Chapter 346 Tywin’s Compromise

In Riverrun, when the North and the Riverlands were in conflict, Tywin of the Kneeling Stack was also caught in a difficult decision. What he was considering now was not whether to retreat, but how to retreat.

When the water flooded the plains in the center of the Riverlands, Tywin had already given up the idea of ​​continuing the confrontation in Riverrun and began to look for a suitable retreat. But now he seemed to have very few options, either to wait for the river to recede. , go to Harrenhal, or take the bank of the Red Fork River, detour from the Pink City, and walk along the edge of the Riverlands, or simply go to the Noble Heart, go directly upstream of the Blackwater River, and make a raft to go down the river. King's Landing.

No matter which route he takes, he cannot avoid a hurdle, and that is the armies in the Riverlands and the North in Riverrun. If the armies in Riverrun pursue him during his retreat, he may be in danger of a major rout.

Just when Tywin was having a headache about how to choose, and those under him could not provide any good advice, a letter sent by a messenger just solved his problem.

"This Robb Stark is as stubborn, rigid and stupid as his father. He actually ruined his future for a woman." After Tywin read the entire letter, a contemptuous smile appeared on his face. , then looked at the messenger and said: "Tell that old guy that I agree to his conditions. Once it is done, the Frey family will be the masters of Riverrun and the guardians of the Riverlands."

"Your Majesty, my great-grandfather needs a more reliable promise." The messenger raised his head and looked at Tywin. This messenger was none other than Black Walder, who had not long ago accompanied Robb Stark to attack the West.

Tywin was silent for a moment, then took off a ring with the family crest from his hand and threw it to Black Walder, saying: "Lannister, you must pay your debts, take good care of this family ring of mine. After I fulfill my promise, I will return it as is."

Black Wald took the ring, then carefully took out a small box from his pocket, poured out all the jewelry inside, then tore off a piece of cloth from his clothes to wrap the ring, put it in the box, and received it in the lined pocket. middle.

Seeing Black Walder protecting the ring so carefully, Tywin nodded with satisfaction, indicating that he could leave.

After Black Walder left, Tywin summoned the army generals and ordered them to prepare to evacuate. In the end, he chose the route to the Pink City. The Riverlands on that route had been devastated by the Mountain's army. The room was empty, and the lord was dying and running away. He didn't have much resistance at all. He only needed to be careful of the pursuit from Riverrun.

However, based on the information Black Wald revealed just now, there is now a rift between the northern border of Riverrun and the Riverlands, making it difficult to send a powerful army to pursue him.

However, Tywin calculated everything wrongly about the weather.

When he just set out to retreat, heavy rain began to fall throughout the riverlands. A large amount of rainwater gathered into the Trident River, causing the river water to surge and a large amount of river water to pour down. Coupled with the rainwater from the heavy rain, the river was originally The flooded area changed from swamp to lake.

A large amount of floods spread in all directions, even Harrenhal was flooded, and the Pink City area on the Red Fork River was naturally also flooded. Duke Tywin and the Western Army led by him were completely blocked. On the way to retreat.

"Sir, we have searched for all the wood, and we can only build twenty rafts at most. We want the entire army to cross this water..." A knight in charge of supervising the construction of rafts reported the news just received to Tywin listened.

"No need! There is no need to build a raft." Tywin's face was extremely gloomy. He was sitting in the tent, listening to the sound of the heavy rain hitting the tent outside. Everyone else around him stood there quietly, with their heads lowered, not daring to look too much. Tywin glanced.

Tywin was not incompetent and furious. He calmly waved his hand and motioned for everyone to get down. He turned around and took out a letter from the box beside him.

The letter was sent by Littlefinger and had been delivered for several days. The content inside was the conditions offered by the Tyrell family. When he saw the letter, he never considered agreeing to these two conditions.

Not to mention asking Cersei to abdicate and enter the Temple of Redemption to become a nun, just asking Joffrey to marry a noblewoman from the Tyrell family is already the biggest insult to the Lannister family. Obviously, this is This is the Tyrell family's revenge for Cersei's act of breaking up the engagement without authorization.

