Cold Wind City, City Lord's Mansion, the night is dark.
After the Longlegs family was evicted, the Allard family took over this luxurious and spacious mansion.
The mansion has a magic fountain that surges day and night, an arcane garden that is evergreen all year round, and a patchwork of buildings. As for the Winter Temple of the Frost Goddess, it is even more glorious and majestic, one of the best in the entire North.
In order to show the new atmosphere of the new people in power, the mansion buildings were also hung with dazzling lights, and the courtyard corridors were renovated, making them even more dazzling after dark, adding new scenery to the city.
Looking up from the shabby houses in the city's craftsman's district, you can see the shining lights on the spire of the mansion in the north of the city. Let everyone from the common people to the nobles in the city feel... How much does this cost?
Living in the City Lord's Mansion did not improve the status of the Arad family. The gold coins that flowed out to decorate the facade of the mansion did not improve the family's strength.
For six months, old Arad had to feel distressed for a few seconds before going to bed, while looking back at the whole day. What did he gain?
In fact, there is nothing to gain. I just focus on arguing with other powerful people.
Lehman and Minos are no weaker than the Arad family, and a large number of lower-level nobles are clamoring for the division of power and spoils, which makes people upset every day.
Every day when he wakes up, Old Arad thinks about which rival he should eliminate to intimidate other powerful people. In order to maintain the stability of the rule, family wizards and knights have been secretly eradicating dissidents.
The small nobles in the city suffered heavy casualties as a result, but the number of dissidents did not decrease, but increased. The situation of the Arad family did not get better, but became worse.
The family's power is constantly being depleted.
A little less every time, but the more times it accumulates, the more it will add up.
Just because those small nobles who were eliminated could not add any help to the Arad family, their remnants fled in all directions and disappeared.
Until one day news came that the newly emerging 'rich and powerful leader' outside the city had formed a light cavalry force of a hundred people. Most of its members were former aristocratic knights of the defeated Cold Wind City.
This news made Lao Arad even more sleepless day and night, and made him restless.
The governance system of the alien world is very simple, just a dual structure of lords and subordinates.
This is the result of low agricultural output and limited management capabilities, which cannot support too many real "people". The lowest "person" still has the title of "knight", controls a village, and has a lot of privileges higher than ordinary people.
As for the common people below, they have no rights, let alone property, and are no better than animals.
Zhou Qingfeng expanded this ruling system when he was in the Black Forest. By integrating original human settlements and foreign trade, more residents in his territory became real "people".
In official terms, this is called "improving production relations and liberating productive forces."
In order to restore the country, Inisa took away fifty adventurers equivalent to "knights" and two to three hundred militiamen from Harmony Village at one time.
This reflects the strong mobilization ability under the new system.
Zhou Qingfeng didn't realize that there was anything special about his household registration, house number, territory and city planning. But this system had a powerful management effect.
Old Arad had no way to open the household registration book and accurately find the home of a certain farmer in his territory. He had no way to know how many strong men the farmer had in his family and how much grain he could collect.
The old-style lords didn't even know where their subjects lived. Their method of collecting supplies was particularly barbaric. They brought a small number of retainers or knights they could control to suddenly surround the villages in their territory, and then...
robbery!
Such low-level management methods are destined to collect less people and materials, and cannot support real "people". In the final analysis, the ruling institutions are too simple.
Old Arad is not afraid of the civilian population of the "Rich and Powerful Territory", which has thousands or tens of thousands. In his understanding, they are just talking animals.
But it's different with more than a hundred 'people'.
Arming these more than a hundred 'people' into a cavalry team, allowing them to completely detach themselves from work and live only for fighting, old Arad became even more restless.
This represents sufficient financial and material resources, as well as strong power and status.
In its heyday, the Long-Legs Family in Cold Wind City only commanded more than 400 'people'. These 'people' also belonged to a bunch of different small lords, large and small. Only a part of them were directly under the Long-Legs Family.
The strength of the 'rich and powerful leader' has forced the remaining dignitaries in the city to unite. If they don't unite, sooner or later Hanfeng City will be swallowed up by the 'rich and powerful leader'.
