Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 362: "Peaceful" Handover

The work of clearing the battlefield continued until nearly midnight, when it had to be stopped due to the low temperature at night.

Three ironclad ships approached the shore, and felt tents specially equipped for winter combat were set up on the river beach. The wreckage of the enemy's stranded sailboat was ruthlessly torn into pieces, and all of it was used as heating fuel for the soldiers camping in the wild.

After cleaning up the battlefield, the soldiers were assigned to night guard and patrol teams according to their superiors' instructions. Those who were free sat in groups of three or four around the warm campfire, took out the canned food they were given and heated it by the fire, and occasionally discussed in low voices the interesting things that happened during the day's battle.

Wayne and his adjutant personally escorted the two prisoners into Commander Pierce's tent.

Before Pierce could even open his mouth to ask, one of them shouted, "I am Baron Scott. Please allow me to meet the Lord of Grizzly Castle. I demand the respect and treatment due to a noble prisoner of war!"

Another person also said quickly: "I am Hansen Brick, the second son of Baron Brick. Please allow me to meet with the chief officer of Grizzly Fort. We are willing to pay the ransom."

Pierce frowned impatiently and responded coldly: "There is no lord of Grizzly Castle here. I am the supreme commander."

He paused, then asked in a deep voice, "Why did Grand Duke Ralph send troops to Sancha Town? Was the Baron's seizure of the slave caravan from Grizzly Castle based on his direct instructions?"

The two exchanged a surprised glance. Baron Scott moved his shoulders with difficulty. "We are merely noble knights responding to the lord's call to arms. The officer in charge was the Duke's nephew, but he has been killed in action..."

"Dead?" Pierce raised an eyebrow in disappointment. "It seems your commander is quite unlucky. Then you should answer my questions. How many elite knights does the Grand Duke still have in Fengyuan City? How many spellcasting advisors does he have? What are his subsequent plans for Grizzli Fort? Tell me as much as you know. I can naturally tell the truth from the lies in your words."

Baron Scott immediately shut his mouth upon hearing this, and turned his head away with an air of arrogance. Baron Brick's second son hesitated for a moment, "Your Excellency the Commander, we are all full-time knights who have sworn allegiance to the Grand Duke. We would never do anything that violates the spirit of chivalry and our oath..."

"Oh..." Pierce chuckled disapprovingly, "Take them to the boat."

After the soldiers took the two away, he instructed Wayne, "You have to work hard tonight and don't sleep. Use the methods I taught you to interrogate these two noble knights."

Wayne rubbed his hands together and asked, "Are there no limits on the methods? Should we keep them in exchange for the ransom?"

Pierce shook his head and said in a cold tone, "Before we set out, the Lord told me that we don't have to worry about prisoners of war or ransom. You just need to get enough information out of them."

……

What surprised Pierce was that the extremely swift battle at the river mouth also attracted the attention of the Baron of Sancha Town. At dawn, the soldiers patrolling outside the camp caught a team of spies who came to investigate the situation.

After killing the two men who tried to escape on the spot, the remaining three immediately rolled off their horses and lay down in the snow, begging for mercy. Then they were trapped by the soldiers' legs and dragged back to the camp on the river bank.

"Let you return to town and take a message back to the Baron of Sancha Town," Pierce ordered impatiently. "Tell the Baron to release our caravan immediately and give up armed resistance. The fleet will arrive at the town dock this afternoon..."

As he spoke, he pointed to the enemy corpses piled up on the river bank and ready to be burned, and added with a grin: "Of course, if you still decide to fight us, I don't mind burning a few more bodies..." The spy looked at the dead bodies wrapped in the flags of the Grand Duke Ralph's family emblem in horror. They were piled together in a haphazard manner, and most of the bodies were incomplete, as if they had been gnawed by some huge monster. It was a terrible sight.

Without waiting for Pierce to urge them, even the horses gave up and crawled towards the town.

In the afternoon, when the armored icebreaker slowly sailed to the Sancha Town Pier, it found a team of ordinary soldiers wearing simple leather armor, surrounding a middle-aged man in fancy clothes, waiting nervously outside the shed at the pier.

"My lord! My lord!" The man in fine clothes seemed to have no sense of being a noble. Following the guidance of the scout, he quickly came to Pierce, threw himself on the ground and began to beg for mercy. "We didn't harm your caravan in the slightest. We only detained them under the instructions of His Excellency the Grand Duke. We even vacated three barns for them to shelter from the wind and rain, and cooked oatmeal porridge for them every day..."

Pierce was a little surprised and said, "Mr. Baron, don't tell me that detaining these people is just to collect a sudden head tax..."

The man in fancy clothes shook his head like a rattle and hurriedly distanced himself from the matter. "Sir, I am not the Baron of Sancha Town. I am just the town's new tax collector... The Baron, he escaped last night!"

As soon as these words were spoken, Pierce, who was about to settle the score with the local noble lord, was stunned on the spot and could not speak for a long time.

Ran away? Or ran away overnight...

The tax collector said with a bitter face, "Last night, the Baron's spies reported that your fleet engaged Duke Ralph at the river mouth. They said they saw...saw a high-level spellcaster...who directly defeated the Duke's fleet, so..."

Wayne, standing aside, couldn't help but sneer and asked, "Then why don't you run?"

"Sir... I'm a local, and I've long been dissatisfied with the Baron's arbitrary taxation and withholding of funds from passing caravans. This town doesn't even have a decent patrol, and the annual tax hikes have caused caravans to avoid them. The townspeople have long lost their livelihoods, and I wish the Baron would just go away."

Pierce inquired a few more times, and finding the other party's attitude to be genuine, he spoke slowly, "In that case, you no longer need to be exploited and oppressed by Duke Ralph. From now on, Sancha Town will be under the jurisdiction of the Grizzly Territory. In two days, noble officials from Grizzly Castle will arrive in town. You will simply complete the handover."

Soon the soldiers reported that they had received the released secret police of the territory, as well as hundreds of serfs he had purchased from human traffickers. Although they had been detained for quite some time, fortunately the local officials in the town did not want to offend Grizzly Castle and did not treat these people badly. In the freezing weather and lack of food and clothing, only a few serfs who were already sick unfortunately died, and the rest were imprisoned in the barn and barely survived.

After arranging the serfs to board the icebreakers one after another, Pierce decided to set off and return immediately without staying any longer. After all, the vassal nobles of Grizzly Castle would naturally send people to take over the affairs of the town. He only needed to leave a team of 100 Northern Army soldiers here to maintain order.

Before leaving, he glanced at the tax collector who was standing at the dock with a humble attitude and kept bowing to them, and his heart suddenly moved.

"This tax collector is a good manager..."

"Take him with you and return to Grizzlie Castle with us."

(End of this chapter)