Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 473: Private conversation

Claude closed this report, written by Colonel Boquer, for a long time. I had no idea that the kingdom of Ovilas, formerly the dominant power in the eastern part of the Farea continent, was going to end up like this. From the words of the report, one can imagine the tragedy of the kingdom itself, a civil war to compete for the throne, with a deep catastrophe for the people of the kingdom and the trauma of a war that cannot be quenched for decades. Especially since the new king is not a wise king, for the kingdom of Orvillas the greater suffering is still behind...

“Bang!”, General Albert hit the conference table with a heavy punch, and he had just read the report.

“Always knew it, always knew it...” General Albert mumbled angrily...

Claude could only shake his head: "Alan, we have no choice. I know what you're trying to say, but in fact, we have no choice in the war zone. Neither Grand Prince Hansburg nor Prince Widreck were the proper subjects of allegiance, and we had no choice but to opt for the least detrimental to the kingdom's overseas administration, which was also the most important reason why our battlefield could win this colonial war over the Hicks kingdom.

As for what the Kingdom will do to our immediate war zone, that is the future. But I believe that, more than three months later, the news of the victory of this colonial war in our immediate war zone should have reached the Farea continent, and soon the kingdom itself will know that we have prevailed over the Kingdom of Hicks. Then in two or three months, the envoy of the Kingdom will arrive, and then we will know what the Kingdom will do to us... "

“Yes, Claude was right.” General Bolognick said, "If we were to turn to Prince Hansburg then we would be traitors selling the Kingdom's overseas territories. That's why we had to show loyalty to Prince Widreck, even if we knew he was not a qualified successor. All we have to do now is stick to our post and wait for the arrival of the Kingdom's envoy. In any event, we have lived up to the mandate and trust of Marshal Michel to preserve the kingdom's direct overseas jurisdiction. As soldiers, we owe it to ourselves. ”

Walking out of the battlefield command gate, Claude told his deputy Major Mason Hughes: "Take two men to Colonel Boquer and tell him that I'm having a feast at home tomorrow night with him and his family..."

During the siege of Lan Lake City, the high-end villa area where Fields Manor was located was one of the smallest parts of Lan Lake City not affected by the war, so Claude was able to welcome his friends at home. However, after her mother returned from the mountains, she saw the ruins of the old town like the garbage dump in Lanhu City. Some of them were frightened. She began to talk about returning to the mainland of the Kingdom and thought that she could live a peaceful life in White Deer City...

Claude is really reluctant to tell her the truth herself, but tomorrow night, when the Boquers arrive, she'll know what true stability is and what a tragic war disaster is.

In recognition of Colonel Bockard's trip to the kingdom, General Skerry made a large plot of land available to him in the reprogrammed central square of Lake Lang City, re-opening the family land for his family to run a business in the Overseas Territories, and obtaining an interest-free loan of 30,000 gold kroner from the Overseas Minsheng Bank to reward him and his family for their clear intentions in bringing back more than 60,000 refugees from the kingdom itself to enrich the humanitarian spirit of the Overseas Territories.

The next evening at 6: 00 p.m., Claude sent the wagon to greet him back to the Boquer family. Years later, Claude met Bockall's father, the most famous businessman in White Deer City. Uncle Podman. And Bok Al's wife, a small woman, and his two ten-year-old and seven-year-old sons.

Claude's mother was supposed to be the happiest, and she was very happy to welcome her husband's former friend, Mr. Rubiewell. Just to my mother's surprise, Mr. Rubiewell's appearance became a little old, his hair was basically white, he was bald in the middle, he could never see the original wind, his chest had the merchant style of bamboo.

The dinner became an interrogation class for the curious baby, the mother, who, according to Mr. Rubiewell, learned that her home town of White Deer City had been hit by the scourge of war, and that the entire city had been ruined, with men between the ages of 15 and 45 forcibly enlisted into the army and never returned. All the material in Mr. Rubiewell's family business was seized by the soldiers and he had to take his family to take refuge in West Miloque.

But all three south-western provinces are under the control of Grand Prince Hansburg, and wherever they go, they are inevitably subjected to endless taxes and the collection of material property. When Grand Prince Hansburg withdrew from Bai Lu City and three counties in the southwest were recovered by the Kingdom, the result was not long-awaited peace and stability, but discipline and fines. As a commercial firm that has been repeatedly requisitioned by the forces of the Grand Prince, the robberies encountered have been described as crimes of active sponsorship of the rebel army, requiring more fines in order to be exonerated...

For Mr. Rubiewell, how he survived those years, he forgot that he no longer cared how much property was lost in his home reserves, the only requirement being to keep the lives of his family, relatives and the employees of those businesses safe. He was reluctant to let those tragedies happen to people he knew close to because he had seen countless tragedies of family breakdowns caused by the lack of money to pay fines.

