Chapter 287
2021-01-06
Chapter 287 Gifts and toursWhen one party is made up and immune to persuasion, the other Negotiations become unfun and challenging when there is not much leverage in hand to change their minds—often, too, with meaningless and one-sided agreements.
Igor had such a slump when he was negotiating the price of a technology transfer with Margaery Tyrell...and then he was in The Wall on beyond a thousand li, facing another important female character. on the same situation.
Only, this time he was the one with the upper hand.
Melisandre misjudged him as Child of Prophecy, and offered to help by turn up without being invited; but Igor was confident—he was elected Lord Commander by personal means and resources. It's good that Red Woman can help, but without her, it's just a little more effort for oneself - provide timely help everyone appreciates, but want to grab or share oneself's influence and words in land grant and Wall as icing on the cake Quan, it is too small to underestimate the political intelligence of oneself.
The good news is that priestess seems to see Igor's determination--maybe she is willing to compromise on the Child of Prophecy chosen by her oneself, after a little wrangling and entanglement. Afterwards, Melisandre finally dropped her third claim entirely, without losing any support. In a way, it was almost an unconditional surrender.
...
Back to Castle Black The next day, the election continued, and all of Igor's campaign arrangements began simultaneously. Warner Buckwell withdrew from the election, his votes shrunk to Igor's name by a very small margin; meanwhile, Castle Black, who had swayed before his return the day before, finally voted for Yohn Royce Some of the brothers also changed their minds and voted for Igor today.
In stark contrast to the reformist camp where one person is the core united as one, although the conservative side has a large number of people, there is an obvious chaos that has not yet reached an internal consensus: Yohn · Royce Hastily dropped out of the election after a "Lord Commander campaign day tour", and rejoined the two other commanders who had made way for him the day before. To the disappointment of many onlookers, the two elders of Night's Watch Legion still failed to reach an agreement internally, and voted for oneself as usual, and everything seemed to be back to square one.
And unlike any previous day: This time, the Castle Black brethren didn't buy much of their credit.
The morning of the first round of the CLO's return to Castle Black came to a close, and Igor, who had jumped out of the way, jumped to first place with just over 400 votes, well ahead of Denys Mallister's 300 and Cotter Pyke's more than 200 votes... The data directly reflects the attitude of Castle Black Night's Watches: Compared with the most peak, Shadow Tower and Eastwatch commanders both lost more than 100 votes, and the latter fell even more. Big - In addition to the votes of all the soldiers in the fortress represented by oneself, Cotter Pyke's votes from Castle Black Night's Watch dropped to the level of breaking single digits overnight.
If the results of the vote are still within the expected range of everyone, then the following news that seems to be unrelated to the vote, but are actually closely related, will surprise everyone who does not know:
The twenty or thirty southern nobles who followed Melisandre collectively applied to join the Night's Watch. When Igor was in King's Landing and Queenscrown, he twice refused criminals to join Night's Watch... But Commander Mormont later denied him this power, which means - no Night's Watch officer has the right to refuse black clothed. And recruits like Queen's Party who have aristocratic background, have a surname and have been trained by Knight, are the most welcome joiners of Legion all the time.
Mormont, in order to train Jon Snow as his successor, sent his former Castle Black Instructor Alliser Thorne, who had conflicted with him, to the South to retire. The current Chief Instructor of Night's Watch, Andrew Tarth Ser, publicly announced in the afternoon that a group of recruits will be openly recruited in the land grant, and men who are healthy and under the age of 50 can apply.
Shadow Tower Commander Denys Mallister, after having lunch in advance, led the team of followers who packed their packages and set off to return west, leaving only one subordinate who was responsible for voting on behalf of all the soldiers in the fortress.
＊＊＊
It can be seen from the number of votes that Denys Mallister still got it from Castle Black's Night's Watch group even though he was publicly accused by Igor of trying nothing and accomplishing nothing. With the support of nearly 100 votes, one person has nearly one third vote... This is the most obvious manifestation of "recognition". This old man, the number one opponent of Igor in mind, is actually quite good in this situation. In this case, he left without saying a word.
