5 Siege of Lychester Keep

Reading the letter I quickly sent another back to Tytos. I ordered him to lay siege to Lychester Keep, he may use whatever means necessary and to send a request to Jaime if he needs food and other resources in case of a length siege. I also sent a letter to Jaime ordering him to begin creating catapults, we'd need those later even if we didn't use them at Lychester.

It was then I got a letter from Hoster Tully.

"Lord Alexander Bracken, in response to your newfound conquest I request your presence at Riverrun within 2 months. You will be required to pledge your loyalty to me as Lord Paramount of the Riverlands. I'd also like to inform you that, even though your father was much of a pacifist and didn't invest in soliders but more so elite, he never increase his number of solider to his max of 10 000 the same of which Blackwood and Mallister have. We have decided to increase yours to a further 12 000 however we will be requiring something else from you which we shall discuss upon your arrival at Riverrun.

Sincerely, Hoster Tully."

This could either be great or bad, he might put more restrictions on us or he might help us grow.

Either way, my goal was to completely control the Trident, it was a large trade route that could give food to the entire Riverlands and even westerlands, Crownlands and the North. The immense political power I could gain was immense, but with this I needed vassals. I quickly sent a letter to House Cox, asking if they were willing to talk at Harroway?

As I sent the letter I went towards the training ground. The 500 marines had just arrived alongside Ragnar Harlaw, he had already began training them alongside a Major named Daenar, the chosen Major for the naval forces. While they had just begun training they were in fact not only 500 men here but instead 800, 500 Marines and 300 sailors, 190 for the current ships and 210 for future ones.

The sailors were already sailing around the river. It was then I went towards Daeron and Jagnar.

"Greetings, Ser Jagnar, Major." I said

"Greetings my Lord!" Daeron said

"Greetings" Jagnar said

I know it is quite early for you as you haven't trained your men proplerly, but due to Roote being gone House Darry might make some power moves therefore I need you to take our forces to Riverbend and continue training there. You will be given 200 builders to build it into a naval outpost / fortress. However you need not worry about that except getting them transferred."

"Understood" My Major said.

"Alright" Jagnar said.

And with that I took my leave, I had little to none information on how naval stuff worked and therefore left it to those who knew about it.

Shortly after the first ships set sail, they took all 500 men with them, they would then return and bring the rest of the sailors and the builders. With this I began to prepare to the meeting with House Cox, I also expected retaliation from Darry due to the fact if we allied Darry would be surrounded from both sides.

** POV Switch to Tytos **

After the battle, it took us about 5 hours to organise and get all our shit ready. The cavalry unit reported back that the Lord managed to escape to Lychester Keep. It seemed that this would indeed be a long battle. And with that we set out. It took us less than 6 hours of marching to arrive at Lychester Keep. Their garrison had already manned their walls and were prepared. Once we arrived I sent a message to Jaime about the prolonged siege and that we would need food and resources. We immediately set up camp, luckily for us the Lychester forces had left their 2 catapults there's and we began using them against the Lychester Forces.

The letter also asked Jaime for a battering ram and catapults. We focused mainly on hitting archers on top of the wall or the small town inside the wall. We also did not stay close to the fort and instead kept our distance and removing all trade from the keep.

Lychester was a relatively small keep and could not store food for more than a month, especially with their recent war. Lychester was a prosperous iron and coal industry, they had exceptional blacksmiths who knew how to transfer iron ore to iron and make weapons, they profited a lot on the sale of weapons. They also had small forest within their borders and therefore made a few bucks on the sale of wood.

However they had little fields due to the mountains and they had little husbandry. They usuallly bought from the close ally of House Smallwood of Acorn Hall and House Vance of Atranta and Wayfarers Rest, the two branch houses. However now with all trade ended they had no way to develop their own food nor did they stockpile food before the war due to their arrogance.

And now, the long siege will begin.

** Back to Alexander **

Our coffers was quickly draining. Recruiting that many troops and waging war, buying and creating new armor and it generally cost more after you took a town then you gained shortly after.

We brackens gained a lot of money on two things. Horses, husbandry and black smithing. We had our own specialty within the arms creation. While Lychester was good at swords, shields and close quarter arms we thrived in longer range, bows and arrows, spears, catapults. Our large forrests gave us abundant in wood and a large amount of our money came from this. About 25%, another 25% from husbandry which doest count horses. And 45% came from sale of horses, from war horses, to runners, to work horses, whatever you needed Bracken had it. War horses and weapons had not been required as much as of recent due less war and stuff but it was now building up, especially in the westerlands. We didn't get more than 5% of income due to tax as we had an ackwars position to claim tax for merchants and we didn't have that many in our lands.

