Chapter 229 River Pirate Governor

Although Gar Doho was destroyed by the Valyrian people and no one rebuilt it, this does not mean that Gar Doho was completely abandoned. In fact, Gar Doho was extremely prosperous, at least compared to Essos. Most cities and towns on the mainland are prosperous, mainly because of their superior geographical location.

Gol Doho is right in the middle of the Free Trade City of Pentos and Norvos, and the Valyrian Road connecting the two places runs through it.

In addition, Ge Duohe is also located on the upper reaches of the Lorne River. Convenient waterways connect it to all the towns on the main stream and tributaries of the Lorne River. It was an extremely important trade hub during the Gujith Empire.

Before the rise of the Valyrian Freehold, Gor Dohor was already renowned for its beauty and prosperity, and was praised as the Pearl of the Rhoyne.

Because of this, even if the Valyrians destroyed Ge Doho, its role as a trade hub has not disappeared, but the ships using the Rhoyne River for transportation have all changed from regular merchant ships and cargo ships to smuggling ships.

The reason why Gol Dohe became a smuggling center was entirely due to the bad relationship between Volantis and other Free Trade Cities.

After the fall of the Valyrian Free Fortress, various colonies and city-states became independent one after another. Volantis regarded itself as the orthodox Free Fortress and sought to rebuild the Valyrian Empire. Just as it invaded the disputed land, it also sent troops , followed the Rhoyne, and attacked Norvos and Qohor.

As a result, Novos and Qohor defeated Volantis in the Battle of Dagger Lake, completely driving Volantis' forces out of the area north of Dagger Lake, and did not allow Volantis to Any vessel entering the upper reaches of the River Rhoyne north of Dagger Lake.

Although this prevented Volantis from invading the interior, it also had a very large impact on Norvos and Qohor, because most of the goods in Norvos and Qohor needed to be transported by water from the Rhoyne. Transportation, once the shipping on the Rhoyne River is cut off, the goods of Norvos and Qohor can only rely on the Valyrian Road for transportation. This will increase the cost and time exponentially, directly leading to the two major city-states within a period of time. The economic recession has reached the bottom.

In order to solve this problem, the two major city-states decided to find another way to use smuggling ships to transport goods. Coincidentally, Volantis also wanted to use smuggling ships to transport specialties from the two places, so the smuggling ships were in this state of acquiescence. It appeared on the River Lorne and gradually grew in size. Even after the hostile parties reconciled and ships from the three parties could communicate with each other, the smuggling ships still did not disappear because the interests involved were so huge that it was no longer something that any of the three major city-states' ruling forces could handle. .

Corresponding to the huge smuggling ship force is the river pirate force on the Lorne River. Most of them are entrenched in the waters of Dagger Lake. They are extremely powerful. The three major city-states have jointly encircled and suppressed them, but they have no effect. Even the three major city-states will It's on par with the pirates of the Stepstones.

In addition to Dagger Lake, river pirates will also occupy some abandoned or weak towns in the Lorne River Basin as strongholds, collecting fees from passing ships like lords.

As the most important transportation hub in the upper reaches of the Lorne River, G. Dohe naturally could not escape the encroachment of the river pirates. They built a water city on the riverside outside the ruins of G. Dohe. The owner of the city called himself the Governor. .

Originally, the purpose of river pirates was to collect tolls from ships coming and going, but later a certain governor of the floating city was very economically savvy and stopped collecting tolls, and transformed the city into a bazaar like a transfer station for smuggled goods. It has developed so far that it has become a distribution center for smuggled goods and stolen goods. 70% of the smuggled goods on the Rhoyne River are transported from here to Pentos, and then from Pentos to all parts of Westeros.

When Bachelor Xiufu's team arrived at Ge Duohe's floating fortress, they were not inspected by the people in the fortress like other caravans. Instead, they were taken to a manor and settled in a manor.

Everyone felt something was wrong, so Xiufu explained the situation. It turned out that the current governor of the Water City, Kvera, was actually his student. He was also one of the powerful people of Pentos in the past. However, the family political struggle failed and the entire family Destroyed by his political enemies, he was the only one to escape with the help of Xiu Fu. He then worked as a river pirate on the Lone River and gradually grew up, eventually capturing the floating fort here in Ge Dohe and becoming the new governor.

This is why Xiufu dared to take his students to Ge Duohe, a place full of bandits, smugglers and wanted criminals, for archeology. Because he was protected by the governor here, he didn't have to worry about danger at all.

