Unknown Knight

In short, with all kinds of magical operations, the population of the territory eventually grew to more than 4,000 people. When Aix saw that all the male bachelors had married, he intervened in time and stopped the population admission, otherwise the population of the territory would have been even larger.

In desert areas without abundant water sources, groundwater alone cannot support a city that large. Too much population concentrated together is a burden, requiring a lot of extra work and energy to solve the problem of food and drinking water.

However, even those residents who did not join the territory have joined the Church of the Supreme God. Now, except for the city of Zion, the surrounding residents are basically believers of the Church of the Supreme God. There are about 10,000 of these people, and they have actually become loose subordinates under the control of Fort Standstill.

The city of Zion is now even more isolated. At the request of the Supreme God, the surrounding residents basically do not go to trade with them. Except for the Harisi family and the Ogbai family, the businesses of the other three families have been severely hit, and the losses are devastating.

Not to mention the three hostile families, Ivant, the patriarch of the Harisi family, a grower, has sent him several secret letters in private. Ever since Aix did not kill any members of their family last time and returned all the camels and spices, Ivant has felt Aix's kindness.

It is not easy for him to survive in Zion City now. The other three families are obviously becoming less and less trusting of him and want to get some benefits from him. The last time they asked him to pay the commission to the robber Hassan was an example. Fortunately, he recognized the situation and evaded the matter. Otherwise, he would have been led into the trap by them again, and the Sweetwater Well Town where Hassan was entrenched would have been destroyed. Maybe Aix would have hated him as well.

Ivante even suspected that the three companies had united to target him, because now when he sent people to the city to purchase daily supplies, the businesses controlled by the three companies found excuses to refuse the transaction, saying that there were no nearby residents coming to trade and they had no inventory, and asked them to find a solution elsewhere.

That was not all. Ever since the last defeat, several respected uncles in the clan had been questioning him about this matter, saying that his attack on Fort Standstill was a serious act of recklessness, which resulted in heavy losses for family members, and in the end, a large number of family slaves had to be exchanged, forcing these masters to go to the fields to work themselves.

They were so shameless as to forget who had been encouraging him to take back the ancestral land that was "seized" by Aix, who had said that he should not be looked down upon by the other families, and who had said with certainty that the whole clan would fully support him.

Not only that, he now complains that because of him, his family has been excluded by the other three families and that members of the family cannot buy the daily necessities they need in the city.

If the situation continues to develop, they are likely to unite with other members of the clan to force him to give up the position of clan leader. If it were not for his remaining prestige and the lack of any prominent figures in the clan to support him, they would be even more afraid of the family armed forces in his hands. Otherwise, those uncles would have done so long ago.

Now Ivante is living a miserable life. Every day, his fellow tribesmen come to him and urge him to find a way to solve the problem of his tribesmen not being able to buy daily supplies. He has endured countless sarcasm in front of them and abuse and criticism behind their backs.

This forced him to write letter to Aix one after another, hoping to get a solution from him. After all, the environment around him was limited, and there were only a handful of people who could sell him supplies and were willing to trade with him. He had to think of a solution, what if it worked?

Since Aix showed kindness towards him, maybe he could lend him a helping hand and pull him out of his current predicament, and he decided to put some explosive information in this letter.

Although he had no definite evidence of the many conspiracies and intrigues that arose in the darkness while in the city, as the patriarch, he had some personal channels of information, as well as the perspective and vision of the patriarch. According to his judgment, a major action against Fort Standstill must be brewing in the city.

"Except for my family and the Ogbai family, the other three families in the city have been desperately collecting iron materials and hoarding food. Fahad also gathered the idle hooligans in the city and conducted some kind of martial arts exercise in the Isam Mercenary Group. All signs show that they are making military preparations against you, my Lord.

