Chapter 118 The end of counterinsurgency

King Robert and others who saw Linde's battle report felt that Linde's situation must be very bad when he was trapped in the Fairy City, but the actual situation was that Linde was very relaxed. It was not so much that he was trapped on the island. Said he was on vacation on the island.

After learning about Linde's news, the Iron Islands responded decisively and sent the Iron Fleet to Fairy Island. When the Iron Fleet appeared, Linde promptly towed all the longships docked at the dock to the shore. , leaving the Iron Fleet unable to destroy these longships.

Although the Iron Fleet also sent more than a thousand ironmen to land on the island when they besieged Fairy Island, hoping to completely destroy the longship in Linde's hands and completely trap Linde to death on Fairy Island.

But the result was that all the more than a thousand people were wiped out by Linde, who was well prepared, and not one of them escaped.

The current situation is not so much that the Iron Fleet trapped Lind on the island, but that Lind dragged the Iron Fleet into the Fairy Island Strait.

Because if the Iron Fleet leaves, they are worried that Lind will use those long ships to directly attack the Iron Islands. Even if he does not attack the Iron Islands, Lind will use the long ships to return to the West and rob those they stored in Fairy City. All the property obtained was taken away.

To be honest, when Linde solved the ironmen in Fairy City and inspected the interior of Fairy City, he was also surprised by the treasure trove he found.

He never thought that all the property obtained from the Iron Islands' looting of the Western Territory during this period would not be sent back to Pyke Island, but would instead be concentrated in the Fairy City.

Linde has not yet been able to calculate how many golden dragons this batch of property is worth, but according to Jon's statistics, there are hundreds of thousands of golden dragons accumulated in the warehouse alone, not counting other gold and silver jewelry, precious utensils, etc. Wait, if you do a rough calculation, there should be millions of golden dragons.

It's no wonder that after the Iron Islands learned that he had regained Fairy Island, they immediately sent an iron fleet to besiege Fairy Island, obviously worried that Lind would transport their loot away.

Naturally, Linde would not refuse the wealth that came to his door. He immediately sent someone to Lannisport overnight and notified the Glory docked at Lannisport.

Let the captain of the Glory wait for the result of the naval battle in the Fairy Island Strait. Once the Royal Fleet of the Iron Throne wins, he will immediately drive the Glory to Fairy City and transport the treasures snatched by the ironmen back to Tengshi Town.

Before setting off from Tengshi Town, Linde had notified Rhys Farwell, who was conducting business activities in Old Town, and asked him to send someone to sail the Glory to follow the Old Town and Arbor Island fleets and sail to Lannis Hong Kong, waiting for his next instructions.

Originally this was just a pre-arrangement that he had prepared for any eventuality, but now this arrangement happened to work, and even more fortunately, not long after the people he sent left, the waters of Fairy Island were blocked by the Iron Fleet.

Fairy Island Castle is located on a protruding promontory. Standing on the balcony of the Castle Lord's study, you can have a panoramic view of the Fairy Island Strait.

However, what Linde saw now was not the beautiful scenery, but hundreds of Ironborn longships and warships covering the entire sea, which looked extremely shocking.

Among these ships, there are several ships that are much larger than others. All of these ships use black sails with patterns of sea monsters painted on the sails. There is no doubt that these are the Greyjoy family. battleships, and the largest one has a sea monster prow and a guillotine-like battering ram. This should be the flagship of the Iron Fleet, Victarion's Invincible Iron Type.

At this moment, Linde was not wearing armor, but was wearing a casual robe, with some food that had just been served beside him. He was eating leisurely while looking at the iron fleet docked on the sea.

Nymeria walked up to Lind with a glass of water, handed it to him, and asked, "Are you just going to stay like this and do nothing?"

Linde took the water and took a sip, swallowed the food in his mouth, and said: "We have done enough. If we continue to do it, we will be hostile to everyone participating in this counter-insurgency war."

As Linde said, while the lords and nobles in the counter-rebellion army are all waiting to make achievements, he has already recaptured five castles and annihilated 20,000 rebels. Such achievements are enough for many people Jealous.

If he annihilates the Iron Fleet again, or captures Pyke Island, then not to mention the lords and nobles, even King Robert will probably be very unhappy and even have some scruples about him.

