In the early morning of the second Monday in December, a large group of farmers, traders, refugees, and beggars were crowded outside several city gates of Thorne City waiting to enter the city.
The coldest season of winter is coming, and civilian farmers and small traders have to take advantage of the snow before completely blocking the roads to go to the city to sell goods or buy food items for the winter; and for homeless beggars, only cities can give them a chance to survive in the cold winter. Especially those farmhands who were drained of their blood by the lords and gentry. The grain harvested by the lords and gentry in a year was not enough to pay the lords' huge land rent. The poor farmhands had no food left over for the winter. In order not to starve to death and freeze to death, they often dragged their families to the city to beg, and when spring came, they returned to the village to rent the land from the lords and squires...
Among the crowds crowding on both sides of the city gate waiting to open into the city, a few guys huddled together to keep warm. They were covered in thin coats inherited from their grandfathers. There was hay stuffed between the coats and their bodies. The whole person looked very bloated, like several freely moving straw bales.
A homeless-looking guy put his hands into his jacket and kept scratching, and whispered to his companion who was hunched over and looking around: "Sir Ron, this is too damn uncomfortable. The hay stings my whole body."
The guy who was hunched over and looking around. Ban looked around and replied coldly: "Even if the hay pierces your bones, just shut up! If you reveal your identity, I will definitely break your neck before the defenders catch you!"
The guy looking around was Ron, the commander of the task force's assault team.
Today is the day when the raid team enters the city to gather. The raid team is divided into four teams and enters the city. The remaining three teams enter the city from the west gate and the south gate and will be directly taken to the cellar of the house in the north of the city by the response team. Ron's team not only has to enter the city, but also has to go to the slums in the northwest of the city to transport the weapons, armor and supplies needed for the operation to the house.
In order to minimize the possible exposure of targets caused by the activities of large groups of people, Ron's team must lurk in the slums and wait for night to fall. At that time, Stanley will lead the outside-city response team to send weapons and armor in through the small hole.
The best way to hide in the slums is to become a homeless beggar and enter the city, because the northwest slums are the gathering place for the lowest level of the "scavengers" in the city. The homeless beggars who are slightly familiar with the situation will go to that place first to occupy a place.
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The morning bell rang, and the gate of Thorne City slowly opened. The defenders wearing cotton armor and holding short spears walked out of the door opening, using the spear poles in their hands to beat the entrants crowded at the city gate, asking them to step back and line up, and accept the inspection of the soldiers one by one.
After a while of waiting for the people entering the city to roughly form a formation, a middle-aged man with a goatee who looked like a tax collector walked out of the doorway holding a thick book and sat behind the wooden table that had been prepared.
The soldiers began to let people go, and everyone who passed through the city gate would be carefully checked by the soldiers. However, those homeless beggars who could not even afford clothes were usually not carefully searched. In addition to the stench that made them disgusting, it was also because it was impossible for these people to bring private goods into the city. Without private goods, there would be no income. Of course, the soldiers would not waste time on them.
A city guard soldier stopped a fat man in a cotton robe in front of Ron and asked, "Wait a minute, what's in your cotton robe? Why is it so bulging?"
"Sir, it's nothing, it's just that the clothes are thicker and a bit bloated." The fat man replied with a reserved smile.
"Impossible, there is definitely something hidden~Take it out for me!!" the soldier shouted sharply.
The fat man was startled by the soldier. He quickly put his hand into his cotton robe and took out a large loaf of rye bread. "Sir, just one loaf of bread is gone."
The soldier was a little disappointed, and hit the fat man on the head with the rye bread, and shouted: "You are still hiding a broken piece of bread! Confiscated, get out!"
The fat man glanced at the bread in the soldier's hand reluctantly, and walked away quickly holding his head.
When the soldier saw the fat man leaving, he turned around and prepared to check the next one.
Ron hurried forward, an ugly smile appeared on his face covered by dirt and dirt. While smiling, he reached out to take out the hay in his unlined clothes for the soldiers to check.
The soldier glanced at Ron disgustingly and cursed: "You are damn hungry and still have the nerve to smile? What else can you get out of your clothes except fleas? Get out! Get out of here, sir, and bother me while I make money!"
Several homeless beggars were scolded by the soldiers and entered the city, hunched over towards the northwest of the city. Walking...
In the cellar of a house in the north of Thorne City, a dozen young men in various costumes gathered here. Some of them were dressed as laborers, some were dressed as urban gangsters, but most of them looked like ordinary farmers who came to the city.
The cellar is a bit narrow and it is impossible to place enough tables, chairs and benches, so these people can only sit on the floor with small pieces of rye bread in their hands and water to eat to satisfy their hunger.
"Sir, there is a team of brothers who haven't arrived yet." Smith from the city's response team has been busy all morning. In addition to Ron and others who went to pick up weapons and armor, four people from the raid team did not arrive at the house on time.
"What's going on? What happened?" Art asked repeatedly.
