Unknown Knight

As time went by, most of the long winter had passed, and the extreme cold weather had occurred three or four times. The people in the territory had gone from being frightened at the beginning to being calm.

It's nothing, but no one has ever frozen to death in the territory in such cold weather. Everyone lives a comfortable life. Not only are they not cold or hungry, they have also gained a few pounds.

The students in Tangquan Winter School have basically all graduated. Afraid that the idle subjects would cause more trouble, Amanti had to organize them and carry out deep processing of the leather that had been stockpiled in the territory, mainly to make linings for the plate armor parts that had been stamped before winter.

These components consist of five parts: breastplate, arm guards, leg guards, shoulder guards, and waist guards. Although they look simple, their protective power is actually very high, and they are all made of stamped plates.

As long as these parts are inlaid and fixed on the finished chain mail or leather armor, although it is spliced ​​together and cannot cover the whole body, its defense is not much worse than those airtight full body plate armor wrapped in steel, and it is also very flexible.

Simple, efficient, practical, cheap, and easy to maintain, it meets all of Aix's requirements for soldier armor. It is simply the dream armor in his mind, which makes him very satisfied.

Equipped with the territory's unique pot helmet, the defense is greatly improved. As for why we need to equip it with this kind of pot helmet which has not very good defense, it is also very simple, because it is easy to make. It can be formed by a simple stamping, and then equipped with lining and binding rope, it is ready.

In fact, this pot helmet is not completely useless. Not only is it cheap, but the wide brim can effectively protect against arrows. Moreover, this pot helmet is mainly equipped for soldiers in arrays. In the case of a shield formation, it is not a big deal if some equipment has low defense.

In addition to mobilizing the people to process for a fee, Aix also organized the people to try winter fishing. That is, on a clear day, he led the original fishing team on a horse-drawn sleigh to the Kudan River to break ice and fish.

Unexpectedly, it was a great success. The winter fish under the ice were unusually plump. All one had to do was to chisel a small hole, and the oxygen-deprived fish would automatically come to the door, allowing everyone to truly experience the joy of scooping fish with a ladle.

A winter fishing trip yielded more than 2,000 kilograms of fish, adding fresh ingredients to the boring and monotonous winter diet.

On this day, Axe was eating hot pot with Gangde and three other beauties in the house. The pot was filled with fresh river fish presented by the people. The chefs cut the fish into thin slices and paired them with refreshing pickled wild vegetables. Axe called this way of eating "sauerkraut fish", which was very popular with the beauties.

The group was enjoying their meal when Bandak suddenly came in with a man wrapped in furs. He turned out to be a messenger from Fort Shules.

Upon asking, I learned that a family of three had fled to Schulers from the village of Hanen under the jurisdiction of Lelag Castle a few days ago.

After interrogation by Ran Hu, it was confirmed that they were not suspected spies, but a family who took the initiative to flee famine.

It turned out that due to the long winter, the early arrival of severe cold caused almost no harvest of crops in the fields over there, and now the food reserves of Nergboye in Lerag Castle are almost exhausted.

In order to survive, Nergboye first ordered his soldiers to go to the Hanun village under his jurisdiction to rob food and livestock to satisfy their hunger. Later, when there was no food left, these beasts even planned to capture living people to satisfy their hunger.

The male owner of the family of three who escaped was a soldier who was in charge of the warehouse at Lelag Fort. He knew that the warehouse at Nergboye was so empty that rats could starve to death.

In order to prevent his family from being put on the table, the soldier who was guarding the warehouse fled back home overnight, dug out half a bag of grain that he had buried secretly, put on all the clothes he could wear, and fled south with his family.

When they passed by Shules, they saw white smoke coming out of the chimney of the fortress. In order to survive the severe cold for their whole family, they ran over and knocked on the door to beg for life.

Ran Hu had heard Aix talk about the importance of Fort Lerag, and thought it was important information, so he sent someone to risk his life on skis to report it.

Moreover, by interrogating this soldier, Ran Hu also obtained an important piece of information, that is, there is a blind spot near the toilet on the wall of Fort Lerag, and it is very easy to climb up the wall with a rope without being noticed. The surplus food of their family was secretly taken away by this soldier by climbing down the wall from here.

After Aix learned about the situation, he couldn't help but be tempted. Fort Lerag has a strategic location and strong defense. It only needs dozens of people to guard it and it is unbreakable. It is a strategic pass where one man can block the passage of ten thousand men.

At the same time, due to its remote location and border with the Khergit Khanate, it was also a channel for smuggling important materials such as horses, spices, and salt.

Moreover, controlling this place is equivalent to adding a layer of protection for Shules and Aslum, and there is no need to worry about large-scale invasions of these areas by the Kugits.

So Aix hurriedly asked someone to call Igor and repeatedly confirmed with him whether the extremely cold North Wind God would come again. Although he did not get a completely affirmative answer, Aix was determined to take a gamble.

