Chapter 219
2021-01-06
Chapter 219 Where are the reinforcements?The hall is noisy again as Ygritte is dragged away by Jon in disbelief.
Some people scold Jon for being obsessed, some scold her for being wildling unable to tell good from bad...but there is no doubt that all Night's Watch are nervous about Mance Rayder's massive offensive plan and their own manpower shortage . Better-brained people have begun discussing all possible coping strategies.
Igor watched the female wildling leave, sighed, turned to Mormont, and gently shook the head.
Just now, at the last moment, he forcibly found an excuse to regain a little face, which is considered to suppress the arrogance of the female wildling, but this kind of verbal contest is completely meaningless. "Time is on the Night's Watch's side" may be true, but Night's Watch has to be able to last until then... And in fact, I am afraid that only Others oneself know when they will be strong enough to get close to Wall. . And whether it is "wildling breaks the Wall and destroys Night's Watch Legion", or "Night's Watch Legion keeps wildling outside the Wall until the latter are all turned into dead armies", it is the ending that Igor does not want to see.
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"Lord Commander, what I said to that female wildling just now was purely a guess to save face. The actual situation now is: we are completely There is no way to stop the Mance Rayder's planned attack."
"All the land-grant residents... must be moved to the stronghold as soon as possible for protection." Maester Aemon said slowly, "The manpower is extremely short. , if the wildlings are allowed to slaughter or the residents are forced south to flee the land grant, the situation will only get worse. The tragedy of Mole's Town cannot happen again."
"I will arrange this as soon as possible. Do you have any other opinions and good ideas?"
"Castle Black and Shadow Tower must have walls as soon as possible." The chief craftsman said in a heavy tone, the stronghold of Night's Watch must not build walls, It's a tradition and stipulation written in Legion's regulations, but with the wildlings daring to attack the Night's Watch stronghold a thing of the past, it's time for a change.
"This..." Mormont hesitated for a few seconds, and finally nodded: "Put it on the agenda, repair or demolish Castle Black's abandoned and damaged tower, and build the extra masonry wall."
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The Chief Ranger turned his head: "We have to resume patrols on the top of the Wall as much as possible, in case the next wildlings climb to the top of the wall and attack from the left and right along the top. Once the advantage of height is lost , we have nothing.”
“The road on the ice wall has not been cleared of snow and gravel for many years, and it is impossible to walk at all. The wildlings have to attack from the left and right along the top of the wall. , then you have to clear the way first, I don't think they will have such a spare time."
"The road on the top of the ice wall is really not easy to walk, but you think it is very difficult for those who dare to climb up to 700 feet high. For the lunatics of Wall, how difficult would it be to travel a little on the top of a wall without a road?"
"Okay okay, you're right." The chief craftsman was annoyed: "I I also want to resume patrols, but where do the manpower come from? If we want to patrol, at least we have to clear the roads for patrols first, and then we have to arrange fixed patrol personnel. All these tasks must be done by humans. Too many people will lead to various problems. The defensive strength of the stronghold is not enough, and there are few people... When we encounter a wildling that has already reached the wall, what do we rely on to deal with it?"
...
"Speaking of which, It's still a problem caused by lack of people, everyone." Igor interrupted the quarrel between several colleagues and said with a serious expression: "It can't solve the shortage of people, all these can only be expedient measures. I don't know if you already know-- Wildling has the means to rely on birds to scout us in the air. They can see everything we do, any military deployment of Night's Watch, our enemies can know, any weakness in us will directly become fatal The door! And after the female wildling announced Mance Rayder's attack plan today, this attack and defense simply became a confrontation with each other's 'clear card', and to win in this no-secret struggle, apart from luck, we There must be a force that is really stronger than...or at least not too weaker than the other party."
"There is no doubt that we have to find foreign aid." Mormont breathes deeply: "Otherwise, there will only be death and Mance. There are two options for negotiating the door.”
“Negotiation is an option, the problem is, we have nothing to guarantee that after wildling makes an agreement with us to enter the Wall, he will not turn his face and kill us immediately. Jeremy reminded, "In the eyes of these wildlings, we are hopeless 'Kneelers' who simply won't accept our laws and institutions without a knife on their necks. . Just like this female wildling today... We think they are wildlings, but she probably thinks that it is the greatest kindness to let us gang of robbers live. "
"If the wildlings' arrogance cannot be suppressed, there will be no 'negotiation' at all. "Igor said: "The strength is not equal, it can only be called peace... We must first think about killing Mance Rayder's prestige. And if you want to find foreign aid..."