Fortunately, his family firm has been operating a weaving network in three southwestern counties for many years, always avoiding conspiracies and traps against him. Just when he felt unsustainable, his son, Bok Al, returned. This is also why he agreed to transfer the family businesses, following Boquer to relocate his family and relatives, as well as the families of the employees of those companies, to overseas jurisdictions.

As a result, her mother dispelled the idea of returning to the mainland of the kingdom to White Deer City, and she warmly invited Mr. Rubiewell's family to live in the Fields estate before the Langhu City house was built. Today, with the exception of the eldest son, whose whereabouts are unknown, the other three children are under the direct authority, with two grandchildren, and the mother is no longer making a fuss about returning to Bai Lu City.

After dinner, Claude and Bockall, as well as his father, Mr. Rubiewell, arrived in the study on the second floor, and Bockall leaked a large part of the report to the battlefield headquarters, where some of the private words were safer to say.

“Prince Widreck will not be on this throne for long.” The Bok 'ar language is astonishing: “Many noblemen in Wang Du are dissatisfied with it, especially the old noble families, who think their country is incompetent, unconscious, bastard, dictatorial, and refuse to give up power. In the long run, the country will not be. There are already many aristocrats and intellectuals in hidden tandem, ready to push them down the throne. ”

“This is ridiculous, when they opposed the Grand Prince's arrival on stage as king, saying they feared that the Grand Prince would only enlist soldiers and bring the kingdom to a path of war where the poor soldiers would fight. So they pushed Prince Widreck to the stage and ruined the whole kingdom, finally as they wished. Now they start to regret that the new king is incompetent, so who are they going to push to the throne?” Claude chuckled.

Bok Al shook his head: "No, Claude, you're mistaken. It's actually those emerging business aristocrats who support Prince Widreck, the old brand aristocrats, who were supposed to be neutral, or just slightly biased towards Prince Widreck. This is mainly because the Grand Prince regarded the old aristocratic family as his enemies, determined to remove the power and influence of the old aristocratic family from the Royal Army and moved their cheese. For the sake of good, they had to stand against the great prince.

But after Prince Widreck took office, the old aristocratic family found that they had lost more profits, because Prince Widreck reused the emerging business aristocracy, and they could help Prince Widreck get money for his enjoyment, live that drunken, dreamy, erotic luxury life. And it is the hope of the old aristocratic family that the kingdom will settle down as soon as possible, rather than remain volatile.

The greatest loss in this civil war in the Kingdom was to the emerging business aristocrats, who, although they have been proclaiming to promote free commercial trade in the Kingdom and so on, are arguing only with the families of the old brand aristocrats, who want to monopolize the gains of the Kingdom's entire commercial trade and economic development. So they were born against the old aristocratic family.

On the mainland of the kingdom, the old nobleman's family can be said to have monopolized the kingdom's military and industrial industries, with its forces spread throughout the kingdom. Developments of more than two hundred years have penetrated the counties of the kingdom, holding specialty trade and financial transactions everywhere. Emerging commercial aristocrats demanded to break this local commercial monopoly, but they ran into walls.

Therefore, after five years of war in the eastern region, the Kingdom handed over the land of the three newly occupied principalities to the emerging business aristocracy, which I think was Wang Sterling X's desire to support the emerging business aristocracy, so that it could become a counterweight to the old brand aristocracy family power, so that the royal family could meet and gain more rights and reduce reliance on the old brand aristocracy family.

This is also why the Great Prince desperately reduced the power of the old nobility in the Royal Army. It is only a pity that Wang Sterling X did not persist and died prematurely. The emerging business aristocrats, however, were not satisfied with the small business interests of the newly occupied territories and provoked Prince Widreck to compete for the throne. Forced the Grand Prince to leave the newly occupied territories to raise troops.

Only then did the emerging business aristocrats discover that they had suffered greatly from the consequences of their own sustenance, and that all the efforts and business plans made in the newly occupied territories had been wiped out by the forces of the Grand Prince, at no cost. But Prince Widreck's father-in-law, Marshal Siegfried, the commander of the Red Dragon Legion, as a member of the old noble family, had to come forward to support Prince Widreck until he was brought back to life, again qualified to compete for the throne with the great prince.

The ensuing civil war in the kingdom was actually a confrontation between the forces of the old aristocracy and the great prince, and no one expected that the civil war in the kingdom would destroy the whole kingdom. After the news of the Great Prince's evacuation from Bai Lu City and his assassination, Prince Weidlek joyfully ascended the throne, believing that no one was eligible to compete with him for the throne, and from then on began arbitrarily, without listening to persuasion, and using the emerging business aristocracy to scrape money for him throughout the kingdom.

Do you know why the kingdom is still unsettled? Claude, this is all the fault of the emerging business aristocrats. What I saw and heard on the way to Wangdu confirmed the crimes of these emerging business aristocrats. The unrest in the counties throughout the kingdom, the lack of livelihoods, the banditry and the displacement of people are all man-made scourges caused by them.