For Linde, it is not difficult to repel the Iron Fleet. He secretly sneaked into several ships that were obviously the leaders of the fleet at night and carried out beheading operations, leaving the fleet leaderless, and the Iron Fleet would naturally retreat.

Or, use the looted treasures in the castle to attract the people of the Iron Fleet to the shore to solve the problem.

In fact, when retaking the Fortress, Nymeria had already suggested attacking Pyke Island directly, because the ironmen on Pyke Island didn't know the situation on the Fortress yet. They could disguise themselves as ironmen at night and attack Pyke Island. Landed on the island and directly captured Pike Island.

Although Linde was a little tempted at the time, he ultimately did not follow this advice.

At this time, Jon knocked on the door of the study, walked in, and said: "Sir, there is news from Lord Paxter. He and Lord Stannis have led the royal fleet to the waters near Keche Town. It is expected that We will be able to reach Fairy Island Strait late tonight.”

"Is there anything mentioned above about what we need to do?" Linde asked.

"Just let us take care of the lighthouse." Jon shook his head.

Lind smiled, looked at Nymeria, and said, "Look! They are already afraid that we will steal the credit."

"Hmph!" Nymeria snorted disdainfully. She didn't like Stannis very much in the courtyard of the Red Keep in King's Landing.

Lind turned to look at Jon and said: "Although they don't want us to do anything, we can't do nothing. Let people prepare the longships. If the war goes unfavorable, then we will provide support. If the war goes well, we will salvage the prisoners of war."

"Yes, my lord." Jon responded, turned around and walked out.

In fact, Lind's preparations were completely ineffective. Duke Stannis and Earl Paxter's naval combat capabilities were very strong, far beyond what the Greyjoy family's iron fleet could compare to.

The royal fleet did arrive at the entrance of the Fairy Island Strait late that night, but they did not enter the strait. Instead, they stayed at the entrance all night. It seemed that they were worried that the darkness would not be conducive to a naval battle late at night. Damage to friendly forces during combat.

In fact, the royal fleet has been divided into two groups. Earl Paxter has led the Qingting Island fleet in the waters near Keqie Town from the outer sea of ​​Fairy Island, bypassed Fairy Island, and arrived at the northern end of the Fairy Island Strait. .

At this time, Stannis led the fleet, mainly the Oldtown fleet, to set up a formation at the southern entrance to attract the attention of the Iron Fleet.

As a result, it was very successful. The entire iron fleet's attention was attracted to Stannis, and it moved from the sea near the Fairy City to the entrance of the southern strait to confront Stannis' fleet on the sea.

When the sea fog happened to rise on the sea in the early morning of the next day, the iron fleet could not see the Qingting Island fleet led by Earl Paxter attacking from the north. It was caught off guard for a while, and the south Stannis also seized the opportunity to attack from the north and the south.

When the thick fog on the sea cleared, the Iron Islands fleet had been completely disabled. Two of the black sailing ships belonging to the Greyjoy family were sunk. As for the other longships, less than 20% fled the battlefield. , it is no exaggeration to say that after this battle, the Iron Islands have no chance of coming back.

Although, Lind had already led Nymeria and the others to the south of Fairy Island, near the sea area where the two sides fought, and wanted to see this sea battle, which was extremely rare in the history of the entire Westeros continent. , thousands of large and small ships are fighting in this sea area, which will also be of great benefit to Linde in building his own fleet in the future.

However, the thick fog spreading over the sea completely shattered Linde's expectations. Until the end of the naval battle, all he could see was a thick fog.

And this also brought him a question, that is, in such a dense fog, how the two fleets communicated and exchanged internally, and how could they avoid inadvertently injuring friendly forces.

This question was later answered by the Ironborn prisoners of war. It turned out that they used different horn sounds to distinguish between ourselves and the enemy and to transmit messages, which felt a bit like Morse code.

After the naval battle, the royal fleet did not stop at Fairy Island, nor did it say hello to Linde. It seemed that it completely ignored that there was a friendly force in Fairy City, and led the remaining fleet towards the northern sea. It felt like To attack the Iron Islands directly.

Linde's previous preparations came in handy at this time. The royal fleet left in such a hurry that there was no time to clean the battlefield. The longship prepared by Linde just acted as the battlefield cleaner.

I saw hundreds of longships swimming back and forth in this sea area, not only searching for allied soldiers who fell into the water, but also searching for Ironborn prisoners of war who were not dead. However, Linde was more concerned about those who had died floating on the sea. Damaged but not sunk ship.