Not only that, they also blocked my Harishi family on the grounds that I refused to join them in hiring Hassan, and refused to sell the supplies we urgently need. Now we are in urgent need of salt, firewood, linen, tools and other supplies. I hope that you will sell some supplies for our urgent needs in consideration of our family's sincere assistance. I will not disappoint you in terms of price. Here is the list of needed supplies:

Thirty bags of salt, firewood..."

Originally, these official documents and letters were passed through Aisu and Ran Ying before being handed to Aix. However, when the first letter from Ivante was sent, Aix was busy finding wives for the bachelors in the territory. When he heard that it was a letter from Ivante, he thought it was no big deal, so he handed the letter back to Ran Ying, saying that he would put it aside and deal with it later.

As a result, Ran Ying thought that Aix was unwilling to pay attention to this stupid defeated general. When she received his letters again, Ran Ying just glanced at them quickly and put them aside without paying any attention to them.

However, when Ran Ying took a look at the letter today, he immediately knew that it was of great importance. Even a person with no political acumen knew that the content of the letter was not simple. He hurriedly found Aix who was working in the office, briefly told him the contents of the letter, and then handed the letter to him.

After receiving the letter and reading it carefully, Aix did not take it seriously. The power of the territory is growing stronger and stronger, and it is no longer something that Zion City can shake. The weakening of the three major families is inevitable. What is there to worry about for them who are timid and daring? There is no need to pay attention to them. With the trade routes cut off, they will inevitably become poor and decline, and their power will naturally disappear.

However, before that, it is still necessary to support the Harisi family, so that they can hold each other hostage and consume each other, and they can develop with peace of mind.

Besides, didn’t Ivante say in the letter that the price was negotiable? The territory was now rich in supplies, so it would be very good to sell them at a good price. He immediately called Afanti over and asked him to prepare the corresponding supplies according to the quantities on the list.

After everything was prepared, Aix asked Niza to personally lead hundreds of people to escort the supplies to Chief Ivant outside the city of Zion with great fanfare, and then exchange the money for the goods, without any credit.

As for the price, Aix decided to be a good person and only charge 10% more than the price sold to the believers of the Supreme God. This is much cheaper than the inferior goods in the city of Zion, and Ivant will definitely be satisfied.

Perhaps it was just as Aix imagined, the three major families in Zion City wanted to show off their courage, but when Niza brought hundreds of fully armed soldiers and escorted enough supplies to Ivant to the vicinity of the city gate, the whole city of Zion was shocked.

That night in Sabir's secret room, the three clan leaders Sabir, Isham and Fahad gathered together again for a secret meeting.

This time the secret meeting did not have the opening wine as in previous times. The three clan leaders sat there in silence for a long time. It was still the impetuous Fahad who said:

"That damn Aix is ​​not going to give us a chance to live. I was just suspicious at first, but now it's a fact. The two families should have colluded with each other a long time ago. Damn it!"

"I was wondering why only my people were killed last time, but none of the Harisi family was harmed. I heard that they even brought back the camel spices. It's no wonder they deserved to be killed!"

Captain Isam gnashed his teeth and said that last time more than twenty of his men were killed at once, which was a heavy loss. Now he suddenly "understood" and was filled with hatred. Originally, for the stability of the spice business and to not affect his original plan, he had not agreed to take direct action against the Harisi family. Now he regretted it when he thought about it.

"We can't go on like this. We have to act quickly. They have now blatantly united together and may have already started discussing how to deal with our three families. How is the contact with the adults in Berbera going?"

Sabir, the backbone of the three, asked Isham.

“Don’t mention it. Lord Sharif over there said that he would send troops once they were fully prepared, but they didn’t say how or when they would be fully prepared.

It is not a good idea to wait like this, why don’t we act in advance and take all the people in the city…”

Isam made a downward slashing motion with his hand like a knife. He was ruthless and decisive. He thought that he should strike first and destroy the Harisi family, with whom they were no longer united.

