In the palace, Ferdinand was anxiously waiting for the report sent back from the front line.

He cannot seem panicked in front of outsiders. He must look calm and confident, but in fact his anxious mentality at this time is unimaginable to anyone.

No one knows better what the Ebro River reservoir means to Aragon than he is, and the persistent and severe drought over the years has left the Zaragoza region with signs that the nearby water system may be completely dry up one day.

This time may be much faster than people think. Perhaps it doesn't take several generations, and the city of Zaragoza is in danger of becoming a dead city.

Ferdinand absolutely did not allow such a thing to happen, which would make him the most failed king in Aragon's history.

The distance between a king who almost unified Aragon and Castilla and the monarch who led Aragon to decline was so close that Ferdinand could not accept this huge gap.

A burst of rapid footsteps came, and Ferdinand seemed to stand up and remind himself to calm down. He sat there with a slightly stiff body staring at the door.

A follower walked in quickly, his head was covered in sweat, and he was holding a mud-stained envelope in his hand: "A report from His Majesty on the front line!"

The follower's nervousness finally affected Ferdinand. He immediately stood up and took two steps to take the report from the follower's hand, paused for a moment and took a deep breath before slowly opening.

Then who had seen the king quickly glance at the contents of the letter, and then began to look carefully little by little,

As his eyes flashed, Ferdinand's face became excited and excited. Later, his face turned red, and his hands holding the letter were shaking slightly.

Then he put his letter in his hands, put his hands together and put his fingers on his forehead and murmured gently: "God, thank you, this is a miracle, a miracle."

After a while, Ferdinand looked up and said to the servant, "Go and call the person who delivered the letter and I want to ask him about some of his situation in person."

The attendant immediately left, and soon walked in with a soldier with a tired face and a wine pot in his hand.

"Tell me the result of the battle on the front line, I mean how did you win?"

Ferdinand said, thinking about something and what I remembered, waved to the servants beside him: "Don't disturb us, I will listen carefully to the reports from the people on the battlefield, and to call everyone to let them know about our victory."

The attendant's heart was finally relieved. He responded and walked out quickly, and did not forget the king's order to close the door. Then he immediately jogged along the corridor to the other side of the palace to inform the court officials who were in the palace.

Soon people knew that good news came from the front line, and that the Aragonese army won its first victory in the battle between the enemy troops invading the western territory.

Such an exciting news instantly made the palace full of joy, and the gloomy atmosphere that had been suppressed for a long time was wiped out. Some people suggested holding a grand dance party to celebrate the victory, while others simply called the servants to bring the good wine to congratulate the hard-won news.

Everyone surrounded the soldier and asked anxiously about the battle, which made the soldier who had already drunk a lot of wine turn around for a while and was dizzy.

"This is really good news, right? It should be celebrated well." An elderly nobleman sighed, sniffing his mouth full of alcohol towards the maid who was pouring wine for him next to him, and then laughed amid the maid's screams of anger and joy, drinking the full glass of wine in one sip.

Ferdinand looked at the hall that had suddenly become messy. He used to care about etiquette and rules, but today he did not scold those a little presumptuous ministers.

Everyone was so excited that Aragon has been facing blows again and again since the Castile incident.

From Ferdinand having to escape Castilla to suddenly facing an unprepared war, Aragon seemed to be in a situation of being completely passively beaten, and before the war broke out, many people had already smelled the breath of failure.

This kind of emotion of no confidence in victory is the most terrifying. Even if a powerful army fails, it often has a tragic future, not to mention that they are facing opponents who have defeated the French.

This uneasiness has been suppressed in everyone's hearts. When Ferdinand ordered troops to protect the reservoir in the upper reaches of the Ebro River, people's mood was very complicated.

While they were hoping that the Aragonese army would win, they also told themselves that this was almost impossible.

Time passed by such torture and contradictions. Just when everyone was almost desperate, good news finally came.

"This is God helping Aragon." A nobleman suddenly shouted "We should hold a grand Mass of Thanksgiving, so that all Saragues can know the good news, and they must know that Aragon's army is invincible."

