Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 519: Prisoners and Expansions

Claude didn't expect so much trouble after he thought the kingdoms of Nasseri and Kanas had been wiped out and the war ended, after the unification of the eastern part of the Farea continent. The next step is to take a rest and regain your energy. He's fine. When the kingdom gives the two regiments of overseas autonomous military regions a reward, everyone can pack their bags and return to overseas autonomy for a happy and happy day with the spoils.

As a result, he was now dragged into the Nasri district, becoming acting Governor ad interim, and for a moment and a half he could not escape. It was a painful ordeal for Claude to deal with countless correspondence and administrative chores all day long. If Claude had known such trouble, he would have regretted that he should not have destroyed the kingdom of Nasserley, putting himself and the two regiments in such an embarrassing position.

Frankly, Claude, General Beachcline, and General Albert, as well as the Legion of Thunder and the Legion of the Rocks, are now working in white for Frederie I. The agreement between the two regiments of the original Overseas Autonomous Territory was that the two regiments would return to the Overseas Autonomous Territory immediately after the end of the war and would no longer participate in the affairs of the Kingdom.

But now the Legion of Thunder and the Legion of Rock have become township guards stationed in the Nasseri and Kanas regions to maintain local order and order. Without the name of a military superintendent, it is the job of the military superintendent, and Claude et al. will have to stay here until the Crown has sent the local administrator to take over the duties of interim acting governor.

It's not about the King trusting or not trusting Claude. Don't look at Claude as interim acting governor, but his duties are less powerful. He is acting Governor, or temporary, so he has no authority to govern. For a serious analysis, he was merely a substitute for the Royal Court and the Sterling Royal Family, collecting taxes and contributions in the two districts and maintaining law and order in the two districts, which amounted to the combined role of tax collectors and patrol chiefs.

This is actually Royal Court using the power of the Legion of Thunder and the Legion of Rock to suppress the place, first collecting taxes in both areas for a period of time to enrich the lower treasury. Since the military expenditures of the two regiments of the Overseas Autonomous Territories do not need to be covered by the Kingdom, the agreement already states that the Overseas Autonomous Territories bear their own costs. So Wang Ting's move amounted to a free summons to two strong regiments, which took advantage.

Claude has begun to question whether the so-called sending of chief administrative officers to the Nasseri and Kanas regions to assume their duties has been boycotted by selected officials as an excuse conceived by the Royal Court for the free use of the two regiments. Fortunately, more than two months later, the Nasri region has largely been taken care of, and the Kanas region has been entrusted to General Albert. The only thing left now is to collect taxes and send troops to suppress riots and rebellions in the area.

General Bolonik, who arrived at the Royal City of Polyvisia at the end of the rainy season at the end of March, spent six months in Amis City, finally sending more than 100,000 Nasseri close guard corps prisoners, grass-roots officers, administrators and local nobles, as well as more than 200,000 of their families, smoothly to the Florida seaport in the Rimodra region and boarded a pelagic transport vessel. Thereafter, these prisoners and their families will have to settle in their homes in the Overseas Autonomous Territory of Rocky Hills State to dig for a living.

After the captives were removed, General Bolonik arrived at the Royal City of Polyvisia with the first division of the Rock Regiment and the Regiment headquarters to rendezvous with Claude. Claude was glad that a brain dumped all his business on him and was ready to make himself relaxed for a while. General Bolognick, however, grabbed Claude and said that he had come this time with the idea of more than 200,000 prisoners on the Royal City side and wanted to transport them to the Overseas Autonomous Territories to enrich the population.

General Bolognick told Claude that the more than 300,000 prisoners previously transported to the Overseas Autonomous Territories had attracted the attention of many autonomous parliamentarians, like Senator Henderman, president of the Mining and Commerce Association, who had delivered a public speech in Parliament, arguing that the capture of prisoners from the ongoing war in the eastern region of the Farea continent was the best opportunity to fill the labour gap in the Overseas Autonomous Territories, and that the more than 300,000 prisoners had amplified the shortage of mining personnel in the Rocky Hills.

