Chapter 370 Attracting Bees and Butterflies
Wei Tao has been in a good mood lately.
He was originally ordered to lead two thousand elite cavalrymen of the Great Xia Dynasty to the Western Continent to escort this year's aid to the Temple, and to symbolically support the Temple. Unexpectedly, he was exiled from the shores of the Black Sea to the Riga Fortress on the Baltic coast.
We are all veterans of the Great Xia Dynasty, and we have become indifferent to life and death, but who would not want to die closer to home?
When Wei Tao first met Qin Mo, he thought it would be good if half of his men returned alive. It wasn't until he met Tang Bailong from Venice and the Great Xia Martial Army and the Venice Silver Daisy Knights formed an alliance that Wei Tao felt a little more confident.
More than a month ago, the Temple entered the Orc territory with Riga Fortress as its main attack direction, and Wei Tao also began his nerve-wracking expedition to foreign lands.
Over the past month, Wei Tao's Wuyi Army, in cooperation with the Silver Daisy Knights, achieved remarkable results, and in the last seven or eight days, they even captured a large city of the Rakshasa.
The leader of the Silver Daisy Knights was very generous, directly allocating half of the city to himself, and then leading his men in a conquest celebration.
Looking at the resentful eyes of his strong, muscular men who had been away from home for over a year, Wei Tao could only say one sentence and let it go.
"Don't take lives! Leave them a way out!"
Several days have passed, but Wei Tao can still recall the strange looks he received from the Silver Daisy Knights. He also remembers the grateful tears of the surviving Rakshasa people. Now, in this city, Great Xia soldiers are highly sought after, and Rakshasa people flock to them for safety.
The skilled Venetians, after looting all the money, transported the people to Riga Fortress as cargo to exchange for cash, while the Bactrians were seen by them as nothing more than a bunch of kind-hearted fools.
Wei Tao and his men weren't fools; they were just easily satisfied. Looking at the spoils in their pockets and thinking about the two beautiful Russian sisters who had offered themselves to him, Wei Tao suddenly felt that this arduous task that his colleagues avoided wasn't so unbearable after all.
"Commander, a messenger from the Great Xia has arrived outside!" Wei Tao's personal guard knocked on the door and came in to report, interrupting Wei Tao's reverie.
"A messenger from Great Xia? Quickly, invite him!"
A short while later, a young man in his twenties walked in.
"Brother Wei, you didn't expect it to be me, did you! Hahaha!" The man burst into hearty laughter as soon as he entered the room.
When Wei Tao saw the people there, he was overjoyed. "Brother Tong, what brings you here? Aren't you serving in the Royal Infantry Regiment? How did you become a messenger?"
"Never mind that for now, hurry up and get me some food. I've been rushing all this way and haven't eaten yet!" The young man surnamed Tong took off his coat without any hesitation, sat down casually, and ordered wine and dishes.
Wei Tao wasn't angry at all. Tong Wenlin was his comrade-in-arms from the Xuanyi Army, and the two had a good relationship. More importantly, Tong Wenlin was the second son of Marquis Wu'an, Tong Guangfu. As a nobleman, Tong Wenlin had been selected by the Empress to join some "Royal Infantry Regiment" two years ago, which meant he had a promising future. This kind of status meant that Wei Tao needed to curry favor with people from that social class.
"Brother Tong, please sit down. I have some top-quality seafood here, freshly caught from the northern seas. I guarantee you'll enjoy your meal. However, the wine... it's a bit lacking! We finished all the wine we brought a long time ago. Ah! I really miss the strong liquor from my hometown..."
Wei Tao took out two cans of wine from Iberia, placed them on the table, and explained to Tong Wenlin with some embarrassment.
“Brother is right. It’s bad enough that the food in this Western Continent is terrible, but the wine is even worse. It’s sour and not flavorful enough. So I bought a few jars of Da Yuan Xiao Shao from Rome to drink on the road. There’s one jar left.”
Wei Tao was overjoyed and shouted to his personal guard, "Xiao Qi, hurry up and get some wine, and while you're at it, find some pretty women for General Tong's entourage, but don't pick any of those 'slutty' ones!"
Tong Wenlin's eyes lit up, and he said in a low voice, "Brother Wei, life here... is pretty good?"
Wei Tao also lowered his voice and said, "It's tough, but there's no shortage of fun. These Westerners don't emphasize morality and education like we in Great Xia. They're really uninhibited. The victor can do whatever he wants."
The two became increasingly intimate as they talked, like two sleazy old drivers, both wearing expressions that said, "You know what I mean."
"Brother Wei, I was actually sent here as an 'observer.' What's the situation at Riga Fortress? Is the Temple still holding out?"
Instead of answering Tong Wenlin's question, Wei Tao asked first, "What is an observer?"
"This is a new position created by Her Majesty the Empress this year, under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Family. It involves going to the battlefield to assess the situation, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and then help the Imperial Family and the court make the right decisions," Tong Wenlin explained as he opened the wine jar and poured the wine.
"Brother Tong, aren't they spies? But the Western Continent is thousands of miles away from the Great Xia. Why would we need to spy on their military strength?"
Tong Wenlin looked around to make sure no one was nearby before whispering, "I originally thought there was no need to come to Xizhou to spy on the Holy Temple, but I only learned some things before I left."
"What is it?" Seeing Tong Wenlin's serious expression, Wei Tao began to feel nervous.
"The Temple has sent envoys to Great Xia one after another, offering a lot of compensation terms in exchange for the secret of the 'Wrath of the Elves'."
"What? They want artillery? How can that be allowed?" Wei Tao exclaimed, almost knocking over the wine glass beside him.
"Brother Wei, keep your voice down. The imperial court hasn't agreed to the Holy Temple's request, but the Holy Temple claims that the war situation in recent years has been too difficult. If they don't get the cannons, they might not be able to hold on. They've even subtly threatened us... that negotiating peace with the orcs isn't impossible. If that's the case, Great Xia can't just ignore it!"
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