When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Through the stained-glass windows, the twilight of dusk spilled onto the lapis lazuli tiled floor.

Amidst the velvet curtains, a dazzling twenty-four-branched bronze candelabrum flickered with bright light.

Passing through the purple curtains beside the pillars, at the end of the scarlet carpet, was a sandpit the size of three beds.

In the yellow sand, several stones and branches were placed to represent mountains and forests, with flags the size of a little finger stuck in them to represent army camps.

This was a crude sand table, without precise mountains or accurate height differences, only a flat surface.

The Duke of Wyvern's kestrel was pacing silently along the edge of the sand table, occasionally lowering its head to poke at the sand with its butter-colored beak.

"Your courage is smaller than a lamb's!"

A rough voice filled with suppressed anger echoed under the dome of the castle hall, the sideburns of Duke Oldatharre of Wyvern, clad in a sable fur robe, trembling.

"My dear cousin has been captured alive, yet you are like ravens curled up in their nests in winter, unwilling to let even a feather be touched by the frost?"

Long, slender fingers, incongruous with his sideburns, tapped the table in front of the sand table, the iridescent necklace around his neck bouncing along.

"The Red Cedar family's thousand swift riders fought fiercely for an entire day, only to be cut off by four thousand peasant soldiers, yet you, gentlemen, are feasting and drinking?"

The nobles on both sides of the sand table looked apprehensive, either lowering their heads to study the patterns on the floor or raising their heads to admire the religious paintings on the dome.

As for the Duke of Wyvern's roar, none dared to step forward and respond.

"Tarkhan, tell me, knowing that Duke Red Cedar was captured, why didn't you go to rescue him?"

The knight commander, with a stiff face, stepped forward: "Your Excellency, it's not that we didn't want to rescue him, it's that Duke Red Cedar didn't try hard enough. He was held back by a few hundred infantrymen. If he could have won, there wouldn't have been the later events."

The Duke of Wyvern glared at the knight commander: "Make it clear, Duke Red Cedar lost less than a hundred men in the unsuccessful attack on Che Fort, and lost half of them in the subsequent annihilation.

I'm asking you why you didn't rescue him, not why Duke Red Cedar couldn't even break through a fort with a few hundred men!"

But the knight commander Tarkhan was still unconvinced, although he lowered his head to admit his mistake, he still muttered: "He couldn't even hold on for a little while. I just got the knights up, and hadn't been on the road for long. How could he have collapsed so quickly..."

"Oh, you're so thoughtful. A group of elite knights travels slower than the Thousand River Valley's ragtag knights?" The Duke of Wyvern sneered sarcastically, "How did the people of Thousand River Valley arrive in time?"

Of course, the knight commander couldn't answer this question, and only blamed himself with a look of bad luck: "The rain was too heavy, I didn't expect it. Duke Red Cedar's defeat was too fast, it's also my fault..."

The only sound in the entire hall was the knight commander's mosquito-like self-blame. Later, even the knight commander's mosquito-like voice stopped, and there was only silence.

After a long while, Archbishop Jinweise of Silver Bay City slowly opened his mouth: "The people of Thousand River Valley used magic, they will go to the fire hell after death."

The Duke of Wyvern closed his eyes slightly, suppressing his anger and not speaking.

Andre used the tactic of adding oil to the fire, quickly mobilizing troops, and with an absolute advantage in numbers, captured Duke Red Cedar alive.

Not only that, but he also killed and captured thousands of knights and soldiers.

They originally had only more than 30,000 troops, which was the result of the full support of the local church. The new Pope even directly refunded this year's tax from the Shattered Stone Plain.

And of these more than 30,000 troops, almost half were mercenaries. He urgently needed enough backbone fighting force.

His cousin Duke Red Cedar and his main knights, who came to support him, were the backbone fighting force he was expecting.

As a result, this fresh force had only gone halfway, and nearly a thousand knights and two thousand soldiers were devoured by the people of Thousand River Valley.

