Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 416 Inclusion in War Zone Jurisdiction

Claude soon saw General Bolognick, but General Bolognick didn't look so good, and whoever got shot in the right rib would feel bad. And the governors and superintendents of the three jurisdictions failed to provide General Bolognick with the best therapeutic agents and medical environment, so much so that, more than half a month later, General Bolognick's wounds were barely healed.

There was nothing to say about the capture of the port of Cobichous, and the enemy was unaware of the thunderbolt as it entered the outer city of the port of Cobichous, and the gatekeepers only hurriedly closed the gate below the inner city. Immediately after the governors and governors of the three direct governorates rushed to the city walls with their guards, they found themselves caged birds.

The governors and governors of the three territories also wanted to threaten Claude with General Bolognick's life and demand his discharge. But Claude called the old apostle and wrote a letter on the spot to bring him into town for the governor and the governors. When the messenger's old man was hung up against the city wall, the Governor and the governors looked at Claude's letter and were all foolish.

Claude wrote a few words in his letter, meaning that, as he had said before his departure and as General Scully said, General Bolonik had anything to do with it, then it was simple that all governors and governors would report to the kingdom of the gods of war. Claude swore that if anything happened to General Bolognick, Claude would have ordered all these governors and governors, and their families and relatives, to hang from the trees on the side of the road and say yes...

It was not until then that the governors and governors of the city walls realized that the reality was completely different from what they had imagined, that even the imprisoned General Bolognick had become a hot yam. This is the so-called panic, panicking, panicking. General Bolognick's life is in danger, and Claude threatens them with war.

Just as the governors and governors on the walls were still arguing about what to do, Claude had ordered Battalion Thunderbolt to throw bombs at the walls. As a result, when the bomb was dropped, few people stood on the wall, and immediately after the gate was blown open, soldiers of the Legion of Thunder stormed into the city, all three governors and governors of the direct administration were taken prisoner.

Claude's side went well, but Muriel's side hit the harbor pier with a slight ripple. As a military port, a small fortress was built in the dock area and a battalion of naval assault squadrons was deployed by the storm fleet to protect the port from pirate attacks. The naval assault team of this battalion was not under the authority of the Governor or or the Superintendent, but the Governor under Tyrsim persuaded the commander of the naval assault team to swear allegiance to the great Prince Hansburg as well.

So when Muried led the troops into the dock area, they were blocked by this naval assault team, except that the artillery on the fortress at the dock was not on the right side of the sea. The Thundering 1302 group immediately launched an attack and threw a bomb three rounds later, the defender of the fortress raised his white flag and surrendered.

Tilsim's administration fell into the hands of Claude, and General Bolognick was unable to stop Claude from doing anything. Because Claude said it was a rebellion crusade, and then began a major cleansing of the three territories, all military officials and local families who signed an affidavit of allegiance to Grand Prince Hansburg were within Claude's grasp, waiting for 10 years of hard labour.

Unlike the jurisdictions under theatre, the local forces of the three jurisdictions are intertwined, such as the Governor and the Governor, who can only effectively manage the capital and a few large towns, all of which are dominated by powerful individuals and local forces. That's what Claude heard from General Albert and General Bitchcline back then. Now that the three jurisdictions are under the jurisdiction of the war zone, Claude simply knifed them apart so that the local forces of the three jurisdictions can be wiped out by this insurgency, so that the orders of the war zone can be implemented once and for all.

General Skerry and General Bitchklin arrived in Tyrsim with their horses 20 days later, when General Bolonik's wounds were almost healed and he was ready to move out of bed. General Albert is not here, and he needs to sit in the town of Port Vibato. There is no way, the territory of the eight Overseas Territories is too large, and even if it takes a horseback ride to the Port Vibato Territory, the normal journey will take a month.

General Bolognick, General Claude, General Skrey and General Bitchcline convened a discussion meeting on the future of the eight overseas territories under the direct authority of Tyrsim, at which it was decided to include Tyrsim, Arturas and Mormary under the jurisdiction of the theatre. At the same time, it was decided to cancel the disarmament order, maintain the total strength of 130,000 troops of the Legion of Thunder and the Rock Legion and form 18 local guard corps of 5600 personnel in the eight Overseas Territories as reserve supplements to the local township and theatre forces of the respective Territories.