"Lord Linde, please come with me. I have something I would like to ask your help for." When Linde received the commission and was about to leave, Bachelor Xiufu suddenly approached Linde and whispered.

Lin De was stunned when he heard this. He didn't expect that he would be recognized by Bachelor Xiufu, so he followed Bachelor Xiufu to the back garden of the manor.

"Bachelor Xiufu, how did you recognize me?" Linde couldn't help but asked curiously.

"I once had a friend who was a priest of the Many-Faced God. He revealed to me how to identify the disguise of the Faceless Man." Bachelor Xiufu said truthfully: "I originally thought you were a Faceless Man assassin who had sneaked into my team. But after these days of observation, I found that you are definitely not a faceless man. Then I remembered what happened in the city when I left Pentos," he then pointed to the sword of the Homeless Knight on Lind's waist and said : "Although your two knight's swords have been somewhat disguised, I can still tell that they are made of Valyrian steel. You are the only one in the world who has two swords made of Valyrian steel. The knight's sword, so I can basically confirm your identity."

Linde took off the mask on his face, looked at the disguised knight's sword around his waist, smiled to himself, and said, "I thought I was well disguised, but now it seems I must have made a fool of myself. ”

Bachelor Xiufu explained: "Leaving aside the flaw of the knight's great sword, in fact, your disguise is not much different from that of the faceless man. It's just that the faceless man has a very special temperament. This kind of Temperament is very subtle, and only people like me who are very sensitive to people's temperament can feel it, and you just lack this subtle temperament."

A look of surprise appeared on Linde's face. No wonder his disguise could never be hidden from the priests and faceless men of the Thousand-Faced God in the Court of Black and White. Obviously, these devout believers of the Thousand-Faced God should be able to tell them apart easily. Similar temperament.

This also alerted Linde to be more careful when using the faceless men's disguise methods in the future.

Lind put aside the disguise of the faceless man and asked the monk: "What do you need my help with? I have to tell you, I can't stay here for too long. If you let me If I help you dig out ancient ruins, you may be disappointed.”

"Of course, I know you are in a hurry to go to Qohor. My matter will not delay you for too long. It can be solved tonight." Seeing Linde's agreement, Bachelor Xiufu looked happy and said, "Please, please Follow me first to meet a person, that person is the river pirate governor of this city, Kwela."

Linde thought about it for a moment and nodded in agreement.

Then the bachelor monk asked Lind to disguise himself as an ordinary mercenary again, and then led him out of the manor, along the woods next to the manor, to another manor next to the city wall.

After passing strict inspection by the guards around the manor, the two came to the living room of the big house in the manor.

At this moment, Linde already felt that something was wrong with the atmosphere in the manor, because there was not a single servant in the manor, only a lot of mercenaries, and the Unsullied. Everyone looked like they were facing a formidable enemy. The living room has been inspected three times, and the utmost care has been taken.

"It seems that your student is in a lot of trouble." Linde walked to Bachelor Xiufu and said softly.

Xiu Fu smiled bitterly and said he would explain it to Linde later.

After a while, there was a sound of footsteps, and then a middle-aged man in rich clothes, who looked more like a powerful man from Pentos than a river pirate leader, came out.

It’s hard to tell what the middle-aged man looked like in the past, because now he looks very haggard, his hair is all white, and his black eyes indicate that he must not have had a good rest recently. When he walked in, he was still blocked by the obstacle at the door. He stumbled over something, staggered and almost fell. He looked very weak.

"Teacher, has something happened to Lina and the others?" The middle-aged man asked with great concern after seeing Xiu Fu.

Xiu Fu quickly explained: "It's okay, they are all okay. They are all in my friend's manor and are under strict protection. They will be fine."

The middle-aged man breathed a sigh of relief and then asked: "Teacher, are you coming to me now because you have encountered any difficulties in excavating the ancient ruins? I can still dispatch some people to help you."

"No, it's not my problem." Xiu Fu shook his head and said, "I'm here to solve your problem."

As he spoke, he looked at the other people in the room, and then gestured to Xiu Fu.

The middle-aged man shook his head and said, "Teacher, don't worry, they are all my confidants. Anything that happens here or anything said, they will not spread."

Seeing the middle-aged man say this, Xiufu turned to look at Linde again. After seeing Linde nodded indifferently, he continued: "Let me introduce to you, Mr. Linde, this is my student. Kwila Jarad, the son of the former Prince Mosaic, and now the Tattered Prince of the Fengchuan Group, is his cousin." After introducing the middle-aged man, he introduced Lin De: "This is the lord of Midsummer Hall, Shi. The King of the Tier Islands and the Narrow Sea, the Chosen One of the Seven Gods and the Incarnation of the Storm God, Lord Lynd Terra.”