"Yes, it should be," Ferdinand immediately responded loudly, but then he changed his subject. "But it is not the time yet, and our victory is still small, so small that we only drove the enemy's forward into the Ebro River. If this is a sacrifice from the pagans, we would be a little stingy."

Ferdinand's "playful words" caused a burst of laughter from the court officials. Of course, they knew that the king was talking slander, but it made sense. After all, the victory they have now won was only defeating the vanguard troops sent by the enemy, and their larger enemy was Gonzalo.

However, this victory was enough to regain confidence in the Aragons. They believed that since they could defeat the Cassi coalition once, they would defeat the invading enemy a second, third, or even completely.

The laughter and even nonsense in the palace continued until midnight. Later, the entourage had to send the drunk court officials out of the palace one by one.

Ferdinand also drank a lot of wine, and he looked so excited that he seemed to be unsatisfied, so he asked someone to call the soldier to tell him about the process of the front line.

The entourage brought the soldier who had been shaking around in the room and turned away. When the door closed, Ferdinand's originally smiling face instantly became ugly.

He stood up and grabbed the soldier's collar, dragged him to sit on the chair, and then picked up a can of water next to him and splashed it on his face.

The soldier immediately made a clever move. He first looked at the king standing in front of him in a daze, and then immediately panicked and wanted to stand up.

"Do it," Ferdinand ordered him, "and tell me more about what happened."

"We defeated His Majesty," the soldier repeated the words he had said in a daze. "It was defeated, we were attacked. The Castile and Sicilians did not directly occupy the reservoir, but ambush us halfway. That's how His Majesty we defeated..."

"That's all?" Ferdinand asked angrily, "Tell me the details, I want to know every detail."

"But I only know so many of His Majesties. When the battle began, I was in the second team. I was a drummer. We were still marching at that time, so we didn't know what happened before, and then everything went into chaos all of a sudden."

Although he had said this more than once, the soldier still showed a look of horror on his face when he recalled his previous experience, which seemed to have infected Ferdinand and made his ugly face even more gloomy.

Ferdinand was saddened by the fact that he had faced with the fact that he had failed and even forged the illusion of victory.

But he had to do so.

The strong sense of failure from the beginning has put the Aragonese in a disadvantageous situation. If you hear the defeat in the first battle of the front line now, it is likely to cause panic, and someone may even propose a peace talk with Castilla.

This is absolutely unacceptable to Ferdinand. He would rather fight with Joel Modilo Astamara a war that may last for several generations and that the two countries cannot escape from it, than compromise and concessions to the usurper.

"No, I still have a way, I can go to the Portuguese." Ferdinand turned back and forth angrily. Although he had tried to form an alliance with Manuel before, he was rejected, but he did not take it seriously. He believed that as long as the benefits given out were enough, I would move the Portuguese, I could impress Manuel.

Giving up some lands with many years of disputes between Portugal and Castilla should be enough to satisfy Manuel's appetite and vanity. As for this, it may encounter hatred by the Castillas, Ferdinand no longer cares about those.

He believed that as long as he could defeat Alexander and return to Castilla, this sacrifice made would not be a big deal, and if it went well, he could directly declare himself as his grandson Charlie's solemn regent under such circumstances.

Thinking of this, Ferdinand immediately began to write to Manuel. He had found the most suitable messenger. Looking at the soldiers sitting there in a hurry, he felt that it was the wisest choice to send this man far away from Zaragoza as soon as possible.

Ferdinand's letter was very difficult to write. He wrote it several times and felt dissatisfied and then rewritten it again. It was not until he went back and forth several times that he finally wrote the handwritten letter to Manuel.

After reading some of the unsatisfactory aspects of the letter, Ferdinand no longer had the intention to modify it. He thought that perhaps this might seem more sincere. It was not important whether Manuel could feel his sincere mood.

Then he thought about it, then took off a gem ring from his hand and put it in the folded envelope.

After finishing the envelope, watching the gradually cooling sealing wax turn into a dark red lump, Ferdinand took out a purse from the drawer of the table next to him and handed it to the soldier.

"Listen to me, you want you to leave the city immediately. The money here is enough for you to travel to Lisbon. I suggest you better take a boat. Remember not to contact anyone on the road. If someone asks you about the front line, answer as you said before," Ferdinand said, and then collected the purse and letter he was going to hand out. "And if I hear any unfavorable rumors about the front line, you know what will happen."

