Chapter 46 2.4 New Crisis

At the same time, 500 kilometers away, at the dock of Fengxi Fort.

There was heavy snow and the north wind was biting. All the ships on the dock had been frozen on the ice. However, Duke Bernard, the lord of Fengxi Fort, was still sitting in the captain's room of the huge ship, gently fiddling with the cold Sinan.

Since he got the ship, Duke Bernard would sit on the ship for a while every day no matter how cold it was. Winter was coming, and the low temperature blocked his urge to sail out to sea. He could only enjoy the sight every day.

In this month, he had touched every part of the ship with his hands.

He had seen the Tang people and Tang shops in the Conqueror's Fortress. But the arrogant Tang people did not let this group of "Viking White Ghosts" approach their ships at all. At this close observation, he saw the architectural skills contained in the ship.

The hull has three floors, the upper floor is the captain's room, with a bird's eye view of everything. The middle floor is equipped with beds for 50 people, as well as a kitchen, fireplace, weapons and equipment room, etc. The lower floor can carry 100 tons of cargo.

Not only that, after playing with this exquisite toy in the captain's room for a month, he finally discovered the secret.

No matter how he turned this big iron spoon. This part of the spoon handle will always point to the north!

With this thing on the ship, who needs a navigator to find the route?

The cold wind blew in from the porthole, and Duke Bernard took out the iron kettle he carried with him and gently drank a sip of milk tea in it. Along with this ship came to Fengxi Castle, there were also the Tang people's goods left on the ship. The tea bricks carried in it were deeply loved by everyone in the Duke's Mansion.

This black powder is mixed with honey and milk after boiling. Drinking a sip not only warms the body, but the silky taste is like a cloud passing through the mouth.

It was getting dark. Bernard sent away all his subordinates and let the darkness surround him. As he got older, he felt that his body was getting older and older, and even his thinking became dull and slow.

In recent years, only sitting alone in the dark can he restore his sharp thoughts in his youth. He once went to the Conqueror's Fortress and spent a lot of money to see a Tang doctor. They said that this was caused by too many battles when he was young, blood rushing to the brain and drinking every day.

"Aging is an incurable disease" This is the conclusion drawn by the doctor.

This sentence made Bernard like a frightened bird. As a Viking, once he showed a little fatigue, his lackeys would immediately become ferocious wolves.

His position as a duke was obtained by launching a mutiny when the previous generation of the River Valley Duke "Liu Ke Ice Cold Pine" was old and weak. He didn't want to follow the old duke's old path.

Therefore, he forced himself to think every day.

In the past month, it was this ship that caused him great trouble. That day in Hanshui Village, the noisy crowd around him and the great joy of discovering the building ship diluted his vigilance.

He drove the boat back to Fengxi Castle in a chaotic and huge excitement, without thinking about the huge sense of disobedience.

First of all, this ship is too new!

According to Loki, the ship drifted from the North Sea. It has happened that empty ships with no one on the sea surface have floated on the sea. But those empty ships have been floating on the ocean for months, eroded by the sea wind day by day, and never have a very good appearance.

But this ship is different.

The wood is dry and smooth; the iron nails are not rusty; the Si Nan in the captain's room is shiny and shiny, and there is no trace of rust from the sea wind.

Not only that, the cargo carried in the cabin has no signs of decay. The rice and flour are fresh and dry. Even the papyrus wrapped in the tea bricks is not broken!

Compared with these, the biggest flaw is the quality of the tea bricks in the cabin.

Loki claimed that the ship drifted to Hanshui Village on the North Sea. Although the lords generally spread the rumor that "there is no land in the West" to the people, Bernard, as a provincial lord, is as familiar with the Western Continent as the palm of his hand!

The Tangren ship sailing on the North Sea has only one destination, that is, to the Conqueror's Fortress.

So the question is: Why are the tea bricks in this ship the first-class products that have never been sold in the Conqueror's Fortress?

Many years ago, Bernard drank black tea of ​​this quality in the palace of the Viking King. The stingy princess wanted to pour a little for each of their lords with the bottle cap!

The Tang people would never ship the things that the royal family was reluctant to drink to the Conqueror's Fortress in bulk. Because they knew that the poor Viking people could not afford it at all.

And there are more than 400 first-class black tea bricks in this ship, nearly 20 kilograms! These tea bricks alone are worth thousands of Slavic silver coins.

Not to mention the spices, silk and Tang Sancai porcelain bottles of equally excellent quality in the cabin!

If the cargo on this ship was said to be shipped to "Paris", the luxury capital of the Western Continent, Bernard would believe it. But if it was said to be drifting in the North Sea

——Bernard, who had woken up at this time, did not believe it at all!

His intuition told him that the most likely thing to happen was that Loki and his party secretly built a ship behind his back. Because there was no blacksmith shop in Hanshui Village, they contacted Gor Marash in Fengxi Fort and bought one from Marash.

Then they set out to sea and somehow drifted to England across the North Sea. These 11 people were extremely lucky! They landed without a fight and robbed a Tang ship.

The 11 people simply could not drive two ships back. So they drove the Tang ship back and finally crashed into themselves on the dock.

Duke Bernard initially thought this was what happened. However, in recent days, when the clerk brought him the accounts of the market, he discovered something very unusual.

Blood Pigeon Town, which is adjacent to Hanshui Village, actually purchased nearly a hundred tons of wood, more than twenty tons of meat, and a large amount of spices and wheat flour from itself within a month. The shopping nearly emptied Storm's End of its winter reserves.

The currency they used for settlement was not the "saber-tooth silver coins" with O'Sullivan's hair style, or the Slavic silver coins commonly used by the Vikings, but a kind of "silver bars" that were roughly melted and then smashed casually. Taking one out of his arms, Duke Bernard held it in front of his eyes and studied it through the moonlight reflected by the white snow.

This is an extremely rough silver bar. Such rough craftsmanship is considered sacrilege for a precious metal like silver. Such rough craftsmanship can only mean one thing, and that is that the blacksmith shop needs to forge a lot of this kind of thing

They didn't even have time to use delicate molds to mold the silver directly into silver plates, and then used guillotines to cut it into strips like frozen beef!

Why would Bernard work know this?

Because when he was still a little nobleman, he had done this behind the old Duke's back! The old Duke was old and frail, and his brain was not working well, so he had no idea about this.

He doesn't want to follow the old path of Duke Luk!

Is it possible that these rough guys in Hanshui Village have reaped greater benefits? They threw the silver coins into the sea when they were near the coast. Recently, they worked with Blood Pigeon Town to fish out the silver coins, and then used Blood Pigeon Town to buy supplies? !

Once this thought appeared in Bernard's mind, it immediately pierced his nerves like a rusty nail, causing his brain to suffer unbearable pain every day.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this was the true face of this matter!

If things were really like this, then he had completely wronged the guard who tipped him off! The loyal guard was hacked to death by himself with an axe, and the instigator was still at large at this time!

This incident immediately made Bernard feel sour in his stomach. With a sound, he spit out all the milk tea he just drank. At the same time, his hands were clenched into fists and shaking violently.

This trembling comes from anger.

It's okay to say that the blood pigeons are suppressed, after all, no one will be tempted by the current interests.

But this Hanshui Village!

This poor village with less than 170 people actually wants to rebel against me? !

"Come here!" he shouted, "go back to the city!"

"At the same time, a raven was sent to summon Commander Swain Gonk of Mistduck Town overnight, telling him to arrive at Storm's End within seven days!"

"If I don't behave properly, this Hanshui Village won't be able to celebrate the New Year!"