Chapter 224
2021-01-06
Chapter 224 On the AirlineAbout the mountain clan's over-enthusiasm towards guests, Igor was already caught before he came. Greeted, so it's not too surprising. Out of the consideration of customs and courtesy, he and James followed the reminder and left two girls who came to visit late at night, and shared beds and blankets with them... In the clan, they were considered beautiful, but the two Night's Watch also It doesn't matter that the iron is enough to play 4P without any psychological obstacles, so - "warming the bed" is really just warming the bed.
After saying goodbye to the Flint clan, Igor visited the Wol clan to the west near the Bay of Ice. The conditions negotiated with the old Flint before are already a typical agreement that both parties can satisfy, and half of the conditions have not changed... Igor has negotiated a land grant agreement with the clan with the largest number of members in the entire North.
Relying on the promise of two castles and "management of meals", Igor brought in two large mountain clans and nearly 3,000 new residents for the land grant. Their participation gave Igor a good idea of the feasibility of the plan. . Even... On the contrary, he now has to start thinking about the situation where he is too much to take care of - if he doesn't control the number of foreign aid he pulls, and as a result, he moves to the Wall, but he can't support himself, that would be ridiculous. .
A total of sixteen castles can be entered along the Wall, and ideally, each of them is guarded... This means that it is better to have a similar cooperation with fourteen other clans, which is impossible. It is up to Igor to negotiate alone - whether there is time or not, as the chief logistics officer, he should not waste time and energy on such repetitive work. Now that he has determined that this series of conditions for living in land grants can impress the mountain clan, he decided not to go into battle in person, but to let his subordinates visit.
Igor picked out five clear-headed accompanying soldiers, and after explaining the conditions and all the details to them, let them go south with the guide provided by the Wor clan and the escort of the Warrior. Several other clans more recently, oneself returned to Castle Black with Jaime and the others.
He can pull in reinforcements, but now he has to go back first to ensure two things: First, Mormont can accept the terms of the oneself negotiation; second, the reinforcements must be settled before the wildling can officially attack the city.
...
After briefly telling the story, Mormont agreed with Igor's plan, Night's Watch has no choice now, as long as it can stop the wildling, let alone sixteen abandoned fortresses Well, even if the clans wanted to live in Castle Black, it wasn't impossible to negotiate.
When Igor finished talking about the harvest of his trip, Old Bear also gave him the latest status of Wall's defense and a good news: the wildlings stationed outside Castle Black have left one after another, apparently to execute Ygritte's "Mance's Offensive Plan". Although King Stannis brought most of his troops to the south, he sent more than a dozen fast battleships to support Eastwatch - with this sea help, at least the line of smuggling from the Bay of Seals was cut off...
Now, Night's Watch Legion can hold the wildling north of the Wall as long as it manages to intercept two groups of people crossing the Wall and crossing the Gorge, winning the largest wildling invasion in a thousand years. .
After talking with the Lord Commander to discuss the allocation of the sixteen fortresses and the subsequent placement of the new residents, Igor received a letter from the King's Landing Night's Watch estate, and Nina was there. The letter briefed him on the recent performance of King's Landing and the industry.
＊＊＊
After Renly died suddenly and Stannis recaptured Iron Throne without bloodshed, he continued to carry out great reforms in King's Landing - suppressing the Church of The Seven, spreading the Lord of Light belief, At the same time, we began to clean up those industries that were "indecent and corrupt"... Night's Watch industry tall trees attracted the wind, and was affected without any suspense. Not only was the printing of "Seven-Pointed Star" and Xiaohuangshu forced to stop, but also the acquisition of Littlefinger at a bargain price. The brothel was also reluctantly closed.
The role of egg baskets was revealed in this big storm: fortunately, the industry did not rely on these few businesses for support. Not only did business quickly return to normal, it even expanded - continuing intelligence gathering as Nina moved the forced prostitutes into restaurants and hotels under the Night's Watch logistics department, while taking down some other "legitimate" prints After the order... Stannis on Iron Throne's negative impact on the Night's Watch industry was minimized and quickly dissipated.
Also, the guy who improved the lipstick and soap actually made Wildfire solid as Igor requested. By adding a series of raw materials, the liquid Wildfire was blended into an ointment-like state. In addition to the changes in physical properties, Nina also reported the changes in its chemical properties in the letter: stability and ignition point were greatly improved, not only removing Disturbance can detonate the disadvantage, and even boiling water can't ignite it.
Although it didn't make a liquid bomb as expected, Wildfire is a light oil after all, and it is impossible to count on adding something to turn it into an explosive... Cured Wildfire can no longer explode, but its viscosity and It still burns much better than ordinary kerosene and asphalt - features that represent a crucial change: now, solidified Wildfire is a fire that is better than napalm and can be transported on a large scale Offensive weapons!
Finally, Igor also learned from the end of the letter a piece of news that I couldn't figure out by hearing in the Wall before: In order to punish the Crownlands families for their betrayal of supporting Renly in their fight for Iron Throne, Stannis told them Severe penalties were imposed, with a series of measures including the arrest of key family members for treason, forced hostages, confiscation of family property and the distribution of Fiefdom to meritorious persons.
Among them, "family property" naturally also includes investment in the Night's Watch industry...
Several major investors, including House Buckwell, have a share in the Night's Watch industry Confiscated by Stannis in the name of Iron Throne, the new king immediately returned this part to the Night's Watch industry in the name of supporting Night's Watch. Igor used to have to give more than half of his income to the supporters behind the scenes every month, but now... With the mistakes and losses of the Crownlands family, many of the big guys behind the industry were beaten down by Stannis. Now, the industry Nearly 80% of the income is all allocated and used by Igor at will - the original Night's Watch industry was everyone's cash cow, but now it is his own!
In the absence of Stannis' failure to unify the Seven Kingdoms, the business of the Night's Watch industry is limited to the Crownlands and Three Rivers areas, but these two places alone have provided Igor with a monthly disposable profit of more than a thousand Golden Dragons , it is not too easy to use such a wealth to support the clan people with extremely low requirements.
The funding source is sufficient, and the land-grant infill program can be implemented with confidence. But soon, Igor realized a new problem: the speculative failure of the original Crownlands nobles will lead to their decline, but the vacancies left by their fall will never be filled by people with no background like Nina and oneself. King's Landing will soon have a group of families loyal to Stannis rising... In this gap, the Night's Watch industry can be unstoppable in the King's Landing business world, but when the new nobles gradually master the resources, There will inevitably be competition and even suppression.
At this juncture, it is undoubtedly the best cost-effective strategy to spend money in advance to win over the new high-ranking heroic families, and quickly pull in the gang of narrow-sea princes who support Stannis to build a new interest group. The best choice for the future development of the industry... But right now, oneself is at a critical moment when it needs money the most.
Should you consider the development of the Night's Watch industry first, or will you immediately transfer the profits of the industry to the north to feed Wall and irrigate oneself? To put it simply, do you choose to put a long line to catch big fish or kill chickens to get eggs?
This would have been a no-brainer question, but now Igor had to choose the latter option. Night's Watch's ability to defend Wall's line of defense is the cornerstone of this game. If you don't do business with huge profits, but instead clamber around the King's Landing speculative drilling camp... In case Wall has any mistakes, even if oneself escapes alive, facing the Stannis, the rigid king, is probably life-threatening.
Igor is now standing on the wind, at the crossroads of "making more money" and "doing a major event", and being blown into the latter path by the strong wind.
--
(end of this chapter)