Consequently, parliamentarians in the state of Arturas also hope to obtain more than 100,000 prisoners as scarce labour from the two warring regiments. As a result of the tobacco company's cigarette sales, wild tobacco is no longer available in the state of Arturas, which is the main source of tobacco. Many self-governing wealthy people have begun to invest in tobacco plantations in the state of Arturas, cultivating tobacco manually on a large scale. It's just that Arturas is one of the less populous autonomous regions, and plantations need a lot of people, so they also hit the prisoners with the same idea...

Although neither the Kingdom of Ovilas nor the Overseas Autonomous Territories practised slavery, captivity was much cheaper than the labour hired outside. General Bolognick this time brought with him the orders of several state legislators and autonomous territorial locals, who were willing to compensate the autonomous territorial military districts while bearing the costs of captivity, providing food, clothing and shelter and receiving the supervision of the military districts.

Claude laughed bitterly and the taste of a good war seemed to have changed so far, as if the two regiments in the Overseas Autonomous Territories were not fighting for the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Orvillas, but to add labour and immigration to the Overseas Autonomous Territories.

A letter had just been received from McJackie, in which he stated that those regimental officers and soldiers held by him, formerly belonging to the forces of the Grand Prince, had been demanding that their families migrate to the Overseas Autonomous Territories. Because they feared that the old-fashioned aristocratic family forces of the Kingdom of Ovieras would settle their debts later, they regretted that it would be too late for them to feel better about emigrating to overseas self-governing territories.

Meanwhile, in his letter, McJake asked Claude if he would recruit these officers and soldiers into the Autonomous Territory, such as the construction of a fourth Thunder Division. Currently, McJackie hosts nearly 80,000 of these regiments, formerly part of the Grand Prince Hansburg forces, in three counties in the south and in the Eskirin area. Of these, 56,000 are rescued prisoners and the remainder are small units fleeing into the mountains.

As the Eskirin area became the eastern enclave of the Kingdom of Hicks, these small units fleeing into the mountains were engaged in guerrilla and resistance activities with the Hicks army. The largest of them was also headed by Claude's old boss, who had not met for more than a decade and who was the battalion commander at the first battalion of the Rangers, Major Ledfank.

According to McJackie, although these officers and soldiers are the old part of the great prince, the great prince is now gone and they are all bereaved dogs. The Legion of Thunder swept through the new occupation, exterminating the Principality of Siddins and the Principality of Rimodra and reclaiming the enclave of the Kingdom of Hicks, Eskilin. The return of this new occupation to the kingdom of Ovilas has caused great anxiety for these troops and officers.

Though they are also soldiers of the kingdom of Ovilas, they still wear rebel hats on their heads as the old headquarters of the great Prince of Hansburg. During the civil war of the kingdom, the kingdom itself was conquered, and the forces of the old aristocracy lived and died, and the two sides had already made a blood feud. Even though Frederick I, not Sterling XI, is now sitting on the throne, these soldiers still fear future reprisals from the forces of the old aristocratic family.

During the Kingdom's civil war, Prince Hamsburg had long since transferred the families of his men and women from the mainland of the Kingdom to the newly occupied territories, so now they were not opposed to emigrating the entire family to the overseas self-governing territories. But McJackie thinks it's a shame to send them overseas to grow their fields. They're strong, experienced soldiers, and they'd better be re-recruited into the army.

Originally, McJackie wanted to form local guard units to assist the Thunder Third Division in maintaining local order and order, but eventually he formed only two guard corps of more than 10,000 men. The reason is not that these officers and soldiers do not see the status of local armed guards, but rather fear that they will remain in the region after becoming members of the local armed guards and will subsequently be liquidated by the Kingdom, involving their families. That's why McJackie wanted to form them into Thunder Division IV, so that they could calm their minds. In addition, these officers and soldiers were envious of the treatment and welfare of military personnel in overseas autonomous military districts and were happy to become members of Thunder Corps.

In addition, McJake reported to Claude that the original task entrusted to him was to reintegrate those military industries in the southern three counties, starting with the completion of a new rifle bullet production line. All of these recruits are dependants preparing to emigrate to autonomous overseas officers and soldiers, and the production line is currently capable of producing 500,000 new rifle rounds per month. The only problem is the frequent shortage of production materials, such as brass leather suppressed shells and primers, which do not allow for stable production.