Whenever he thought of this, the Duke of Wyvern felt a burst of pain in his heart.

Standing in front of the Duke, the knight commander Tarkhan noticed that the Duke's expression was becoming more and more dangerous, and immediately steered the topic towards a black-clad Earl: "Your Excellency, I remember, I ordered the rescue of Duke Red Cedar, Earl Luceny was closest to him, Earl, where did you go?"

Luceny immediately defended himself: "The people of Thousand River Valley transferred their troops, and their rear must be empty, so I decided to outflank their rear, in order to divert the people of Thousand River Valley."

Before the Duke of Wyvern could speak, the knight who had escaped from Duke Red Cedar's command cursed loudly: "Then did you successfully outflank them?"

Earl Luceny said awkwardly: "It was the friendly forces that didn't support in time, Your Highness Knight Commander, since you set off, you should have been nearby at that time?"

The knight commander pointed to the sand table with a branch: "I was at this position."

The Earl immediately pointed at his nose and cursed: "Good, you were only thirty miles away, why didn't you cooperate with me?"

The knight commander retorted: "Is Duke Red Cedar important or are you important? Besides, the troops of Thousand River Valley were all transferred away, just those few pentagonal outposts, how many people did you need? You're blaming me for not supporting you in time!"

"I only set out when I saw He Xio sending troops, but when I arrived, he hadn't arrived yet, so I couldn't break through..."

"You're talking nonsense, Luceny, the outpost I attacked wasn't that one at all."

"Why didn't I see you in the team supporting Duke Red Cedar..."

"If you have the ability, come out and fight one-on-one..."

"Bang!"

Seemingly unable to stand the crowd's quarrel, an old knight slammed the table and stood up, the loud noise attracting everyone's attention.

"Stop arguing."

The most ⊥ new ⊥ small ⊥ say ⊥ in ⊥ six ⊥ 9 ⊥⊥ book ⊥⊥ bar ⊥⊥ first ⊥ hair!

The people who were still arguing stopped one after another, their eyes focused on the old knight with gray hair, expecting his high opinion.

"In the end, it's that Melia didn't talk about martial ethics, and suddenly declared war, we weren't prepared.

Your Excellency, send someone to the Thousand River Valley, and let them release Duke Red Cedar, and we'll set up a battle formation and fight again.

If we still lose, I'll be convinced..."

The crowd finally fell completely silent, but unlike before, this time they were completely speechless.

The court baron couldn't help but say: "Sir Knight, I'll say something unpleasant, will there be any difference if we fight again?

They are still faster than us, and can endure hard battles.

We seem to have a lot of troops, but we can't break through the outposts of the Thousand River Valley people, and we can't stop the Thousand River Valley people from gathering a large army.

If we disperse, we will be defeated one by one, if we concentrate, we will be ambushed from both sides.

Their attack on us is such a simple tactic, even without the Holy Guns and clockwork cannons, it's just that we lose more beautifully.

If we don't break this, we can't compete with the people of Thousand River Valley at all!"

The people in the hall fell silent, if they had a way, would they need to push the blame around?

Looking at these purple-clad and fur-clad nobles, the Duke of Wyvern suddenly envied Melia.

Although the people of Thousand River Valley have no noble glory, the power of the two great lords is really great.

And he doesn't even have the power to decide the guilt of a certain noble, but needs all the nobles to discuss it together.

"Go back and think about it carefully, within three days, everyone submit a plan to defeat Thousand River Valley to me."

In the silence, many vassals and nobles bowed and saluted, as if the quarrel just now had not happened.

The last noble to leave closed the door, leaving only the Duke alone sitting in front of the sand table.

Getting up from his seat, the Duke walked to the edge of the sand table.

At this time, the sand table had been turned upside down by the kestrel, and only the outline could barely be seen.

Standing in front of the sand table, the Duke compared it with the map in his hand. After a long while, he suddenly seemed to make up his mind and slammed the map heavily on the position of Salt Beach.

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