#425 - show mercy
This time, the largest Guards Battalion played as the vanguard.
But Captain Edmond of the Guards was not stopped at all.
The guards in the watchtower were long gone.
He brought his soldiers to this dilapidated village - there were more than a dozen such villages on the border of the Lion Territory.
They have long been accustomed to the convenience brought by red-walled houses and hard stone roads.
Whether it is the City of Origin or the City of Abundance, people live in a clean and sanitary environment, and everything is in order.
Therefore, when they saw this poor and dilapidated border village, a sense of confusion suddenly pulled Edmund and his soldiers back to many years ago.
The child who grew up in the mud, after going ashore to wash his body, returned to the dirty mud again.
An indescribable stench and filth filled their senses, making them feel a little uncomfortable.
They realized that this was the true face of the earth.
The true state of the places outside of His Majesty Roman's rule...
It had rained a few days ago, so the road they came from was very muddy. The soles of their military shoes were covered with thick clay. They just used exposed tree roots to rub off the mud, but after only two steps, the soles of their shoes were filled with a thick layer of clay again.
The environment here is even worse.
Huts made of branches and thatch are scattered everywhere, making the village look messy.
It is dilapidated and run-down, the scene is bleak and there is no life at all.
At the edge of the field, a poor man was pushing a wooden plow with great effort. He was dressed in rags, wearing sackcloth, and his body was covered with thick spots of mud.
Edmund looked at him from a distance and ignored him.
The man did not react to the arrival of the guards squadron. He was filled with a sense of numbness, a feeling of despair.
Edmund waved his hand, and two team leaders, each with 12 soldiers, split into two groups and went into the village to check the specific situation here, while the rest of the people continued to follow him.
When Edmund squatted down, his eye level was just at the old woman's level.
"They left. They said the devil was coming. They all left. They didn't dare to fight the devil. They just acted arrogantly in front of us."
The old woman's brown eyes were very empty as she stared at him and the group of soldiers behind him. Her tone was firm and hateful, as if to say that it was obvious who the devil was.
Edmund was not angry.
He knew clearly that these people had not yet enjoyed the grace of His Highness, so it was normal for them to misunderstand them.
He asked again: "Why don't you leave?"
"All the food and seeds are gone. You are a bunch of rats sent by the devil. Take whatever you want."
She pointed to the moldy straw and tattered furniture in the shack.
Now her children have fled, and she is not afraid of the people before her, nor of the sharp weapons they have.
"That's all I have," she said. "Sir Knight, if you are unhappy, just kill me. My corpse may fill your stomach."
The old woman's vicious curse turned Edmund into a knight of war.
But this concept has long disappeared in the valley system. The system of war knights is too backward, and they received a different military ideology during training.
At this moment, footsteps were heard behind Edmund, and a squad leader dragged his muddy feet to report to him.
"Report! Squadron, we've checked, no ambush, just some widows and widowers."
Soon after, another team leader also came back with his troops and came to the same conclusion.
“How many people are here now?”
The two team leaders confronted each other.
They replied: "About fifty... no young men... but a few children."
Edmund stood up upon hearing this, he looked around the village and stroked his chin.
Based on the number of houses, he estimated that the village should have a maximum of three to five hundred people. Now there are only fifty people left, so it is not an exaggeration to say that nine out of ten houses are empty.
Paying taxes, serving in the military, war, drought...
This village that barely survived has been devastated to its current state, desolate and miserable.
Last year's severe drought destroyed the already extremely low production potential.
It is obvious that the lord here chose to abandon the border village.
Without seeds, this rural area will have no way to survive.
People may be able to continue to struggle by finding wild mushrooms and digging wild vegetables, but most people will not survive this summer.
"Squadron, what should we do now?" a team leader asked in a low voice.
"What orders did Captain Jeter and Corps Kao give us?"
The man replied: "Find a place to live and settle down temporarily."
Edmund said to everyone: "Why don't you gather everyone here?"
They were a full-scale invasion, but that didn't mean all the troops had to fight all the way to Fiering Castle.
The order each squadron received was to stay where they were.
The soldiers did as the law required, but the villagers gathered very slowly. Some widows and widowers were unable to move, and long-term hunger made them physically weak and unwilling to gather.
The same thing happened to some of the children, and the soldiers had to carry them here.
After asking, they learned that these children had lost their parents long ago and became orphans.
Edmund brought a two-hundred-pound stone and placed it in the corner and stood on it.
When the crowd gathered in front of him, he took out a declaration and began his speech.
"I am Edmund Ford, serving the noble Roman Shattermail, the Son of Shattermail, the King of the Vale, the Lord of Dark Iron, the Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Hand of War, the Undefeated, and my most honorable master...
"Your master, Count Flinn, is a Black Iron rebel who launched a war that violated the order of the conquerors. His Highness Roman and Princess Tashina of White Steel jointly thwarted the conspiracy of the rebels.
“Her Royal Highness Princess White Steel announced that, as the heir to the Iron Throne and descendant of the Conqueror, she would deprive Count Flin of all his power!
"His Highness Roman also declares that the land of this Lion Territory, from rivers to hills, from forests to farmlands, all belongs to the rule of His Highness Iotashina!"
Is this really the case? Edmund wondered.
The cold and beautiful red-haired princess must have known everything a long time ago.
The villagers watched the power transition expressionlessly, as if it had nothing to do with them.
All the glory and land belonged to the nobility, and now its owner has only changed the name.
Even if this name belongs to the Black Iron Princess.
Even though she claimed that all the land here belonged to her.
But what's the use of this?
In order to solve the bottomless pit of military consumption, their former master, Lord Filin, sent mercenaries to plunder every grain of food here, even the seeds.
They were abandoned and could only stay here to survive and suffer from hunger. Many of them did not survive the winter and starved to death.
Now, the village is a complete mess.
Farmers are slaves of the land and have been dependent on the land for generations.
The land was wasted and their lives were over.
Death at the hands of the devil might be a relief for them...
Edmund announced loudly: “Now, all the land here belongs to Her Highness Tashina.
“And our King of the Valley, Lord Black Iron, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, and the greatest man in the world, His Highness Roman, will fund the reconstruction plan of the Lion Territory.
"Everyone! Our great Lord Roman is about to show mercy! He is about to show mercy to you!!
"He will hire you. As long as you plant the land for one day and work for one day, he will give you two pounds of dry bread, one pound of vegetables,
The sound of Edmund's speech, waving his right hand, was blown away by the cold wind in the open space and disappeared in an instant, as if it had never existed.
The farmers looked numb, dull and stiff, as if they had not heard it or had heard it wrongly.
Ever since the severe drought last year, when their grain seeds were snatched away, they have been devastated.
Edmund was silent and motionless, and the soldiers were equally silent and motionless.
It was not until a long time later that a surge of vitality suddenly emerged from the depths of the villagers' dry eyes.
A faint ray of light shone from the dark clouds covering the sky.
New spring water gushed out from the cracked earth, flowing through the dense cracks to nourish the entire land.
That is new hope, a new way of life, and a new future.
