Lord Harland.

Chapter 195 The Wine War
After hearing what Vitas said, Viscount Cisse fell into long-term thinking.

Viscount Cisse knew about the fact that Luo Ning bought the liquor salesperson of the Harland family and obtained the liquor brewing technology.

Maybe it's because the benefits are too great, or maybe it's because they subconsciously feel that the Cisse family is stronger than the Harland family.

Viscount Cisse didn't care about the Harland family and decided to touch the interests of the Harland family. He easily decided to get involved in the wine industry and competed with the Harland family without discussing with other family members.

He never expected that Li Cha would be so ruthless, and directly hit Qicun of the Xisai family.

The casino was attacked and many people died, so it had to be temporarily closed.

In addition, compensation for the death of the gambler and the gambling money brought by the gambler must be paid.This amount of money added up to more than three thousand gold coins, which was also a considerable amount of money for the Xisai family.

Although Viscount Xisai has been developed for 30 years and has a population of 12, the cultivated land exceeds that of the Harland family's territory, and heavy taxes are imposed on serfs. The total income of various incomes in a year is about [-] gold coins, of which casino profits account for Eight thousand, the food tax is about [-] gold coins, and the remaining two thousand gold coins are business taxes.

On the whole, Viscount Cisse's financial income is not as good as that of the Harland family.

The Harland family's annual trading profits exceed the fiscal revenue of Viscount Cisse, not to mention tax and grain profits.

The [-] gold coins from the casino are very important to the Cisse family.

Richard attacked the casino of the Cisse family, and the Viscount Cisse must take revenge on the Harland family and show the ability to protect the casino in order to be able to convince the public.

Only in this way can the casino continue to operate.

Viscount Cisse knew the strength of the Harland family.After all, Li Cha has made a lot of military exploits, and expanded his army on a large scale last winter, and now he has [-] troops in his hand.The strength is somewhat stronger than that of the Cisse family.

"Blinded by interests at that time, I rashly involved in the wine trade. The decision was too hasty."

Viscount Cisse thought to himself that he didn't want to break out with the Harland family in his heart, but his current position forced him to be tough on the Harland family.

In the competition of nobles, toughness is a necessary quality, and it is also a kind of decisiveness to pretend to be soft and grandson.

How to grasp the scale among them is the real skill of a nobleman.

Richard sent people to attack the casino of the Cisse family. Although there was no direct evidence left behind, Viscount Cisse immediately made a decision to retaliate. The De family also suffered heavy losses in terms of interests.

Viscount Cisse knew in his heart that if the casino was really attacked by the Harland family.

In the recent period, the Harland family must be prepared. It is very difficult to successfully attack an important target. He is going to endure for three months and wait for the Harland family's defense to relax before launching a surprise attack.

During this period of time, Viscount Cisse stepped up his infiltration of Harland's territory and sent many spies into Harland's territory.

After Li Cha returned to the territory with the action team, he reiterated the importance of confidentiality to the action team members, and then issued a bounty of [-] gold coins to the team members, and the remaining [-] gold coins were used as the working capital of the territory.

For each team member who participated in the operation, professionals received a bonus of [-] gold coins, and senior students also received a bonus of [-] gold coins.

After doing this vote, it is equivalent to earning a year's salary.

After returning to the territory, facing the possible attack of the Cisse family, Li Cha strengthened his defenses.

Harland Territory is very vigilant against outsiders. Although the freedmen are not prohibited from moving in, the freedmen who move in must obey the arrangement of the territory and can only live near Vickburg.

Moreover, the freedmen who moved in would not be given any land, and could only engage in commercial or handicraft activities in Vickburg.

If you want to divide the land, you must sign a five-year slave contract.After the contract is completed, the fields and houses will be divided.

The Stopa territory where Fort Vick is located is an agricultural territory, and there is nothing that needs to be kept secret.

In addition, the Territory of Harland also prohibits the citizens from moving freely, especially the citizens of the Stopah Territory, who are prohibited from entering Fort William and Fort Sophia.

Civil affairs officials will also give repeated orders to prohibit idlers from approaching the factory.

All strangers who dare to approach the factory will be arrested and sent to the mine, where they will mine together with the orc captives.

The factories in Harland's territory not only have security guards, but also garrisons nearby.

Over the years since the factory was established, more than 100 people who dared to spy on the factory have been arrested. Some of them are spies, and some are simply too curious.

