Chapter 549: Pruning Branches

"This fully proves that our war of public opinion has taken effect. The enemies of Afonso have been forced to sit still by us, so they made such a stupid move." Veronica said with an expression that could not be concealed. "What I am worried about now is that the temperament of such enemies is often extremely extreme. When they are forced into a desperate situation, they will do something that harms others and does not benefit themselves."

"Are you worried that they will spread plague toxins on a large scale in Afonso and turn it into a dead city? Even if we take this city? The benefits will be greatly reduced?"

"Yes, this is the most commonly used method of those necromancers."

"It is because of this concern that we will adopt the current siege without attacking, reduce their pressure as much as possible, and find Find a new breakthrough point. This warehouse hill is our opportunity. According to our intelligence, this is not only the location of an ancient dwarf city. Before humans opened up this place, there was a group of dwarves who used this place as their home and lived here for thousands of years. They have carried out secondary reconstruction and expansion here. They are best at illusions. Maybe there are hidden underground passages that have not been discovered by the world. What we have to do is to find an underground passage that can directly connect to Avanso. Even if there is no ready-made one, we can find the nearest one. Our dog-headed construction team can also open up a new passage. "

They came here not just to detect the enemy, but received the latest intelligence and prepared to find a new breakthrough point here.

"General Copperfield and Captain Yeshandala are here too." Kailisha pointed to the two people who came together below.

The tall man on the left, with a dark face, a clean-shaven head, and a thick white beard under his chin, who else could it be but General Copperfield, the deputy commander of the Conqueror Army.

The one on the right has a devilishly perfect figure, and there is a faint white scar on her face that destroys this perfection, but also gives her a touch of fireworks. This person is Ye Sandala, who has just been freed of the plague toxin.

It is not accidental that the two came together, but in the past few days, the two sides have been cooperating to promote the plan to eliminate gangsters and evil proposed by General Copperfield.

When Ye Sandala and her friends knew about this plan, they were very supportive and helped as much as they could, because they had wanted to do this for a long time, but they had never had the strength and courage. Now that the Conqueror Army has taken action on their behalf, it is a happy thing for everyone.

General Copperfield and his people are strong dragons after all, and they are far less advantageous than local snakes like Ye Sandala in this matter.

Under Ye Sandala's suggestion, Gavin and his friends decided to focus on one point instead of casting a wide net all over the world, and set their sights on the warehouse hills of Avanso, as well as Ilip and Pros.

These two port cities form an irregular triangle with Evanso, with a straight-line distance of about 50 kilometers. The area in the middle is where the warehouse hill is located.

These two cities have a very close relationship with Evanso, and are their unloading and loading points. However, the advantages of these two towns on the water are not as obvious as those of Tesir and Simon, because large ships cannot come in, and they can only rely on sampans for loading and unloading, which causes a certain degree of waste of manpower and material resources, but at least it can save more than 100 kilometers of transportation on the road (if coming from Tesir).

However, this defect can also become their advantage. For example, they are no longer so dependent on the port. The long lake line can become their loading and unloading location, and many shady transactions can be completed here.

For example, this place is connected to the warehouse hill, and many secret commodities can be temporarily hoarded or stored here. The two most typical commodities are the stolen goods looted by pirates and the slaves that the slave traders are preparing to transport secretly.

As long as you pay the warehouse usage fee on time, the necromancers of Avanso have never asked about the specific transaction content, and will even take the initiative to conduct secret transactions with them, buying low-priced goods from them, whether it is stolen goods or slaves.

As for Ilip and Pros, their rulers have either colluded with those evil forces or are agents supported by those evil forces.

"The two thieves' guilds, Purple Mask and Chaohua, secretly control the city of Pros. Among them, Purple Mask is the land-based stolen goods branch of the pirate group of the same name, and Chaohua is a pirate stolen goods agency organization. They have secret cooperation with several pirate groups to help them carry out stolen goods sales tasks.

The main business of Ilip City is slave trading, which has always been controlled by the petrified lizard slave trading group. They have special trafficking channels, pirate teams, and sales channels, and provide a whole line of services from trafficking to selling. Compared with Pros City, the situation in Ilip City is the most troublesome, because many citizens are coerced by them and become their accomplices in slave trading. Those slaves waiting to be sold are not concentrated in a warehouse. It was in the homes of the citizens of Ilip City. Ilip City was the slave warehouse of the Petrified Lizard Slave Group. No one could tell how many of the people living here were direct descendants of the slave group, how many were ordinary citizens, and how many were slaves waiting to be sold. "

Copperfield reported the intelligence of the two cities in detail, some of which was provided by Yesandala, and some of which was collected by them in recent days. "They are also very concerned about the situation in Evanso. They have been active in recent days, especially in the outer sea of ​​Ilip City. There are three three-masted sailing ships. As long as there is a slight disturbance, they will take all the goods and retreat to the sea immediately."

