For Arthur, there are too many things to do next.
Previously, in order to force Robb to return to the West River to fight, Tywin sent people to carry out a scorched earth policy in the territories of Pink City, Traveler's Rest, and Riverrun on both sides of the upper reaches of the Red Fork.
This left most of the farmers in the three places without homes, let alone food for the winter. Riverrun was lucky because their lord Edmure's castle was not destroyed, and there was some food to help these landless farmers.
The civilians in the two earldoms of Pink City and Traveler's Rest were very unlucky. Their lords themselves had no homes and could not take care of them.
So after hearing that there was a new king in Harrenhal and that food was distributed for free, about 50,000 to 60,000 landless farmers rushed to the God's Eye Lake area one after another, and headed towards Harrenhal and Harren Town.
This wave of people is already on the way.
In another direction, a large number of farmers on the east side of God's Eye Lake also came to Harrenhal.
The coalition forces on the eastern front had collected a large amount of military rations by writing IOUs. Now that the situation has stabilized a little, the village chiefs came with IOUs and caravans to ask for food.
Arthur could only send off some of the farmers from the east with gold dragons, and he promised to exchange the other part for IOUs with food from the valley, Pentos, Volantis and other places.
The farmers in the west were much more troublesome. Although they did not immediately ask for cartloads of food, they just asked to eat enough every day.
But the pressure of tens of thousands of people eating enough food was still very great.
If everyone had two meals a day and ate one pound of food, the daily consumption would be tens of thousands of pounds of food.
Patrick only brought eighty carts of food in the river bay, and Willis also brought ten ships of food from Seagull Town. The two waves of food together were enough to eat for a month.
So before the farmers from the west arrived in large numbers, Arthur asked the Twins, Maiden Springs and other places to send more food.
But this is not enough. It can only feed the farmers in the west for a while. When the lords of the riverlands are unwilling to provide food for the new river king, the food crisis will come again.
So it is necessary to establish a stable channel to obtain food from the outside.
Willis once suggested buying food from Pentos, but after Stannis blocked Blackwater Bay, the trade in the narrow sea dropped sharply, and some merchants in Essos have accumulated a large number of goods waiting to be sold.
The farmers in the riverlands are crying for food, so Arthur decided to use Maiden Spring to establish a new trade channel. Although this will make the captains of the narrow sea spend more time at sea, it will give the governors and big merchants of Pentos customers and no longer have to worry about the goods being stuck in their hands.
Because he had to persuade his father, Earl Wyman Manderly, to send troops south to recapture the Bay of Cailin so that the northerners who returned home would have a way to go, Willis had left.
So Earl William Mooton was responsible for establishing such a trade route. He was timid and cautious by nature, but he was quite good at managing the territory and running Maiden Spring Town. He was the most suitable person Arthur could find for this role.
In addition, the problem of housing for the farmers from the west had to be solved.
Their village was burned, and since the Westerland Army withdrew from the riverland in large numbers, the farmers who had originally fled to the north bank of the Red Fork River, the King's Territory, and the River Bay gradually returned, so the landless farmers could not be resettled in the vacant villages.
Fortunately, there are many trees in the riverland, such as beech, poplar, willow, locust, etc. With wood, wooden houses can be built relatively quickly, and they can still cope with this winter.
The food and accommodation problems of the landless farmers can be generally solved. In terms of manpower, in addition to the farmers themselves who can work, there are also Westerland soldiers captured in several wars.
These soldiers who were fed by Master Tywin and became tall and strong were not as meticulous as farmers, but they were much stronger and were most suitable for carrying wood, chopping trees, digging pits and other tasks.
The old maesters Tosmew and Qyburn in Harrenhal were responsible for guiding the construction of new homes for the landless farmers, located on the plains north of Harren Town.
In order to satisfy Qyburn, Arthur also restored his bachelor status in the Citadel of Oldtown in the name of the King of Rivers and returned his bachelor necklace.
Although this would definitely not work, Arthur still pretended to let Qyburn know that he still remembered this matter.
In addition to these, there is another thing that the new King of Rivers needs to pay attention to.
The Brotherhood Without Banners seems to have some problems.
The Brotherhood, which consists of blacksmiths, carpenters, farmers, hunters, and King's Landing Law Enforcement Team, has gradually changed its style of doing things.
They began to attack some villages that had provided services to the Westerlands Army and hanged the villagers who had done things for the Westerlands, even if the villagers were forced by the Westerlands soldiers.