However, Chief Sabir waved his hand and said:

"No, that would only alert the enemy. Besides, there are too many members of the Harisi family. If we use force directly, it will make them unite. Ivante's reputation in the family has dropped sharply. We can take advantage of this. I am contacting them. If the two families clash directly, they will suffer heavy losses. It will not be worth it.

We'd better seize the time to accumulate strength and not provoke them. It won't be too late to take action after we get news from Berbera."

"Yes, Chief Sabir is right. We should hurry up and prepare so that we can kill them with one strike. Chief Isam needs to work harder on training the horses and men."

Fahad's lackey face was exposed, and he followed suit in a flattering manner.

"Don't worry about this. Military training is my forte. Leave it to me. I will give you an army that is close to the level of a regular army."

Isam said confidently that his background was not simple, he was born in a noble family in Gronia that made its fortune through military means, but he was the second son without inheritance rights, so he had to go out and make his own living early after he became an adult.

Later, he worked as a military instructor for a great nobleman. However, he was too young and conceited, and was too frivolous. He thought he had some military ability, so he wanted to climb up the social ladder. Eventually, he succeeded in seducing the daughter of the master's family into bed.

He thought he could successfully ascend to the throne with this opportunity, but he was too naive and was caught by the nobleman, beaten half to death, and locked up in the dungeon to be tortured to death. If the rich lady had not taken their relationship into consideration and risked releasing him secretly, he would probably have died there.

From then on he lived on the run. In order to avoid the assassins sent by the nobles, he fled here. Finally, with his superb martial arts and wisdom, he created a career of his own in this barren land.

If X had not appeared, based on his abilities, it would be hard to say who would rule the city of Zion in a few decades. He is definitely the protagonist.

But if the king does not meet the king, or if the king meets the king, one of them will die. Now he is in conflict with Aix. Last time, when he instigated Ivant to attack the Standing Fort, on the surface, it was Farhad who took the lead, Sabir was behind the scenes, and he was just a gathering to make up the numbers.

Don't be fooled by his rude words and reckless actions, which make him a rough mercenary, which fits his personality very well. In fact, he was the one who instigated Sabir behind the scenes. It was he who told Sabir how much money his mercenary group made by escorting spices to Berbera. It was he who inadvertently converted the spices escorted to Berbera every year and calculated how much gold coins they were worth.

Every time Sabir listened to his "careless" description, staring with red eyes and swallowing saliva unconsciously, Isam felt secretly proud in his heart.

It was obvious that his plan of instigation was gradually succeeding, and soon the city of Zion would have internal strife over the spice business. That would be his chance to take advantage of the opportunity and rise to prominence.

But he didn't expect that Aix would suddenly appear. He first defeated Ivant who had absolute advantage, and then slaughtered Hassan, his good brother and comrade-in-arms for many years in Tianshuijing Town. Hassan was originally a chess piece he supported, the chess piece that could decide the victory at the critical moment, but he was killed by Aix. He had already sworn to be irreconcilable with Aix in his heart.

The three of them discussed for a while, and Sabir said to Isam:

"You should hurry up and get Lord Sharif in Berbera to send out his troops as soon as possible. We should also not slack off on training. Once Lord Sharif's troops come, we should at least have a decent army, right?"

Isam nodded in agreement and said:

"Chief Sabir is right. Don't worry about the training. I will seize the time and try to make them reach the level of my mercenary group. But don't worry about the food expenses. You two should also pay attention to the weapon making. Once we destroy Fort Standstill, all the money invested will be recovered."

Sabir and Fahad both nodded in agreement.

Little did they know that by handing over their own armed forces to Isam for training, it seemed that they were taking advantage of Isam, but they did not know that the military is about compliance with orders. Once an army is successfully trained and develops the habit of obeying orders and following commands, it becomes a matter of debate as to who they will obey. This is how Principal Chiang rose to power.

Besides, there are many operational links here. He can take advantage of any favorable opportunity to make promises to win over the trained soldiers. After a period of time, it is hard to say whether the two clan leaders can still command these soldiers.