Two days later, Fidne Village.
The lord only spent three hours repairing after Serendil killed those Python Knights, and basically arrived at Fidne as quickly as possible.
Governor Justus and Alina are no longer in the team, and neither is Free Legion.
Justus went to Imperial Port, and he planned to meet the serf general Ivaillo.
The infantry marching speed of the Free Legion could not keep up with the cavalry of one man and two horses. In order to set up an ambush before Snake Worship Cult's army, Li Ang asked Jocelyn and Sigismund to follow up with the Free Legion, while he himself led all the cavalry to Fidne.
Fidne Village is located at the bottom of an unknown group of mountains. It was originally a midway station built at the pass of the mountains, and then gradually developed into a village over hundreds of years.
This is the traffic artery connecting Imperial Port and Erudition City, and it is also the only way to go - if you don't plan to go over mountains and ridges and take a detour.
Under normal circumstances, villages that form traffic arteries are relatively prosperous, and this was also the case in Fidne village in the past few years.
But that was a few years ago...
Today, Fidne village looks very desolate.
The fields are barren, there are bones on the road, everything is messy, and nine out of ten houses are empty.
There are not many mosquitoes or flies in winter, but the vultures and mice everywhere seem to be quite fat.
"Ten houses and nine empty houses" here is not an adjective, but a literal meaning - most of the houses are empty, many houses were set on fire, and the whole village was burned to black.
Obviously, it is not certain whether Red Death has visited here, but there must have been looters.
"Sir, there are still people in the village. Snake Worship Cult's army probably hasn't arrived yet. However... the village seems to be full of old people, not a single young man is seen."
When we reached the entrance of the village, Risadiran, who was exploring the road at the front, came back to report the situation.
"This village must have encountered some looters... but only the old people were seen? The group with the least ability to protect themselves survived? This is a bit strange..."
The lord looked around and walked towards the village.
There are several high-walled courtyards in the center of the village, which look like the residences of nobles. There seem to be people in the houses looking around.
However, after seeing the lord's army, these people hurriedly closed their doors, and the sound of wooden bolts being pushed inside the door could be heard from a distance.
Fidne village did not see any Snake Worship Cult disciples, but there are residents - or survivors here, which obviously means that Snake Worship Cult's army has not arrived here yet.
Obviously, although Li Ang led his troops to Serendil for a battle and then turned to Fidne, making a circle, they still arrived earlier than Snake Worship Cult's army.
Those huge numbers of Snake Worship Cult followers probably seriously slowed down the progress of the Snake Worship Cult army.
But the reaction of these people in the village was a bit strange. It stands to reason that when encountering Red Death or looters, villagers would usually run away.
What's the point of closing the door and hiding in your home after encountering the army?
Li Ang asked the troops to stop at the entrance of the valley outside the village and asked Risadiran to take people to find out more.
After all, we are not sure whether there is Red Death raging in this place, so let the Noldos go find out first to prevent other troops from being infected by Red Death.
Not long after, Risadiran returned quickly and brought an old man back with him.
In other words, he kidnapped an old man, because Risadiran caught the old man on horseback.
The old man was well dressed, with a typical Bax noble ribbon on his body. He looked like a tribune.
But he was in a very bad state of mind, and was knocked sideways on the horse by Risadiran for a while, and he was already out of breath.
"Sir, this is the family that closed the door just now. As soon as I got close, he attacked me with a spear, so I had to force the door open and arrest him... But there were no servants or slaves in his house, and there were no young men."
Risadiran brought the man back and threw him directly to the ground, causing the old man to scream miserably.
Bacchus Empire's tribune has no servants or young men at home?
This is quite rare.
Judging from the style of the house, the old man should be quite wealthy, so he wouldn't be living in such a miserable state.
"Hero, have mercy... Hero, have mercy..." After being thrown to the ground by Risadiran, the old man collapsed on the ground and just begged for mercy.
Hero?
The meaning of this title at this time is generally similar to words such as 'hero', right?
Does this old man think Risadiran is a member of the forest trail?
But Risadiran's style of forcibly arresting people is probably very similar to bandits...
Understanding the reason for people's fear, Li Ang took off his homemade mask, squatted down and asked the old man lying on the ground softly, "We are not bandits... What happened here? Why didn't you leave here?"
Seeing that the lord was gentle and kind, the old man stuttered twice and asked tremblingly, "... Aren't you bandits?"
"... When have you ever seen bandits under the banner of nobles?"
Li Ang feels that most of the Bacchus Empire's grassroots officials may have something wrong with them - they are either bad or stupid...
Well, other countries are probably similar.
"But these Noldo Elves..."
"They are all my subordinates. Don't worry, they won't bite."
The old man seemed to have regained his composure. He slowly got up and looked at Risadiran in fear.
Risadiran spread his hands. "I'm sorry, I was just ordered to find out the situation, and I had to break your door. I will compensate you..."
Li Ang glared at Risadiran, took out a few dinars and handed them over. "You have also seen that Noldo Elves are very sensible and good people... What is going on in this village now? Have you met Red Death? Who is the lord here?"