This made the farmers and village chiefs, whose lives were beginning to stabilize, miserable.
So Arthur asked Aenys Frey, Tristan Ryger and others who led the troops to recapture Willowwood to find the leader of the Brotherhood. He wanted to know whether Earl Beric and others were still leading this civilian organization that protected farmers. If not, the King of the Rivers would have to talk to the new leader of the Brotherhood.
At least they should not be allowed to run wild in the Riverlands. If you want to kill the people of the Lion Family, please go to the Westerly.
The farmers in the Riverlands are already pitiful enough. Their lords are not strong enough to fight, so their homes are ravaged by the enemy. Now they have finally survived the war, but they still have to endure the bullying of the Brotherhood.
The King of the Rivers felt that he should restrain the Brotherhood Without Banners and let them return to the right path.
This is what happened outside Harrenhal. There are also some things in the castle that bother Arthur.
Since more than 30,000 peasants have already moved into the castle, and they have no idea that they can't urinate or defecate anywhere, the smell of the entire castle is quickly approaching that of King's Landing.
The stench of feces, urine and farts can be smelled by the flesh nose.
Even if you walk around the castle, you may have a basin of urine poured on your head. If you don't pay attention, you may step on a pile of feces, which is still fresh and steaming.
So Arthur asked Coyburn to take time to design a more complete drainage and sewage pipeline to make the castle more hygienic.
Of course, he also ordered everyone to go to the toilet in the name of the "manager" of Harrenhal - dozens of temporary toilets were built a little further away from the two city gates to make the smell drift farther.
These people will also have wooden houses in the north of Harren Town. When the construction is almost done, some people will move out to make Harrenhal a little cleaner.
Since he got 10,000 gold dragons from the Reach and five carts of gold from the Golden Tooth, Arthur can pay off his previous debts.
Outside the village of Sher, Arthur had borrowed more than 200 gold royals from Marco Piper, Raymond Darry, Carel Vance and others. Now he has finally paid it back, but the recipients are now Clermont Piper, Lyman Darry and others.
The gold dragons that were snatched from Varg Holt by Amory Lorch were also taken back, and Lady Riveran's were returned to her, and the share that the Blood Play Troupe should have received was inherited by Locke Holt.
The deposit for the Qohor mercenaries and the salary of the fallen mercenaries were also paid.
During the siege by Tywin's main force in the West, Arthur had ordered the collection of food from all the refugee farmers, and now he has paid those who are willing to pay.
Another group of people wanted food, so the River King asked them to wait until the merchant ships from the Narrow Sea arrived at Crab Bay before mentioning this matter.
Since the small lords of the riverland were not very familiar with Arthur, they supported the new king of the riverland only because most of the earl-level nobles supported the new king. So in order to win over this group of people, Arthur distributed all the remaining gold in the shape of golden dragons to the lower-level lords, asking them to recruit strong farmers in their own territories to resist the possible attack of the Lion Flower Alliance.
The gold obtained from the Golden Tooth City cannot be circulated without being made into gold coins, which will make the already chaotic market even more chaotic.
The gold mine outside the Golden Tooth City can still dig out some gold. Arthur is thinking about whether he can build a mint by himself, design his own gold coins, and then cast this batch of gold into new gold coins to enter the towns and cities of the riverland.
This matter has to wait until the situation is completely stabilized. Now the Lion family is actively preparing to move eastward, recapture the Iron Throne and King's Landing, and march into the riverland again to eliminate the "rebels", which makes Arthur's idea of operating the riverland postponed.
The most important thing at present is to break the curse of Harrenhal.
Lady Riveran won't live long, and she has made it clear that the next owner of Harrenhal will be Sansa Stark. In addition, Arthur himself wants to marry Sansa, so both of them will be cursed at that time.
The King of Riveran is not sure whether his identity as a king can eliminate the influence of this curse, but Sansa will definitely be affected.
This makes the work of breaking the curse suddenly urgent.
Fortunately, Arthur knows a lot about the magical power of this world, so there are several ways to deal with it.
For the castles on the entire Westeros continent, if there are magical effects, the source of power must come from the godswood and some miscellaneous small witchcraft.
For example, Storm's End, this castle built on the sea cliff by "City Builder" Stark, has the greatest magical effect of resisting shadow magic.
Specifically, the shadow child born by Melisandre cannot pass through the walls of Storm's End.
