The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

Chapter 142 The Army That Started Doing Business

Doug's encirclements became more and more frequent, but the resistance forces grew in number with each battle. Every time the resistance broke out of the encirclement, what remained were a group of fierce villagers armed with weapons. They usually worked honestly in the fields, but if Doug's army tried to exploit and plunder as before, the army would be harassed by guerrillas until they left the area.

Moreover, the local villagers had essentially established their own intelligence network, and from the moment Doug's army entered the territory, all their actions were observed by the villagers.

When Doug's army actually entered the village, all the armed soldiers disappeared, leaving only a line of elderly people guarding the houses and farming.

The civilians are now more militarily trained and more like soldiers than Doug's troops.

As for pursuing Isa, Doug's army usually only pursued her symbolically. After all, merchants, farmers, and even lords along the way constantly provided intelligence to the resistance. Moreover, every time they were about to capture her, she would always manage to escape danger or even fight back on the spot. After a few times, no one was willing to really pursue her.

However, Isa remembered to fight a mobile war, and even if Doug did not send troops to encircle and suppress her, Isa would not stay in one place for long.

After discussing with Layton, Isa left some people in the villages and then led the resistance army away.

Although Isa felt that she was favored by the goddess, she couldn't always rely on meteorites falling from the sky. As the governor said, one must do one's best before leaving the rest to fate.

After the resistance left, the village cluster returned to its usual quiet, except for the appearance of some unfamiliar faces who helped the able-bodied villagers with their daily training.

Because the resistance provided some food, and some small merchants followed the resistance to this place, the village, which had been exploited to the point of death by the Doug army, began to regain its former vitality.

The moment the Dogg army, which came to besiege them, stepped onto this land, they sensed a familiar feeling.

"General..."

A soldier cautiously approached the general on horseback.

“There were people watching us from many houses in the distance.”

"Just pretend you didn't see it."

The general on horseback yawned. He had come here to quell the resistance because he was ostracized, and he was originally just trying to give up.

Not only has the resistance not been wiped out, but it has also shown a trend of increasing numbers despite repeated efforts to suppress it. Some military personnel with connections are unwilling to come to suppress the bandits and have been assigned to deal with those scoundrels in the eastern border.

After all, there are no muskets in the Eastern Territory, so there's no way to buy them from the Grey and White Collars or the Royal Capital, and there's not even a way to smuggle them. If there are no professionals in the army, they can only obediently take the beating.

As long as the generals on Doug's side are normal people, adhering to the basic principle of defending when the enemy's high-level professionals come and attacking when they don't, it's basically a human-machine difficulty game, and they even show a bit of the resistance army's guerrilla tactics in their advances and retreats.

Of course, recently the Eastern Territory has also started to see all sorts of bizarre muskets, just like those in Doug's army, but the adoption rate has never been high, and they have all sorts of problems, far less sturdy and durable than the muskets produced by Gray Collar.

They were still being dominated by Doug's team.

Doug's generals also tasted the benefits of superior weaponry, which explains why the resistance was able to break through the encirclements time and time again with just a group of civilians.

These generals are now all vying to fight the Eastern Frontier, whose army, not much stronger than Doug's, is much easier to deal with than the villagers in the Northern Frontier who have become like mad dogs in order to protect their land.

In the end, those with stronger connections are more eager to go to the Eastern Territory to earn battle merits, and these people with strong connections will take away more equipment and professionals, so the army of professionals and equipment allocated to suppressing the resistance will be less.

The fewer professionals and equipment there are, the more difficult it is to wipe out the resistance, and the less willing people are to come, creating a vicious cycle.

Everyone knows that the Resistance and the Gray Collars are the real threats, but no one is willing to fight for Doug. Everyone just wants to use their neighbors' achievements to numb themselves. It's not that they are weak, it's that the Resistance and the Gray Collars are too strong.

Doug inherited most of Lars' territory, so he certainly had no shortage of people willing to risk their lives for him. But perhaps those people who were willing to risk their lives for Doug were abandoned by him in some unimportant small towns.

The general who came to carry out the encirclement and suppression was also planning to treat this operation as a spring outing, just to take a stroll around. As long as his troops did not plunder, the guerrillas in this area should not make a move.

It must be said that in this era, the fact that he could still control his soldiers and keep these soldiers of diverse backgrounds obedient to military orders and prevent them from looting, even if it cannot be ruled out that he was afraid of the villagers who had weapons, shows that this general was quite capable.

"Is the cargo ready?"

The general glanced sideways at the soldier who had just come to report.

"Get ready, General. The brothers are all watching."

"Yes, when we get to the next village or town, keep your men in line. Don't treat us like we're here to suppress bandits; treat us like we're here to do business. Understand?"

The soldier nodded in agreement, then jogged to the rear to inform the knights and officers below.

If the opinions of ordinary soldiers could be suppressed by not looting, how could the opinions of the professionals in the army be satisfied? This general took the wisdom of his predecessors into account and directly led the army to start doing business. Everyone made money together. If I can't rob, I can earn it myself, right? Anyway, there are no rules in Doug's territory that prohibit the army from doing business.

Moreover, each time the resistance army left a place, they would leave behind some things for the local civilians to trade, such as sugar, grain, or other specialties of the gray and white collars. Therefore, some small and medium-sized merchants especially liked to follow the resistance army.

Upon arriving at the villages and towns, the army did not begin looting or conscripting men as before. Instead, they started buying and selling goods on the spot, transforming the army into traveling merchants.

After several days of business, the general noticed that one of his soldiers was missing his musket and hurriedly asked, "Where's your musket?"

The soldier stammered and refused to speak, so the general brandished his whip and shouted, "Answer me!"

When the soldier saw the whip fire a blank shot right in front of him, he knelt down and said, "General, I'm sorry, I'll give the musket to the villagers here as compensation."

"Why are you compensating them? What have you done?"

"General, I was momentarily blinded by greed and stole a family's chicks that hadn't grown up yet. I cooked and ate them with my brothers, but we were caught red-handed, so I had to give up my musket."

Hearing the soldier say this, the general felt relieved.

"It's no big deal. As long as there was no conflict, that's fine. Anyway, the muskets left outside are already commonplace. As long as they didn't end up in the hands of the Eastern Territory dogs, that's all that matters. Go and accept your punishment."

Upon hearing this, the soldiers felt as if they had been granted a pardon and went to receive their punishment.