"Their existence depends entirely on the attitude of the rulers of Ivanso. Once things change here, they will bear the brunt." Veranika said with a smile, "So, General Copperfield's plan to cut off the outer branches first It is absolutely correct. Only in this way can we ensure the maximization of our interests.”

Not only her, but others were not surprised by the current situation in the two cities.

Because the goal was clear, Gavin did not leave too much opportunity for others to speak, and directly dispatched his troops and said: "Because the two cities are too close and similar in nature, there is likely to be communication between them. We cannot attack either city." , may startle another city, so we have to divide our forces into two groups.

The situation in Pross is relatively simple. It is to completely eliminate the two thieves guilds, Purple Mask and Chaohua. We have basically investigated their leaders, and we only need to arrest them according to the order.

You Avengers have an advantage over us in this matter. I would like to ask you to ask Captain Carissa to lead her battle group and three hundred hobgoblin wolf cavalry to support you. "

"This is our duty. We cannot leave all the work to you, Lord Baron." Yeshandara nodded without hesitation.

"After you wiped out the two thieves guilds, you immediately took the captured tongues out of all their warehouses, and then divided the goods inside into two parts. One half was captured by us, and the other half was given to Pross. Citizens." There was no doubt about the first half of Gavin's order.

Seizing their goods and confiscating them was originally their original plan, but after realizing that these two cities had a certain strategic role, they merged the two into one.

The second half of the order is a bit unbelievable. Why should half of the hard-won loot be given to ordinary citizens?

Yeshandara was not the kind of person to be secretive and asked directly: "Why do you do this? These two guilds have been operating there for many years, and many ordinary citizens have interests entangled with them. The crimes are no more obvious than those of ordinary guilds." The members are small, so not holding them accountable would be the greatest kindness.”

Birds of a feather flock together, Fan Ruina has a jealous temper, and Ye Shantara is not willing to give in.

Gavin patiently explained: "That's why we have to do this. It is very difficult to uproot such deep-rooted local forces. It is often uprooting the carrots with mud. If we trace too deeply, it is very likely that It will push many people to oppose us. For past crimes, we will only hold the culprit accountable. As long as ordinary guild members are willing to abandon the dark side and turn to the bright side, and there is no culprit to hold them responsible for their crimes, we can let go of the past. But this is the limit. If they do evil again, they will be punished. Double the punishment.”

"If this is the case, it is enough not to hold them accountable. Why should we distribute the seized stolen goods to them?"

"The purpose of dividing this part of the stolen goods is mainly to win over ordinary citizens who are innocent. Once they accept the stolen goods we distributed, many people are worried that when the evil forces come back, they will liquidate and retaliate against them, and they will definitely do so unconditionally. If you stand in our camp, you will take the initiative to report the criminal activities of those evil forces, and may even take the initiative to report those guild members who hide too deeply. "

Gavin imparted his ruling experience to Yeshandara, "Our war with these local evil forces has just begun. Cutting off their existing organizational structure is just a part of the surface. To win the final victory, we must remove them." The soil of existence has been completely eradicated, starting from the human heart.”

Yeshandara bowed and thanked him: "I see, I've been taught a lesson. I still have a lot to learn from Lord Baron in this area. I understand what should be done. Simply destroying these evil organizations is not the purpose, but also To bring these two towns under the rule.”

After these few days of joint action, Yeshandara realized that the biggest difference between herself and Gavin was the focus on the pattern.

While his eyes were fixed on the city of Ivansuo, others had already set their sights on the entire Dragon Bay area.

While he was still thinking about cracking down on those evil crimes, others were already thinking about how to incorporate the other party's territory and occupy it so that there would be no possibility of their resurgence.

As for whether he will lead the army of conquerors to take root here once he defeats Ivanso as rumored by the outside world.

At the beginning, Yeshandara might have been a little worried about this, but with the in-depth contact between the two parties, she found that it was completely unnecessary.

To the person in front of him, Dragon Bay is just a shallow bay, far from enough for him to splash around. Just passing by can have a subversive impact on the situation here.

After Gavin completed the layout of Pros' side, he turned around and started mobilizing troops on Yilip's side. "The focus of Yilip's side is not on the shore, but on the sea. Our primary target is the three three-masted sailing ships." , if you can seize the best, if you can't seize them, sink them.

Therefore, our troops are also divided into two groups. Thomas, you lead half of the hobgoblin giants and the remaining hobgoblin wolf cavalry to surround Ilip without attacking. Anyone who dares to break through the encirclement will be killed on the spot.