So in order to kill the acting lord Cortanay Penrose, she must let the Onion Knight send her to the bottom of Storm's End before she can cast magic.
The source of the magic power of Storm's End is the weirwood in the godswood in the city.
But Stannis has ordered the godswood in Storm's End to be burned, so Storm's End will not be able to resist the attack of shadow magic in the future.
Winterfell also has magic, and judging from the fact that the godswood in the city is the largest in the continent, the magic effect of Stark's castle is super strong, so strong that it can affect the entire North.
But the effect may be very weak.
As far as Arthur knows, one of the functions of this magic circle is to stabilize the North. Specifically, if there is no living Stark in the city (literally), the entire North will be doomed, bandits will rise from the woods, skinners will gallop on the king's road, lords will attack each other, and peasants will become cruel.
Although this may have nothing to do with the magic effect, it is purely because the North has no feudal lord to suppress it, but it has indeed brought doom.
The largest magic building in the whole of Westeros is the Wall of Despair built by "City Builder" Brandon and the Children of the Forest.
This thing is 300 miles (483 km) long and 700 feet ( meters) high. It may be the largest single building in the world.
Its only effect is that the White Walkers and wights cannot pass through the ice wall of the Wall.
The wight that Jon Snow killed when he rescued Commander Mormont turned into a wight after passing through the Wall, so it did not violate the law that the Wall blocks wights.
The source of power of the Wall should come directly from the Old Gods.
In addition, there are some messy little witchcrafts that can also provide magical power.
For example, the Night's Watch used to mix human blood into the materials for casting the wall to gain some kind of power.
Blackheart Harren let his brother sneak into the Night's Watch and became the commander-in-chief. He also knew this trick, so when he built Harrenhal, he mixed a kind of unspeakable blood into the wall.
This may be the source of the power of the curse of Harrenhal.
But considering that there is a super large weirwood in the castle, and it is the only heart tree in the entire continent that can survive after transplantation, this may also be the source of the power of the curse.
If it is the latter, the solution is very simple, just transplant the weirwood.
Arthur has thought of the location of the transplantation, and sent it to the Thousand Faces Island.
It is the forbidden place of the old gods, and there are still green men suspected to be "children of the forest" active there. It is right to plant there.
Although Arthur also hates the old gods and the three-eyed crow, he still has to rely on the old gods and the Lord of Light and other gods to resist the cold god, and let the old gods maintain the magical effect of the Wall of Despair, so the source of power of the old gods cannot be weakened.
As for the hidden gods such as the Seven Gods, I'm afraid they haven't come out for thousands of years. It's better to rely on Arthur to stab the wights one by one with dragon crystal weapons than to rely on their power to resist the White Walkers and the Cold God.
If the source of the curse's power is the former, it will be a bit difficult.
The dumbest way is to replace all the bricks and stones in Harrenhal with normal ones, but it's better to build another castle.
After thinking for a long time, he finally came up with another dumb way.
The practice of mixing human blood into the walls to gain power comes from the Night's Watch. Although the Night's Watch is closely connected to the old gods, the blood witchcraft is unlikely to come from the old gods who worship nature.
Legend has it that this blood witchcraft comes from the line of the First King of the North, and his tomb should be in the Great Barrow of the Barrowtown of the Dustin family.
If his ashes are scattered, maybe the curse can really be broken.
The First King is just a clan leader of the ancestors. There are other First Kings who are stronger than him, such as "Green Hand" Gars and "God-hating" Storm King Durren.
Greenhand's eldest son, Garth Gardener, was the founder of the Kingdom of the Reach.
One of Greenhand's sons, named "Blood Blade" or "Blood Knife", is rumored to be the founder of the Stark family, Brandon the Builder.
There are also rumors that one of Greenhand's grandsons is the clever Lann, the dwarf who is suspected to be very intelligent and clever, the ancestor of the Lannisters.
Needless to say, Durren, the title of "God-hating" is not something that can be obtained casually.
Arthur also wanted to know what the Storm King did to make the gods hate him, and he couldn't do anything to Durren.
In short, it is very simple to destroy the First King. At worst, Alduin can burn the Great Barrow completely and that will be the end of it.
Alduin was replaced by Joffrey, and Joffrey is the king of the First Men, the Andals, and the Rhoynar. He is much more prestigious than the First King, who is the king of the First Men.
Arthur decided to find a time to discuss blood magic with Coben first, and then find a way to break the curse of the First King.