The Redwin family's financial resources rank among the top five families in the entire Western Continent, so the equipment of their soldiers is far superior to that of the soldiers from the Riverlands.
Specifically, while most of the riverside soldiers were still wearing pot-shaped helmets and hanging mail on their faces to protect themselves from damage, these elite Redwine soldiers had already put on helmets, commonly known as pig-faced helmets.
This is a full-coverage iron helmet, with almost no leakage on the head except for the eyes.
The hound visor helmet worn by Sandor Clegane is a typical helmet, except that the pointed visor is made into a dog shape.
As for the body, Redwin soldiers are more comprehensive. Large areas such as breastplate, greaves, thigh armor, arm armor, etc. are all made of plate armor, and only the joints are covered with more flexible mail armor.
This level of defense is already extremely exaggerated among the soldiers Arthur has seen, but compared with the main soldiers of the Lion family, it is still slightly inferior.
The helmets worn by these lion soldiers only exposed their eyes and mouths, but in order to allow the soldiers to adapt to more combat situations, the visors of the lion-shaped half helmets were designed with double doors on the left and right, and there were fixed buckles when fully opened.
On such a battlefield with poor lighting, the lion-shaped half helmet is very advantageous. They can open the visor to fight, and the visor of the Redwin soldiers can also be opened, but it can easily slip down during fighting, blocking the line of sight.
.
The entire battle in the Red Keep has entered a street fighting mode, with the two sides fighting back and forth around the throne room and the large meeting hall next to it.
This is what King Hejian saw when he led his people into the throne room.
"Cersei is dead, Randyll Tarly is about to lead his army to attack, why are you still insisting?" Arthur shouted after killing a Lion soldier with a vertical slash.
In order to shake the enemy's morale, King Hejian ordered his own soldiers to spread the news that 10,000 Riverside troops were about to attack the Red Keep.
At the same time, Arthur took the lead in the fight, with nearly twenty powerful warriors guarding the two wings, and broke through the battle line all the way to the garden outside the throne room.
The path from the throne room to the garden was already narrow and narrow. Arthur's breakthrough quickly allowed Redwin soldiers to reoccupy the entire hall.
But the space in the garden became wider and the number of lion soldiers increased, so the two sides were once again at a stalemate.
But under the double blow that the Queen Mother was dead and the Riverbend Army was about to enter the city, the Lannister soldiers finally began to panic.
The retired warriors that Lord Tywin spent many golden dragon coins to train during his lifetime were naturally not useless. Several centurion captains immediately organized their formations.
"Hold the line!"
"Don't rush in!"
After these Lannister soldiers formed a tight square formation, several people immediately went to explore the situation of the north and south towers and main entrance of the Red Keep.
Arthur and the Redwyne soldiers stood on the steps at the exit of the throne room, confronting the enemy from a high position.
Taking advantage of a lull in the fighting between the two sides, the King of the River summoned Sir Willow Cuy.
"Where are the nobles of the Reach? Have you snatched them back?"
The helmet worn by Willow is similar to the one on Arthur's head. They are both armet helmets commonly worn by nobles. Its characteristic is that it basically completely covers the head and neck, but you cannot shake your head while wearing the helmet.
So Sir Willow lifted his visor and sighed: "Our great nobles and lower lords are with these soldiers stationed at the Red Castle, and not a single noble has been snatched back."
Arthur thought for a while and asked, "Is your Kuy family governor also in the hands of the enemy?"
He vaguely remembered that several vassals under Hightower's name had followed the Rose family northward, including the Kuey family of Yangwu City, the Mulundall family of Highland City, the Bulwe family of Blackcrown City, and the Bisi family of Bee Grove.
Parry family.
Among these powerful viscount families, except for Warren Bispari, who was in his hands, the remaining governors were all taken over by Cersei in King's Landing.
"It should be, but I don't know the exact information." Sir Willow replied.
"It's okay, don't worry." Arthur patted him on the shoulder, "We have a large number of noble prisoners from the West, and we can always replace them."
He has Jaime the Kingslayer, Davon, Stafford and other Lannister members in his hands. In addition, there are also some small nobles from the West in the Golden Tooth City, and there are three or four earl-level governors of the West in Riverrun.
With the first heir, there is no need to worry about losing any prisoners.
After half a day, these lion soldiers finally responded.
A centurion leader came out of the crowd and shouted: "We want the complete body of Her Majesty Cersei and His Majesty Tommen. You can designate two earls to replace them."
Because Cersei's head has been displayed, the people of the Westerlands also believe that she is dead. The Riverbend army is outside, and the Lannister family has no strong person to clean up the mess, so there is no need for them to hold on to King's Landing.