Everything happens for a reason, but this time, Igor couldn't figure out what Denys was doing. When he leaves Castle Black, he abandons his supporters in Castle Black, which is tantamount to admitting that oneself is impossible to be elected, which is almost equivalent to withdrawing from the election - but this inference is contradictory to his re-running for election today.
This kind of passive behavior of nearly a hundred supporters surrendering their hands, but killing oneself's votes for other voters, can be understood as a silent protest in normally: oneself votes Don't even think about choosing if you don't have it. But doing this while Robb Stark is visiting the Wall...
It's literally slapping North's guardian in the face, forcing Robb to follow Igor's suggestion - cancel the fort commander's delegate voting rights and send the latter A great gift!
is it possible that, this Old Guy is judging that Robb will do this sooner or later, so he simply returns to the oneself fortress and greets the soldiers commanded by oneself in advance - not to vote for oneself in the upcoming general election?
Igor was puzzled, and finally understood it as Denys had acquiesced that oneself was about to win the election, but he couldn't change his position to vote for oneself, so what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over.
......
Robb Stark is just a youngster after all and can't stand his temper... So the impact of Ser Mallister's abnormal behavior is reflected faster than expected, Denys's departure from Castle Black's The next day, that is, the third day when oneself returned to the Wall, the first round voting ended in the morning, when the young North Guardian found out that Denys left behind in Castle Black, the fortress representative still voted for the oneself commander, the commander of Shadow Tower, He couldn't sit still any longer, and finally intervened.
Robb announced a decision that theoretically he was not qualified to control, but was actually applauded by many Night's Watch: suspend the campaign, repatriate all "voting representatives" except the candidates, and begin to implement it every day. Preparations for Night's Watch's one-man-one-vote election.
＊＊＊
To ensure fairness, Robb will send personnel to oversee the election to each of the fortresses along the Wall where Night's Watch is stationed. The team he brought Wall from Winterfell is not small enough to undertake this mission, but the guards of Winterfell are not familiar with Wall, and the preparatory work will take some time. But the truth is, the universe doesn't revolve around the election of Wall and a gang of Night's Watches, and a few days after Castle Black's election was suspended, two more major events occurred in the land grant:
1. From the North The purchased grains have been shipped to Queenscrown one after another. Although many families were not happy when they heard that these grains were to be used to feed the wildlings, it seems that Night's Watch sent troops to help drive out the Ironmen, and they were willing to spend money instead of taking them for nothing. , the purchase is barely smooth. Although the amount is not large, it is enough to maintain the grain ship from Braavos without crashing when combined with the remaining little inventory.
Second, Stark sent a letter to convene a delegation from the Four Great Families, which was adjacent to the land grant, and also arrived at Castle Black.
……
House Stark House Head and North guardian visit the Wall in person. As bannermen, the four families of Glover, Umber, Karstark and Bolton can’t just send individuals to deal with the matter, except when the parents arrive In addition, there are dozens of family members and squires accompanied by the four groups of people. After they met in Queenscrown, they headed north and arrived in Castle Black in a group, two-three hundred grandiose, and the walled and shrunk Night's Watch headquarters was packed full of people, even for several decades. All vacant rooms are used. As the landlord, the Chief Affairs Officer of Night's Watch and the craftsmen were busy with the reception of this group of guests. For a while, they had no idea to deal with Igor. Castle Black, who stopped the campaign and internal struggle, appeared with this large number of guests. Long-lost peace and excitement.
Robb hosted a banquet for four important bannermen on the day the four delegations arrived.
"My lords, the reason I called everyone here has been stated in the letter. The late Lord Commander of the Night's Watch Jeor Mormont implemented a 'replacement plan' in the land grant, the containment surrender wildling transformed into Land grantors, to support the follow-up operation of Wall and solve the problem of insufficient manpower - on the other hand, wildling since ancient times is our biggest threat. In order to ensure the safety of North, I will summarize everyone to inspect the land grant together, In order to decide whether we want to interfere in this plan."