Old Arad was worried. He had reached an agreement with other families in recent days, and everyone joined forces to fight against Victor Hugo's rapid expansion.
This takes time, and the mobilization of old-style lords is so slow. Just mobilizing the knights in the territory to gather is a big trouble.
Some people are coming today, some are coming tomorrow. Some people say that they have no food stored, so they need to give them some food first. Some people say that they are short of money and have no travel expenses, so they need a sum of money first. After a week, they will send a servant to report that they are sick and cannot come.
Old Arad was anxious during the day, hoping that his opponent's development would slow down before he was ready. He was worried at night, fearing that if he was really ready, his opponent's strength would be overwhelming.
Then you really can only take it slow.
But what are you afraid of?
Old Arad suffered from insomnia at night, and finally fell asleep after drinking a drink. However, the servant stumbled over and reported: "Sir, the soldiers from the Inspection Office are blocking the roads, and even our city lord's palace has been blocked."
What?
For the sake of city finances, Old Allard had to drag Hugo into the city council as deputy speaker. The deputy speaker was also very capable and quickly collected a large amount of tax revenue for the council.
For the sake of money, Hugo wanted to rebuild the Inspectorate, and the city's powerful people had no objections.
After all, there has to be someone to provide public services, otherwise just cleaning up the garbage would be a headache. But in just over a month, the soldiers from the Inspection Office actually dared to blockade the aristocratic area?
Why?
The servant said sadly: "It is said that someone attacked the inspection office, and they are cordoning off the whole city to catch the assassins."
The reasons are pretty bad.
At this time, sealing off the entire city and also sealing off the aristocratic district is not a clear way to restrict the activities of the powerful?
Old Arad's mind was racing, trying to figure out Hugo's true intentions. Just when he was about to send someone to learn more about the situation, someone fell into the courtyard of the city lord's mansion using flying skills, and stood outside and shouted...
.
"Your Excellency Arad, Hugo attacked the Wizard's Tower. He did it, he did it first!"
The guards at the mansion thought that a foreign enemy was attacking, but they were stunned when they heard the shouts.
The person who came was Piero, the changed chief of the wizarding group. He shouted in a hurry without any wizarding demeanor, alarming the entire city lord's palace.
Old Arad was waiting for news in the mansion, and his scalp went numb when he heard Piero's shout. He hurried to the courtyard, only to see more wizards falling from the sky.
The wizards who usually sit upright and pay attention to elegance and calmness are all like fleeing rats. After landing, they were anxious and cursed, and were in a panic.
All kinds of sounds poured into old Arad's ears, causing the entire city lord's mansion to panic and panic.
"Stop arguing, what happened?"
Old Arad yelled, but saw that his mansion had become like a vegetable market, and anyone could come in and out. Lehman and the Minos family chiefs brought many family armed forces and swarmed in front of him.
"Arad, you idiot. You should not have introduced the black-hearted Hugo into the city in the first place. Now he is going to attack us. He has already captured the Wizard's Tower."
"Arad, please come up with an idea. What should we do?"
Old Arad's hair stood on end instantly, his heart went cold, and all the wine he had just drank turned into cold sweat. The heads were moving in front of him, and a group of people were asking him to come up with an idea.
If he had such prestige on weekdays, old Arad would be so happy that he would wake up from his dreams with a smile. But now he asked urgently: "What do you mean? How could Victor Hugo capture the Wizard's Tower?"
The Wizard's Tower is not a pigsty.
Even if it's a pig pen, there are dozens or hundreds of pigs in it. How could it be captured so casually?
As soon as the question arose, Rao, the Chief of Energy Shaping, fell from the air and fell heavily to the ground. The blood on his back continued to flow, and he shouted angrily:
"Arad, call on all the people in the city. Hugo wants to control Cold Wind City. He has already taken the Wizard's Tower, and he will definitely not let us go."
Seeing several chief wizards in front of him, Old Arad felt dizzy - What the hell? Are you really all pigs?
A group of people were beaten so badly? Now if I were to go up and hit them, what should I use to hit them? The skull?