"It's nothing serious. The group of brothers disguised themselves as laborers and were blackmailed by the guards. Dawson was afraid that something would go wrong, so he asked them to go to the dock to work first and arrive later." When Cheng Ligong's team entered the city, they spoke with a Provence accent and were stopped by the city guards to extort money. Dawson, who picked them up, did not take them directly to the North City houses to assemble for the sake of caution. Instead, he asked them to go to the pier to make a few rounds to make sure they were safe before bringing them back.
“You guys were not noticed when you came in, right?” Art asked.
They all came in from the alley at the back; Except for a few soldiers who responded to the city gate, the rest of the response team and sentinel team were scattered around the houses. The raid team not only divided into many batches to enter the cellar of the house, but also quickly climbed in through the window sill of the back wall each time when they were sure that no one was watching.
"Are the retreat routes and tools ready?"
"My lord, everything is ready. There are two routes out of the city, one by water and one by land. In addition, the route back to the safe house in case of emergency has been confirmed by me alone."
"Okay, let's go walk again later."
.........
Before long, the group of task force soldiers who had done some hard work at the riverside dock also circled around and arrived near the back wall of the house. Dawson, who was in charge of responding, carefully observed the surrounding environment. He saw a few whistles from the stalls that were not passing by, and he got in as soon as the back window of the house opened... "Sir, we are here!" Despite the cold weather, Dawson's face was covered with sweat.
"Good! Your reception team did a good job." Art praised Dawson and Smith.
"You guys go to the cellar to rest for a while and have something to eat. I have asked the sentinel team to take charge of the perimeter security, so you can rest assured and build up your strength."
After explaining the response team and the assault team, Art asked Angus: "Sergeant Major, are you ready with the cart you prepared?"
"It is ready. It will be hidden in a weed in the slums. I sent a soldier to guard it. Once Ron and the others receive the weapons and armor, they will transport them here immediately."
Matt He nodded, and while arranging his cotton robe jacket, he ordered Angus: "Sergeant Major, I have sent people to dig out the river sand. You and Oliver and the soldiers from the sentinel team will use the river sand to build a model of the target mansion and surrounding houses and streets. It does not need to be too detailed. It only needs to allow the raid team to understand the situation and conduct a sand table drill. I have to lead the support team to check the evacuation route and tools again."
“Don’t worry, I know how to do it.” Angus agreed and took Oliver down to the cellar to pile the intelligence information collected recently on a sand table for the soldiers of the assault team to conduct simulation exercises.
And Art took Dawson and Smith to the city to make a final confirmation of the task force's retreat route...
........................
Late on Monday night, the door of a private house next to the tavern in the north of Thorne City was closed, and the surroundings were cold and quiet. But the cellars of private houses are very hot and bright.
In the cellar, there were about twenty strong men wearing half-mail mail, black tight-fitting robes, boots covered with cotton cloth, short daggers and daggers tied around their waists, and crossbows in their hands. A man was distributing crossbow arrows smeared with datura flower refining potion to the men in black.
"These crossbow arrows are coated with potion. Once they pierce the skin, it will not take long for people to faint. You must be extremely careful!" The man said and carefully inserted the remaining three crossbow arrows into the quiver on his waist.
In a corner of the cellar, several men in black uniforms were gathered around a small wooden table and discussing in a low voice with candles lit.
Matt pointed to the second floor of the mansion in the rough sandbox model on the table and said: "The three core members of the pagan Assassin live in this room facing the street on the second floor. If there is any disturbance, they will definitely jump from the second floor to the back wall and escape, so the back wall that Ron personally guards must be guarded by me."
Ron touched the hunting knife on his waist and nodded seriously.
Ate picked up a wooden whistle hanging on his waist again, raised it up and said to everyone: "You remember, you can't distinguish between ourselves and the enemy in the dark, and you can't shout loudly, so we use wooden whistles to communicate: one response, two blasts for assembly, and three blasts for emergency."
"I won't repeat the rest. You should practice it in your own minds, and then close your eyes and rest for a while. I will be tired in the next few days..."
After finishing speaking, Art left the sandbox model on the wooden table and took a few steps up the wooden ladder to the dark second floor of the private house.
"Stanley, is there anything unusual?"
Stanley, who was in charge of sentry surveillance, squatted by the window and stared outside, and replied intently: "Master, the guy posted near the target just reported that everything is normal, the enemy The sentry posts were withdrawn to three places, and now only the secret sentry on the second floor of the tavern is left. Our guys have already set up an ambush in the room next to him, and rushed in to wipe his neck when the time came!"
“Thorne City has always been peaceful, and the security team never goes out to patrol at night. As for the defenders on the city wall, they work very hard during the day to interrogate passers-by and extract money. When guarding the city at night, they either sleep or drink, so they will not pose much of a threat to us.”
"Well, you let the brothers of the sentry team stare at me. We start the operation in the early morning, and you have to make sure that nothing goes wrong before taking action!"
Yes! Master!
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