Black Iron Crown

"That Reiner has already blamed me!" The Queen looked at Earl Redmara angrily and said.

She knew nothing about sending spies, so when the wind report was delivered to her, she was very angry.

Earl Redmara didn't say much, but picked up the file and looked it up carefully.

After a while, he said: "I did send spies to the northern border, but I didn't expect things to develop to this point. My purpose was to prevent them from doing bad things to us!"

"Do something unfavorable? Now because of your behavior, they will be against us! Let me ask you, how is our army training?"

The queen simply reprimanded Earl Redmara, and then began to ask about the combat capabilities of the army. As a woman, he didn't know what the necessities needed for combat were.

She only knew that she spent a lot of money to form an army of 10,000 people in two years.

She didn't know the exact strength of the northern border, but she felt that 10,000 people was already an extremely large number, plus the army of the upstarts, they might not be able to beat the northern border army.

"The training is going well..." Earl Redmara said after a moment of hesitation.

"If that's the case, then prepare for war. Grand Duke Leiner is too deceitful. We must win this time!" The queen clenched her fists and said indignantly, obviously she hadn't forgotten the last time Leiner came to the imperial capital. .

Hearing what the queen said, Earl Redmara hurriedly said: "I'm afraid not, Your Majesty. Although our soldiers are well trained, there are still some shortcomings in ordnance. The armor rate of our soldiers is only 10%!"

"Ordnance?" The queen said angrily, "I have allocated so much money to you in the past two years, where have you spent tens of thousands of gold coins?"

"Your Majesty, there is no iron ore in the territory controlled by our royal family, which makes our steel extremely expensive. Even if I spend all my money on armor, I still can't make our army's armor rate reach 40% !"

The queen frowned when she heard what Earl Redmara said, "Haven't we already reached a trade agreement with the Kingdom of Bookern? We don't charge their tariffs, and in exchange they provide us with steel trade!"

"Yes, Your Majesty, you are right, but the price of the steel that the Kingdom of Bukeden provides us is even more expensive than ours. We simply cannot afford their steel. Taking advantage of the opportunity to raise the price has long been their usual tactic. Already!"

Earl Redmara said helplessly, if it were really as simple as the Queen said, would things still develop to this point?

Earl Redmara knew that the revival of the empire was not in the interests of the Kingdom of Bookeden.

Only a weakened empire can allow the Kingdom of Bukeden to get whatever it wants. Now that the empire is weakened, they have gained a lot of benefits.

A little bit of the empire has become stronger again. If nothing else, the preferential policy of exempting tariffs is absolutely impossible to continue.

Listening to Earl Redmara's words, the queen felt even worse, and said irritably, "Then what should we do now!"

Count Redmara was silent.

After a while, he said: "For the current plan, the only thing we can do is to talk to Grand Duke Leiner. From this file, it can be seen that he has not sent more troops. He probably does not want to engage in a full-scale war with us. Besides, it's not in his interest to start a fight.

There will be no fights over such trivial matters. "

"I think Grand Duke Leiner also wants to get some benefits from us, so just give it to him. Maybe we can take the opportunity to buy some steel from him to arm the army!"

The queen thought about Earl Redmara's words, sighed and nodded, "I hope, I hope you can turn this bad thing into a good thing!"

The news that the army of the Grand Duchy of the North was staying on the border quickly spread within the scope of the empire along with the exchanges of merchants.

At the same time, letters of accusation were also sent to the imperial capital. At this time, the upstarts were intoxicated by the huge profits brought about by trade with the south and the north.

As the saying goes, cutting people's fortunes is like killing their parents. Due to the influence of the border army, their business has also decreased a lot, not to mention the risk of war breaking out. These upstarts are not willing to go to war with the northern border.

For them, the frequency of such wars is too frequent. In the past eight or nine years, there may not have been a war. Now they have fought four or five battles in three years, and they have long been tired of it.

These incriminating letters put great pressure on Earl Redmara, and the border trade between the two sides was also greatly affected, which directly reduced the royal family's treasury revenue.

Therefore, Earl Redmara sent a messenger to Reiner to send a letter of negotiation, and at the same time, he was actively discussing the bottom line that could be paid with the Queen.

After confirming that everything was correct, Earl Redmara hurriedly marched north with more than a hundred knights and followers.

After Reiner received the letter from the imperial capital, he couldn't help but smile with satisfaction.

He patted the parchment in his hand, and said to Farrant beside him: "Look, I said that the imperial capital must not be able to withstand our pressure, and now the letter requesting negotiation has been sent!"

Frant looked at the letter in Reiner's hand, shook his head subconsciously and said: "I didn't expect that they don't even dare to fight now, even if they can't win, let us see their determination, we won't fight!" The lion opened its mouth wide."

"By directly asking for negotiations like this, isn't it directly exposing their guilty conscience to us!"

"Who says no!" Reiner shrugged and said, "How do I know what they think in their hearts? Restocking is good news for me. I think I'm going to get rich again!"

Soon, Earl Redmara took his retinues to the border area of ​​the northern border.

And Lena also rushed there with a group of people.

"Long time no see Earl Redmara!" Reiner smiled meaningfully, the corners of his mouth curled up strangely.

"Yeah, we haven't seen each other for three years!" Earl Redmara did not show timidity, and exchanged pleasantries with Reiner very naturally.

However, Reiner knew that the Earl of Redmara had obviously not been happy in the past three years.

He is only in his thirties this year, and he already has premature hair, and there are many wrinkles around his eyes. Although the age gap between him and Reiner is less than ten years old, he looks much older than Reiner.

"Okay Earl Redmara, since you came to see me in person with such sincerity, then I'll get straight to the point!"

"I am very angry that you sent spies to destroy the internal unity of my country. How do you think I should deal with this matter?" Reiner lightly stroked the heraldic ring on his finger and said lightly.

Faced with Reiner's questioning, Earl Redmara's heart sank, but he said without changing his face: "What kind of explanation do you want, Grand Duke Reiner?"

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