Gendry ran in after the dragon, and when the nobles stopped talking, he whispered to Arthur: "It's time for Alduin to eat. I fed him dried meat, and he shook his head and flew to find you."
According to the experiment on the road for more than 20 days, the young dragon did not reject Gendry, who had dragon blood, and allowed him to wander around, and even ate the food given by Gendry.
So Arthur asked Danniu to be Alduin's servant, responsible for feeding a large amount of meat to the growing young dragon every day.
"It should want to eat fresh meat. I'll go out and find it some mutton, beef or something."
After Arthur stroked Alduin's dragon head, he said a few words to everyone, and took the dragon and Gendry out.
Leaving these knowledgeable nobles to continue to imagine.
Mrs. He An is the oldest and has the deepest understanding of some legends of the Dragon family.
"If this is really a dragon that can breathe fire, then Arthur should have the blood of the Targaryen family."
She tried hard to recall, but she could only remember that during the reign of Aegon IV, there was a famous illegitimate son of the Dragon family, Aegor Rivers, who was related to both the Dragon family and the Bracken family.
"Cold Iron", who was active more than a hundred years ago, was a noble illegitimate son of the Dragon family, born by a certain Bracken lady, just like the famous Duke Brynden Rivers, the "Blood Raven". Although both were named after the illegitimate son of the Riverlands, Rivers, after Aegon IV legalized their identities, both of them were members of the Dragon family with inheritance rights.
It is worth mentioning that Blood Raven is the incarnation of the current Three-Eyed Raven.
"But Cold Iron went to the East Continent, and it is impossible for him to have any relationship with the current Bracken." Willis denied this speculation.
Cold Iron participated in the Blackfyre Rebellion several times. After a failure, he was sent to the Wall by water, but when passing through White Harbor, he was kidnapped by his men and went to the continent of Essos.
His subordinates were the first mercenary group in the Free Trade Cities and Westeros, the Golden Company.
Aegor Rivers himself was the founder of the Golden Company. After his death, he ordered his skull to be boiled to remove the flesh and blood, plated with gold, and hung on a high pole. His successors followed suit, so the Golden Company had a lot of golden skulls.
"It's impossible for the Cold Iron branch, but it's possible for the Mad King Aerys II." Robert said.
"I think Rhaegar is more likely than the Mad King. You know, the Mad King didn't even leave the Red Castle for several years before the Harrenhal Tournament, and given Arthur's family, his mother couldn't stay in King's Landing for a long time and then be noticed by the Mad King."
Willis guessed.
Everyone expressed their opinions, but everyone agreed on one point.
That is, a Bracken was used by the Dragon family to lay dragon eggs.
And based on the fact that the Dragon family's bloodline will be continuously diluted in intermarriage with ordinary people, it is very likely that Arthur's biological father is a Targaryen.
"Then he is a Targaryen prince." Sansa's tone sounded happy.
If Arthur's bloodline was higher, she could ask her mother and brother to change her engagement to this Bracken.
"Impossible, according to the laws of the Seven Kingdoms, even if he has the blood of the Dragon Family, he can only be a Bracken now."
The serious Herman Tallhart thought this was impossible. The idea that all Targaryen family members in Westeros could be killed when Robert was alive was still imprinted in his mind.
"But if the King of the North is willing to restore Arthur's Dragon Family name, he has a stronger claim to the Iron Throne than Joffrey and Tommen."
Willis said.
According to the three hundred years of practice of the Targaryen Dynasty, the king can indeed restore illegitimate children to official members with inheritance rights.
Everyone discussed this topic for a long time, and no one could convince anyone.
…
Haley, who managed Arthur's bills, Bill, the mercenary who maintained the order of the civilians, and Deacon, who was still forming a new army, were called to a hall. There were many useless empty rooms in the Burning King Tower. After the civilians helped clean and repair, these rooms could also be put to use.
On the one hand, Arthur needed to understand the situation thoroughly. On the other hand, the young dragons needed a lot of meat, and there were no other large numbers of animals in the castle except for a large number of horses to feed the dragons.
Moreover, Locke Holt's men also needed to pay off part of the deposit. This mercenary, who was good at talking but not as smart as his uncle, had wanted to take people to find back Wager's inheritance several times.
That was several thousand gold dragons.
If Arthur hadn't said that he had enough gold dragons, these mercenaries wouldn't have worked so hard.
"So far, I have 1,813 gold dragons, 450 silver deer, and more than 40,000 copper coins in my hands."
Under normal circumstances, one gold dragon is exchanged for 210 silver deer, and one silver deer is exchanged for 112 copper coins.