It's understandable that the Lion Soldier wants a complete body, but Arthur is a bit confused about pretending to be Tommen.
After thinking about it carefully, King Hejian understood a little bit.
Maybe the head coach of the Lions who proposed the prisoner exchange also knew that something was wrong with Tommen, so he just wanted to exchange the two earls for Cersei's "mother and daughter".
"Go and call Loras and Hopper, and bring Levi Lanny with him, so that Loras can decide which two earls will come back."
Since he was not very familiar with the Riverbend nobles, Arthur did not change people randomly.
A Redwyne soldier got the order and went back to the Prime Minister's Tower to call for help.
A few minutes later, the two people who were called came with their children.
"I advocate the replacement of Lord Paxter Redwine."
Loras did not hesitate and wanted to get his uncle back.
"Okay." Arthur agreed, "Who else?"
After Hopper and Loras looked at each other, the former said: "Lord Brian Fossoway."
King Hejian thought for a while and then remembered that this was the lord of the Cider Hall, also known as the Red Apple family.
"Is this your father-in-law, Garland?" Arthur asked.
Loras replied awkwardly: "Yes."
In order to avoid suspicion, they each told each other which hostage the other wanted most, but upon closer inspection, the two earls were actually core relatives of Tyrell.
Arthur didn't want to change like this, so he declined: "They are all relatives of your family. What do the other Riverbend governors think? Well... let's replace Earl Klein Fossoway with the head of the Mariweis family.
, what’s his name?”
The River King vaguely remembers that during the Mad King's time, House Mareweis had a king's hand, who took office before Jon Connington.
So this family is more loyal to Arthur who has a dragon.
"Lord Orton Mawriwes." Hobble replied.
Loras had no choice but to obey Arthur's suggestion.
Ten minutes later, the prisoner exchange between the two sides was completed, and the Lion soldiers gradually withdrew from the garden of the Red Fort.
Around dawn, the Lannister soldiers in King's Landing withdrew, and the Reach army led by Randyll Tarly began to take over the capital that had changed hands three times.
…
Red Fort, Grand Council Hall.
This is the political hall located on the south side of the throne room. There is a large round table where royal meetings are usually held.
Now, Arthur is discussing the next arrangements with several nobles.
After gaining the support of the people of the River Bend, his military strength increased unprecedentedly, but he also had more things to do.
Due to the Queen of Thorns' reluctance to give up her title, and Arthur's determination that they didn't care whether the band was clear or not, Arthur decided to choose a day to formally declare his claim to the Iron Throne, and at the same time changed his title to the First Men.
The King of the Andals and the Rhoynar, also commonly known as the King of the Seven Kingdoms.
But this is only one aspect, military and political affairs are equally important.
Previously, a riverbank army was sent to the south bank of the Blackwater River and entered the Stormlands to fight Stannis's soldiers. The commander of this army was the Kingsguard Balon Swann.
The Swann family is the lord of Stonehelm City. The family territory is located near the rain forest north of the Dorne Sea. It can be said that this family is the most powerful in the Stormlands except Baratheon.
Ser Balon Swann is the second son of Earl Gillian Swann. He can be regarded as a good knight who values honor, is brave and loyal, and his own martial arts and archery skills are also good.
At the conference, he once achieved good results in the second place in the archery competition, second only to the marksman Angui.
Therefore, Loras suggested sending someone to persuade Balon Swann to surrender. If he failed, his Reach soldiers would revolt.
"That's very well said, but who's going?"
Arthur looked around and found that among the river bend nobles, only Randyll Tarly was reliable, and the rest were all parallel imports.
But Earl Tully wanted to lead the army, and it was impossible for him to do such a low-level job as persuading people to surrender.
"Your Majesty, I propose Count Matus Rowan. He is very popular among the people, he is calm and wise, and his abilities are outstanding." The half-bald Landao suggested.
When he talked about Matus, Arthur remembered that it was time to solve the problem of the Rowan family.
Previously, in order to capture the Duke of Mace, he had provoked a confrontation between the Rowan and Tyrell families, which caused the relationship between Golden Tree City and Highgarden to plummet.
But now that the people of the Riverbend support him, the relationship between the Rowan and Oakheart families and the Tyrell and other Riverbend families will be very awkward.
He couldn't have gone around in a circle and got close to his future father-in-law, the Duke of Metz, and got Matus involved instead.
"The Earl of Golden Tree City is very loyal to me. I will take time to discuss the ownership of his family with Lady Olenna. But when it comes to persuading Balon Sven to surrender, Matus is indeed the most suitable."
This army will be dealt with in this way for the time being, and another River Bend army will also have to be used.
