When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 685: Southern County Wizards Meeting

After arriving at Solaburg, Horn did not continue to command the army personally, but delegated command to a group of officers and witches such as Jeanne.

After expelling the armies of several nearby town temples, except for the God's Punishment Army that advanced towards Dragonfly Bay, the rest of the army did not advance further.

After all, the supply line was too long, the loss was quite large, and we began to run out of supplies.

During these few days, Horn was either patrolling and receiving guests in the vicinity, or looking through the account books in Sola Castle to estimate trade and population.

After the battle, these secret parties in the Southern County, including Selomis himself, became much more obedient. Although they did not actively agree with Horn's proposal, they no longer opposed it as strongly as before.

As the situation gradually stabilized and the war in Southern County turned from danger to safety, Horn took the opportunity when most of the secret party leaders in Southern County gathered in Sola Castle to convene a wizard gathering and began to formally discuss the future of Southern County with them.

Since Sora Castle was small, Horn chose a temple outside the city as the location.

Unlike Long Causeway City, which is located by the mountains and rivers and has natural walls and long levees, Sola Castle is still divided into a castle that serves a military purpose, a port that serves a commercial purpose, and an outer city with scattered houses and shops forming the streets.

Standing on the top of the temple's base, Horn could see the panoramic view of the outer city of Sora Castle.

In April, the scorching sun made the grass leaves curl, and even with the naked eye one could see the moisture in the air evaporating and distorting.

Flange-shaped stilt houses and sandstone houses with snake-like features are lined up one after another, and red, purple, and even pink flowering trees and vines are interspersed among the white houses.

As the area near Sola Fort is a rocky hilly terrain and the locals have the habit of planting potted medicinal herbs, when spring comes and the flowers bloom, it looks like a sky garden at first glance.

Although the battle of Sora Fort had just ended, there were still people wandering around under the red and purple flowers and trees.

In such a hot environment, men, women, young and old, wearing sun cloaks and veils, walked in groups of three or four under the shade of trees and eaves, going back and forth between various stalls and shops to choose their goods.

Alchemists stirred their crucibles, astrologers held their astrolabes, red-turbaned vendors shouted and slapped the fruit on their stalls with their handkerchiefs, and the guardsmen hesitated with pepper in front of their shops.

Within almost a week, the supplies left behind by the Franks quickly turned into bags of pepper and frankincense, which were exchanged between monks and merchants.

Horn had previously investigated the pepper market here. The price of pepper as a spice is about 5 dinars per pound, and it would be even cheaper if it is wholesaled or purchased in the countryside.

He had previously seen the residents of Greenblood Town using cinnamon trees to make sweet bean porridge, adding a lot of pepper and cardamom.

The current market price of pepper in the empire is about 60 to 110 dinars per pound. Excluding the loss of travel expenses, the nobles in the Lilac Corridor can make 20 times the net profit by reselling it.

No wonder the nobles of the Lilac Corridor would rather confront the royal family and launch a clearing war in advance than accept the flow of spices to the north.

It is no wonder that an earl of Ursion has an estate of 3 gold pounds, a duke of Darnay has an estate of only 6 gold pounds, and the average estate of the earls of the Thousand Valley is between 3000 and 6000 gold pounds.

Horn's sight passed through the crowd going to the market, and as he walked down the sloping road paved with fine stones, he could see the white stone railings with stone snake patterns carved on the chest.

The snake-man temple beneath his feet was about the same height as the walls of a normal castle.

It is made up of piled-up sandstone blocks and looks like a small pyramid with the upper half cut off. On top of the base is a corridor formed by circular columns, forming this Quetzalcoatl Temple.

At this moment, Horn stood in front of the moldy green bronze gate, looking at the secret party leaders wearing all kinds of strange clothes and tattoos walking up the stairs.

Horn would go up to each person and shake their hand. The sun gradually rose in the sky, and at 9 o'clock, he turned and walked into the venue, and the bronze door behind him slowly closed.

As for those secret party leaders who were late or did not come, they all knew what the consequences would be if they did not attend the meeting. They themselves rejected power.

The circular hall, which was originally filled with a foul smell, was now filled with the scent of flowers and pepper.

On the wooden racks that had been built in advance, the secret party members sat down according to their relationship and background. Horn roughly counted them and there were about two hundred of them.

Seeing Horn and other monks of the Holy Axis take their seats, Lulos, the head of the Witch Council and the Northern County, walked onto the podium.

Placing the speech on the table in front of her, she stepped on a small stool, stretched her upper body out of the podium, and tied her white twin ponytails into a woman's hairstyle.

After taking a puff of her pipe and blowing out a smoke ring, Lulos lazily flipped open the speech manuscript in her hand:
"Dear respected wizards:
Today, we stand here to celebrate a hard-earned victory, looking back to our darkest hours, when the armies of the Church overran our borders and burned our homes.

I thought that the richest southern counties would fall into the hands of the Church as the western counties had done, but I was wrong.

The people of Black Snake Bay have once again survived! With the staffs in our hands and the courage in our hearts, we have survived the most desperate days. Today, we can proudly say: We did not surrender!
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 very small part.

Our victory was due to the helping hand of the Holy Axis in the North, which joined us in driving the enemy out of here.

Folks, when we fought and shed blood countless times against the church, I asked myself, and perhaps you have asked yourself too:
Why are we so fragile that we are wiped out again and again without being able to fight back? Why do we have unyielding warriors but need the help of the Holy Axis to resist? "

Having said that, the white-haired Loli once again picked up the huge pipe and took a deep puff before continuing to speak in the quiet, smoke-filled venue:

"Perhaps the answer to this question can be found in the Thousand River Valley in the north. You see, they were not born strong. They were once like us, split into large and small forces, quarreling and opposing each other...

But in their most critical moment, they chose unity and sacrifice.

As a result, they, who were obviously less free and less independent than us, not only retained their freedom, but also completely drove the church out of the Thousand River Valley, and were even able to come to our aid.

So, my wizard friends, today we are not only celebrating the victory, but also hope that everyone will think: Freedom and independence used to be our pride, but now, has it become a shackle?

As a representative of the Witch Council and the Northern County Federal Council, I do not require you to answer immediately. I just hope that everyone can seriously recall and think about everything we have seen in the past few days. "

As Lulos walked down the podium carrying a small stool, some secret party leaders fell into deep thought as they recalled Lulos's meaningful words, but some still looked disdainful.

However, with the Holy Axis army in the lead, after Seromis read out the "Black Snake Bay Joint Declaration" written based on the "Thousand Valley Freedom Charter", everyone applauded and agreed to carry out the same reforms as in the Northern County.

The registration of secret parties and the establishment of county councils quickly entered the agenda of many secret parties.

But soon a new problem blocked the subsequent process.

"You can set up tax checkpoints for the spices and brown sugar we sell, but why can't you set up tax checkpoints for us?"

As expected, the secret parties that made their living from the spice trade stood up and began to oppose it.

(End of this chapter)