At this time and at that time, he had other choices to make, but now that he had few choices, it was time to seriously consider it.

Judging from the current situation, he can no longer rescue King's Landing. Although Kevan has tens of thousands of troops, his troops are all new recruits. The real elites are now here in the Riverlands. Those troops will win the battle. Fortunately, once the battle is defeated, or even encounters a slightly stronger army, its true colors will be revealed and the army will be defeated.

Therefore, even if Kevan leads an army to rescue King's Landing, he may end in failure. The only army that can resist Stannis now is the army from the Reach.

Duke Tywin thought quietly in the tent for a long time, finally picked up the paper and pen, quickly wrote a series of words on it, and then copied it into a dozen copies himself, stamped it with his family seal, and then ordered someone to use it immediately The Messenger Raven delivers these letters to the major lords of the Seven Kingdoms, the major Cathedrals of the Seven, and the Citadel of Oldtown.

This letter is the announcement commitment requested by Garland. Issuing the announcement in this way means that Duke Tywin will never change his promise. If he goes back on his word, the credibility of the Lannister family will be reduced. Hit the bottom.

And more importantly, in all the letters, it is clearly written that the Lord of Summer Hall, the Stone Step Islands, and the Prince of the Narrow Sea, Linde, will serve as witnesses. Now all that is needed is that Linde admits to bear witness to the promises in this letter. Then if Duke Tywin is sworn, he, as a witness, has the right to attack Casterly Rock City, and even the local lords of the West cannot stop it.

Tywin's letter was delivered to Summer Hall and delivered to Lynde the next day.

When he saw this letter, Linde was also a little surprised, because this letter can be said to have embarrassed Duke Tywin, but Duke Tywin was able to endure such humiliation and agree to such harsh conditions. Not only did he not Making Linde look down on Lord Tywin made Linde admire Lord Tywin even more.

"My lord, do you agree to be a witness?" Sansa asked worriedly.

Now Sansa is not a naive noble lady. She has already gained a lot of horizons through reviewing a large number of documents. This also made her realize immediately after seeing this letter that once Lind agreed to become a witness People, then the West and the Reach have reached an alliance agreement, which is definitely not a good thing for the North.

"Yes." Lind gave an answer that disappointed Sansa.

Sansa wanted to say something, but was stopped by Margaery at the side.

Although Margaery and Linde have only been together for a short time, she already has an understanding of Linde's character. As long as the decision has been made, it is impossible for Linde to change it unless there is a very good reason. , and Sansa apparently has no reason to prevent Lynd from becoming a witness to the covenant promise.

Lynd looked at Sansa and asked, "Are you worried about the safety of your brother Robb Stark?"

Sansa nodded.

Lind pulled out a piece of information from his side and handed it to Sansa, asking: "Tell me, what did you see from this information."

Sansa and Margaery were both stunned. The information around Lind was not sent from the Crow's Nest, but from the Eagle's Nest in the castle. This meant that this information was very important, and the two of them also Haven't seen any.

When Sansa was still hesitant, Margaery reached out to take the information and read it first, and Sansa couldn't wait to get closer.

This information mainly contains three things, and the three things are written in chronological order.

The first thing was that Ramsay Snow, the bastard son of Roose Bolton, led the people of the Dreadfort to attack Winterfell in an attempt to take Winterfell back from the Ironborn. As a result, they were ambushed. Not only the people of the Dreadfort The army was completely wiped out, and even Ramsay Snow was captured by Theon Greyjoy, and Theon forced Ramsay Snow to trick him into opening the gate of the Dreadfort, and led the Ironborn to wash away the terror. With the exception of White Harbor, no one in the entire North can resist Theon and his Ironborn.

The second thing is what happened in Riverrun City. Rickard Karstark massacred the prisoners without authorization and also killed his allies in the process. He was executed by Robb Stark. The Karstark family's army did not Be loyal to Robb again and return to the North with Rickard's body.

The Karstark family's army has always been the main force in the Northern Alliance. Rickard and his son were also extremely loyal to Robb. But now they have found themselves in such a miserable situation. Many people in the Northern Alliance have begun to feel disgusted with Robb. , even the people in the Riverlands think Robb is a mean and unkind person.