The remaining half of the hobgoblin giant warband is left to my personal command. General Copperfield, you lead your sailors to cooperate with us to seize the ship. "

This is why Gavin transferred Carissa and her Goliath regiment, who were very easy to use, to Yeshandara. Their advantage was on land. None of them had ever seen the sea in their lives, let alone It is said that going to the sea to seize a ship is a narrow place where the number of troops is expensive but not expensive.

"Do you still have any questions?" Gavin's eyes swept over everyone's faces.

"No." Everyone replied in unison.

For them, wiping out the local forces in these two small towns with a combined population of just over 5,000 was just a small test.

Although the number of troops they dispatched was not large, they were all the best among the best. Even the Avengers and the Resistance Army were carefully selected, and there was no one with a professional level lower than five.

The most embarrassing thing is the crew and sailors led by Copperfield. They have also opened the professional template, and they have at least one or two professional levels. However, what Gavin needs is not their combat power, but their rich ship management skills. experience.

Yilip City is located on the west bank of Long Lake, not the south bank. There is another advantage here, that is, it is not far from the mouth of the Bianhuang River.

This river originates from the distant sea swamp and passes through the Thun Swamp. It brings a large amount of nutrients from here. Not to mention the city of Irip, which is a hundred kilometers away, all the creatures in the Dragon Lake have benefited from this blessing. , supporting a large number of species.

Before it was controlled by the basilisk people and became a slave trading city, shallow sea fishing was their main industry, enough to support the entire city's supplies.

Although it is a port city, Yilip City is not distributed directly on the coastline in a strip shape. Instead, it is like an inland city, huddled together, and the main body is nearly one kilometer away from Long Lake.

Not only the virtues of Ilip City, but also most port cities in Faerûn are like this. Even coastal cities that build ports directly in the city usually divide the port area into districts, isolate the port area, and build a large number of city defenses against it. facility.

Because in Faerûn, the ocean is not safe. Not only do all kinds of fish live in it, but there are also all kinds of aquatic intelligent creatures. There are kind-hearted races like sea elves and fishmen, as well as sahuagin. Such water demons have amphibious capabilities and are full of endless hatred for land races. It is not really a rare rumor to launch attacks on human coastal towns at night.

Although there are many monsters in the Dragon Lake, there are few sahuagin traces. This is because there is a shark nightmare wall under the water of the Falling Star Sea, which isolates this group of water demons in the eastern sea. As for the shark nightmare The origin of the wall is not a matter of land races, but involves a long war between underwater intelligent creatures, which can be traced back to tens of thousands of years ago and is beyond the scope of today's discussion.

Three behemoths, in the shape of a Chinese character, lay across Long Lake, one kilometer away from the shore.

The most conspicuous thing is the three masts, one tall and two short. This is the origin of their name - three-masted sailing ship.

This is the most common sailing ship in the waters around Faerûn. Its body length ranges from thirty to fifty meters, and its width is six to ten meters. Depending on its size, it is not only the craftsmanship of the shipbuilder, but also the construction. Its materials, especially the keel and mast, were usually made from a single piece of hardwood.

The three three-masted sailboats of the Basilisk Human Slavery Group are relatively small in size. The longest one is only about forty meters, and the remaining two barely reach thirty meters.

In addition to three masts, it also has nearly a hundred oar openings, which shows that it can not only sail by wind power, but also add a lot of manpower to speed up its sailing speed. There are more than a dozen large bags covered with oilcloth on the deck. You know without asking that there must be a ballista or ballista below.

There are only two types of ships traveling on the seas of Faerun, armed merchant ships and warships. There is only one possibility for unarmed merchant ships, and that is that there are beings on board that are more terrifying than ordinary weapons.

"Among these three three-masted sailing ships, the most troublesome one and the one with the highest value is not the one that looks the largest. It is a escort bait ship, used to attract firepower for one's main battleships. That one The smallest one is the core flagship of these three armed slave ships. "As soon as he arrived at the seaside and mentioned the sea-going ships, General Copperfield's whole spirit changed.

His deep feelings for the ocean and ships can only be sympathized by old sailors.

Gavin was immediately aroused and said with strong curiosity: "General, how do you distinguish them? Can you tell me?"

In his opinion, the escort bait boat that General Copperfield mentioned was their flagship, not only because it was the largest, but also because it had the largest amount of equipment.

Copperfield did not answer and asked instead: "Lord, what do you think is the most important thing in a naval battle?"

"The comprehensive performance can achieve both attack, defense and speed. If other aspects are almost the same, speed should be the most important. You can attack and escape. As long as the battleship is not destroyed, there will be a chance to make a comeback." Wen thought about it for a moment and answered that although he didn't know much about naval warfare, many things were in common, and fighting with people was basically the same.