Chapter 197 Two Principalities

Author: Arion's Dolphins

Chapter 197 Two Principalities

The beholder's familiar was a crow, which could speak human words normally. After seeing this, Tang Zhao felt quite envious. He still can't talk to people normally.

"You are much stronger than before, which is good."

[If you can take the initiative to talk to me, it should be that something big has happened. I want to hear it.]

"Norton Castei, he is a complete humanist. He wants us foreigners to get out of human territory. He has been suppressing our forces in recent times. Do you know this?"

[I know, but the situation we encountered is not particularly serious.]

Crow's voice revealed a bit of excitement: "We can wait for the situation to worsen, but I'm sure he doesn't have good intentions towards us!"

[Maybe you are right, but what do you want me to do? 】

Tang Zhao took a wait-and-see attitude towards this, because the beholders themselves were paranoid about being persecuted. Even if they had nothing to do with it, they would associate it with nothing and think it was plotting to harm them.

Judging from Norton's personality and position, it is probably true, but it is not certain whether it is really that serious. The beholder will exaggerate.

Anyway, Norton's men are indeed making things difficult for the Hermes Chamber of Commerce, but they are still within acceptable limits. Both parties are working within the rules and regulations.

"Originally, I had a hard time dealing with Earl Ruford because he hindered me from making money, but now it seems that the rejection of our race is more alarming than the hindrance to business. I am considering joining forces with that guy briefly.

Let’s restrain Norton first before talking about anything else.”

The implication is that Tang Zhao and the others should also choose a side as soon as possible, or at least express their stance on the Beholder's side.

From the current point of view, it is true that he cannot cooperate with Norton Castei, but to be honest, Earl Ruford may not be any better than Norton.

From a human point of view, Norton is a good feudal noble. First of all, he firmly opposes using humans as slaves. In this regard, he is tit for tat with Earl Ruford. Earl Ruford is more of a pure businessman, which aspect can bring more

He will lean towards whatever interests he has, and he will be very accurate in terms of morality, and he will highlight the one who is immoral.

The beholder is similar in this aspect, but his performance is slightly better than that of Earl Ruford. After all, as a foreigner doing business in a human city, he does not want to do things too sharply and make people fearful. Earl Ruford does not have such concerns.

Wude and Wu are masters on the same level.

Some people have always suggested that Tang Zhao find an opportunity to cut off the beholder, because they believe that the beholder will be targeted by humans sooner or later, and it is an unpopular race.

[Personal suggestion, neither of these are good for our long-term development.]

"It's just the lesser of two evils. After Norton's matter is resolved, I will continue to fight Earl Ruford."

[Allow me to think about it again. I suggest you do the same. The matter is very complicated and even involves the succession of the throne of Oran. As a foreign race, it will definitely not be beneficial if we intervene too early. 】

Negotiations failed, and the beholder tried to persuade her a few more times, but when she saw that it had no effect, she had no choice but to give up.

Both sides broke up unhappy.

After the beholder left, Tang Zhao immediately called Bourne and others, saying that they had important matters to discuss.

After telling the truth about the beholder in a succinct and concise manner, Tang Zhao looked at everyone.

[First of all, we all know that the beholder’s paranoia has reached the level of paranoia. In my opinion, we cannot accept his cooperation proposal. He may include us as a target of vigilance, and we will be framed by him again.

possibility, it is not too much to speculate on the worst case scenario.】

"In other words, is there likely to be another war after Karak Solma?"

[I can’t say, but I think we should start a new round of military strengthening. I have discussed it with Princess Julia. The situation in Oran is now more serious than we thought before, and there is a high probability that a succession war will break out. In order to protect ourselves,

We should take action.]

There was a lot of discussion among the people below. Generally speaking, they were more supportive of Tang Zhao's words.

All races present have experienced real wars and have a deep understanding of the damage and impact caused by wars. They do not want war to come to them again, and one of the best ways is to intimidate others so that others do not dare to take action.

After deciding to increase military armaments again, everyone began to discuss the details.

Each race has different equipment and weapon requirements. Dwarves have a rich reserve of weapons and can get ready-made weapons from Dragon Blood Pass, so they are the race with the best equipment.

The second is the elves. They are mostly rangers and spellcasters. The armor they wear is more lightweight and relatively low-cost. At the same time, they can also get a certain degree of weaponry and equipment support from the western elves’ settlements, so they also

There is no shortage of equipment.

The ones most lacking in equipment are the kobolds and lizardmen. Their armament plans were started from scratch. Even after months of slowly equipping them, the equipment level is still not comparable to that of the former two.

Only a few elites have complete weapons and equipment, and most soldiers only have minimal weapons and equipment.

In the future, Karak Solma's weapons production capacity will be supplied in large quantities to kobolds and lizardmen, and the remaining production capacity will be allocated to refined armor and gunpowder weapons for foreign trade depending on the situation.

The evaluation of artillery and muskets is pretty good. The current quantity of weapons and equipment is far from enough, and more quantities need to be produced.

Especially artillery, which has strong lethality against simple siege weapons and infantry. Most races now do not have the ability to produce artillery. At the same time, due to the by-products related to Tang Zhao Scales, many magics cannot be used against them.

