After watching Bernard and others being taken away by the soldiers, the stone hanging in Flanders's heart finally fell.
Now, Bernard, the lion, can no longer come out to hurt anyone except roaring in the cage.
Flender turned and walked towards the big leather chair that once belonged to Bernard~
Looking from the door of the hall, the armrests of the chair had become very smooth after long-term friction, and emitted a little yellowish light under the candlelight.
Since Bernard coerced Crown Prince Robert and retreated to Thorne City, this place became the place where Bernard held military meetings. Although Bernard, who was sitting on the big leather chair, was only an earl, he was the de facto ruler of Thorne's court, monopolizing power and controlling the government.
Now, the former owner of this chair has become a prisoner and has been replaced by the new ruler of the county at the court of Besançon.
In front of the big leather chair is a huge long wooden table. It is said that Bernard ordered the best craftsmen in the country to build it for him in three years. The table top is carved with exquisite patterns, and the edges and corners around it are polished extremely smooth. The entire long table can accommodate fifty people at the same time, and even the matching chairs were specially built by the orderer.
At this moment, Flanders, who was sitting on the big leather chair, was feeling slightly proud.
Looking at the officers at the table who had served him loyally for several years, Flanders spoke.
"Everyone," Flanders raised his voice, and everyone present in the hall immediately stood up and focused their attention on the ruler.
"This war lasted for several years and consumed a lot of manpower, financial and material resources. The people were destitute and their homes were broken. Today, we finally defeated the guy who started this evil war and betrayed God. This time, God is on our side. Therefore, the wicked will be punished and justice will be done."
"Kill him! Kill him!"
Suddenly, the atmosphere in the hall suddenly became intense. Although Art also stood up, he did not join the crowd in shouting. Because he knew in his heart what the consequences of executing Bernard immediately would be.
Flender looked at everyone here filled with anger and stretched out his hand to signal everyone to be quiet.
"Yes, I also want to kill that bastard, but now is not the time. Bernard has been the finance minister for many years, and at the same time owns the most fertile land in the country. He has made countless money over the years. If we let him die so easily, what have we gained by winning this war?"
Everyone stopped talking, and just listened quietly to Flanders describing the pros and cons.
"In addition, Bernard has inextricable connections with many nobles in the duchy. Once he dies in our hands now, we will not only anger those nobles, but also very likely to lose our favorable position in the later negotiations with the principality."
"My Lord Marquis, what do you think we should do?"
As soon as Flanders finished speaking, a senior officer in the Liberation Army asked.
Flender looked around at everyone. Those who could stand here were his absolute confidants, and he had no intention of hiding it.
"This matter is not complicated. First, immediately send someone to interrogate Bernard and ask him to explain clearly where he has hidden the money collected over the years. Because as soon as I entered the city, I sent people to search Bernard's Earl's Mansion and other places where gold and silver might be hidden, and then found more than half a million pfennigs. This and The actual situation is not consistent. When Bernard fled from Besançon, he wiped out decades of taxes from the country's treasury, not to mention millions of finneys. Added to his savings from running the Saône Province over the years, it was even more numerous. "
Everyone couldn't help but open their eyes when they heard that Bernard had accumulated such a huge wealth. In their opinion, they only had a few thousand pfennigs a year. This old guy had so much wealth alone, and they couldn't help but feel unbalanced.
“Second, take him back to Besançon and put him under house arrest, and serve him with delicious food and drink.” Flanders did not say it directly - after he stabilized the internal and external situation, Bernard would die of a very "unexpected" sudden illness.
"Next, let's discuss taking over the defense of Thorne City and the surrender of troops..."
.........
The second day, the sun slowly rose from the east of Thorne City, and the morning light slowly climbed up the low hills in the distance, and then fell on the city head. The dark red blood on the east wall has long solidified after a night, and is particularly eye-catching under the sunlight. The air is still filled with the lingering smell of blood.
Inside and outside the city walls, the soldiers responsible for cleaning the battlefield were still busy. A group of three or two people carried the stiff corpses of their own soldiers on the ground to the carriage, and then pulled them down outside the city gate and placed them next to a large pit that the peasants and soldiers were digging intensively. According to the order from above, these corpses must be burned together to prevent the plague from spreading.