With regard to the production of new types of artillery shells, the current production conditions are inadequate and there is a lack of some large-scale press-forged manufacturing machinery. The reason is that during the occupation of the Kingdom of Hicks, some large forged accessory machinery was returned to the country, resulting in a significant decline in the level of military manufacturing in the three southern counties and the inability to forge some special large parts. Like the shell casing of a shell, it takes three large forged machines to make...

In fact, Claude didn't want to expand the Thunder Corps, which had reached 120,000 people in three divisions and 35,000 in one division. Originally two divisions of one regiment, the Independent Corps, which reports directly to the headquarters of the Corps, and four logistics battalions, already have a total strength of nearly 82,000 troops. Claude has been feeling a little overwhelmed by the expansion of a division before the war, bringing the total number of a regiment to more than 125,000.

Either an increase in troop strength is a good thing, or, correspondingly, military expenditures exceed the budget. Rather than increasing the military costs of a division, the base of civilian officers and auxiliary personnel, such as the logistical administration of the headquarters of the regiment, should be expanded accordingly by a division. Formerly in the era of firing line guns, regimentation was used to offset the excessive negative impact of casualties and maintain sustained combat power with a robust force on the battlefield.

Previously, the two sides were said to have fought, basically in concentrated strength, to find an open terrain and set up positions. The commanding commanders of the two sides commanded their respective forces to close fire and engage in physical combat. The casualties were very high, and the strength of two divisions of one regiment was lost in the morning. Three or four days after a great battle, hundreds of thousands of casualties are common, so the more troops a legion has, the better, leading countries to employ a two-division regiment of around 60,000 troops.

In the First Eastern World War, the Anti-Olympic Alliance was sober in realizing that field-based rivalries like this were simply not rivals of the Four Wilderness Regiments of the Kingdom of Orvillas. They therefore adopted a pattern of position attack defense, excavating trenches and constructing defensive installations awaiting the arrival of troops from the kingdom of Ovieras, offsetting the invincible advantage of the kingdom of Ovieras in the field. Ultimately, the war was dragged to the point where both sides were exhausted and unsustainable, with successful meetings and the signing of a truce peace agreement.

To some extent, the First Eastern Regional War has changed the traditional pattern of field warfare in the history of warfare on the Farea continent for nearly a millennium. Even countries with small strengths know which tactics to use when military forces do not prevail. Later, the colonial wars between the kingdoms of Ovilas and Hicks in the Nubian continent broke the bottom line of traditional field rivalries.

First came the weak Rangers, who used various strategies to lure their enemies into deception and won two colonial wars. Later, five divisions of the Overseas Territories' war zones were formed, more so by sweeping four regiments across the Kingdom of the Hicks, and forcibly occupying the Port Vibato colony of the Kingdom of the Hicks, transforming it into the eighth direct overseas jurisdiction.

These three colonial wars opened the eyes of the countries of the Farea continent, so much so that two years later the Kingdom of the Hicks came to the fore that almost all the countries of the Farea continent were attracted to the attention of the colonies of the Rodex Bay, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which were rented at high prices to continue the colonial war. At that time, the Kingdom of Ovilas was engaged in a civil war over the Second Kings, with only two regiments in the Overseas Territories, while the Kingdom of Hicks invested in 10 standing regiments, so that virtually no one would have preferred the Overseas Territories to win.

The first Legion of Thunder attacked the main battalion of the Expeditionary Force of the Kingdom of Hicks, fortunately winning, while the Expeditionary Force of the Kingdom of Hicks lost only two and a half legions, especially its strength. The Second Expeditionary Force of the Kingdom of Hicks returned teeth and landed in a fishing port town under the direct control of the Overseas Territories and forced it into rubble at Langhu City, where the war zone was located.

But the Legion of Thunder came a long way, and the immediate battlefield survived this catastrophe, and the three Hicks regiments landed in the opposite direction were surrounded by the army. Later, the Legion of Thunder attacked the home battalion of the Expeditionary Force of the Kingdom of Hicks again and joined forces with the Rock Regiment to destroy all the Expeditionary Forces of the Kingdom of Hicks, eventually winning this colonial war.

