บท 34: Pirate Attack
The "Lucky Sailor" cargo ship sailed smoothly all the way north. Unconsciously, 16 days had passed.
They only made a brief supply stop at another commercial free port - Port Bardo during the journey, where they purchased some fresh water, fresh vegetables, fresh meat, and large barrels of rum.
For the rest of the time, they were traveling at top speed day and night.
Due to the fine weather along the way, with sunny and pleasant days every day, their voyage was very smooth, and thus they were getting closer and closer to the territory.
According to Bette's estimation, they should be able to reach the destination in another four to five days.
Of course, it wouldn't have been this fast originally. Because the maritime transportation in this world is not developed, ships, in order to avoid risks, all travel along the coastline in a winding manner. Not to mention the long distance of the journey, and they can't sail at night either.
But Bette invented a set of compass instruments and a method of stellar positioning himself.
As long as the weather is good, not only can they travel day and night, but they also don't need to follow the coastline and can sail in the deep sea. Such a direct sailing route greatly shortens the voyage.
Once a certain shipping route has been traveled once and recorded on the compass instrument, the operation becomes extremely simple.
As long as they keep in the direction indicated by the compass instrument, they can steadily reach the destination.
Therefore, the voyage that originally took about two months was forcibly compressed to about 20 days by Bette.
If the speed of the ship could be further increased, according to Bette, he could shorten the time to within 10 days.
Although the voyage time has been shortened a lot, and they don't need to continue to toss and turn on the sea, Ron is not happy.
These days, he has been thinking every day about how to solve the problems of housing and supplies in the territory.
And he asked the three wilderness experts who were going to the territory with him. Some of them said that they could build simple winter shelters, and some said that they could first look for natural shelters.
Although the methods were different, they all said that as long as the warmth preservation work was done well, they could survive the winter.
But when Ron asked them if the above methods could store winter supplies, they all shook their heads.
Those supplies could only be left in the wild, and at most, some waterproof work could be done.
However, Ron knew that there weren't enough waterproof materials brought on this ship.
In this way, it was unknown whether the supplies could be waterproof and whether they would be damaged by some large creatures.
These were actually okay. After all, in the dead of winter, even if they weren't waterproof and were damaged by other creatures, not much would be lost.
The most feared were those intelligent enemies.
Even if he repelled the enemy's attack, but as long as they secretly sent someone to set the supplies on fire, they would still be doomed.
It was said that the orcs would brave the severe cold and cross over Mount Gordo to raid every winter.
If they saw so many supplies left in the wild, wouldn't they call the entire orc tribe over?
Ron didn't want to cause trouble for himself. When he asked them again if there was a reliable way to protect the winter supplies, they all said it could only depend on providence.
Ron couldn't accept this statement. If it was really as they said, just build a simple shelter, do a good job of warmth preservation, leave the supplies in the wild, and then pray for God's blessing, Ron thought it would be certain death.
But for a moment, he couldn't think of a good way to build a warehouse that could store so many supplies?
Because of this matter, Ron couldn't sleep well every day. He thought so hard that his hair was falling out in handfuls, but still couldn't come up with a good solution.
"Why do you still have such a bitter expression?" Bette handed a steaming cup of coffee to Ron, who was sitting at the bow of the ship in a daze.
"Thank you!" Ron took the coffee and said with a wry smile, "I still can't think of a way to solve the problem of storing supplies! It's estimated to be a difficult winter."
"Let me give you a suggestion. How about that?" Bette said mysteriously.
"Oh? What good advice do you have?"
"Well, it can't be called a good advice." Bette waved his hand and said, "It's just a fallback option.
"Suppose, I mean suppose, your supplies are really damaged. You give up the territory and move along the only road. There is a border fortress 50 miles away, and you can save your lives there!"
"You just wait until the sea thaws in the spring of the next year, and we will send supplies again. Of course, you have to always be on the lookout for the people in the fortress. Some of them might try to get rid of you!"
"Thank you for your suggestion. I have considered this matter too!" Ron did think about this, but he felt it was even more dangerous there.
If he wasn't wrong, the people who raided the territory might have come from there.
Ron believed that there must be hostile forces hidden there, but he just didn't know the number.
Without supplies, perhaps they could still survive by relying on wilderness survival skills.
If they went there, it was very likely to be like sheep walking into a tiger's den. You simply wouldn't know who in there would attack you.
Although he himself did have the ability to avoid assassination, Christie and the others couldn't.
Ron couldn't accept this situation either.
Just when Ron was at a loss, he suddenly saw a medium-sized cargo ship coming head-on in front.
Looking at that direction, it seemed to be crashing right into the bow of the "Lucky Sailor". Ron was immediately startled.
"Bette, a ship is coming towards us!"
"Don't worry!" Bette said easily, "They will make way by themselves in a while! This is their old trick!"
"What do you mean?" Ron didn't understand at all what Bette was saying: "What them? What old trick!"
"Oh!" Bette suddenly realized and explained, "I forgot that it's your first time on board and you don't know the situation."
"These are all pirates, specializing in raiding our cargo ships. Although they are called pirates, in fact, they all have official backgrounds. The purpose is to prevent us from conducting maritime transportation."
"See the skull flag on the other ship? Pirates with this flag indicate that they are supported by the Leake family. If it's a sword and knife flag, it means they are pirates supported by the The Edelung Family."
"These two families have suffered serious losses due to the development of maritime transportation. Their territories are located in the center of the empire, with convenient transportation and they are also the necessary routes to various important towns. Therefore, in the past, when it relied on land transportation, they could earn a lot just by collecting high transit taxes every year without doing anything.
"But because of their existence, many families in our Lane Town have suffered huge losses, especially our Moore family. I still clearly remember that once there was a food shortage at the border. After our family received the news, we organized a lot of manpower and material resources and voluntarily transported food to the border.
"Among them, all the manpower, material resources, and the emergency food sent to the border were all purchased by our family with our own funds. The empire didn't contribute a penny. We mobilized thousands of people, hundreds of knights, countless ox carts and horse-drawn carriages, traveling day and night, just to deliver the food to the front line earlier. But at such a critical moment, these two families not only didn't reduce the toll, but instead raised the price by a full thirty times. That time, for the sake of the soldiers at the front line being able to have food, we endured! We immediately paid in cash from the Imperial Capital Chamber of Commerce and continued on our way just to avoid losing the food."
"But since then, our family has been determined to develop the maritime transportation route. And the person who led all this, you also know! She was only seven years old at that time!"
"Feli?" Ron was greatly surprised and tentatively asked.
Bette nodded slightly, his eyes full of admiration: "So you have never thought about why among the entire Lane Town, and even the entire Gust Empire, only our Moore family can pioneer such a territory in the borderland?"
Ron was shocked again: "Are you saying that the territory was given by the Duke of the Northern Lion?"
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