It is now one month after the Chinese New Year. In previous years, the snow would melt in another month and spring ploughing could begin. This year is a long winter and it may take another two months for the snow to melt, but we don’t expect to see extremely cold weather again.

Even Aix was willing to take a chance. After several experiences dealing with extreme cold weather, he had gained a lot of experience. As long as the extreme cold weather did not last for more than a week, he should be able to survive in a marching tent in the wild with adequate preparations.

So he summoned Yamanti and others, and after three days of preparation, more than fifty elite soldiers wearing the territory's new plate armor set off.

This time, Aix led the team personally, and the team was accompanied by leaders including Sophia, Desevi, Resarit, and Nia.

After arriving in Shules, they would bring Ran Hu, Robin Hood and some soldiers with them. This elite team would be able to defeat the less than 200 weak soldiers in Fort Lerag who were so hungry that they could not even stand up straight.

They rode on twenty horse-drawn sleighs, and their speed was not much slower than when there was no snow, and they reached Fort Schullers in just over a day.

However, the mental state of the soldiers stationed in Shules Fort was not very good, and the two rough men Ran Hu and Robin Hood who were left behind to guard the fort obviously did not know how to create a good atmosphere.

Although the earthen fortress building had good thermal insulation and no one suffered frostbite or freezing to death, and the food that Aix had reserved was sufficient, everyone was obviously in a bad mental state after staying in the house for a whole winter.

This did not pose a problem for Aix. He immediately asked the soldiers to unload the good wine and various fresh ingredients they had brought from the sleds, and prepared a meal of the territory's latest popular hot pot for the soldiers who stayed behind. He also promised that after the mission was completed, he would let them rotate back to Tangquan Fortress for a vacation.

This made the soldiers who stayed behind in Fort Shules cheer and their morale was greatly boosted.

They stayed in Shules for two days to rest and formulated a detailed breakthrough plan. After Aix repeatedly confirmed with Igor, who was traveling with him, that extreme cold weather would not occur within three days, they set off on the third day after arriving in Shules.

The group of more than 70 people took two days to reach Hanen Village under the jurisdiction of Lelag Castle.

The entire village was empty, and there were many bloodstains on the steps and door edges, which also explained the final outcome of the villagers here.

It is now afternoon, and Aix has decided to launch a night raid. The group takes shelter from the wind and snow in several empty houses that are sheltered from the wind, waiting for the arrival of night.

The crowd couldn't make a fire to keep warm, but fortunately Aix provided everyone with a leather bag filled with wine, so everyone could drink and eat dry food to keep warm.

At midnight, Axe and others, led by the soldier guarding the warehouse, came to the so-called blind spot.

This is next to a toilet on the wall of Fort Lerag, but the wind and snow have wrapped up and buried the originally stinking pickled things, and there is no odor at all.

Ran Hu, who was experienced in lassoing horses, easily threw the rope ladder he had prepared in advance onto the top of the city wall. Although it was very high, Robin Hood, who was very agile, started to climb up first.

For Robin Hood, it took him only a few breaths to climb up the seven or eight meter high city wall. After making sure that there was no one around, he waved his hand to signal everyone to climb up.

Before we came here, I heard from the soldier who led the way that there were only five places in Lelag Castle where people were living.

One was for the soldiers on duty in the gate tower, about thirty people, one was for the soldiers on duty in the watchtower, about twenty people, and one was for the servants living in the kitchen, about a dozen people.

Then there is the dungeon next to the main castle, which usually has four to five guards and holds prisoners, who are probably the surviving villagers of Hanen Village.

All that remained was the main castle, where lived the Nergboye couple, his sister Miss Ericina, and more than a hundred of the most elite soldiers.

Aix ordered everyone to follow the plan and split into two groups, one to raid the enemies at the city gate and the other to raid the enemies at the watchtower.

Soon the enemies in these two places were captured by Aix and his men, except for a small captain on duty at the city gate. He drew his sword and put up a slight resistance, but was hit by a flying axe from Nia, which split his head open and he fell to the ground and died. The rest were basically killed or captured, and there was not much disturbance.

However, in the earthenware jars used by the soldiers on duty at the city gate to cook, everyone saw the remaining human limbs and skulls. It was obvious that these people had eaten humans. Desevi was about to kill all these damned soldiers, but was stopped by Resarit.

The reason is that there are still more than a hundred people in the main fort. If these people find that they have no chance of survival and resist to the death, it will be disadvantageous to our side.

Then everyone attacked the dungeon, but what no one expected was that there was a secret passage in the dungeon connecting to the main castle. A local soldier who was not asleep saw that something was wrong, so he hurriedly escaped into the main castle through the secret passage and locked the iron gate.

Suddenly, alarm bells rang out in the main fort, and the soldiers inside quickly armed themselves.

There was no other way, so Aix had to leave soldiers to guard the sturdy iron gate and lock up more than 30 prisoners in the dungeon and keep them under guard.

There were less than a hundred terrified citizens in the dungeon, most of them young women and children.

It was obvious that the young and old people who dared to resist were either killed or eaten by the defenders, or both.