Chapter 66 Discovery of Silver Mine

"How many casualties are there?" Lind looked at Nymeria, who was not far away and had not yet recovered from the excitement of the battle, taking off her armor with the assistance of several female attendants.

Scar Eye, who set out with Nymeria to suppress the bandits, immediately stepped forward and replied: "Seventeen were killed and thirteen were injured. Three of them were seriously injured. Even after they healed, it would be impossible to fight again. ." He paused and added: "The casualties are all the guards of Tengshi Town, and our people are not injured."

Linde turned to look at Scar Eyes and said in a deep voice: "Don't say such words again in the future. The guards of Tengshi Town are also our people, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Scar Eye nodded.

As Tengshi Town becomes more and more prosperous, bandits from surrounding areas are also coming closer. Although Bailu Wenda's people can stop some bandits, they are only for small groups of bandits. Once the number reaches one or two hundred, Bailu Wenda will It is difficult to completely stop these bandits.

Therefore, Linde and Nymeria also need to cooperate with White Deer Wenda from time to time to eliminate the bandits who try to approach Tengshi Avenue.

At first, Lind would lead the team himself, because those bandits were too easy to deal with, and it felt like killing a chicken with a sledgehammer, so later he gave full power to the bellicose Nymeria, and he only sent out the second cavalry. Teamwork.

For example, the bandit group that is being wiped out this time is a group of bandits that came from the Stormland. There are nearly three hundred people in number. Many of them came from the Mander River to the Stormland before. , and this time he became the leader and ran back.

This bandit suppression was also Nymeria's third bandit suppression operation after the army expansion. The final result was not particularly satisfactory. The death toll reached double digits. This was obviously a sequelae caused by the large-scale army expansion.

It has been a month since he signed the exclusive purchaser's agreement with Rhys Falwell. Due to the sufficient supply of equipment, Lind's cavalry and Nymeria's guards have also expanded accordingly. .

However, because Linde emphasized elite soldiers and strong generals, and the war horses had not been delivered yet, there were not many people to expand, less than a hundred people, and most of them were free riders and mercenaries who came after hearing the news.

These people were all incorporated into Scar Eye's Second Cavalry, allowing them to temporarily serve as rangers, responsible for patrolling Tengshi Avenue.

This should be the last time that Linde hires so many freeriders and mercenaries. Although these people have very good skills and can immediately form combat effectiveness, they are used to being free and have a loose personality. They can no longer adapt to the strict discipline of a real army, so Linde would organize them into the 2nd Cavalry, which was mainly composed of mercenaries, rather than into the Guards.

Compared to Lind, who only increased his number by less than a hundred people, Nymeria expanded the number of garrison guards to as high as three hundred people this time, and all of these people are not residents of Tengshi Town, but refugees from the Riverlands. .

It is not a secret that Duke Tywin's army has withdrawn from the area west of the Mander River. In fact, before the withdrawal, Duke Tywin took the initiative to publicize that the bandit suppression plan against the Golden Road has been successfully concluded. Withdrawal of the army, Disbanding the army became a matter of course.

However, while Duke Tywin withdrew his army, he also ransacked all of Nymeria's nominal territory west of the Mander River, taking away everything that could be taken away and destroying everything that could be destroyed. Even the wheat that was about to mature was burned. As for the people in those villages, not a single one was left and they were all robbed to the Western Region. It can be said that the land was completely emptied.

However, many times people's desires cannot be stopped by orders from afar. Duke Tywin's plunder order was aimed at Nymeria's nominal territory, but the army sent to perform this task was in After completing the mission, he became obsessed with robbery and directly disguised himself as a bandit and began to rob the surrounding area.

What's more, two mad dogs under Duke Tywin, Amory Lodge and Gregor Clegane, crossed the Blackwater River directly and ran to the riverlands to rob. When Duke Tywin received the news, he sent When the army captured the two men and brought them back to Casterly Rock, the villages in the Riverlands near the Blackwater River had been devastated. A large number of refugees poured directly into King's Landing.