Although these ships are unable to sail due to damaged sails and other reasons, the hulls are still well preserved, especially the keels and most of the hulls of several large ships are intact, with only a few holes in the hulls.

Therefore, Lind used ropes to hook these damaged ships to the shore, and then asked his surrendered ironmen and ironmen prisoners of war rescued from the sea to repair these ships. He did not need to repair them in good condition, but only wanted to keep them in good condition. As long as it can sail normally on the sea and won't sink.

As a result, after some repairs, Lin De got four large ships, a dozen armed merchant ships, and hundreds of longships, plus the ironfolk chiefs he obtained from Seaside City, Fortress, Cliff City, and Fairy City. Ships, the number of his ships suddenly expanded to more than 200 ships, which was considered a large fleet, even if most of them still need to undergo major repairs before they can sail normally.

With such a large amount of resources in Lind's hands, Lind would naturally not let it go. When Rhys Farwell drove the Glory to Fairy City to transport treasures, Lind also asked Rhys to bring those large ships, armed merchant ships and More than a hundred relatively intact longships were taken away together, leaving only more than seventy damaged longships that could transport people to the other side of Fairy Island.

In addition, Lind also asked Nymeria to lead the army of Tengshi Town, his guards, the first and second cavalry, and most of the surrendered ironmen who were not from the Iron Islands to leave with the ship, responsible for bringing the treasure back to Tengshi. Stone Town.

Nymeria has no objection to this. After all, this batch of treasures is too important, and no matter how careful it is, it cannot be protected too much.

Although there are only three cavalry teams and some loyal ironmen left around Lind, Nymeria is not worried about Lind's safety.

After Nymeria and the others left, Lind stayed in Fairy City for almost half a month. Then he saw the Iron Throne's fleet slowly approaching from the north. Not only did the number of ships in the fleet not decrease, but there were more. .

When the fleet passed the sea in front of Fairy City, a dozen larger Iron Islands long paddle boats separated from the fleet and drove to the dock of Fairy City. Then an acquaintance of Lind jumped off the ship.

"Master Joel, long time no see." Linde saw the visitor, smiled on his face, and took the initiative to greet him.

I saw that the person who came was none other than Joel Fohua, who brought Linde out of Bai Village. Compared with more than a year ago, Joel Fohua has not changed much now, except for a few more lines on his face. Some of the wounds are new and some are old.

Joel looked at Lind, who was dressed in exquisite armor, and couldn't help but sigh: "You are really amazing. When I heard the name Lind, the Chosen One, I thought it was a person with the same name, but I didn't expect it to actually be someone with the same name. Who could have imagined that the Orion boy from Bai Village more than a year ago would become such a legendary figure?"

Linde smiled and said, "You are very grateful. In front of you, I am still the same Linde from Bai Village."

Joel smiled and reached out to pat Linde on the shoulder like before, but realized that it was no longer appropriate to do so, so he took it back.

Then, he stepped aside and introduced the people following him to Lind, saying: "This Lord Colind Lannister, he is here to take over the Fairy City."

Linde looked at the old-looking young knight in front of him and asked, "I remember Fairy Island seems to be the territory of the Farman family. There is still a Miss Janey Farman alive. She should be the one to take over Fairy Island." Bar?"

The young knight took a step forward and took the initiative to explain: "Miss Jeyne Farman has married me in the presence of King Robert. It's just because the war has just ended and there are still Ironborn pirates roaming on the sea, so it's not safe. , so let me come here to take over Fairy Island for Miss Jenny. When everything calms down, Miss Jenny will return to the castle to inherit the territory of the Farman family. "

After listening to the young knight's explanation, Lind understood that the Lannister family was using this marriage to annex the territory of Fairy Island, and there was no need to care about Jenny's intentions.

Lind just smiled at this, reached out and patted the young knight on the shoulder, and then led the young knight to hand over various items in the castle.

The whole process went smoothly. The young knight didn't seem to know that this was once the general warehouse for Ironmen's looted property, and he didn't care much about the valuable things here before. After a simple inspection, he and Linde completed the handover ceremony.

After that, he led the Lannister soldiers who got off the ship and stationed in the city, while Lind led his people on the ship and went to Lannisport to attend the celebration banquet that King Robert was about to hold.