Ruby Shoal is the only shallow ford on the north bank of the Trident where the Green Fork River meets the three rivers.
Lord Roose Bolton, who is pale, bald and beardless, stands at the only ferry crossing, looking at the town in the south.
He is the current lord of the Dreadfort, a great noble in the North, and the head of the Bolton family of the Flayed Man.
In his life of more than 40 years, in addition to being scheming, cunning and cold, the most talked about thing is that he regularly uses leeches to suck the "dirty blood" from his body.
Therefore, he is called "Lord Leech".
Of course, some rumors cannot cover up his ability as the head of the second largest noble family in the North. Compared with many smart people in the North, such as "Great Jon Umber", Lord Bolton is simply the perfect commander of the Northern Alliance on the Eastern Front.
If the two earls, Rickard Karstark and Greatjon Umber, led the Northern Army on the eastern front, Robb and his mother would probably be reunited with his sisters in King's Landing in less than a month.
In the case of being captured.
Therefore, even though Robb did not completely trust Lord Leech, he let him lead the army south.
"My lord, all the ships have been assembled, and about 3,000 people can cross the river each time. The ferry in the town is still in the hands of the rivermen. They fought fiercely yesterday afternoon and the whole night, and are waiting for our reinforcements." A Bolton officer reported.
Aenys Frey stood beside Lord Bolton. As the commander of 2,800 infantrymen of the Frey family, he had rich combat experience.
Therefore, he asked the commander of the Northland-River East Coalition: "Lord Bolton, please give the order to cross the river! The south may not be able to hold on."
Roose Bolton, with lifeless eyes, glanced coldly at the third son of the Frey family, "This is exactly the order I want to give."
Then he turned to the senior officers of the coalition behind him and said loudly: "In the south, the Lannister army is fighting with our friends. I want you to cross the river and defeat Tywin's soldiers."
"In order for the Stark family to win the honor of the first battle on the eastern front, I order 3,000 Stark infantry to cross the river first and meet the Lannister army."
After Lord Bolton finished speaking, the Stark officers who had been anxious for a long time naturally received the order, turned around to reorganize the army, and prepared to cross the river by boat to fight.
After that, Lord Leech arranged the order of crossing the river in batches.
The Northern nobles and the Frey family were basically satisfied with Lord Bolton's arrangement, so under their command, the remaining 12,000 people formed more than a dozen small squares according to their respective families and waited in order in front of the dock.
The first batch of Stark infantrymen had boarded fifty or sixty large and small ships to fight with the Westerly Army.
Two hours later, Lord Bolton, who was the last to cross the south, finally landed on the south bank. After riding a black horse, he and his personal soldiers headed towards the battlefield slightly south.
Even though they were hundreds of steps away, Lord Leech still smelled the strong smell of blood, which made him, who loved bloodletting, feel a little happy.
After all, bleeding other people is also bleeding.
"It seems that these guys in Hejian fought well." He said to the many Northern nobles who came to meet him.
After the first two waves of Northern infantry arrived at the battlefield, the Hejian-Northern coalition began to counterattack. After the third wave of reinforcements of more than 3,000 people arrived, the Lannister cavalry retreated directly.
Thousands of corpses and hundreds of seriously injured soldiers who could not escape were left behind.
"Indeed." Lord Mage Seven pointed to Arthur and others who were still resting on the hill, "This Mr. Bracken is the bravest I have ever seen in my life. From what I saw, he alone can make a large number of Westerland soldiers avoid his golden sword."
This is true. After fighting for a night and a half, all the Lion Family soldiers who attacked desperately were avoiding the River War God who took away a comrade with one knife.
This made Arthur much more idle, so he had to chase the Lion Family soldiers to fight.
Inis Frey proudly said to many northern nobles: "Arthur is the champion of two events in the tournament. With his fighting power, I think my sixth brother is not his opponent."
The nobles in the northern border ignored the third son of the Frey family and chatted with people they were familiar with.
"It is rumored that he has an amazing hammer, which is much more powerful than this broadsword."
"I still think the broadsword is more powerful. I heard that he chopped off the tall horse of the Kingslayer with one blow outside the Golden Tooth, which frightened tens of thousands of westerly soldiers."
Everyone talked about Arthur's deeds and debated which weapon was more lethal.
Roose Bolton did not join this group of muscular northern nobles who only worshipped force. He rode into the battlefield and began to comfort the soldiers sitting on the ground to rest one by one.
For the first wave of reinforcements from the Stark family, he did not hesitate to praise them.
Lord Robb will be proud of your achievements, this is a sentence he always said.
When he encountered injured northern soldiers, he would also let the maesters around him come forward to treat them, although it was not very useful.
