Chapter 306: Blood Harbor is detaining ships?
Zoe thought about it carefully for a while and felt uneasy.
"You mean, Blood Harbor is more dangerous than the pirates?"
"We will know soon, Miss Zoe." Erwin said nothing more, turned around and commanded the Crusaders to occupy various shooting positions.
Not long after, the ship from Blood Harbor approached, and even Zoe sensed something was wrong—it was not one ship, but two.
The two ships were deliberately lined up in a straight line, one in front of the other. Zoe and her group could only see the one in front, and only realized there were two ships when they got closer.
Why hide the existence of another ship? Zoe's heart tightened.
As they got closer, the speed of the opposite ship slowed down a bit. It was obvious that Castel's ship was beyond their expectations.
First of all, there is no mast. There were indeed foreign ships in this era, but they were a minority after all.
The second thing is that there are too many people.
Generally speaking, there wouldn't be many people following a cargo ship, and Castel's foreign ship didn't look like a passenger ship at all. After hesitating for a while, the other side sent someone to the bow and waved the flag.
"Mr. Erwin, what do they mean by this?"
"I don't know either."
"ah?"
"I've only been here a few times before. I'm not a crew member." Erwin shrugged.
Castel is really too remote, without even a large port. The most the islanders here can come into contact with are some fishing boats. Even the pirates tend to recruit people in Gem Bay. Even if some islanders occasionally become crew members, most of them go to other places.
The previous group of sailors basically went out to sea on Jeremiah's Black Pearl.
Among the people heading to Blood Harbor, there was not a single crew member. It would have been fine if Jeremiah had returned a few days later, but unfortunately they did not catch up.
This resulted in them being unable to recognize the other side's flag signals at all.
There was no other way, Zoe could only choose to move over and shout at the other side.
This time it was the other side's turn to hesitate. In their opinion, this strange ship without sails did not respond to the flag signals and just drove straight towards them, which was actually the behavior of pirates.
But even if the pirates were plundering, they would openly hoist the black sails. The Storm Ocean was the back garden of the Pirate King's Court. When would they hide their heads and tails? But they were backed by the Blood Harbor, so they couldn't run away even if they wanted to. Soon the three ships approached.
"What do you do?" someone shouted from the ship coming from Blood Harbor.
"We are here at Blood Harbor to visit Grand Duke Tiss on the orders of Margrave Marquis Corsica Simmons Stuart. Please guide us."
Erwin yelled.
All the Crusaders on the ship came out. They stood on the ship with spears on their backs and stern faces.
Firearms had long been spread across the continent by the Imperial Army. Although the Crusaders did not recognize the bolt-action rifles they carried, they knew they were firearms by looking at their shapes.
All members carry firearms, which makes them elite in the Imperial Royal Army. Not to mention anything else, the amount of gunpowder and ammunition consumed just to support this group of musketeers is not a small number. The poorer lords simply cannot afford it. Even an empire as vast as this has to rely on constant expansion and plunder to maintain itself.
The two ships from Blood Harbor were quiet for a while, and soon someone shouted again: "We need to go back and report to the port!"
Erwin grinned. "Please."
The smaller boat turned around and went back, while the other boat stayed there and watched over them. Even Zoe could feel their nervousness.
There were more people on Caster's ship than theirs, and their firearms were also overwhelming. If Caster's side were really pirates ready to take action, by the time Blood Harbor came to support them, they would probably have all been fed to the fish.
After Erwin exchanged a few words with the Skitarii beside him, he began to try to communicate with the other side: "How is Blood Harbor recently? Our Lord Earl still has a caravan staying there."
There was no response from the other side, so Erwin shouted a few more times before giving up and waiting for news from the port.
Zoe was a little nervous again. She came to Erwin carefully and asked, "Do you think there is something wrong with them?"
"That's great, Ms. Zoe." Erwin pointed to the ship across the way. "I don't know much about sailing, but there are obviously too many of them. Normally there wouldn't be so many people on a ship."
"Are you saying that they are targeting us and are preparing to harm us?"
"It's not necessarily targeting us. When they came over just now, their movements were so skillful, as if they had done this many times before. I suspect that Blood Harbor is detaining passing ships."
"Huh? Why would they do that?"
"Hey, that's easy to guess. I heard that the prince assassinated the queen. The empire will definitely not let it go. There will definitely be a war. Who do you think will win?"
Zoe frowned. "Of course it's the Empire. The Principality of Tis can't be compared to the Empire. The size alone is very different."
"Yes, those merchants should think so too. Do you think they will support the Empire or Tis? If they don't support Tis, then they wouldn't help the prince. In this case, why not just arrest them directly?"
“This is not good.”
"It's not good, but the empire has no other outlets to the sea now. The four northern lords are allies of Tis. The Principality of Tis can actually control the entire Storm Ocean. They can capture all the merchants and replace them with their own people."
Erwin gritted his teeth. "Of course, now that Castel is here, their idea won't work."
"Will they compete with us for control of the Ocean of Storms?"
"It depends on whether the prince is smart enough. From what I know about Lord Hughes, if they are willing to have a good conversation, there shouldn't be a direct conflict. Castel doesn't need a war to prove himself. We just need to sell our products here and they will collapse on their own."
Zoe looked at Erwin in surprise. The views of this Skitarii leader were much more profound than she thought, and were not even limited to the military.
"The advanced class I chose is economics. Lord Hughes said that financial warfare is also a war, so he transferred me from the mechanics major to the economics major. This theory was actually proposed by Lord Hughes, and I just repeated it to you."
Zoe had heard about this matter. The islanders were too interested in mechanics and chemical engineering (explosives research direction), which resulted in no one signing up for some unpopular advanced classes. It was difficult to even start classes, and in the end the lord had to make manual adjustments.
It’s just that Sir Alexei’s deputy is a major in economics, and Alexei is also the chief clerk. “Ah, they’re here.”
Erwin pointed to the sea in the distance, and the ship that had just gone to Blood Harbor came back.
(End of this chapter)
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