Unknown Knight

With the two sharpshooters Bestur and Jeb, the hundred or so soldiers who climbed onto the city wall progressed very quickly. They quickly cleared out the guards who were already fast asleep on the city wall and successfully opened the city gate.

After seeing the signal from the top of the city wall, the soldiers lying in ambush near the city gate quickly ran to the city gate, waited for the city gate to be opened from the inside, and then filed in, and immediately began to clear out the forces in the city.

By daybreak, the hostile forces in the town had been basically eliminated and the battle went very smoothly. They shot and killed more than ten people and wounded more than twenty enemies. The remaining sixty-odd Berbera garrison troops and local militia on duty were all taken prisoners.

Capturing this place was a good start for conquering Berbera, and the gains from the battle were not small. The main gains came from the manor of the lord of Humamu and two warehouses in the town, one of which contained more than 3,000 bags of newly harvested autumn grain.

It seems that they have not been transported to Berbera city in time, and now they are all sold to Aix. The food and fodder they brought are not much capital, and they are considered to be the most strategically valuable materials among all the captured materials.

In addition, there were some military supplies, food and fodder stored in some manors, as well as some spices, raisins, wine, flax and other items stored in another warehouse, which were probably also prepared to be sent to Berbera.

These supplies were left in the manor by the Lord of Humamu. The army did not take a penny from the property of other residents in the town. They came here to overthrow the rule of the Lord of Humamu. Naturally, the royal army had to win the hearts of the people when entering the city. They were not allowed to harass the people, and looting was even more unacceptable. Aix had repeatedly emphasized this to the soldiers before entering the city.

It is worth mentioning that as soon as the army entered the city, Aix sent people to seize the city’s water source.

When he was still in Fort Standing, Aix focused on obtaining intelligence about Berbera. In order to show off their merit, many soldiers of the Redemption Legion rushed to report the information they knew to the territory. Aix was very clear about Humamu's routine, and he intercepted the people who came specifically to poison near the water source.

This incident caused Aix to be highly alert, and he immediately ordered a town-wide curfew, requiring all residents to stay at home and not to walk around or gather in groups for the time being.

Soon after, a political review system was implemented, and more than 200 people in the town who had conflicts of interest with the lord of Humamu, close relationships, or certain blood relations with him, along with captured soldiers, were detained in the town’s military camp.

Then, a policy of storing weapons and swords was implemented, stipulating that residents of the town were not allowed to privately own weapons and armor. All weapons and armor had to be handed in, and Aix would provide compensation in cash and materials at twice the market price.

After the basic compensation was completed, Aix organized soldiers to check each house one by one and confiscated some scattered weapons and equipment.

Finally, a final ultimatum was issued, stipulating that the residents would be given one more day to voluntarily hand over the hidden weapons and equipment. After that, anyone who secretly hid weapons and equipment would be treated as an enemy once discovered, and would be killed without mercy, regardless of the reason!

In this way, even the last few hidden weapons were surrendered. After these measures, the town called Nico was completely under the control of Aix. He could let go and formulate and implement the next strategy.

He first conducted a simple survey of the land in the town, and based on the existing information, he concluded that there were approximately 4,000 acres of irrigated land in Nico Town.

There are more than 400 adult males in the town. Aix stipulates that each adult male can obtain five acres of land, and can reclaim up to ten acres of wasteland on his own. No taxes will be collected on these lands within three years. After three years, a tax rate of 10% will be imposed. This tax rate is equivalent to giving it away for free compared to the original 10% tax rate of 6%.

Except for dozens of civilians who owned a small amount of land, most of the land in the town was owned by a dozen noble landlords in the town, and more than 1,500 acres directly belonged to the mansion of the Lord of Humamu. Most of the remaining people were poor people who had no place to live.

These noble landlords had some connection with the Lord of Humamu City. Some were distant branches of their families, some were related to their families by marriage, and some were clerks or village leaders serving the Lord of Humamu City.

These people often bully men and women, force people to buy and sell things, and force others to break up their families and even take their lives.

With the public outrage as a basis, Aix certainly wanted to take advantage of it. After an investigation and interrogation, and two days of public trial, Aix decided to sentence a dozen people who were guilty of heinous crimes to death.

These people have basically been committing murders and doing evil for many years, and they all deserve to be put to death, but their past power is still there. Axe and his men have just occupied this place, and he knows that his foundation is unstable, so he ordered that all young and strong men who were given land must stab at least one of these heinous crimes before they can get a share of the land.

Although this approach is very unkind and cruel, time is pressing and the army of Berbera may attack at any time. Aix must win over the hearts of the people in a short period of time and even make these townspeople work for me. He has no choice but to resort to this method of surrendering himself. Otherwise, there is no guarantee that when the army of Humamu City Lord attacks, these townspeople with unstable morale will not cause trouble.

Compared to killing all the townspeople and completely eliminating the hidden dangers, Aix felt that this was the most merciful way at the moment, and it was also a last resort.

But Aix still underestimated the people at the bottom who had been oppressed for so many years. They were so cowardly that when faced with these evil guys who were tied up, none of the townspeople who came to watch dared to step forward and take action.

Seeing this, the villains began to become arrogant. Knowing that they were going to die, they even encouraged the townspeople to resist in a harsh voice, saying that when the Lord of Humamu led his troops to attack, anyone who surrendered to Aix would be killed and their entire family would be sold into slavery.

After hearing these harsh words, some townspeople began to retreat timidly, and some even began to observe the soldiers on guard around them with a prying eye, and they actually had some ideas in their minds.

Aix was furious and sneered in his heart. He really should have allowed the soldiers to burn, kill and loot when they entered the city. There must be something hateful about pitiful people. They have been oppressed and exploited and have become extremely poor. Now that they have such strong support, they still dare not rise up to resist.

This made Aix's heart grow colder and harder. He was about to order the soldiers to forcibly take these townspeople forward and stab them with knives, when suddenly someone in the crowd shouted:

"Master! Do you keep your word?"

When he heard the sound and looked in the direction of the situation, he saw a blind man in the crowd, walking out tremblingly with a cane. When the people around him saw him, they were all heartbroken. Aix knew that there must be a great injustice here, so he quickly asked someone to help the blind man up.

After asking around, we found out that the blind man was originally a servant of a noble lord in the town. Just because he looked at the noble lord's concubine a few more times, the noble lord found a reason to dig out his eyes, and then drove him out of the house, leaving him to fend for himself.