Whether it is a spy sent by other nobles, or a person who is too curious, as long as they are sent to the mine and accompanied by orcs, basically they will not survive for a long time.

In the mine, there are many innocent souls.

By pretending to be a caravan mercenary attack, Li Cha was naturally wary of the caravan coming in from outside.

All caravans coming from outside are not allowed to enter secret castles such as Fort William and Fort Sophia, and can only trade in the market outside Vic Fort.

The market is built on a flat land, surrounded by towering walls, and there are garrisons at the gate.

After the goods are counted in the market, the gold coins will be settled immediately, and the caravan will go back with the gold coins, and they cannot walk around in the territory at will.

In recent years, Harland has led the arrest of many businessmen who wandered around.

Li Cha didn't care about the pleadings of the nobles behind him, and sent all those who did not obey the rules to the mine.

The territory of Harland is a typical mountainous territory, and there are only few roads to enter this territory.

Generally speaking, there is only one mountain road, one flat road, and three waterways.

A mountain road goes directly from Baron Sharp to Fort William. This road passes through Fort Iron Mountain. There is a squadron garrisoned on the road, and business travelers are not allowed to pass at all.

Ping Road is from Barony Dirham to Baron Stopa. This road can go all the way to Fort Heihe, and it is also the main road for caravans.

Through the three rivers, ships can approach important places such as the brick kiln factory, Fort William, and Fort Sophia. There are also checkpoints and garrisons to prohibit foreign ships from entering the territory.

In the Kingdom of Grant, the power of the lord is very heavy. If Richard objects, even official ships cannot enter the territory of Harland.

Because the territory is very restrictive to outsiders, Li Cha is not afraid of the Viscount Cisse's attack.

A large garrison was stationed at Fort Vick.

Although the Harland Territory Brigade is very small, it has only organized four and a half squadrons, less than 700 people.

But the regular army of 700 is enough to defeat most of the attackers.

Unless the Viscount Cisse sent hundreds of elite troops and launched a surprise attack, the garrison of Fort Vic could be defeated.

But hundreds of able-bodied men entered the territory of Harland, and the intelligence department was not just for nothing. They would soon discover the anomaly, deploy troops in advance, and wipe out the invading enemies.

Three months passed slowly like this, and Viscount Cisse had made all the preparations, but the information he needed never came.

Viscount Cisse placed more than a dozen intelligence personnel in the Harland Territory.

Because of the policy of restricting the free movement of the citizens, these intelligence personnel could not penetrate into the core of Harland's territory at all, and could only live in difficulty near Vickburg.

Although Vickburg has a large population and good agricultural conditions, it is not the core of Harland's territory.

Most of the high-level people in the territory are in Fort William, and even Sophia and Margaret returned to Fort William to settle after the war last year.

Sophia's magic laboratory has been moved to Fort William.

Unable to enter Fort William, and unable to contact the high-level officials of Fort Vic, these lurking spies could not obtain any useful information at all.

But the urging from above was very tight, and in desperation, they could only make up information to fool them.

And Vitas, the intelligence officer of Viscount Cisse, is quite shrewd, and these fabricated information cannot be hidden from his eyes.

Because the territory of Harland restricts the movement of people, it is very prepared for intelligence personnel.

Vitas had no other choice but to collect some public information through the people lurking in Fort Vic to analyze the military, political, legal, and economic intelligence of Harland's territory.

As Vitas learned more about Harland's territory, he became more frightened and felt that the chances of winning were smaller, so he began to dissuade Viscount Cisse, hoping to stop the attack.

Because there is no exact information, the attack is very difficult to succeed.

Viscount Cisse once again summoned the territorial officials and asked Vitas to take action and come up with accurate information.

"My lord Viscount, the territory of Harland is a closed territory that does not welcome outsiders. They have a deep defense against intelligence infiltration, and there is also a capable intelligence force inside the territory.

It will take a long time for our personnel to slowly infiltrate the key departments of Harland's territory, and now there is no useful information at all.

I only know that the Harland family steel factory is in Iron Mountain Fort, and there is a garrison nearby.

Harland has established a large-scale brick kiln factory, which can produce a large amount of bricks every year. Even the roads near Vickburg are paved with bricks.The kiln that produces bricks is less than [-] kilometers away from Fort Vic, and outsiders are also prohibited from approaching.