Although King Robert sent an envoy to order Duke Tywin to go to King's Landing to explain the matter, he was blocked by Duke Tywin with the excuse of recurrence of old injuries. At the same time, Duke Tywin also sent hundreds of heads and announced to the public. These people who were executed were the rebels who robbed the Riverlands this time.

In fact, anyone with a discerning eye knows very well that these more than 100 people are just more than 100 prisoners used as scapegoats, but this scapegoat is a good step up, and Duke Tywin is also willing to compensate the losses of those lords.

As for the lords, although they seemed to have suffered heavy losses, they actually made huge profits from it, because they could use the land-keeping law to determine that the fleeing refugees would automatically abandon their existing land, and all the reclaimed land was taken over by them. Take back.

It seems that Nymeria's method of reclaiming the territory west of the Mander River is similar to this method, but in fact the two are essentially different. One is an uncontrolled free citizen, and the other is a territorial citizen who should be protected by an oath.

In the end, this farce ended with Duke Tywin losing money, the lords of the Riverlands increasing their private farmland, and the refugees having nowhere to appeal.

In this process, there was another episode. Lind asked Nymeria to send a letter of complaint to the Iron Throne as the Earl of Tumblestone, and together with the lords of the Riverlands, she accused Duke Tywin of plundering the territory. , as a result, Duke Tywin also compensated her, and most of her subsequent military expansion expenses came from this compensation.

Compared with other territories that are extremely repulsive to refugees, Tengshi Town, which is regaining control of the territory, welcomes these refugees.

Under Linde's conscious guidance, most of the refugees gathered in King's Landing came to Tengshi Town and became the residents of Tengshi Town.

For this reason, Prime Minister Jon Arryn even gave Nymeria a commendation order to commend her for her actions in relieving the country's worries. After all, these refugees had become a big trouble in King's Landing when they were in King's Landing, and now someone is willing to take over. , the Iron Throne is naturally happy to see this happen.

After those refugees became citizens, they were not allocated to the eight villages that had been recovered by Nymeria. She accepted Lind's suggestion and re-divided a piece of land to let these newly joined citizens build their own villages. , and some of the young adults among these people were selected to join the garrison guards of Tengshi Town.

The expansion of garrison guards will inevitably lead to a significant weakening of Tengshi Town's garrison strength. In the recent several absolutely dominant bandit suppression operations, there have been dozens of casualties, which is the best proof of the weakening combat strength.

However, Linde didn't say anything. After all, these casualties were foreseeable. These casualties would continue until the expanded people completely transformed into warriors.

"There was a guy among the bandits this time who was pretty good. He was able to take two of my axes. I originally wanted to capture him alive, but to my surprise, the guy turned around and ran away. I chased after him, grabbed his nose, and He hit the rock and his face was smashed."

After returning to the office, Nymeria wiped and oiled her giant ax with her own hands, and excitedly told Lind about the battle. This was her habit.

Linde listened quietly and pointed out problems that occurred during her battle from time to time.

It must be said that after experiencing the baptism of actual combat, Nymeria's combat ability improved rapidly, as if she was born to be a warrior. As long as Lind points out the problems in her combat, she can quickly correct them.

The most recent time, when Linde practiced fighting with her, she performed much better than the Red Viper. When Linde used the knight's sword, she not only withstood three consecutive attacks from Linde, but also fought back. An extremely dangerous counterattack is much better than the Red Viper being passive throughout.

However, this does not mean that Nymeria's strength has surpassed that of the Red Viper. She performed well only because she was familiar with Lind's attack methods, unlike the Red Viper who was only exposed to the swordsmanship of the Lost Knight for the first time.

"You sent people to investigate the situation on the west bank of the Mander River. Do you have any results now?" Lind asked when Nymeria put the giant ax back on the weapon rack.

"Ruins, everything you see is ruins, not to mention people, there is not even an animal, all the farmland has been burned, the wells have been filled, even the Seven Sacred Sanctuary has been destroyed by those guys from the Western Region Destroyed." Upon hearing this question, the excitement on Nymeria's face quickly faded, and resentment also surged up.