They were appointed as special envoys for liquidation and accountability by that unconscious Prince Wedelec, our loyal new King Sterling XI, who, in counties all over the kingdom, resorted to rebellion against all the inhabitants of the kingdom who supported the Great Prince during the civil war in the kingdom, whether voluntarily or forcibly, even by compulsory conscription, confiscated property, sentenced to hard labour and forced large numbers of people to leave their homes to become displaced persons and refugees.

These emerging business aristocrats have done so, on the one hand, to compensate for the loss of their property in the newly occupied territories, on the other, to strip civilian wealth for the enjoyment of Sterling XI and, on the other, to cut off the civilian commercial power and influence of the old nobleman families so that their own forces can control commercial transactions in the counties of the Kingdom's native territories. Now Wangdu's old brand aristocratic family and these emerging commercial aristocrats are not melting, the contradiction is very big..... ”

“Is this what you think or what someone told you?” Lloyd interrupted Bok Al's rhetoric and suddenly asked.

“Uh...” Bok Al stunned and thought about answering: “Some were revealed when I talked to someone else, some were learned in my own retrospect, and most of them were summaries in my heart that I saw and heard on my trip to Wang Du...”

Claude nodded, and Boquer should have said what he wanted, not become a chess and lobbyist in the hands of others.

“Who do you think will be our new king if Prince Widreck comes down?” Claude asked.

"I think it must be His Royal Highness Prince Frederick of the Four. ”

“Why him?” Claude asked with interest: "The five Prince Princesses of the first King Sterling X had long been appreciative, saying that the great prince was steady, that the two princes were trendy, that the three princesses were barbaric, that the four princes were weak, and that the five princesses were greedy. Now that the big and steady prince is gone, the two trendy princes are about to come down, so only three princesses, four princes and five princesses can be competitive. In all respects, the three princesses and the five princesses should have greater hope, a savage, a greedy, more competitive than the cowardly four princes. ”

Bork Al replied with a smile: "Her Royal Highness Adelina, the Three Princesses, is unlikely, because she is married to Marquis Ruhrheim, a representative of the emerging business aristocracy. It was impossible for the old nobleman family to bring Prince Widreck down the throne and push His Royal Highness Princess Adriana to power, and that made little difference.

His Royal Highness, Prince Frederick of the Four, does not have this problem. His wife is the daughter of Lady Maria, whom you asked me to visit, and Lady Maria's husband is Viscount Carter, deputy commander of the Royal Guard Corps, Lieutenant General of the Kingdom, who, by definition, belongs to the old noble family. His Royal Highness Prince Frederick, another four princes, is peaceful in character and does not like war. If he becomes king, he will surely calm the turbulent situation in the country and vigorously develop the livelihood of the people and the economies of the counties.

The first time I visited Lady Maria's residence, Lady Maria and Viscount Carter and I talked about something very unusual. Lady Maria asked about the recent situation between you and your sister Anna, and Viscount Carter was concerned about the colonial war and the strength of the Rock Regiment and the Legion of Thunder in the immediate war zone. I am deeply sorry for their inability to help our immediate battlefield gain the support of the Kingdom.

But the second time I was invited by an invitation from them, a party was held at their residence, attended by officers above the ranks of the school ranks of the SS. Then I saw His Royal Highness Prince Frederick show up and lead a dance with his wife, Lady Maria's daughter, Princess Christie.

Viscount Carter introduced me to the Four Princes, who expressed admiration and condolences for the insistence on this colonial war in our immediate war zone and for its constant victory. But he was saddened by the fact that he was just an empty prince, unable to help us in the immediate war zone. He said he usually stayed home to read and write, and could not speak in front of his brother, Sterling XI, because Prince Widreck did not like his brother...

Upon leaving the party, Viscount Carter made the vague statement that the kingdom might change dramatically in a few moments, and he regretted that the two regiments in the war zone under our direct administration were too far from the kingdom's mainland to entrust his son-in-law, His Royal Highness Prince Frederick, and his daughter to us, believing that we would guarantee their safety.

I thought he was joking, saying that His Royal Highness Prince Frederick and his wife could return with me to the Overseas Territories, and that their safety was guaranteed in our war zone. Viscount Carter laughed without saying a word. When I left Wang Du on my way back to the three counties in the southwest, I suddenly remembered that. He didn't want to entrust his son-in-law's daughter to us, he wanted to push His Royal Highness Prince Frederick to the top of the throne, and asked obscurely whether our immediate battlefield support was not supportive... "

Claude laughed bitterly, and the immediate battlefield support didn't support the usefulness, and they couldn't fly past the silence of the ocean. Viscount Carterf is not asking for the views of the war zone, but he sees it as part of the kingdom of Orvillas, and routinely informs us, so that we don't have to make another wave.

Grand Prince Hansburg has destroyed both of the kingdom's oceanic fleets, and now the kingdom's mainland and overseas territories are simply unable to navigate on a large scale. Even if the territory of the kingdom supports His Royal Highness Prince Frederick's reign, it will not be possible to send troops unless a reconstituted joint fleet is taken first...