However the Harroway and House Roote's buisness was entirely different. House Roote gained an extremely large amount of taxes. Their taxes would be the same as 35% of our entire income. Similarly they had a large naval trade, in the entire Trident only House Darry could surpass the Roote's in building ships, both merchant and naval. Their buisness would be equal to 20% of our entire income.

Especially with the recent interest in naval powers, after the ironborn rebellion a lot of Riverlands, North and Westerlands Houses had began building naval ships to be able to fight the ironborn as usually the ironborn would raid you before you could build proper ships and they steal your current ones. However the ironborn were currently weak and it was a prime opportunity.

Therefore the port had gotten a lot of orders for ship. And after taking over the town he had transferred all Roote industry to himself and therefore owned the entire harbour and the shipwrights. Harroway also had a small fishing buisness, though not large they would be able to feed more than enough fish to Stone Hedge, Lychester, Harroway and Riverbend.

And with that a month passed. I had spent all my time researching the city and helping it prosper. I had put up my own caravans that had began moving around, mostly towards the south and the reach. And it had already began giving me more economical strength. I had improved the shipwright buisness slightly with my knowledge of the future. Similarly I had begun creating taverns, pleasure houses and others to give me additional income, and I quickly got to owning 85% of the taverns and pleasure houses, I owned all taverns except one, ran by a certain little finger and same with the pleasure houses.

The outpost and Riverbend had been going smoothly. The men and continued training. I had also given the builders blueprints to tower chains, where there would be placed chains on both sides of the river, one on Riverbend and one on the other side. The control would be in Riverbend.

About 1 week after my troops arrived on the Riverbend outpost a small scout ship had arrived, upon seeing us it turned arojnd and left, I believe that would be from Darry.

I had also met with Lord Cox in the middle of the 2nd week and we made an alliance between our two Houses, it mainly involved naval cooperation. And we officialised our alliance 2 days after he arrived.

3 days after that I received a letter from House Darry expressing their complaints about it and how they felt threatened, they also said that they would take actions if this alliance was not rewoked. Which I obviously didn't.

We continued to build our Naval force and we now had 800 marines. We now had 12 Longships and 10 River Galleys, the Longships was patrolling the Trident and escorting merchant ships from our House or if paid to protect it.

I then got a letter from Commander Tytos, they had broken through the Gates of Lychester and they had taken over Lychester Keep.

Immediately after getting the news I left Harroway and began travelling towards Lychester Keep, it took me 1 and a half day to arrive.

Immediately upon arriving I order our cavalry alongside 1000 men, the 500 surrendered ones from the Greenapple had been properly brought into the Bracken army and had switched formation. The 1500 captured Lychester Troops were sent a lot of different places when I arrived. I sent 800 to the mines, another 200 to help the blacksmith and the last 500 to Harroway.

I immediately decided to focus on building up the iron and coal industry, the 800 prisoners immediately boosted the industry by almost 50% Similarly the blacksmiths got a boost due to the large amount of free workers. This made all the hard times due to the siege somewhat evaporate as they were beginning to get back what they lost.

I also began sending large amount of weapons to Harroway as I set up weapon shops there. I also began selling weapons to Housd Crax and Houses in the Reach. They were beginning to gear up and I wanted to gain favour with the Reach. With this I also sent a letter to Jaime ordering him to send 500 builders to Donnelwood, we would transfer that into a fort.

I also decided to promote a lot of guys have the battle. Tytos was named Lord of Lychester and I gave him the name of Dustwood, he immediately swore an oath of fealty, I had decided to make him a knightly Lord. And the territory was still mine and I could change his position of Lord whenever, that was a requirement of him taking Lord. I also named Daemon Lord of Donnelwood with the same stuff but his House was named Donnel.

And with that a month quickly passed, the iron industry in Lychester thrived and I went back to Stones Hedge after 2 weeks where I began working on Stones Hedge, building a large port to the small river connecting with the Red Fork. I also gave a bit of information from modern times about husbandry. I also increased our standing army from 3500 to 6000. 4000 Infantry, 1000 Marines, 500 Heavy Cavalry and 500 Light Cavalry.

And with that I took my private 50 man force and 100 Cavalry to Riverrun. It was time to meet Hoster Tully