Marrying into the Tully family could indeed increase the Tyrell family's influence in the Seven Kingdoms, and even help stabilize the latter's rule in The Reach... but these things, in peacetime... are at best icing on the cake. Using his only daughter's marriage opportunity for this slight improvement, even Aegon, an outsider to the game of nobles, felt it was not worth it.
With Margaery determined to become Queen, if she fails to seduce the King, she will definitely set her sights on the Prince... Poor Edmure, who knows when he will finally settle his marriage.
Wait, he is the future highest Lord of the Riverlands. Even without a wife, how could he lack mistresses? Is it his place, a Night's Watch member, to worry about the Tully family's marriage?
Thinking of the Night's Watch, a sudden, inexplicable surge of anger rose in Aegon's chest: his Black Brothers were in a life-and-death confrontation with countless Wildlings and humanity's natural enemies north of the North, while this bunch of nobles in the Seven Kingdoms were holding a matchmaking party in the military camps in front of the Bloody Gate, watching soldiers die in waves under the most dangerous pass in Westeros, while shamelessly distributing benefits?
How absurd! This damned feudal society!
...
The inexplicable anger came and went quickly. Even Aegon himself was bewildered by the sudden intense emotions and thoughts. Could it be that he had been pretending to be a loyal Night's Watch member for so long that he had gotten lost in the act?
Scoffing at himself inwardly, he stopped thinking about it: "To sum it up, everyone wants to climb higher, but no one can... This situation is really messy."
Lord Buckwell didn't notice Aegon's brief anomaly just now. He sighed as he looked at the distant forest of tents: "Yes, it's indeed messy, but it's not that everyone wants to climb higher. What I just mentioned were the high nobles whose status, position, and strength are all above my Buckwell. It's normal for some of them to have such thoughts. But the Seven Kingdoms, after all, are composed of countless down-to-earth Earls, lords of the city, and propertied knights... As far as I know, there have already been at least two marriages agreed upon in this military camp, even before the first battle today began."
"Congratulations to these four families." For some reason, Aegon suddenly lost interest and didn't want to ask who these four families were. He changed the subject: "Today's siege was quite spectacular, but unfortunately the defenders were one step ahead. What does the King plan to do next? Besides first removing the rebel strongholds outside the Vale of Arryn, surely we can't just sit and wait here at the Bloody Gate?"
...
Watching other families happily discussing alliances and relatives while his own son was far away on the The Wall dealing with Wildlings, Lord Buckwell actually didn't want to continue this discussion. He conveniently followed Aegon's question to change the subject: "Of course we can't wait. The area beyond the Bloody Gate is not an isolated city after all, but the Vale of Arryn with hundreds of thousands of people. If it's about waiting, the rebel army inside the Vale could hold out for a hundred years. Time is tight for us - if the food inside the Eyrie runs out and they are forced to surrender before we break through the Bloody Gate and rescue the people we need to rescue, then this battle will be considered our loss."
Lord Buckwell analyzed the situation clearly and logically, and continued: "The gate is blocked... This is something no one could have predicted. The Bloody Gate is such a narrow section. To climb the city The Walls with ladders and capture it normally, who knows how many casualties it would take to succeed. To deal with this dangerous pass, all sorts of strange ideas came up in the war council. Some suggested sending people into the gatehouse tunnel to dig through the blocked stone pile, others suggested building an earth ramp as high as a gatehouse in front of the Bloody Gate and having infantry charge directly up... There were even outrageous suggestions, like digging through the cliff next to the Bloody Gate to enter the Vale of Arryn. You are Night's Watch, you should be good at defending cities. What do you think, are these methods effective?"
Aegon had never defended a city, but that didn't stop him from judging that these methods wouldn't work: "If you dig through the stone pile blocking the gate in the gatehouse tunnel, the defenders only need to throw a few barrels of oil at the main entrance and light them, and they can easily suffocate people inside. As for building earth ramps and digging tunnels... Lord, you said time is tight for us, how could these methods possibly be completed in time?"