The city wall causes damage, which is a great advantage.

In addition, some adjustments have been made to the composition of the city defense army. The original technical arms were dwarves, the frontline troops were manned by kobolds, and the elves acted as rangers to assist in guerrilla warfare and stayed outside the battle line.

In addition, the number of bears is very small, lizardmen are newly added, and elves are mainly responsible for secondary tasks such as logistics coordination and forest patrol.

Now some changes have been made, these races have taken advantage of their respective advantages and been mixed into various formations.

The elite force for melee combat is the lizardmen equipped with spears, bucklers, javelins, and heavy armor.

Elves and dwarves exist as technical arms. One heavy infantry is good at using technical equipment, and the other has super flexible shooting skills. They can complement each other to a certain extent.

There are still a large number of kobolds and a small number of goblins left as auxiliary presences to play their own roles.

Since the number of lizardmen is not that large, some teams use kobolds instead, whose combat effectiveness is slightly weaker.

The number of soldiers basically remains the same. Now with their population, maintaining a thousand-man-level army is already a full-scale army. It is quite difficult to maintain. Tang Zhao and others prefer elite soldiers instead of large numbers of people to maintain the existing scale.

, just upgrade the equipment. The current number of people is enough to protect themselves, and they have no desire to attack in the short term.

——

After the meeting, Tang Zhao approached the Erwin family again.

[You plan to go to the countries in the western part of the mainland. This is your freedom. However, I personally recommend that you stay in the settlement for a while. I have some things I want to verify. 】

"In return for helping us, of course there is no problem, but I want to know in advance what you need me to do."

[You don’t need to do too much, just live here peacefully. You may be assigned some labor tasks within your capabilities. The workload is definitely not large, and the risk is also very low. Some human civilians may come to me in the future.

settlement, I hope you will manage them for a while.】

Now is the time to prepare for a rainy day. We still don’t know what will happen to Oran in the future, so we should make some preparations in advance.

Erwin's character is a little indecisive, but his abilities are pretty good. He can at least manage hundreds of people. After all, he has been a mayor and has a good reputation.

"Well, if the number of people is not large, there will be no problem. I think I can manage it well."

Erwin didn't hesitate and agreed directly.

[You can discuss the specific matters with Bourne, I have already informed him in advance.]

Having said that, Erwin's expression was still hesitant: "Can you tell me one more thing? Is Oran going to war again?"

[I can't control the situation, and I can't guarantee how things will develop, but I suggest you be prepared for a war. Speaking of which, can you satisfy my personal curiosity, how did you get involved with the mermaid in the sea?

They are not an extrovert race who take the initiative to interact with others.]

"It's really lucky to become friends with them. In fact, they were quite wary of me at first, but my territory is very close to theirs, and we often have contact. We have become familiar with each other every time we go there.

stand up"

[Understood, please write a letter to the senior mermaids you met there. Nymph and the others are currently traveling in Oran, and some young mermaids who don’t want to go out are over there in Yintao City. Both parties are still safe.

】

Before Nying Fu left, she entrusted him with delivering the message. By the way, she also told Tang Zhao the approximate location of the mermaid territory. After the war against the sahuagin ended, it would not be difficult to deliver the message.

Erwin naturally agreed, and the two chatted for a few more words, then separated and went about their own business.

——

After everything was settled, Tang Zhao originally planned to take a long vacation for himself, and then eat as much as he wanted until he could evolve.

Evolution requires more than two hundred tons of various flesh and blood, plus nearly a thousand blood cores, which is obviously not a small amount.

The settlement is now very short of meat and cannot allocate so much surplus. Even if it can be divided, it will take a while for Tang Zhao to eat all the food.

His digestive ability is indeed very strong, but his digestion speed is not abnormally fast and is still at the level of ordinary organisms.

After weighing it up, Tang Zhao added a new activity every day - hunting in the mountains.

On the one hand, he wanted to evolve faster, on the other hand, he wanted to make up for the lack of food in the settlement. Finally, he wanted to free up some meat to feed certain creatures.

Through the efforts of various races, several griffon cubs have been collected and are being tamed by the fairies. They are growing rapidly and will become combat-effective in a few years.

Compared with horse vultures, gryphons have a more violent temper and are more difficult to tame, but their average size and combat effectiveness are much stronger. Tang Zhao had seen the role that horse vultures can play in wars before, and he was quite greedy for similar creatures.

Now we have to raise a few despite the pressure of food supply.

Even if they can't form combat effectiveness in the past year or two, they will have griffins to use in a few years. They can't compare with Oran's exaggerated number of griffin knights, but they are better than nothing.

Not long after that, when Tang Zhao was peacefully living in the mountains, someone came from the western elven settlement to spread the word, causing the originally peaceful settlement to stir up trouble again.

Thanks to Olivia's efforts, the western elf settlement and the southern elf kingdom have established preliminary connections. The two sides have not resolved to eliminate their previous grudges, but they have also had envoys and preliminary trade and technology exchanges. They are no longer the same as before.
To be continued...