So the bulk of this money is still 1813 gold royals.
"... All the food in the castle is stored in the basements of the Burning King Tower and the Wailing Tower. Now the number of civilians has exceeded 30,000. The food collected before is only enough for us to eat for about four months."
In the past, Arthur had ordered the collection of all the food of the refugee civilians, and then provided three meals for everyone.
He thought that this food would last for a long time, but now it can only last for four months.
The Burning King Tower is the residence of the noble knights, and the Wailing Tower is full of soldiers. It is safe to store food in these two places.
Hailey finally added: "Recently, civilians have continued to enter the castle to take refuge. They don't have much food. You have to solve the problem of feeding these people as soon as possible. As for the large and stable fresh meat you mentioned, you can only go to distant places." The rural areas have been purchased, and the east of Shenyan Lake has basically not suffered from the war. There may be poultry and livestock such as chickens, ducks, cattle, and sheep in the countryside there."
This is also a method.
"Dickon sent a team of people to go east to buy some cattle and sheep and wait for the livestock to come back, and asked Hailey to give them some money."
Arthur waved Dickon off to deal with it.
Now that food prices have skyrocketed, poultry and livestock have become even more expensive.
But there is no way, the dragon can only be raised with fresh meat.
"Bill took someone to pick out a skinny horse and kill it as Alduin's ration for the past two days."
There are many war horses in Harrenhal. Although they can solve temporary difficulties, they cannot do this often.
There is a war now, and war horses are as valuable as food.
Gendry carried the dragon and went out with Bill.
"As for the food issue, Hailey, do you have any suggestions?"
Arthur asked.
He himself has a few ideas, but they are not necessarily economical.
"The price of food in the Riverlands has basically increased five times compared to before the war. The price in the Valley and the Reach should not have increased so much. My lord, you can send people to these two places to purchase food."
The top three grain-producing areas in Westeros are the Riverlands, the Riverlands, and the Vale, and only these three areas are exported to other regions. The remaining four kingdoms produce their own food for their own use.
Among them, the Riverlands has become King's Landing's largest source of food, relying on the convenience of transportation on the King's Road and the Blackwater River.
The Rose Avenue from the Reach to King's Landing City is too long, which makes the food transported there have no price advantage. Therefore, what the Reach sells to King's Landing City in peacetime is usually ale, wine, silk, cotton, etc. with high added value. Spices etc.
This means that the price of food in the River Bend is lower in peacetime, and there is basically no war in the south now, so the increase in food prices is within Arthur's acceptable range.
It was a different story again in the valley.
There is only one blood gate leading to the land between the rivers in the Arryn Valley. It is rough and rugged and not suitable for caravans.
Therefore, all trade in the valley is carried out by sea.
Normally, merchant ships in the valley depart from Seagull Town, bypass Crab Peninsula and enter Blackwater Bay, and then unload grain, poultry, livestock, handicrafts and other goods at King's Landing Port.
And unlike the great nobles who hold a strong position on land, the chamber of commerce and fleets dominate the valley's foreign trade.
Common people and landed nobles are unlikely to sell grain now due to the long winter and war.
Even if you offer a high price, the possibility is very small.
The Chamber of Commerce is different. As long as the price is high, these people will really sell their souls.
"Then I will send two waves of people to the River Bend and the Valley respectively to buy food. Loras, the Knight of Flowers, has some friendship with me, and I should be able to buy a batch of food in the River Bend. In the Valley, I can only use money. Bought."
Renly is still alive, and the Fish and Wolf Alliance and the Southern Alliance are de facto allies.
In the original book, Renly was very tolerant of Robb. He not only recognized the title of King of the North, but also agreed to make the North de facto independent. He only asked Robb to recognize him as the King of the Seven Kingdoms.
But before the two families could have any military interaction, Stannis used shadow magic to kill Renly outside Storm's End, and the Lion and Flower families began to merge.
Thinking of this, Arthur suddenly made up his mind: "The guards outside, go and call Patrick Mallister."
The eldest son of Haijiang City is not good at martial arts, but his status is quite high.
Send him on a trip to the Reach, and you can really get a lot of food.
Moreover, Tywin's army is either between the east and west rivers, or in the west. It is relatively safe to go north from Bitter Bridge to God's Eye Lake.
However, the food in the Reach can only be purchased once. The Rose family's position is not stable in the future. Even with Loras' influence, they may not sell food to the people in the river.
The Valley has always been a potential ally of the Fish and Wolf Alliance.