Hearing the maester recite a series of her titles, it feels like watching Missandei recite Daenerys's titles to Snow, who doesn't know anything, on Dragonstone.

However, compared to Linde's calmness, Kwela and his close men were all in a state of shock. Even if they went deep into the inland area, they had still heard of Linde's reputation, various and The story about Linde has become an enduring song in the tavern. Even the Yi people know that Linde may be the person closest to God in the world, not only because of his title of God's Chosen One, but also because of his Strength.

Kwila soon recovered from the shock. Although he didn't understand why Linde appeared here, he also realized that Linde being brought here by his teacher was definitely a good opportunity to solve the current crisis by himself.

So, he saluted Lin De very excitedly and said, "Nice to meet you, Lord Chosen One."

"General etiquette is not necessary, let's be more direct!" Linde said very straightforwardly: "You are obviously in big trouble now, and your teacher pulled me over because he wanted me to help solve your trouble. , now you tell me what kind of trouble you have encountered, and I will see if I can help you solve it."

After hearing Linde's words, Kwela hesitated for a moment, then sorted out his words and told him about the trouble he encountered.

It turns out that the thing is very simple. The second son of the Novostashi family, Quinan Tashi, saw the huge benefits contained in Ge Dohe, a distribution center for smuggled goods and stolen goods, and wanted to occupy it, but it was not good. Using the people of Novos, after all, this place is very close to Pentos. Letting Novos station troops here will more or less cause a reaction from Pantos. When the time comes, a conflict will occur between the two city-states, and things will be bad. .

Therefore, the dignitaries of Novos contacted the great river bandit White Skull Udawu of Dagger Lake to attack the people of Kvira from the water. They also invited a group of Dothraki who had been entrenched in this area for a long time to attack the people on the water from the road. Walled city, and thereby completely destroy the walled city on the water. When the time comes, he can find someone to disguise himself as a river pirate, rebuild on the ruins, and take control of this territory.

However, the plan was very good, but there were some minor mistakes in its execution. That is, when White Skull Udawu was heading north, he was blocked by a hostile colleague and failed to reach Ge Doho in time, while the Dothraki were in Without the cooperation of the river pirates, they simply attacked the water city and then withdrew.

Realizing that something was wrong, the powerful man came up with another idea, which was to hire the Faceless Men to assassinate Kvira.

The Faceless Man took action and succeeded, but he killed the wrong person. He killed a stand-in that Kwela had found. He himself had actually led his own river boat to go south to kill the White Skeleton Udawu, and After he learned that his substitute had been assassinated, he worried about his family, which led to command errors and nearly half of his men were buried at the bottom of the river.

When Kwila came back and learned about the situation, he guessed that the Faceless Men would take action again. Therefore, in order to prevent his wife and children from being in danger, he sent his wife and children to the monk monk in Pentos first. He stayed to deal with the faceless men's assassination, and at the same time prepared manpower to resist the white skull Udawu who had arrived in the waters near the city wall.

After hearing this, Lind said in a deep voice: "The Faceless Man is not just a killer, he is also a priest. He kills people to offer sacrifices to God, because God has designated his sacrifice. However, he was hired to kill you. The Faceless Man killed the wrong person, which means he made the wrong sacrifice. He needs to repay a qualified sacrifice to the God of Many Faces, which is usually a person with the same identity as you. If you encounter The extremely devout fanatic believers of the Thousand Faced God would even use themselves as sacrifices.”

"You mean, I won't be assassinated by the Faceless Men again?" Kwela said excitedly.

Lind shook his head and said: "No, you will still encounter assassination, because there will be a new, more capable Faceless Man who will continue to take over the mission of the previous Faceless Man until the mission is completed. If If you are lucky enough to escape three assassinations by the Faceless Ones, then you will be regarded as being protected by the Thousand-Faced God, and will no longer be a sacrifice to the Thousand-Faced God, and will never be assassinated by the Faceless Ones.”

Hearing Linde's words, Kwela's face turned extremely pale. Just one assassination had already made him so frightened, and now there were two more. He didn't think he had the ability to survive these two assassinations by the Faceless Men.

"I can help you deal with the river bandit named Udawu, I can also save your life from the faceless men, and I can also help you completely solve your troubles, but I have a condition." Linde said solemnly. road.

"What conditions?" Kwela asked hurriedly.

Linde demanded: "I want you and your people, as well as the entire water city of Ge Duohe."