"You are active in the south all the year round, don't you have a way, such as mercenaries? "
"Mercenary, haha..." Igor chuckled: "Lord Commander is joking, you don't know the price of mercenaries, the logistics department does have some business in King's Landing, and it's doing a good job." . But if you want to raise mercenaries - it's still enough to help us fight against 100,000 wildling mercenaries, it's absolutely impossible. In addition, there is a war going on in the south, and all those who know how to use weapons have gone there to find customers to make a living, so the price will probably be more expensive. What we need now is a cheap helper, preferably without money. "
Cheap, it's better not to have money to help, how can there be such a good thing in the world?
Igor didn't expect available people when he said this, but the voice of oneself fell. Half a second later, he suddenly thought of whom he could ask for help: "When Robb Stark went south, did he recruit soldiers from the Mountain Clan tribe? "
The Mountain Clan!
Everyone who heard him turned their heads to him, and several of them had "how did I not expect" expressions on their faces
"Conscripted, each tribe sent warriors to go south with Robb, and the leaders of these tribes knew Eddard Stark, and they respected him as the leader of the North 'Ned', when it came to his orders , and go south to 'grab the richest nobles in the Seven Kingdoms', all clan leaders are very active. "
Hope was dashed again, but Mormont quickly rekindled him: "Wait, they did send warriors to go south with Robb, but these hill clan tribes were different from the people of the other princes of the North -- they Don't farm. "
What do you mean by not farming?
Igor wondered for a second, then suddenly realized: "If you don't farm, it means that the so-called 'autumn harvest' means nothing to this group of mountain clan tribes. It's pointless, they sent the warriors of the clan to go south with Robb, but the rest of the people can still support us! "
"That's right! The chief service officer clapped the table in surprise: "The living habits of these mountain clan tribes are no different from wildling, the only difference is that they have been tamed by North rulers after thousands of years. They are very aggressive, and both men and women can be used as Warriors. Persuade them to come out to assist Wall's defense, and our manpower pressure will be greatly reduced! "
The idea came to Igor, but he really didn't know much about the mountain clan tribes and needed an introduction.
…
Night's Watch has long been associated with The mountain clan tribes exchange resources and daily necessities, and they are very familiar with them. After chatting for a while, Igor has a preliminary impression of this group of "friendly Barbarians" living in the south of the Wall.
If, in the words of Tyrion Lannister, wildlings are "people who happened to be north of the wall when the wall was up", then the mountain clan tribes were the ones who were luckier to the south.
These The tribes living in the mountain range north of Wolfswood and beyond the wall wildling have almost the same culture and living habits. They believe in Old Gods and have a strong temperament. There are nearly 40 large and small tribes. Among them, the Flint clan and the Nuo The Rui clan lived closest to the land grant, were constantly exposed to wildling raiders that crossed the Gorge, and were notoriously close to the Night's Watch.
Poor, aggressive, and desperate for face , is simply the perfect foreign aid.
“How many are there? "
"It's hard to say. No one has counted it. If you add it up, it's about 20,000 or 30,000." This refers to the total population of the forty tribes. But in reality, the tribes who live farther from the Wall may not be easy to persuade... but even a thousand or two thousand people are enough to solve the problem! "
"Thousands of people!" "
"There may be women among them!" "
"You only have women on your mind!" "
......
"very good, it seems that today's meeting was not in vain, we have now found a feasible way out. Mormont's face gradually regained a sense of relief, and a cough interrupted the excited discussions of Night's Watch: "Please discuss the details for each department, we will not discuss it at the conference. Now, I'm arranging a mission..."
The hall was silent, and everyone looked at the Lord Commander.
"There needs to be someone on the top of the Wall and around the stronghold at all times, this mission Leave it to the Rangers; Castle Black and Shadow Tower need to start building walls, and craftsmen are responsible for it; in addition, Chief Affairs Officer, you must send people as soon as possible to move the living residents of the land grant into the three strongholds and settle them properly. Chief Logistics Officer, you have a lot of dealings with people, and you are responsible for visiting the tribes in the mountains to the west of the land grant and trying to ask them for support. "
Old Bear looked around the house, looked in the direction of James and the dozens of his remaining bodyguards, and said, "Finally, I will send twenty more from Castle Black's rangers to Eastwatch, take part in the boating training so that the warships donated by Earl Manderly in White Harbor can be used. As for the vacancy in the Rangers, Andrew Tarth... This time, we have welcomed a group of recruits with decent quality, and we will complete their training as soon as possible and add them to the Rangers. All missions from now on begin, now... adjourn! ”
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(end of this chapter)