If Lysa, the mistress of the Arryn family, hadn't stopped him, the second most powerful person in the Vale, Lord Royce, "Bronze Yohn" would have really led troops to help Robb fight.
Moreover, food shortage problems will occur from time to time, so it is imperative to establish a stable trade route for buying food.
Patrick arrived soon. After listening to Arthur's words, he readily agreed to take this trip.
"There are no candidates on this journey to the valley. Please recommend me a noble with some influence." Arthur said to Patrick.
"Do you still have to think about it? A candidate as good as Willis is in front of you. He is the first heir of White Harbor and has good relations with the Chamber of Commerce in Seagull Town and the big businessmen across the Narrow Sea." Patrick said in a brisk tone. .
Although White Harbor is the smallest of the five major cities in Westeros, it does have a lot of influence in the Narrow Sea.
Opposite the Mandalay territory is the famous Free Trade City of Braavos.
"Yes, I don't have much money on hand right now. If you go to the Reach, you can withdraw 10,000 to 20,000 gold dragons from Tyrell's house, and then pay the bills to the grain merchants in the valley."
Patrick thought for a while and said, "Anyway, there is enough food in Harrenhal for several months. I will wait until Lord Edmure's wedding before heading south. Do you think that's okay?"
The wedding of the heir of the Tully family is also a major event in the Riverlands, and the heir of Seaside City does not want to miss such a big event.
"Go and pack up now, and I'll set off before evening tonight. The situation is so tense, and you still want to delay it?"
Arthur ruthlessly interrupted Patrick's fantasy and asked him to go out and prepare to go south.
The fat man Willis was also called over. After hearing the mission given to him by Arthur, Mandalay, who was good at actuarial calculations, gave more appropriate suggestions:
"The food in the valley is only temporarily available. Pentos and Volantis across the narrow sea are the main exporters of food. Their food prices have not been affected by the war and are enough to supply the riverlands. "
Of the two city-states mentioned by Willis, the former is famous for its rich products in the Narrow Sea, while the latter dominates the entire West Essos with its powerful force.
Pantos has several large plains such as Velvet Hills and "Flatlands" under its name. It is the second largest grain-producing area in West Essos, so there is no shortage of grain.
Volantis is a regional overlord, with a standing army of over 100,000 slaves. With its vast territory, this huge city-state also sells food to the outside world.
"If you still have experience, please go to the valley and make another trip to Pantos to talk to the governors and ask them to send some ships to Crab Bay to sell food." Arthur said to Willis.
This big fat man was very serious when giving advice, and he grimaced when he heard that he was sent to contact people.
"Okay, since I have nothing to do, I just made this trip." He was not keen on attending Edmure's wedding.
After all, he is from the north, and has been on the eastern front since he went south. He has never even been to Riverrun.
Since Arthur was not very familiar with Willis, he asked the fat man to set his departure time until tomorrow morning.
Because all of Arthur's money was stored in the Rose family, there was no cash for these two people.
Fortunately, Patrick can directly pay for the money and bring back enough golden dragons. Willis can also use his identity to ask the Chamber of Commerce to organize a cargo ship to Maiden Springs or Earl Harroway's town, and then the goods arrive. Payment.
The food problem has come to an end.
Just when Arthur was taking off his somewhat worn plate armor and the chainmail underneath in his bedroom, and was about to go to the Hall of Hundreds for dinner, Sansa suddenly came to the door.
She held a golden cloak in her hand, which seemed to have embroidery on it.
"I know you are very busy, so I came to see you at this time." Sansa explained a little panicked.
"This is this?" Arthur asked, pointing to the thing in her hand.
"Ah, this is the cloak I made for you. It was dyed gold according to your new flag. I also embroidered some patterns. I don't know if you like it or not."
Sansa glanced at the gift in her hand before handing it over.
Even when Arthur touched her white, tender hand as he took it, Sansa did not avoid it.
Arthur held up the cloak and unfolded it, and it turned out to be a sword and horse pattern.
"I like it very much." Arthur folded the cloak and placed it on the table. "I'm sorry you still want to make this for me."
Arthur thought it was troublesome and didn't wear a cloak before.
"As long as you like it." Sansa was a little shy, so after seeing Arthur accept it, she walked out quickly.
"Why are you walking so fast? I also want to have dinner. Let's go to Bailu Hall together."
Arthur, wearing only a set of linen clothes, rushed up and walked side by side with Sansa.
The two began to talk, and Arthur weaved in many details about Joffrey being mauled to death by a wild boar, which made Sansa feel happy.