Although those free people are not Nymeria's subjects, they are more like a group of bandits who forcibly seize Nymeria's land, but the land destroyed by the Western Army belongs to her. Seeing her land being destroyed It is reasonable for her to feel angry if someone ravages her at will.

However, after she finished sulking, a smile appeared on her face and she said, "But I'm pretty lucky. Someone found some good things over there."

As she spoke, Nymeria took out a short lottery ticket from her pocket and handed it to Lind.

Lind took it and looked at it, and immediately became serious. After returning the short signature to Nymeria, he asked, "Who else knows about this matter."

"Except for the people who discovered it, you and I are the only ones." Nymeria paused as she answered, and then added: "There are also free people nearby who should also know."

"The free people nearby? Are they the free people kidnapped by Duke Tywin?" Lind asked in a daze.

Nymeria nodded.

Linde frowned, pondered for a moment, and said, "It seems that some of our plans need to be advanced. I'm going to the savage tribe in Butt Ridge tomorrow. Do you want to come with me?"

"Of course." Nymeria responded excitedly.

The short note that Nymeria took out was very simple. It was that a silver mine was discovered in Nymeria's territory on the west bank of the Mander River. The entrance to the mine was covered with trees. The traces should have been mined privately by free people.

Although the value of silver mines is far from comparable to that of gold mines, for a small lord like Nymeria, a silver mine is enough to grow ten times or even ten times.

Because of those free people, Duke Tywin will know about the silver mine sooner or later. To Duke Tywin, this silver mine is nothing more than a piece of fat that can be taken away at will, so there will definitely be someone on Duke Tywin's side. Even if they don't directly send troops to occupy the silver mines, they will disguise the troops as free citizens to seize the silver mines.

Therefore, Linde definitely needs to send people to protect this silver mine.

However, Tengshi Town is now in dire straits. Even though many refugees have joined Tengshi Town, there are still very few manpower for the reconstruction and expansion of the entire town, and Nymeria's army maintains Tengshi Town and its surrounding areas. The security of the area is very difficult, and there is no way to send manpower to the other side of the river.

As for Linde, he could also lead his own Guards to station near the silver mine, leaving the First and Second Cavalry behind to help maintain security in Tengshi Town.

But in this way, the High Court will definitely know about the silver mine. If the High Court orders him to mine the silver mine nearby, he may be in a dilemma.

Therefore, Linde could only find other foreign aid, such as the Savage Tribe.

On this trip to the Savage Tribe, Linde only planned to bring more than a hundred people including the Guards and the First Cavalry. As for the Tengshi Town garrison, Linde did not plan to bring them, because when it came time to fight, those The garrison guards would become a liability.

However, Nymeria was not alone when she followed Linde to Butt Ridge this time. She also brought out her newly formed Lord Guard.

There are a total of twenty people in this lord's guard, half of whom are members of the garrison, and the other half are free riders and hired knights recruited with certain strength. This certain strength refers to being able to withstand Nymeria's attack. round attack.

Every time Nymeria receives Lind's battle training, she will go to her Lord's Guard to practice. It seems that she intends to regain the self-confidence that Lind was hit by her Lord's Guard, and the advantage of this is that it makes Nymeria Melia's status in the hearts of her lord's guards has become very high.

In addition to the lord's guard, she is also planning to take her two female attendants with her.

These two female attendants are members of a circus that passes through Tengshi Town and goes to Highgarden. They are twins. They perform knife throwing stunts in the circus and also know some scimitar skills from the Free Castle Alliance across the Narrow Sea. and marksmanship.

Nymeria took a fancy to these two sisters because the scimitar skills and spear skills performed by these two sisters came from the arena in Meereen. This brought back some memories of Nymeria, so she directly proposed to recruit them as His own female attendant.

At first, the two sisters, who were accustomed to living a free life, did not want to accept this kind of job of serving others, and rejected Nymeria's kindness until Nymeria said that if the two of them could meet the requirements in her heart, she would canonize them. The two were extremely rare female knights in the Seven Kingdoms, so they changed their minds and became Nymeria's female attendants.