The old man didn't take the money, but looked at the dinar and sighed, "Forget it, it's useless to have money now...Red Death didn't appear in this village, but it was worse than meeting Red Death..."
This old man is indeed the local tribune.
Perhaps it was fate that the lord of Fidne village turned out to be an acquaintance of Li Ang - Lord Fabius.
That is, the son of Governor Livius.
In fact, most of the Fidne village is owned by the Livius family. Lord Fabius can become the lord here because no other lord dares to work in the Livius family's territory.
After the father and son Livius were captured by Li Ang last year, they were packaged and sold wholesale by Li Ang to their good brother Ramon, who asked Ramon, a professional ransom broker, to handle the business.
Speaking of which, the father and son were lucky. Since it was a resold business, they made a trip to Xingar. The long journey took a lot of time. Therefore, Livius and his son got a great benefit - after they returned to China, they happened to encounter Bacchus Empire who was involved in internal and external troubles, and no one bothered to trouble the defeated general.
He was defeated and captured by White Deer Fortress with superior force, and Shield Wind Fortress was lost. Not only did he lose his troops, he also lost thousands of people to Li Ang...
If this were normal, Emperor Marius would definitely take the opportunity to beat Livius to the end and replace him with one of his cronies as the governor.
Such as Creon or Agasong...
But in this current situation, naturally I can't take care of these things.
In fact, due to too many major events recently, Livius and his son are almost forgotten... Even if they are not forgotten, no one in the Bacchus Empire has the time to think about them.
So, after Livius and his son returned to Fidne, they found that no one cared about them...
Then, they discovered that there seemed to be wars everywhere in the Bacchus Empire.
The father and son took advantage of the turmoil in the country to make some careful plans.
Livius actually knows very well why he sat in the position of governor. People who can hold high positions can usually understand the simplest truth - only when you have soldiers in your hands, you will have a strong back.
However, the father and son combined now only have 300 slaves and about 200 soldiers, which they feel is not enough.
These are actually the private property of the Livius family.
Most of his original subordinates, those captured Shadow Infantry, were redeemed by the family members of the soldiers after they were transferred to Ramon by Li Ang.
After people were captured, they were not redeemed by Livius, so those soldiers naturally did not return to Livius's hands.
Therefore, when the country is in crisis, Livius plans to start from scratch and build an army. He wants to "save Bacchus Empire from water and fire"...
Anyway, that's what he said himself.
And it seems that this is really how it is done - the so-called building an army from scratch means taking the young and strong into the army, which is simply called capturing the strong...
He has done this job often and is very experienced...
As for saving Bacchus Empire from fire and water - if Emperor Marius kills Hila Yuzas in Siyuan City, then the one who saves Emperor Marius is Bacchus Empire.
But if Sheila Youzas's rebels win, then Lord Livius will naturally save Sheila Youzas's New Bacchus...
Anyway, Livius is also a member of the Shadow Legion, and he has some friendship with General Sheila.
This is not because Livius is born rebellious or likes to be a wallflower. In fact, this is the consistent behavioral habit of any wealthy family for thousands of years, and this has been true in all dynasties.
This is true even if a foreign race subverts the regime.
There is a word in the East called "family, country and world". Obviously, family is at the front and the world is at the back.
Therefore, what the wealthy nobles of any country have done for thousands of years basically revolves around the same logic: investing based on family industry.
Or call it a bet.
When the country is in a unified state, powerful and famous families will use family power as capital, invest in court power, and ultimately control the country by controlling aristocrats and bureaucrats.
Therefore, the most troubled place in a unified country is around Prince... The nobles will bet on the Prince they support, which is using their own resources to invest in the future king.
Instead of a unified period, when faced with a divided continent in a state of war, wealthy nobles will shift their investment methods to local areas - from controlling resources such as knowledge and official promotion to controlling land, population, and private soldiers.
Of course, the essence remains the same, after all, it is all about controlling more combat power.
No one is stupid. In fact, everyone knows that political power comes from the barrel of a gun.
It's just that when the authority of the Central Committee was relatively strong, people didn't dare to become warlords for fear of being targeted by the king and killed, so they all had a tacit understanding.
And once the world is in chaos, the smarter nobles will hold on to their soldiers and make investments.
In fact, for nobles, the so-called loyalty is actually investing in shares.
Join a stronger force that knows how to fight and work together to achieve a monopoly - that is, control of the country.
Only the common people at the bottom pay attention to loyalty, while the high-ranking nobles only pay attention to the return on investment.
Moreover, the logic of most aristocrats is the same as the mentality of many venture capital institutions.
To put it simply, it means that you are optimistic about a certain project and believe that it is possible to achieve a monopoly, so you invest resources to become a shareholder. If the project succeeds, you can obtain greater benefits.
During this period, many venture capital institutions will invest in two competitors in the same industry at the same time - any one that beats the other will become a unicorn, and then the venture capital will be hedging its bets.