The soldier nodded in panic. When Ferdinand asked him to fake false news of the frontline victory, the soldier knew that he had been in big trouble.

Now that he can leave Zaragoza, he has a generous amount of travel expenses, which makes him secretly grateful for God's mercy.

"Let's go out of the city overnight immediately, and I will have someone send you out of the city."

Ferdinand waved his hand to the soldier with some annoyance. He didn't want to see this person again, which always reminded him of the shame of lying to please the nobles.

The night was dark, and the sound of horse hooves came from the stone-paved road.

Two fast horses ran forward along the street. The horsemen were wrapped in a cloak that blocked the wind. The cloak was swelled up when the wind blew, just like a bat at night.

There were already a confused shadow of the city gate in the distance, and the lights on the tower looked extremely clear in the night.

The man running in front of the two turned around and waved his hand to his companion who followed him, signaling him not to speak.

The person behind immediately made a clear gesture, and he tried his best to press the hood on his head. Perhaps due to the influence of his companion's emotions, he couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

The two continued to urge their horses to run along the street. They only needed to cross two more street intersections and they could reach the city gate.

Suddenly, several figures flashed out from the corner of the intersection. Although those people were still a little far away, years of life and death experience on the battlefield made the person behind immediately feel dangerous!

Those people came so quickly that he didn't care about his companions who had not yet reacted, and he immediately leaned down on the horse without hesitation.

A short gust of wind came towards us, and several black shadows flashed in the darkness at an invisible speed.

The rider in front was shot down by a crossbow arrow flying towards him before he could even notice what was happening.

At the same time, the men had already drawn out the hidden sword and rushed towards the person behind who had just dodged the crossbow arrow and straightened his back.

The man pulled out the tied dagger from his leg almost without thinking and stabbed it hard on the horse's thigh.

The pain of the war horses resounded through the quiet streets, and at the same time, the horse ran towards the people who rushed up as if they were crazy because of the pain.

The strong body of the war horse hit a man hard, and the huge impact hit the man directly backwards, and fell to the ground with his accomplices behind him.

The man on the horse did not stop at all. He clamped the horse's belly with all his strength, grabbed the reins with one hand, and took off the shield hanging on the saddle with the other hand, and waved it with all his strength.

The heavy shield immediately turned into an attacking and acceptable weapon. With the resistance of the strong shield, the man immediately broke a stabbing sword and smashed the man's shoulder with the edge of the shield. With a scream, the man fell to the ground, covering his broken shoulder bone and screamed in terror.

The man kept waving his shield, and his mount ran forward desperately as if he was crazy. In an instant, he rushed out of the besieged people.

"You don't want to beat someone who is truly a soldier!"

The man immediately shouted, and he did not intend to care about his companions, but kicked the stirrup hard. Under the stimulation of the spur and the dagger wound, his mount stepped on his neck and ran wildly towards the city gate.

A few sharp sounds of wind breaking through my ears, and the man instinctively bent down.

But suddenly, he felt a severe pain coming from his back as if he had been bitten hard, and then his body couldn't help but move forward.

He knew he was shot, but it shouldn't be serious.

Because he had seen people who were directly penetrated by crossbow arrows on the battlefield, and also saw those who were shot in the center and immediately killed their lives.

He is at least still alive now, and that is not fatal yet.

There are city defense forces near the city gate, you can survive by running there!

This thought made the man endure the pain and urged his mount to run.

The intensive sound of hunters' hooves came from behind him. The man did not turn around, but used his strength to hit the body of the war horse with the edge of the shield that was already extremely heavy in his hand. His right leg could not use any strength at this time, which made him know that he should have been injured in his leg.

His eyes were blurred, because it was caused by excessive blood loss, but he gritted his teeth and ran forward desperately, just trying to get to the city gate as soon as possible.

An impatient low shout came from behind, but the man was refreshed because he had seen the shadow of the city gate at the end of the road ahead, and even the shadow of the guards on the tower that seemed to be alarmed and looked downward.
To be continued...