The leaders of the four families expressed their understanding one after another, and Galbart Glover was the first to speak: "We heard that Night's Watch is conducting the election of a new Lord Commander when we were in Queenscrown. Have you got the results of the election?"
"Not yet, several candidates have been unable to reach an agreement for a long time, so I have no choice but to intervene. It's a one-person, one-vote election under my supervision." Robb glanced at several Night's Watch executives present on the table with a serious look, and summarized the current situation displeasedly. Night's Watch is not his subordinate or bannermen, so it is inconvenient to criticize and criticize in public. Although he was dissatisfied, he did not say much after explaining, "The cost of this dinner is borne by Winterfell. , we will set off in two days to inspect the Wall and the land grant together, and decide our final attitude towards the land grant resettlement plan."
"North has an order to guard, and I will follow from the saddle." Roose Bolton glanced lightly at the several black clothed persons present with his pale eyes, and questioned: "It's just that the Night's Watch Legion has not yet elected a Lord Commander - this means that the black clothed brothers oneself have no influence on the land grant resettlement plan. The attitude may not be determined yet, in this case, even if we have our views and opinions on the land-grant resettlement plan, who should we express our demands to, and what can we do?”
This is indeed a Question, Robb didn't think about this, so he hesitated for a few seconds before answering: "The election of the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch has been going on for more than two months. Under these circumstances, no one can tell when it will end. But the containment of wildling is related to the safety of North, and the final decision on the resettlement plan is not easy to delay... So I decided to observe first, if the situation is not right, wildling If there is still a tendency to threaten North, then we will ignore the election of the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and simply suspend the resettlement plan. Otherwise, take no measures, return to North, and let Night's Watch resolve this issue internally."
Roose Bolton frowned and nodded: "There is nothing wrong with doing this...but, it is too much to complicate the whole thing. If I say, you should not stick to the rules in troubled times, and directly Name one person to succeed the Lord Commander, then inspect the North, and report the results to this person. Wouldn’t it be a lot of trouble and save a lot of manpower and time?”
Handpicked? The word suddenly popped into Igor's mind. He thought that North was the most traditional in the Seven Kingdoms, didn't expect Roose Bolton, and he would also have this idea... Sure enough, there are thousands of absolutely ordinary people in the ordinary person. The law, the ruthless characters have one thing in common, that is, they are rarely bound by inherent concepts.
He secretly raised a little bit of vigilance against this guy in the heart.
...
"Lord Bolton, the Wall has been standing here for thousands of years, but no Lord Commander has ever been named by the North Guardian!" Cotter Pyke immediately objected. He was originally annoyed that Denys returned to Shadow Tower, and Robb had been a little annoyed at the fact that Robb had cancelled his right to vote for delegates. Now he saw Old Flayer and realized that some people's unreasonable cards were far beyond imagination: "Lord Stark ordered Everyone agrees to make reasonable changes to the electoral system, but if it is directly appointed, then the attitude of the brothers towards the new commander is hard to say!"
Glover count also opposed Bolton's opinion: "I I also feel that it is not right. The Lord Commander selected by Night's Watch oneself means that this person has the support of most of the soldiers and can ensure that the Wall defenders obey their orders-if they break the convention and force a person who cannot be convincing, the immediate trouble Although it is solved, it is difficult to judge whether it is good or bad for the subsequent Wall defense."
If Robb Stark really wants to name someone as Lord Commander, that person is most likely Igor oneself, after all, he is The new North guards the Night's Watch that he knows best, knows best, and has the closest relationship with—no one. But in this situation is very good, using this method to take the upper position, it is a feeling of invincibility, it will cause no end of trouble, even the possible beneficiary - Igor oneself, is not very supportive.
Fortunately, Robb doesn't seem to have this idea.
"Everyone, you don't need to worry about not being able to find someone to give advice." He seized the opportunity and took the lead to express his position: "I am a supporter of the former commander, and I am the heir to Old Bear's implementation of this big plan. .Everything about the land-grant resettlement project is now under the coordination of my arrangements...I will lead you to tour the land-grant in two days. If you have any comments or suggestions, just look for me to mention them."
——
(end of this chapter)