After all, minor injuries will not kill, and serious injuries do not need to be treated.
Lord Leech asked his own soldiers who did not participate in the battle to clean up the battlefield, and then he summoned all the nobles in the Riverlands and the North to discuss the next step.
In the hall of the round fortress of the Root family, these twenty or thirty people began to express their opinions.
"I think we should go directly south along the King's Road, enter King's Landing, and rescue the Starks."
The speaker's tone was bold, but anyone with a discerning eye could hear the underlying meaning behind his words.
After all, King's Landing is much richer than the Northern Territory, and a robbery can double the wealth of all the Northern Territory nobles present.
Lord Meech Severn had a different view. "It is better to go west along the river road, join forces with Lord Robb first, and then plan to completely defeat Tywin's main force in the west."
This statement does have some merit. Even if all the troops between Riverrun and the West River are included, Robb's Western Front Alliance Army only has about 10,000 people. Compared with the main force of the Lion Family near the Lake of the God's Eye and Harrenhal, it is still A bit of a disadvantage.
If we add this large army on the eastern front, at least in terms of numbers, the Northern-Hejian coalition has already formed a considerable advantage.
Roose Bolton glanced around and found Arthur who was communicating with several people from the Frey family, and asked: "I wonder what the opinions of the people in the river are, this Mr. Bracken or a certain Mr. Frey come out and say something. "
The Frey family and Arthur's river soldiers combined totaled more than 4,000 people, and they were also a force that could not be ignored on the Eastern Front. Therefore, Marquis Bolton still asked the river soldiers for their opinions.
Arthur glanced at the third and sixth sons of the Frey family, confirmed that they supported him and said:
"My opinion is to attack King's Landing directly. The royal families have always been weak. They can't even muster an army of five thousand. And Tywin also has to consider Robb and others who are attacking from the west, so they can't free up their hands to fight us. "
After a series of small battles in Shili City, Heron Town, Ferry Defense, and the Hedong area, Tywin's main force in the West was only about 14,000 people, and it was no longer possible to divide the troops into two fronts.
The king's territory and his hometown in the west can only be protected by one.
As for the Western Territory, which has a population of more than three million, and King's Landing, which has a population of one million, and the royal territory, Duke Tywin can still weigh it.
Lord Leech glanced at Arthur and suddenly felt that this person was pleasing to his eyes.
It is in line with his wishes to let Robb lead the troops in a decisive battle with Tywin, and lead the Eastern Front Allied Forces to King's Landing to take away the fruits of victory.
But this will cause some opposition from the northerners. After all, they are the ones who came south to fight against Tywin and the Westerners.
He stood up and looked at the map on the long table for a long time before he said: "Otherwise, let's slowly go south along the King's Road and wait for the movements of the main force in the West and Lord Robb before we make a decision." Military rations are also a big problem here."
He didn't say it clearly in front of the people in Hejian, but everyone in the north knew how the military rations came from.
The Eastern Front is not the West River with Robb there. No big nobles are willing to use their own grain as military ration, so they can only requisition food on the spot.
So most of the northern nobles agreed to the strategy of slowly going south.
It was now morning. After studying the map, Marquis Bolton determined that the entire army would set off after lunch, arrive at a village in the evening, and camp nearby.
…
Five days later, the Chinese army's tent was at the Allied Forces Camp in Hejian in the north.
This army of more than 16,000 men has marched more than 120 leagues south.
Happily, this trip encountered only a few obstacles from small groups of troops.
And this is what makes some northern nobles unhappy.
Because Tywin's main force in the West should go to the Western Front to fight his Lord Robb.
Oh no, it should be King Robb now.
The news that the Young Wolf Lord was proclaimed king by "Greatjon Umber" and other northern nobles in Riverrun City has spread to the northern border-river coalition forces on the eastern front.
Many nobles were called together by Roose Bolton to discuss the next move.
"Luo...His Majesty the King's order is for us to help restore the territories of many river nobles to the west of Divine Eye Lake and south of the Red Fork River. After all, this is now the jurisdiction of his kingdom."
Among the rivermen present, Raymond's Darui City was on the south bank, but it was not attacked by the Western Army's devastating attack.
The territories of the Patrick and Frey families are all north of the Red Fork River, so there is no need to worry about the territory.
The rest of Ma Ke, Hendry and others were left at Harrenhal by Arthur, and they could not speak.
In addition to the willingness to fight with the Lion Soldiers, the people in the Northern Territory are also eager to go to the wealthy Western Territory and King's Territory and other places to make up for their own losses.
After all, most of the northern farmers who hurriedly responded to the call went to Winterfell to gather without harvesting their own wheat.
Therefore, Meech Severn, Robert Glover, Lord Harris Horwood, and Harion Karstark all remained silent on this order.