"Exactly, these are the problems." Lord Buckwell shook his head: "Although these methods are not good, they were proposals made in the war council... We can talk about it privately, but don't spread it around, understand."
"Military secrets, I understand."
...
As they chatted casually, the two walked back together to the encampment of the Crownlands army and the Buckwell army. Judging by the flow of soldiers returning from the front lines to their respective camps, it was likely that the command had decided not to attack the city today. After saying goodbye, the two returned to their own tents.
***
On the second day after the initial failed siege, over thirty thousand out of the eighty thousand strong army stationed outside the Bloody Gate were dispatched to various locations in the Vale to assist in clearing out the numerous castles exposed outside the Vale of Arryn. The remaining troops were also divided into six groups according to their allegiance to the Lords, based on their Six Kingdoms origin, and took turns undertaking offensive and defensive duties.
The reason for this arrangement is easy to understand: while the rebels blocking the gate significantly increased the difficulty of the assault, it also cut off their own possibility of sneaking out of the Vale to raid and harass. In this situation, keeping the entire army on high alert day and night would undoubtedly be a huge waste of energy, and over time could lead to overall fatigue. Rather than that, it was better to take turns.
Whichever army was on duty, that army was not only responsible for defending the main camp but also had to go to the Bloody Gate to challenge and symbolically attack it... It seemed as though they wanted to wear down the rebels through a war of attrition, but the rebels inside the Vale also numbered several thousand and could also take turns resting, so what then?
That leaves only one possibility: Robert hoped to force the rebels to surrender by capturing the other Vale castles outside the Vale of Arryn.
After two more attempts to scale the The Walls, suffering hundreds of casualties without achieving results, the rebellion suppression war entered a tactical stalemate. Both the attackers and defenders were in an awkward position, stuck on the back of a tiger – the noble families of the League of the Righteous dared to launch a military coup hoping to use "justice and righteousness" combined with the natural defenses of the Bloody Gate to drive the madwoman Lysa out of the Vale and regain autonomy. They never expected Robert to be so short-tempered as to gather the armies of the Six Kingdoms to deal with his former allies and supporters without any negotiation; and Robert... relying on his superior military talent and confidence in easily taking the Bloody Gate, made a big show of calling the Six Kingdoms people to watch the spectacle, never expecting the "rebels" in the Vale to be this stubborn.
The two sides stared at each other across the Bloody Gate for a few days. The rebels inside the Vale were the first to make a concession, proposing peace talks – as long as Lysa Tully left the Vale, Jon Royce, the leader of the League of the Righteous, was willing to admit to rebellion, hand over the position of family head to his son, and take the black, on the condition that Robert abandon pursuing responsibility from the other families.
These were already very sincere terms, but unfortunately, Robert still mercilessly rejected this condition, insisting that the rebels surrender first, and all other conditions would be discussed after the surrender.
Aegon could understand the reason for Robert's insistence. Even in modern society, some countries still adopt similar hardline policies – not negotiating with terrorists. The logic is simple: if just anyone who rebels can negotiate terms with the King, then the country will never have peace in the future.
Being in the joint army's main camp in front of the Bloody Gate, Aegon was unsure if the sieges and captures in other parts of the Vale were proceeding smoothly. Taking advantage of the calm phase of the stalemate between the two armies, he simply focused on making a fortune – casting a wide net, catching many fish, and choosing the best to follow: traveling to the camps of various feudal states and promoting the Night's Watch Industry to every potential customer.
To be honest, in this era where concepts are generally backward, it was indeed difficult to persuade people to engage in such advanced financial behavior as "investment". But no matter what, getting money from these wealthy and powerful noble classes was always much more efficient and easier than raising funds among the common people who were at the very bottom of exploitation.
After countless setbacks and practice, his sales pitch skills had become increasingly refined. Coupled with the physical evidence from the books sold by the book peddlers traveling between the camps and the hot sales, without even realizing it himself... the number of nobles willing to receive him for a short sit-down in their tents and who agreed after discussions to visit the factory when passing through King's Landing had gradually begun to increase.
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