General Bolognick decided to expand the town of Lan Lake to a city with Lan Lake City as the seat of theatre headquarters. The planned relocation to the Castle of Wickham was abolished because, following the incorporation of the theatre of battle into the three jurisdictions of Tyrsim, Mormary and Arturas, Lake Lang City was the centre of eight overseas jurisdictions, which could be reconciled on both sides.

Claude proposed the establishment of an overseas defensive fleet of more than a thousand naval officers who had come back from White Deer City unwilling to serve Prince Hansburg. The battleships to which they returned, although mostly light pelagic cruisers and sea carriers, were able to assemble six light fast cruisers, plus two medium-sized warships and a large battleship, as well as four light cruisers berthed in the port of Vibator from the Kingdom of the Hicks, sufficient to form a cruise guard fleet to maintain offshore security in the Overseas Territories and to protect offshore transport security between them.

General Bolognick and General Skerry seem hesitant, however, because the formation of a cruise fleet, while providing more sense of security to the Overseas Territories, would also mean that the theatre would bear an additional military expenditure. And a naval fleet spends more than the army spends. Don't look at just a fleet of more than a dozen lightweight fast cruisers that are already spending more than a second-line regiment.

Claude laughed and then showed the Thunder Legion sweeping away the gains of the three Direct Administrations for the majority of the month, valued at 1.23 million gold kroner, of which the governors and governors of the three Direct Administrations alone contributed more than 400,000 gold kroner. According to Claude, the cost of forming a cruise ship is around 300,000 gold kroner a year. Now that the three jurisdictions are under the jurisdiction of the war zone, they can be cleaned up and eliminated. Without that, the tax revenues of the three jurisdictions will naturally increase dramatically. It is not a big deal to spend an extra cruise fleet...

General Scully, as head of logistics in the theatre, while satisfied that Claude had scratched so much money in the three jurisdictions to cover the military deficit in the theatre, did not think so of Claude. He told Claude bluntly that the fiscal tax position of the three jurisdictions was unlikely to increase over the next few years and would instead decline. The reason is simple: the taxes in these three jurisdictions are based on pelagic trade, and annual cross-ocean trade with the kingdom itself thrives the businesses of these three jurisdictions and ensures taxes.

Trade has now been cut off from the Kingdom's mainland and overseas jurisdictions, which is also the main reason why the Governors and Superintendents of the three Territories have sworn allegiance to the Grand Prince of Hansburg, whose aim is to resume cross-ocean trade with the Kingdom's mainland and reap substantial gains from it. Now that Claude has taken these six governors and governors in the name of the rebellion, there is no need to have any more hope of trading with the kingdom itself in the open ocean.

Without cross-ocean trade, the businesses of the three jurisdictions of Tyrsim, Mormary and Arturas would be hit and affected significantly, and could only be diverted to commercial trade within the overseas jurisdictions, so it was likely that less taxes would be collected from the three jurisdictions as military expenditures in the future, which is why General Scully would not advocate the formation of a cruise fleet.

There is also a problem with the formation of 18 local guard corps in theatre and the reduction of local guard forces. The 18 local guard corps, all composed of elderly soldiers from the Thunder Corps and the Rock Corps, have a total strength of 5600 troops per local guard corps, and 18 local guard corps require a total of approximately 100,000 troops. This means that in addition to leaving 30,000 grassroots officers and elite veterans behind, the Thunder and Rock Corps needs to recruit 100,000 young and strong recruits.

That is indeed what General Claude and General Bolognick meant, the main objective being to relieve the pressure on the lives of relatives of those officers and soldiers in the Cromwell and Beringana jurisdictions. As long as 100,000 recruits are recruited, the immediate families of the 100,000 recruits will have access to 30 acres of good land or 300 acres of grazing land, and an estimated 670,000 relatives of unincorporated officers and soldiers will no longer have to put war zones to cover their lives and work, which will ease the financial pressure on war zones to invest in public facilities and infrastructure.

The second reason is that Claude thinks most of the officers and soldiers in both regiments are too old to build regiments and increase their fighting power. Like the Thunder Legion, the average age of officers and soldiers is around 31 years, and while he still has a strong fighting power, Claude feels a little twisted, and he's a bit obedient to the development and application of tactics.

So Claude decided to simply overthrow the rebuild and start forming a young regiment while the senior officers and soldiers moved to the local guard corps to maintain their fighting power. This way, when the veterans of the local guard corps have been discharged in a few years, it happens that they will be taken over by two regrowth corps. Otherwise, after a few years, the veterans will be discharged. Recruitment of two corps will not take place, and they will not be able to possess the same strong fighting power, which is very detrimental to the maintenance of security in the battlefields under the direct control of the overseas territories.