Looking around, several large pits have been dug one after another in the surrounding area, and peasants and soldiers are building wooden frames for corpse burning under the command of craftsmen. The clergy standing next to the corpse chanted scriptures and prayed for the soldiers who lost their lives in the battle of succession...
In the city, those residents who had been staying at home to avoid the disaster of war since the war between the two armies saw soldiers of the Liberation Army filling the streets. They cautiously opened the windows of the second-story attic and looked around. Seeing other wandering refugees and hawking vendors walking freely in the streets, I dared to open the closed door and go out to inquire about the situation in the city.
· As soon as the war ended, the few tavern and shop owners in the city began to figure out how to earn back some money from the Liberation Army soldiers who had caused them to lose a lot of money.
After seeing the notices posted on major streets and city gates, these people began to open the doors of stores that had been closed for several months. After cleaning up the kitchen and setting up tables, chairs and benches, some soldiers who were looking for entertainment in various parts of the city with reward money walked towards the store in groups~
Flanders' military management is quite strict. Except for some chaos of killing, wounding and looting on the day he just entered Thorne City, there are almost no soldiers making trouble in Thorne City now.
Soldiers who want to take advantage of the situation have not been cut off, so Flanders's military law team hangs several heads of soldiers who disobey the ban on the city wall every day.
As the notices posted by the Liberation Army in the city spread, more and more people began to take to the streets, enjoying the long-lost freedom. Even the streets were still as filthy as ever, a mixture of feces, urine, mud and broken walls. But this does not hinder people’s enthusiasm to go out at all.
At the corner of the street, several vendors followed a group of patrolling soldiers to sell their goods, without any fear of being chased away or insulted by these soldiers with blood on their hands. If it had been in the past, he would have been beaten and kicked by the soldiers in Thorne City, and then taken to the mine in exchange for a few drinks.
………
After several days of clearing and fortification, all the defenders at the gates of Thorne City were replaced by the Liberation Army, and important places such as the granary and arsenal in the city were also guarded by Flanders' officers.
In the north of the city, in a large stone courtyard that was used to store grain and grass, the defeated, captured and surrendered soldiers were imprisoned here.
Flanders did not intend to kill everyone. Although these people had previously taken orders from Bernard, as soldiers, they did not have much bargaining power. Whoever provides them with military pay, they will sell their lives to whomever provides them with military pay. Flanders, who has led the Longxia Legion in the field for many years, understands this truth. This is the only reason why these soldiers are still alive. These experienced soldiers on the battlefield will become another weapon for him to expand his territory in the future.
In addition, all the officers captured in this siege were imprisoned alone in a mansion near the south city gate. Many of these people were loyal followers of Bernard. Even if the army besieged the city, they did not run away or surrender to the enemy. What awaits them will be a different fate than those of the soldiers.
………
In the northwest corner of Thorne City, this area is the temporary residence of the Welsh Legion.
In an ordinary wealthy man's house, go in through the wooden door opposite the hut used by the servants, turn left and go down the stairs to a room where horse feed is kept.
Passing past two gatekeepers in civilian clothes with sharp knives at their waists, through a thirty-foot-long passage with flickering candlelight on the walls on both sides, walked into a wooden semi-enclosed fence raised and lowered by a winch, and descended fifteen feet to reach a cylindrical secret room surrounded by a cylinder. When you walk out of the secret room, you will see a small wooden door guarded by four soldiers. Walk a few steps further and you will come to a secret prison in Thorne City where it is almost impossible to escape.
The secret prison has a total of seven cells for prisoners, all made of stone barriers up to three feet thick. The only entrance and exit is a doorway half a person's height above the ground.
Under the escort of several soldiers, Art gently held his nose and lowered his head and walked into the dungeon door. Ron and Stanley were already standing in the dungeon.
After a moment of adaptation, Art was finally able to clearly see the scene in the dungeon - dozens of iron boxes of different sizes, piles of gold and silver vessels and various valuables, almost filling the entire dungeon.