Because any company that successfully monopolizes the market will reap benefits tenfold or a hundredfold as an investor.
As for Governor Livius, I plan to hedge my bets at this time.
But betting always requires capital, and the more capital you invest, the higher the status and benefits you will receive in the future.
Livius father and son do not intend to help anyone fight, they just want to invest in the winner.
In other words, after Emperor Marius and Sheila Uzas finish fighting in Siyuan City, they will take their troops to rely on the winner.
Therefore, in order to make their own soldiers and horses appear more numerous - that is, to gain a higher status when they stick to the victor, the father and son once again went around to capture the people and build up an army.
Anyway, the purpose is to rely on the victor, to lead troops to surrender and gain status, not to fight, so combat effectiveness training level does not matter, as long as there are more people.
But if they are forced to do so through violence, the young people will definitely be disobedient. They might mutiny at some point. What should we do?
Livius naturally has the means...
To be precise, this method came from his son Lord Fabius.
He probably learned what Li Ang did when White Deer Fortress hooked up with those civilian husbands. This time he did not only recruit young men.
He moved his entire family, taking Qingzhuang's family members with him, and placed them in designated settlements, isolated from Qingzhuang.
In this way, with the hostages, these young and strong people can only obey obediently.
And Lord Fabius did it very thoroughly - the entire Fidne village, together with the surrounding areas, had a total population of about 8,000 people. Except for the elderly, they were all forcibly expropriated!
Yes, regardless of whether those people were civilians or slaves, they were forcibly recruited together with women and children.
This is indeed done quite well.
After all, whether they are civilians or slaves, they all belong to various noble lords. In this era, the people can be regarded as the property of the local lords-forcibly recruiting the entire population is undoubtedly robbery, and the people they rob are still under their own rule.
This will of course offend everyone in the area.
However, Lord Fabius, who had lost the support of the people, immediately encountered Snake Worship Cult's massive rebellion just after completing the forced conquest...
Because he is competing with Snake Worship Cult for population resources...
Now we are in trouble. The news about Siyuan City has not been transmitted yet. Livius and his son don't know who loses and who wins, so they can't stick to it and lick it...
But they forced nearly 8,000 people under their rule, offending everyone in the territory!
At the same time, many of these 8,000 people are people who have joined or plan to join Snake Worship Cult, and these people are working together to cause trouble.
Therefore, Livius, the father and son, felt very uneasy and could not sleep at night - they had to deal with the danger, otherwise they might be killed at any time.
So, they gradually killed nearly 3,000 people in batches within half a month - in fact, they were not sure whether those people were Snake Worship Cult disciples, but as long as they felt like them, they would kill them.
It is true that I would rather kill three thousand people by mistake than let one person go.
Of course, there are rare cases where Livius falls in love with someone else's wife...
But this approach did prevent Red Death from appearing in this village - the Snake Worship Cult disciples here were indeed killed in batches.
However, after the chaos of Snake Worship Cult was resolved, the father and son still felt very uneasy because they had not been able to see the situation of the war become clear.
And the remaining five thousand people in their hands have no real combat capabilities...
Forcibly recruiting these people means that no one can engage in production, and the daily food consumption is terrifying. Their food reserves are obviously not enough.
But neither Livius nor Lord Fabius dared to let go of these forcibly recruited 'troops'.
On the one hand, they need these manpower, which can give them a sense of security.
On the other hand, since these people had already formed conflicts with all the nobles and civilians when they were forced to recruit them, if they were released, they might form a team to kill themselves!
So the father and son simply broke the pot and broke the pot. Instead of releasing the conscripted people, they forced all the young men among them into slave soldiers, and sent out his trusted soldiers to conscript the surrounding food again!
In troubled times, everyone knows that food is life, and no one is willing to hand over food!
So there were some minor conflicts here and there.
And to be able to do such a thing as a forced conscription, one can only imagine the quality of the subordinates sent to collect food.
It definitely can't be some kind person who serves the public with a smile...
When there was a conflict during the food collection, the first reaction of Livius's subordinates was to suppress them!
This suppression turned into looting and massacre.
The corpses all over the ground were actually not caused by the looters, but by the lord Lord Fabius himself.
Every house was robbed and every household was slaughtered, just like locusts passing through the border, they were more bandits than bandits.
Only some local nobles or officials survived - such as this old tribune.
But there is no doubt that almost all the food in everyone's homes has been robbed...
That's why the tribune said the money was useless...
There are only a few elderly people left in the whole village. They have neither the ability to work nor enough food rations to live on, nor can they travel thousands of miles to other places. What's the use of taking money?
There is no food to buy around...
"Where are those people who were forcibly recruited now? Five thousand people... this is not a small number!"
The lord felt that Livius and his son had once again refreshed his three views and were definitely representatives of the unscrupulous nobles. However, he did not want to meddle in this matter now. After all, the Snake Worship Cult army was coming soon. Li Ang only hoped that the father and son would not ruin his affairs.
"In the mountains... that bastard father and son took them and hid in the mountains to the east. I don't know where they are."