahead, we may have to plan to camp."
"In that case, why don't we return to East Weald and wait one night before setting off again at dawn?"
The herald sent by Lordaeron is a civil servant. Compared with other people with fighting abilities, he seems to be more insecure.
However, after he said these words, before Li De could answer him, a loud noise and shouts of killing suddenly rang out from the mountains on both sides of the road. Almost in an instant, more than two hundred bandits surrounded them!