General Scully would like to remind Claude that the recruitment of 100,000 recruits for retraining and rearming, as well as the formation of 18 local guard regiments, entail significant military expenditures. Don't look, the nearly 1.3 million gold kroner that the Legion of Thunder scratched in the three direct jurisdictions was a tremendous fortune, but spending on military spending could only last two or three years.

General Bolognick was somewhat embarrassed, and after both General Claude and General Scully made sense and cut off cross-ocean trade from the Kingdom's mainland, businesses in overseas jurisdictions could only turn to self-marketing. However, the development of offshore transport is preferred because of the size of the eight overseas jurisdictions and the high cost of land transport. However, the proximity of offshore transport to the coastline does not mean that it will not be subject to pirate attacks, and it is indeed necessary that a cruise fleet of light fast cruisers provide safety and security for offshore transport.

General Sterling's concerns are also justified. Military spending in theatre has indeed become a heavy financial burden. The cancellation of the disarmament order, followed by the recruitment of 100,000 new recruits, the formation of 18 local guard corps, the improvement of the defence of the three seaports and the construction of infrastructure in strategic areas under the direct jurisdiction of the theatre have meant that the theatre will require significant financial investment and tremendous financial strain.

On second thought, General Bolognick decided to form a cruise fleet of six light fast cruisers, the rest of which would be sealed and expanded until the war zone was well funded. This would keep the military expenditures of the Navy at around 150,000 gold kroner per year, and the theatre would still be able to squeeze them out.

After discussing the cruise fleet, General Bolonik consulted with Claude and others on arrangements for the personnel of the three newly integrated territorial administrations, and it had to be said that Claude had been cleaned up this time, that almost all the local administrators of the three territorial administrations had been arrested and imprisoned in the name of treason, and that all three of the current territorial administrations were in a state of military administration, otherwise the local administration would have been paralysed.

General Skerry recommended the selection of suitable personnel from among the grass-roots officers of the two regiments to be discharged as heads of local administration in the three jurisdictions, while publicly recruiting administrative officers in the three jurisdictions for appointment after an assessment. This proposal was unanimously endorsed by General Bolognick, General Claude and General Bitchlin.

In two days' time, General Bolonik decided to return to Langhu town with General Bitchklin, sitting in the town's battlefield headquarters, and to form six local guard corps to be deployed in the three areas of direct authority to strengthen local control. Claude and General Skerry, for the time being, sat under the direct authority of the town of Tyrsim, tidying up order and local security. When those six local guard regiments arrive, Claude will be able to return to theatre command with the troops of the Legion of Thunder.

Two days later, General Bolonik and General Bitchcline left with their guards, while General Claude and General Skerry remained busy in Port Cobichous. The three Direct Administrations were brought under the jurisdiction of the theatre, and everything else, not to mention just checking the bottom of the homes of the three Direct Administrations, kept both General Claude and General Scully busy even eating at random and filling their stomachs.

Without him, the port of Cobichous, under the direct administration of Tyrsim, as a seaport for navigation with the mainland of the Kingdom, built a vast warehouse area in which the three jurisdictions concentrated their specialty resources and commodities destined for White Deer City. Now that cross-ocean trade has been cut off from Bai Lu City, commodity goods and resources in the warehouse area must be disposed of as quickly as possible, after all, many agricultural commodities are not durable to store.

“These mineral resources can be stored here, and there is little use in returning them to battle zones, and there are no large alchemy foundries in the overseas jurisdictions to exploit these mineral resources.” General Scully said with regret.

In Claude's view, the so-called alchemy foundry is a large steel alloy factory. The Kingdom strictly forbids the establishment of such a large industry in overseas jurisdictions, preferring to return these mineral resources to the mainland of the Kingdom after refining and casting, even at significant additional costs, which may also be a means of limiting the economic development of overseas jurisdictions.

“These tobacco are the specialty of the direct administration of Arturas, where wild mountains are said to be everywhere, but on the mainland of the Kingdom they become expensive luxury goods.” General Stry felt sorry for himself: “Without the kingdom as a local distributor, tobacco could not be sold in overseas jurisdictions, perhaps in the future it could be smuggled to the kingdom itself. The pile of buffalo jerky and cod jerky on this side requires us to return to the battlefield and distribute it to the troops for military food, because the shelf life of this thing is about three to six months, as is the case with those cowhides, which can easily rot if left untreated..."