Through public intelligence analysis, we know that Fort William has four infantry brigades, one cavalry brigade, and a certain number of auxiliary soldiers in each castle.

Their brewery is near Fort William, and Fort William is also the core of their territory. According to some public information analysis, the Fort William garrison has four squadrons of infantry and a 300-man cavalry. The number of Warcraft cavalry has reached 100.

Our intelligence personnel can only infiltrate into Fort Vic, a brigade garrisoned in this castle. The brigade in Harland's territory is relatively small, with only four and a half squadrons, about 700 people.

That's all we can gather in a short period of time. "

For more than three months, Viscount Cisse thought of many ways, but he still couldn't restore the gamblers' trust in the casino.

After all, many people died in the casino that day.

Conflict broke out between Viscount Cisse and Viscount Richard, and gamblers were afraid to go to Viscount Cisse Casino to avoid being involved in the conflict.

There are no gamblers in the casino, so naturally it has to close.

Viscount Cisse heard about the conflict between Richard and the Holland family, so he also sent someone to the capital to contact the Holland family, and he joined Prince Felix's camp.

Driven by the Huo Lan family, Wangdu set up a casino robbery investigation team.

The investigation team communicated with Li Cha, but they didn't even see Li Cha's face.Instead, he was told that the territory of Harland had fallen into a rebellion, and Viscount Richard was in the process of suppressing the rebellion.

If the investigation team leaves Vicburg, their safety will not be guaranteed by Viscount Richard.

The official investigation can't shake the nobles with deep roots.

Moreover, the Grant royal family has no tradition of being involved in noble conflicts.Prince Felix, only a small number of people can be mobilized.

Richard also found someone in the capital, and the Harland family sided with Prince Chris politically.

Whatever Prince Felix supports, Prince Chris will definitely oppose.

Official investigations have stalled and the casino business faces competition.

Because of the closure of Elena Castle Casino, many dignitaries in Flame Castle have already started to act, and established a new casino in Flame Castle to compete with the Cisse family for the market.

The Cisse family has deep roots in Fortress of Flames. The previous Viscount Cisse served as the head of the Wild Lion Legion for 20 years.

However, it has been more than ten years since the commander of the Cisse Army left office, and many of the people he promoted back then have retired from active service.

The main foundation of the Harland family is in Black River Castle, and the relationship in Flame Castle is far inferior to that of Viscount Cisse.

But when it comes to conflicts of interest, favors often don't work, especially favors from more than ten years ago.

Once a casino is established in Flame Fort, there must be the protection of the high-level Wild Lion Legion behind it, and the security will surpass that of Elena Casino, and the Xisai family has no way to compete.

The situation has come to this point, unless the Harland family nods and admits defeat, gives up the liquor business, and resolves the conflict, the casino can recover.

But the Flame Fort Casino has already opened, and it is difficult for the Xisai family to compete with the high-ranking officials of the Wild Lion Legion.

The casino business is bound to decline, and Viscount Cisse already has a clear understanding of this.

It is simply not feasible to give up the liquor business.

Since he couldn't get any information and couldn't attack the foundation of the Harland family, Viscount Cisse could only launch a trade war.

He dispatched a professional in the territory to attack the commercial salesmen of the Harland family everywhere, killing many people at once, and snatching goods worth thousands of gold coins.

When such a thing happened, of course Li Cha would not show weakness.Immediately retaliated with an eye, and also dispatched professionals to attack anyone related to Baron Sissy.

In the next few months, hundreds of people were killed or injured in the two territories, and even professionals, more than ten people from the two Viscounty territories combined died.

The conflict between the two sides has already affected the stability of northern Xinjiang and alarmed the high-level officials of the capital.

King Charles communicated with the noble council and sent high-ranking officials to mediate.

The mediating official was none other than Richard's old acquaintance Jerram Holland.People from the Holland family were sent to mediate, which shows the tendency of King Charles.

After receiving this news, Li Cha's eyes flashed a gloomy coldness, and he kept this matter in his heart.

The capital sent people to mediate, and Li Cha had to make a gesture of agreeing with the mediation and willing to reconcile.

Under the preference of Jerram and others, the mediation team of the Royal Capital finally decided to divide the liquor market. The market in Gascoigne Province was assigned to Viscount Cisse, and the markets in Gerda Province and Lah Province belonged to Harland. family.

(End of this chapter)