Unknown Knight

Faced with the surging wave of rebellion in Sarand, Aix and Niza discussed and decided to strike first. Since these chiefs were ambitious and could not be used by me, it would be a good opportunity to have a thorough revolution and sweep them all into the dustbin of history.

The army first confiscated all the assets and lands of the rebellious chiefs in the city of Sharez. According to Aix, they should follow the model of Berbera, where the confiscated assets and lands should be distributed to the local poor in exchange for their support, and then recruit troops from them to strengthen their strength.

However, his idea was opposed by Niza. Obviously, Aix did not have a comprehensive understanding of this relatively remote country.

Sarand is a martial chiefdom country. The country's territory belongs to tribal chiefs of all sizes. Tribal members are divided into two parts: one part is the masters composed of the chief's relatives, and the other part is the masters' slaves.

The living environment in the desert is harsh and it is not easy to survive. Although there are many slaves, accounting for nearly half of the population, they are all humble servants. The chiefs here do not regard slaves as important properties like those in other places. They kill them without regret. Those who have a little temper have been killed directly by the masters. The rest are all timid and flattering people. Even if they are recruited, they are of no use.

The armed forces of each tribe are composed of the relatives of the chief. The chiefs enjoy absolute power in their own tribes and often have many wives and many children.

According to the traditional patriarchal system, when these children grow up, only the eldest son has the right to inherit the family business, while the rest can only get enough land to survive on, or even no land at all, and have to serve in the family armed forces in exchange for a meager salary to support their lives.

In order to survive, these relatives have practiced martial arts since childhood. They are an important source of the entire Sarande armed forces. If Aix wants to obtain Sarande's armed forces, he must find a way to gain the support of these relatives' armed forces.

After listening to Niza's analysis, Aix thought about it carefully, and discussed it with Niza and others. Finally, he issued two new decrees in the name of the new Sultan Niza.

The first decree was the Edict of Enfeoffment, which was formulated by Aix based on the Edict of Enfeoffment in history books. The decree stipulated that the heir of each chief of Sarand could only inherit no more than one-third of the land and property of the former chief, and the remaining land and property should be divided equally among the remaining sons.

This decree was a fatal blow to the chiefs who now owned all the tribal property and land. It directly undermined the foundation for the growth of local tribal power, and at the same time won over the hearts of the people. Most of the second sons who had no inheritance rights would definitely choose to support this decree, and then choose to support the person who promulgated this decree.

The second decree is called the Land Granting Decree. It stipulates that any family warrior who can pass the corresponding military proficiency test can be allowed to join the new sultan's personal army. Once officially joined, each soldier will be granted 50 acres of official land.

This kind of official land cannot be bought or sold, but can be enjoyed for life. Although it is not very attractive to the descendants of the great chiefs, it is still very attractive to those distant relative warriors. The output of fifty acres of land is enough for them to live a life without worries about food and clothing.

Moreover, the land granting order also includes a part of the content about granting land for military merit, which specifies in detail the rules for granting land for military merit, and the land granted for merit can be inherited.

The combination of the two is enough to attract the relatives and warriors who want to rise through military exploits, and even make them come to surrender, ultimately achieving the goal of disintegrating and dividing the enemy.

By confiscating the rebels' land and property near the city of Shariz some time ago, Aix obtained a total of more than 50,000 acres of good farmland from them. If all of this good land was used for recruitment, it would be enough for him to recruit another elite force of thousands of people.

This does not include the territories of the three princes Ukes, Azam, and Sharif and their supporters. If they are all eliminated in the future, the land obtained from them will be enough for Aix to recruit a large family armed force in exchange for the land.

However, after the new decree was issued, there were few applicants. Aix estimated that many people wanted to obtain land, but they were afraid that the new sultan's regime would be like the morning dew on a cactus, which would not last long. Therefore, many people were rationally waiting and watching. After more than a week, they had only recruited a little over a hundred people.

For this reason, Aix and Niza discussed and decided to first train the chiefs of Weiyeha Castle, Rushdigen and other places near Shariz City who had not come to meet the new Sultan. While establishing their authority, they also wanted to show the new Sultan's strength to the watching relative warriors.

Soon, two armies were dispatched from the city of Shariz. One was led by the new Sultan Niza himself, and consisted of 300 people from the original army in the city, more than 100 newly recruited relatives, and more than 600 people from Berbera, totaling more than 1,100 people, to attack the strongest Weiyeha Fort nearby.

One team was composed of 500 Berbera soldiers led by the general Jeb, 400 array soldiers and more than 100 Bedouin cavalry. They mainly attacked small strongholds such as Rushdigen and Quout nearby.

The battle went very smoothly. The fortress of Weiyeha, which was considered the most difficult to attack, was easily captured by the army. The fortress's worth a thousand gold iron gate was boasted to be able to defend against all attacks from battering rams and catapults, but Niza only had to let the catapult shoot three cans of flaming oil at it to solve the problem. The raging fire burned for more than half an hour until the iron gate was melted and destroyed.

After the fire was extinguished, Niza commanded his army to rush in, and the fortress garrisoned by more than 300 people was breached in a moment.

As for the strongholds of small chiefs in the village castles of Rushdigen, Kuwut and other manors, they were even simpler. The 500 men led by Jeb did not even use flaming oil. They fired several stones from a catapult at the gate of the manor. Immediately, wood chips flew everywhere and the gate opened. The infantry lined up and rushed in. There was basically no suspense.

In just over two days, the two armies easily wiped out the strongholds around the city of Shariz. There was basically no hostile force against the new Sultan Niza in the Sarand territory south of Trama Castle. It can be said that they won a great victory.

After receiving the letter, Axe specially sent a messenger to inform Niza and Zeb, asking them to meet outside the city of Sharez on the fourth day, and then escort the captured enemies and supplies and treasures into the city together, and hold a triumphal ceremony to boost their prestige and momentum.

This time they captured nearly 500 enemy soldiers, more than 600 relatives of the enemy chief, more than 1,500 slaves under the name of the enemy chief, and brought back dozens of carts of supplies, food, gold and silver treasures, which could not be counted for the time being.

Together with the original army, they had a total of four to five thousand people, who marched into the city in a mighty manner, causing quite a stir throughout the city.

After this battle, Aix was able to temporarily suppress the hostile forces that were waiting for an opportunity in the city of Shariz, and created a relatively quiet rear area for future operations throughout Sarande.

The relatives and warriors who had been waiting and wavering also made up their minds. They basically did not engage in production, and if they wanted to live a decent life, they had to gain merit. So they came to sign up and apply to join the camp of the new Sultan Niza.