flstandardbreds Chapter 284: The Spy's Traces Appear
Chapter 284: The Spy's Traces Appear
Early in the morning, a carriage was traveling on a path at the southern foot of the Pis Mountains. The merchant in the carriage was humming Lana folk songs and staring at the road ahead, fearing that the carriage would accidentally fall into the ditch on either side of the road.
As the spring temperature warmed up, the snow on the road leading to the south side of the Pis Mountains began to melt, and merchants arrived near the village in horse-drawn carriages before dawn, exchanging the salt that the villagers needed to make dried meat for the furs cut from the prey they hunted in winter.
In just one night, he filled the carriage with furs. Feeling the heavy weight on the carriage, the merchant was delighted. The furs harvested this time were quite good. Even if he sold them directly to the leather factory without processing, he could still earn 300 gold coins. Excluding the cost of buying salt, he could still earn at least 200 gold coins.
However, although the businessman had made money at this time, he was still a little frightened. Last night when he was spending the night in a village, he heard the rumbling sound of cannons in the distance, and thick smoke rising from the north could be seen even in the dark.
Fortunately, before he left, the sound of artillery fire could no longer be heard. It seemed that the Midlanders' attack was repelled last night.
"Forget about that. Let's sell the goods quickly. Now that no merchants have come, we can buy some ironware and exchange them for some mountain products."
Just as the merchant made up his mind and was heading north, he suddenly heard the sound of wheels rolling on the ground from behind his carriage.
The merchant stopped the carriage by the roadside and looked back, and saw a team of carriages running from east to west. In front of the carriages, in addition to the coachmen, there were two soldiers in armor.
"It's quite a big scene."
After watching them leave, the merchant continued to drive the carriage north. In his opinion, since a large number of troops appeared on the southern foot of the mountains, it meant that the war on the northern foot of the mountains had ended, and the brave Lana army had successfully thwarted the conspiracy of the Midlan people.
But what he didn't notice was that on the leading carriage in the convoy, a black eagle flag with a white background was fluttering in the wind.
At the northern foot of the mountain range, with Lana's main force being completely wiped out, all that remained was to occupy the strongholds on the east and west sides and capture the deserters.
"Sir, General Lana has been brought here."
Inside Berenguer's fortress, John was checking Lannes' military letters. When he heard that Lannes' general had been brought in, John ordered him to be brought in.
However, when he saw a man of about his age kneeling on the ground, John thought that Wesker's intelligence was wrong. Wasn't it said that the commander-in-chief Rana stationed in the mountains was a 60-year-old man? Is this man 60 years old now?
"What's your name and what's your current position?"
"Hmph!" Berenguer turned his head away, as if he thought he could avoid John's question in this way.
"Okay, you pretended to be so unyielding that you thought I was abusing you." Seeing the uncooperative Lana in front of him, John was too lazy to slap him. After all, it would be tiring to do so.
"Come here, hold him down and beat him hard, but don't kill him. I want to exchange him for a ransom."
"what?"
When Berenguer heard this, he was immediately stunned. The captured nobles should be treated with good food and drink, so why did they start beating him right away?
But he didn't have time to think about it now. Two soldiers grabbed his arms and dragged him outside.
"John! How can you treat nobles like this? When General Schneider's army arrives, I will never forgive you!"
John ignored Berenguer's scolding and just read the letter while talking to himself:
"The prerequisite for the treatment of captured nobles is that you have to look like a captive. Even dogs know to please their masters in order to get food. Why don't these nobles understand this now?"
Hard work pays off. Through so many letters, John had a general understanding of the movements of Lana's army.
It turned out that as early as a month ago, King Lana, who was far away in Leon, had fallen into his trap and thought that the Midlanders would land on the coast of Lanasi by boat, so he immediately ordered Schneider to return with 50,000 men to defend, leaving only a general named Berenguer to continue to garrison with the remaining 50,000 men.
As for why John knew that the man just now was Berenguer, it was because Schneider often reminded him in his reply to Berenguer to pay more attention to the movements of John's army and not to be provoked by the other side to take the initiative to attack. Combining the age inferred from the man's appearance just now, John immediately knew that he was the Berenguer.
Just as John was about to go out for a walk, a Black Watch officer walked in from outside and said to John:
"Sir, we have captured a spy on the north side of the mountain range. Judging from his accent, he is not a local. After our interrogation, we found that this person came from Monde Marsan to deliver a message to the Lana army here."
"Huh? How did you catch it?"
"We were traveling through the forests west of the mountain range when we somehow ended up back where we were, after several attempts."
"Just when we were trying to get around it, this guy suddenly appeared behind us in a black robe, and then we arrested him."
After hearing the explanation, John suddenly realized that the spy probably entered the forest from the same direction as the mercenaries, and after being hit by Corolla's protective spell, he returned to the same place as the mercenaries.
"The mercenaries entered the forest from the north, so the spy must have come from the north as well. In that case, he must have come from Monde Marsan."
Thinking of this, John immediately ordered:
"Bring him up to me."
Soon two soldiers dragged a man in a black robe into the room. John took a closer look and saw that the man was in tatters, probably because he had been chopped by a sword. Almost all the exposed skin was covered with wounds. It was a miracle that he could survive from the evening until now.
John didn't waste any more time talking to him and said directly:
"Tell me where your sage is hiding. If you tell me, I'll spare your life. If you don't, I'll hang you and then chop off your head and throw it into the fire."
When the spy heard this, he stood up despite the pain and knelt in front of John and said:
"I say, I say! Don't let them torture me anymore!"
"Well, that's reasonable." John said while complaining:
"This wise man is really something. He didn't even send a fearless confidant to do this kind of thing. How careless."
Far away in Mont-de-Marsan, when everyone was about to go out to work, a cavalryman galloped through the city gate, shouting as he rode wildly:
"Great victory in Border Mountains! Governor John defeated the enemy with a smaller force and captured the enemy general and recaptured Border Mountains!"
Jacques was still investigating the murder case at this time, and was surprised when he heard this:
"Yesterday I went to report to Governor John, why did he go directly to the border mountains today?"