As for the third thing, when Caitlin and Brienne were crossing the river to the Twins, they didn't know that Robb had broken his oath and had fallen out with the Frey family.

So as soon as they arrived at the Twins, they were detained by old Walder Frey.

Afterwards, Old Walder sent his great-grandson Black Walder as an envoy to see Robb and propose a new alliance. The condition of the alliance was that Edmure should marry a daughter of the Frey family, and the child must be The future heir to the dukedom of Riverrun.

The information was quickly read. Margaery handed the information to Sansa, who had not yet read it completely. Then, as usual, she analyzed it carefully: "Originally, I thought Robb Stark had done something. The worst thing he did was breaking his vows to the Freys and marrying another woman. Now it seems that the worst thing he did was to take a back seat, and executing Rickard Karstark was the worst thing he did. . Is he a fool? He actually killed his most loyal lord at the critical moment of the war and split the army. What did the other lords in the North think? Who would serve such a lord in the past? It seems that those victories that Ke achieved were just good luck. He did not understand the most important thing as a commander who commanded the army in battle. "

Linde smiled, looked at Margaery and asked, "Oh! Tell me what is the most important thing about being a commander?"

"Victory, leading the army to victory is the most important thing for a commander. Everything must be decided around victory. Even if you give up all principles and make some mistakes, it is worth it to win in the end." Margaery He said with a serious look: "Just like how to deal with this Lord Rickard, although killing prisoners is bad, for now, the war with the Western Region is the most important. If I were him, I would take this matter Suppress and punish Lord Rickard appropriately, hand over the most dangerous battle to Rickard, and tell him that this is an opportunity to atone for his sins, so that he can continue to fight hard for himself. If you die in battle, you will naturally get the punishment you deserve. If you don't die, then the merits and demerits will naturally be offset."

Sansa heard Margaery's words from the side and nodded in agreement. She also felt that her brother Robb Stark was too stupid and rigid in doing things after seeing the information. This kind of stupidity and The rigidity also reminded her of her father, and suddenly made her feel extremely uneasy.

This strong uneasiness made Sansa couldn't help but ask Lynd: "Your Majesty, is my brother Robb dying?"

Sansa's question not only puzzled Margaery, but also surprised Lynd. He never thought that Sansa would guess the outcome that Robb would face based on this information alone.

"Why do you think so?" Linde couldn't help but ask.

Sansa looked at Lind and said: "You have told me more than once that everyone will make mistakes. Some mistakes are small and will not cause harm to themselves, but some mistakes are big mistakes that will cause harm to them." My father, Lord Eddard, made a series of mistakes that ended in his being beheaded in public, and my brother Robb made mistakes too, mistakes that were fatal, and I felt them. It's devouring him. Will he end up like my father?"

Margaery looked at Sansa with some surprise, feeling that Sansa was different at this moment.

Linde was also surprised by Sansa's performance. He did not answer Sansa's question, but just sighed slightly.

At this moment, Sansa had already seen something from Lind's expression, and there was a sad look on her face, but she did not make a request for Lind to save Robb, because she knew very well that Lind would not agree.

Lind suddenly said loudly: "I will issue an announcement to the Seven Kingdoms and promise to be a witness to Duke Tywin's promise to Duke Metz. I need to send the announcement in the form of letters to the major lords of other kingdoms and the Seven Kingdoms. The Holy Cathedral and Oldtown Citadel, the letters from the Reach, Dorne, the West and the Stormlands will be handled by Margaery, and the letters from the Kingdom, the Riverlands, the Vale and the North will be handled by Sansa. Remember not to have any. Missing, especially the big cities like Highgarden, Sunspear, Eagle's Nest, and Riverrun, do you understand?"

Sansa was still immersed in sadness and did not understand what Lind meant.

On the contrary, Margaery next to her reached out and pulled Sansa's clothes hard and said: "You idiot, don't you understand? Riverrun, I want you to deliver a message to Riverrun."

Sansa was stunned, and immediately realized something, and quickly thanked Lind.

Linde just waved his hand casually and asked them to send all the letters as soon as possible.