In the corner of the dungeon, several bruised guys were paralyzed in a pile of feces and urine, unable to tell whether they were alive or dead.
"Sir, all the treasures that can be collected are here. I estimate that there must be a million pfennigs, maybe millions~" Stanley's tone trembled slightly, and he was still feeling excited at the moment from his experiences in the past few days.
The time goes back a few days ago.
While the armies of the Liberation Army were desperately attacking the city outside Thorne City, the Wells Army contingent led by Stanley himself had been lurking in the city for many days.
The strength of the task force was limited. Apart from secretly conveying military information on the city defense forces a few times at the beginning, it did not play much role in the battle to break through Thorne City.
However, the main task of the task force led by Stanley was not to assist the internal agents to break into the city. From the very beginning when they lurked into the city, they only focused on one thing - monitoring the heads of the five major chambers of commerce in Thorne City.
Yat needs money, a lot of money.
The Wells Legion has gradually turned into a giant beast. As this giant beast becomes stronger, it also swallows Art's golden blood.
After breaking through Thorne City, Bernard's legendary astonishing wealth will inevitably become the target of public criticism. The new king Flanders will not allow Art to tamper with Bernard's wealth. That is a taboo.
Yat is considered a small businessman. Since he is a businessman, of course he knows the nature of a businessman. In these troubled times, merchants will definitely hoard large amounts of gold and silver in safe places.
Looking at the entire Western Territory, the safest place is Thorne City.
When the war of the Successor spread to the Western Territory, many wealthy merchants sold off their properties, and then buried the gold and silver that were easy to carry and hide in the solid city of Thorne.
So when everyone was eyeing Bernard's wealth, Art had already begun to make plans.
Just before the city of Thorne was destroyed, several of the richest wealthy merchants in Thorne City were attacked by bandits. The masked bandits attacked at night and kidnapped several wealthy merchants and their relatives...
At that time, Thorne City was in danger, and the kidnapping of a few lowly wealthy merchants would naturally not cause huge waves.
Stanley led people to kidnap the wealthy businessman and took him to this secret prison that had been cleaned by them long ago. Then he was tortured in a familiar way.
Such a thing has happened once in the city of Codor, but the Earl of Codor surrendered voluntarily and there was no war in the city, so the action was naturally much smaller.
"...Sir, these are the treasures we dug out from all over the city while the soldiers were in chaos. The rich merchants handed over more than these treasures, but the Liberation Army took control of the city too quickly, and we had no time to dig out the treasures. But I have already marked them, and we will dig them out after the situation stabilizes." Stanley briefly reported the harvest after the city was broken.
After hearing this, Art nodded in approval, then took down a torch and walked into a cell. The iron boxes had not yet been opened.
"Open!"
h Ron behind him took out the hand ax from his waist, aimed it at the copper lock on the iron box and struck it hard, and the lock fell with a sound.
As the iron box lid was slowly lifted by Ron, the dancing flames were particularly dazzling under the refraction of gold.
“Stanley, have all the task forces and soldiers involved in the operation been given a gag order?” Art turned his head slightly and asked.
"Sir, you can rest assured that the people involved in the operation are all veterans of the Welsh Legion, and most of them have relatives in the valley. The owners of this mansion have also disappeared."
"Well, this matter was done well, I will let the Chinese army I will give you a separate military reward. Those who participated in the operation will also receive a military reward."
Stanley turned his head and glanced at the dying wealthy businessmen in the corner of the dungeon, "Sir, these people~?"
"Be clean." Art said this and left the dungeon.
….
The next day, the Wells Corps took the initiative to accept the task of burying the enemy's corpses. The corpses with guts and rotten bodies were transported by carriage to a mass grave outside the city.
Pedestrian soldiers who were evading one after another would not notice why the carriages of the Welsh Legion transporting corpses left such deep ruts...
A shocking succession war is basically over, and Art, who contributed to the situation, will enjoy the huge dividends brought by the war together with all the victors.
It's just that he put the bonus of 2.2 million pfennigs into his own pocket in advance.
The next things require more dazzling things...