naaapseattle #690 - Southshire Wizards' Meeting
#690 - Southshire Wizards' Meeting
After arriving at Sola Keep, Horn did not continue to personally command the army, but delegated command to a group of officers and witches such as Jeanne.
After expelling the armies of the temples in the nearby towns, except for the punitive force advancing towards Dragonfly Bay, the remaining armies did not continue to advance further.
After all, the supply lines were stretched too long, and the attrition was a bit too great. They were starting to run out of supplies.
During these few days, Horn was either inspecting the vicinity and receiving guests, or flipping through account books in Sola Keep, estimating trade and population.
After this battle, these secret societies in the Southern County, including Seromis himself, became much more peaceful. Although they didn't explicitly agree with Horn's proposal, they no longer opposed it as strongly as before.
As the situation gradually stabilized and the war in the Southern County turned from danger to safety, Horn took the opportunity while most of the secret society leaders in the Southern County were gathered in Sola Keep to convene a council of wizards and formally discuss the future of the Southern County with them.
Because Sola Keep was relatively small, Horn chose a temple outside the city as the venue.
Unlike Long Dike City, which relies on mountains and rivers and has natural city walls and long dikes for defense, Sola Keep is still divided into a castle for military purposes, a port for commercial purposes, and scattered residential shops forming the outer city streets.
Standing on top of the temple's base, Horn could see the entire panorama of Sola Keep's outer city.
In April, the scorching sun shone on the grass leaves, making them curl up, and even with the naked eye, one could see the moisture in the air evaporating and distorting.
Fran-style stilt houses and serpentfolk-characteristic sandstone houses stood side by side, with red-purple and even pink flowering trees and vines interspersed among the white buildings.
Because the terrain around Sola Keep is rocky hills, and the locals have the habit of planting potted medicinal herbs, when spring arrives and hundreds of flowers bloom, it looks like a hanging garden at a glance.
Although the battle of Sola Keep had just ended, under the red-purple flowers and trees, crowds of people flowed to the market.
In such a hot environment, men and women, young and old, wearing sun-shading cloaks and veils, walked in twos and threes under the shade of trees and eaves, picking and choosing between various vendors and shops.
Alchemists stirred cauldrons, astrologers held star charts, red-turbaned vendors shouted and slapped the fruits on their stalls with handkerchiefs, and guard monks hesitated in front of shops with pepper.
Almost within a week, the supplies left by the Fran people quickly turned into bags of pepper and frankincense exchanged between monks and merchants.
Horn had previously investigated the pepper market here. As a spice, the price of pepper was about 5 dinars per pound, and wholesale or purchase in the countryside would be even cheaper.
He had previously seen the residents of Greenblood Town burn cinnamon trees to cook sweet bean porridge, adding pepper and cardamom without restraint.
Currently, the imperial market price of pepper is about 60 to 110 dinars per pound. Excluding travel expenses and losses, the nobles of the Clove Corridor can make a pure profit of 20 times by reselling it.
No wonder the nobles of the Clove Corridor would rather fight against the royal family and launch a purge war in advance than accept the northward flow of spices.
It's no wonder that Earl Ursion has a fortune of 30,000 gold pounds, Duke Danet only has 60,000 gold pounds, and the common fortune of the Earls of Thousand River Valley is between 3,000 and 6,000 gold pounds.
Horn's gaze passed through the crowds of people in the market. Coming down the sloping road paved with fine stones, one could see the white stone railing with stone-carved snake patterns on the chest.
The height of this serpentfolk temple at his feet was about the same as the city wall of a normal castle.
It was piled up with square sandstone, and its shape was like a small pyramid with the top half cut off. On top of the base was a corridor formed by circular pillars, forming this Quetzalcoatl temple.
At this moment, Horn stood in front of the moldy green bronze door, watching the secret society leaders wearing all kinds of strange clothes and tattoos walking up the steps.
Every time one came, Horn would step forward and shake hands to greet them.
As the sun gradually rose into the sky, at exactly 9 o'clock, he turned and walked into the venue, and the bronze door behind him slowly closed.
As for those secret society leaders who were late or didn't come, they all knew the consequences of not attending a meeting. They themselves had rejected power.
The circular hall, originally full of the stench of decay, was now filled with the fragrance of flowers and the aroma of pepper incense.
On the wooden racks that had been set up in advance, the secret society members took their seats according to their relationship and origin. Horn roughly counted about two hundred of them.
Seeing Horn and a group of Holy Axis monks taking their seats, Luluse, as the Speaker of the Witch Council and the Governor of the Northern County, walked onto the podium.
Placing the speech in front of her on the platform, she stepped on a small stool and stretched her upper body out of the podium, her white pigtails styled into a middle-aged woman's hairstyle.
Taking a puff of her pipe and exhaling a smoke ring, Luluse lazily opened the speech in her hand:
"Respected wizards:
Today, we stand here to celebrate a hard-won victory. When we look back at the darkest moment, the Church's army broke through our borders and burned our homes.
I once thought that the richest Southern County would fall into the hands of the Church like the Western County did in the past, but I was wrong.
The Black Serpent Bay people have persevered once again! With the staff in their hands and the courage in their hearts, they have survived the most desperate days. Today, we can proudly say: we have not yielded!
However, we must see that this victory did not come solely from our courage and determination. It can even be said that our courage only accounted for a relatively small part.
Our victory was that the Holy Axis of the North extended a helping hand and drove the enemy out of here with us.
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Ladies and gentlemen, when we fought countless bloody battles against the Church, I once asked myself, and perhaps you also asked yourselves:
Why are we so weak that we are repeatedly purged without being able to fight back? Why do we have indomitable warriors, but we need the help of the Holy Axis to resist?"
Speaking of this, the white-haired loli once again picked up her large pipe, took a hard puff, and then continued to speak in the quiet, smoke-filled venue:
"This question can perhaps be answered from the Thousand River Valley in the North. You see, they were not born strong. They were once like us, divided into large and small forces, arguing, opposing...
But in their most critical moment, they chose unity and sacrifice.
As a result, they, who were clearly less free and less independent than us, not only preserved their freedom, but also completely drove the Church's forces out of the Thousand River Valley, and could even come to our aid.
So, my wizard friends, today we are not only celebrating victory, but also hoping that everyone will think: freedom and independence were once our pride, but now, have they become shackles?
As the representative of the Witch Council and the Northern County Federal Council, I do not ask everyone to answer immediately. I only hope that everyone can seriously recall and think about everything we have seen these days."
As Luluse walked down the podium with her small stool, some secret society leaders fell into contemplation, recalling Luluse's meaningful words, but some still looked dismissive.
However, with the Holy Axis army in front, after Seromis read the "Black Serpent Bay Joint Declaration" written based on the "Thousand River Valley Charter of Freedom", everyone applauded and agreed to carry out the same reforms as in the Northern County.
The registration of secret societies and the establishment of county councils quickly entered the agenda of many secret societies.
But soon a new problem blocked the following process.
"It's fine if you set up checkpoints to collect taxes on the spices and brown sugar that we sell ourselves, but why aren't we allowed to set up tax checkpoints?"
Sure enough, those secret societies who made a living by trading spices stood up one after another and began to object.