The Stark family has three thousand infantrymen here. Since there are no important family members, the officers attending the meeting just looked at the commander silently.
They will carry out orders faithfully.
Arthur, who was surrounded by the river people, thought about the plot of the original book. If there were no accidents, Duke Tywin had indeed led his army back to the West to aid.
However, Edmure and his men, who suddenly showed great courage, were stopped at the Red Fork River and could not move westward to fight Robb's army.
And now, the seriously injured Edmure is obviously unable to show his highlight moments.
Therefore, the main force of the Western Region will have a deadly conflict with the more than 10,000 people led by Robb in the area where Riverrun is located.
Considering that the Young Wolf Lord has already won two games, it's hard to say whether this battle will be won or lost.
"I support going all the way south and taking King's Landing directly. This may attract some of Tywin's troops and reduce the pressure on the Western Front." Arthur said loudly.
These words catered to the wishes of He Bolton and several great northern nobles.
After someone took the lead, more people began to speak.
"That's right, Lord Arthur is right. We will go south to King's Landing. Tywin will definitely send some soldiers over. Then, His Majesty will be able to defeat the remaining Westerland troops."
"I heard that Tywin summoned Adam Marbrand and others who were fighting in the east of the river. Therefore, there are only a few Westerland soldiers left in Pink City, Stone Town, Acorn Hall and other places. The river people can recover them by themselves."
"If we take down King's Landing, bring back the two ladies Sansa and Arya, the remains of Lord Eddard, and the Stark family heirloom sword Ice, it will be a great achievement. The King of the North will not make things difficult for us."
Everyone gave their own reasons, but they did not convince their companions, but themselves.
Lord Leech saw that Arthur, the leader of the river, and the great nobles of the North had the same idea. After pursing his lips, he made up his mind.
"Then we will fight all the way south to the Blackwater River and King's Landing to avenge Lord Eddard."
Lord Bolton stood up suddenly and encouraged loudly.
On their way south from the Twins, the news that Joffrey had chopped off Duke Eddard's head had spread, which made many northern nobles indignant.
Revenge for their old lord became the best reason for this group of people to disobey the new King of the North.
"Revenge for the lord I swore to protect."
"Enter King's Landing and capture Joffrey alive."
"Present the Iron Throne as a great gift for the birth of the King of the North."
Everyone shouted in a mess, each expressing their loyalty.
After the southward combat strategy was determined, the speed of the entire army increased sharply.
In just one day, they drove more than 30 leagues and approached the east side of the God's Eye Lake, roughly reaching the middle of Earl Harroway's town and Sow's Corner.
And Sow's Corner is the boundary between the riverlands and the crown near the King's Road.
After arriving there, the coalition forces will encounter decent resistance and fighting.
Of course, Arthur, who brought more than a thousand people, did not forget one important thing.
Arya Stark, the second daughter of Lord Eddard, who escaped from King's Landing, should now be in the riverlands east of the God's Eye Lake.
According to the original plot, Arya was taken out of King's Landing by the Night's Watcher Yoren, and Yoren himself was brutally killed because he didn't want the gold cloaks to find Arya. After that, Arya, the illegitimate son of the former King Robert, Gendry the Bull, and the bread boy Hot Pie went north and were captured in Harrenhal in the riverlands.
So while the coalition army was heading south, he also sent more than 40 small forces of about three or five people, consisting of river cavalry and Qohor mercenaries, to search for Arya, Gendry, Hot Pie and others.
Of course, Arthur's explanation to the Frey family and many northern nobles was to eliminate the scouts and small forces in the west.
After all, the Westerlands were still harassing the riverlands. Although this reason was far-fetched, it was reasonable.
On the seventh night from the ferry south, in Roose Bolton's tent.
A very ordinary-looking Northern soldier whispered to Lord Bolton:
"I have found out why Arthur sent so many people to search the surrounding area. According to a Qohor mercenary, the person Arthur wants to find is called Gendry, the apprentice of a Qohor blacksmith named Tob. He is looking for him to make weapons, after all, his golden sword looks like a sawtooth."
This person is telling the truth. When Arthur gave instructions to his men, he asked them to find Gendry.
Because if they find Gendry, they can find Arya, and the short Arya is not very noticeable.
Then the man added: "Also, Tyrion is not restricted much in his camp. Can we sneak him out and send him to Lord Tywin as a favor?"
After hearing this, Lord Leech growled in a low voice: "Fool, does a blacksmith need to make such a big fuss and send two or three hundred people to find him? This Gendry must have another identity, go and check it out. Also, don't worry about Tyrion, I will seize the opportunity."
After receiving the order, the man retreated and continued to investigate the truth of Arthur's search for someone.