In the final quantum of the colonial war, new rifles equipped by two regiments in the Overseas Territories' war zones began to attract the attention of the countries of the Farea continent. The power of such new rifles far outweighed that of the firing ropes listed by States, but the situation with regard to new rifles was rarely revealed owing to the tight security of the Overseas Territories' war zones.

Until later, when the Kingdom of Ovilas had gone through so much, the Overseas Territories had become autonomous and the theatres had become military zones. In the name of helping Grand Duke Siddins and Grand Duke Rimodra to recover, the Kingdom of Hicks raided and occupied a new occupation of the Kingdom of Ovilas. The King of the Kingdom of Ovieras has undergone mutiny and Frederick I has assumed power, and the Kingdom of Hicks has led the formation of the Association of Eastern States. There was a debt war between the Kingdom of Nasseri and the Kingdom of Auvellas, and the Association of Eastern States intervened to form coalitions to attack the Kingdom of Auvellas.

Then two regiments of overseas autonomous territories returned to their kingdoms for reinforcement. As a result, the Union of Eastern States was destroyed. Few more than 700,000 troops remained in the Alliance. Four countries were destroyed. The entire eastern part of the unified Farea continent of the Kingdom of Ovieras was destroyed. The advent of new rifles and new artillery in the Second Eastern War, as well as the Ironclad fleet, has changed the pattern of war dramatically, and the victory of the war is no longer based on the strength of both sides of the war, but on the power of new weapons.

With the strength of a division, the Legion of Thunder is more than enough to defend itself against the attack of the four Legions of the Allied Army, inflicting massive casualties on the enemy while withdrawing at the side of the battle, luring the Allied Army under the Royal City of Polyvinia and laying the foundation for the victory of the battle. That's why Claude thought that in the future, it would be perfectly possible to replace the regiment with a division, that the troops were sophisticated rather than superfluous, and that there was no need to build up the force to expand into a large regiment model.

General Bolognick, however, did not believe that he had told Claude an inside message that the Prime Minister of the Kingdom, Marquis Blancat, had written to him in private to tell him that in the next three years the Kingdom would not have the capacity to govern or invest financially in the areas of Nasserley, Kanas, Eskilin, Rimodra and Siddins. So it takes two regiments of overseas autonomous military districts to hold these districts for three years, first to accumulate some tax wealth to support the restoration of the kingdom's native vitality, then to return the jurisdiction of these districts to the King's court...

This is surprising news that the Crown has entrusted the Overseas Self-Governing Territories with the administration of these areas in lieu of the Kingdom for three years. However, the official delegation was not made public, and this was just a private conversation. General Bolonik said that it was a reward given by the Royal Court to the Overseas Autonomous Territories and Military Regions, and that the Kingdom did not have the financial means to honour the merits of the Legion of Thunder and the Legion of Rock for the Kingdom, so it was compensated for disguising itself in this way.

Jurisdiction of these areas for three years means that, with the exception of the taxes and tributes assigned to the Royal Court, the proceeds of trade in these areas will be entirely in the hands of the Overseas Autonomous Territories, which will be a tremendous asset. At the same time, it is perfectly possible to emigrate from these areas to the overseas autonomous territories within three years, while the King's Court pretends not to be visible. After all, it was an enemy country before, and more immigrants would alleviate the difficulties of the Kingdom in managing these areas in the future.

“Well, the Legion of Thunder will be enlarged by one more division, and suitable men will be selected from among the old parts of the Grand Prince to fill the vacancies left by the two Legions this time they sacrificed their martyrs. Let General Beechlin come and take charge of this expansion and replenishment, and McJackie will be his deputy.” Claude made the decision, as General Bolognick said, that the Legion of Thunder really needed to expand to cover so many places.

“As for the prisoners you want, nearly 100,000 soldiers from the former Kingdom of Nasri here, along with their families, can take you to Arturas. But there are more than a hundred thousand prisoners left in the Kingdom of Hicks, and I'm not going to let them go to the Overseas Autonomous Territories and let them fix the road here first..." Claude continued.