"Where is Garland? Let him lead his army to block the Lannister army returning west, and Earl Tully will lead his army to pursue him. First, he will completely disperse this Lion Army."
In order to seize King's Landing, Landao did not send soldiers to pursue the Westerners. Now that the situation in the city was temporarily stable, they had time to intercept and kill the Lion Army.
Hopper replied: "My cousin is roughly at the intersection of the Lake River and the Golden Road. People from the West cannot cross the Blackwater River, so this place is blocked just right."
Huhe River is a tributary of the Blackwater River, so named because its source is in Shenyan Lake.
If the lake and river were wider, large ships could pass from King's Landing to Harrenhal.
"Send a message to Garland and ask him to lead his army to block the Lannister soldiers returning west. The soldiers from King's Landing will arrive soon."
Hopper took note of this and then talked about another topic, "The Ironborn have begun to plunder the west coast of the Reach. Many nobles who stayed behind have sent letters asking for help. Should we send an army back?"
Because the nobles left behind in the Riverbend did not know the previous situation in King's Landing, they used ravens to send a large number of letters asking for help.
"Soon, after we defeat the Lion Army, most of the Riverside soldiers will be able to return to support." Arthur reassured.
The city of King's Landing was full of Riverside soldiers, and he decided to send some of the Riverside soldiers back south in the name of expelling the Ironborn, and then mobilized an army of his own.
Moreover, there is still a dispute over the ownership of Brightwater City and the county, and he has not discussed this with the Queen of Thorns yet.
At the same time, it is time to set up the Royal Council, the Kingsguard and Royal Guards, and the King's Domain plan should also be put on the agenda.
At the round table in the conference hall, this fledgling kingdom is quickly solving most of its troubles, but a greater crisis is about to come.
…
Stormlands, Eagle's Nest.
This is a standard earl-level castle. It originally belonged to Jon Clinton. After he was deprived of his family castle and territorial property by Mad King Aerys II, Eagle's Nest Castle was granted to Ronald Clinton, and then Roland.
·The Clinton Succession.
In the castle hall, Governor Illyrio of Pentos discussed the war with several captains and deputy captains of the Golden Company, as well as Aegon VI, who had a weak sense of presence.
"King's Landing has changed its owner again. It used to be a lion in deer skin, but now it's a rose in dragon skin." Quinn, the deputy leader of the Golden Company, introduced it to his companions.
Because the new master of the Iron Throne basically has no team of his own in King's Landing, most of the heads of the Seven Realms believe that the Dragon Bearer is at the mercy of the people of the Reach.
"Our situation is very dangerous. The Dragon Holder is likely to be the biggest beneficiary of this war. In his situation, the four realms have been captured. Why don't we just grab a handful and run away."
Quinn believes that a group of Stormland farmers should be captured as slaves and then returned to the Eastern Continent. After all, they are a mercenary group, not family soldiers fighting for power for the lords.
"Some contracts are written in ink, and some contracts are written in blood. Supporting Aegon VI to become the King of the Seven Realms is our stated goal." The fat man Illyrio waved his hands irritably, as if this could put an end to his troubles.
Drive them all away.
However, the senior members of the Golden Company were not very optimistic about the current situation. In order to boost morale, the cheese seller decided to throw out some good news.
"You don't have to be so pessimistic. We have friends in King's Landing, and there are a lot of them. They are enough to pry open the gap between the Dragon Holders and the Reachers, just like the Dragon Holders pried open the gap between the Lion and the Rose.
Moreover, several governors of Pentos also want to participate in the big slave trade business, and they will send us more mercenaries. The trap to capture Stannis has been set, and the Stormlands will be ours soon."
Daenerys Stormborn caused a scene in Slaver's Bay, leaving behind several smoldering city-states. Only Meereen was still functioning normally, but Meereen controlled by Dany did not allow slaves, which made the slave trade almost impossible.
Interrupt.
Listening to the fat man's words, Jon Clinton felt more and more that something was wrong.
"We want His Majesty Aegon VI to return to the throne, not to let Westeros become a breeding ground for slave traders. I will never accept the behavior of allowing mercenaries to plunder farmers in large numbers."
During the Battle of the Bell, the young Hand of the King did not choose to burn down the town of Stone Hall in order to protect the civilians from harm.
Lord Tywin once commented on this man: It was too dishonorable for him to kill innocent men, women, and children, so he decided to kill Robert himself to win the war.
Illyrio looked at Jon Connington coldly, feeling that this person was too stubborn, "I decided to send you to find Daenerys. Her Unsullied and mercenaries can be useful to us."
This man had repeatedly expressed his opposition to plundering peasants as slaves, so Illyrio was going to send him away for a while.
