Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 566: Headache Claude

In March of 605, Claude received two good news, one bad news. The good news is that the two standing regiments of the Kingdom of Hicks stationed at the entrance to the Manoli Plains, the Dakhley and Faklin Legions, laid down their arms and gave way to three local counties, the Koona seaport, the Port of Patkara and the Manoli Plains, which means that eight local counties along the southern coast of the Kingdom of Hicks are already firmly in the hands of the Autonomous Territory.

The occupation of the eight southern coastal counties by the Thunder Division and the Allied Coalition Forces of the Kingdom of Breot meant that the five seaport towns had opened their doors to an overseas autonomous maritime convoy. The relatives and families of the eight Hicks Return Regiment officers and soldiers gathered in Wangdu will have a safe and direct access to the seaport and will be transported to the Northern Gulf on board a vessel from the Ocean Transport Fleet to the mainland of Nubicia as official immigrants to the overseas autonomous territories...

In accordance with the agreement reached between the Autonomous Territory and the Kingdom of Breot, the three counties of the Koona Sea Port, the Port of Patcala and the Plains of Manoli, all of which were forcibly divided by the Kingdom of Hicks more than three decades ago from the Kingdom of Breot, will be returned to the Kingdom of Breot upon recovery of the three counties. Claude, on the other hand, chose the port of Pat Carla as a seaport for relatives of the Hicks Return Regiment officers and soldiers to board the ship because security was more secure.

The King of the Kingdom of Breot, Avettelli I, was instrumental in this attempt to persuade the Daghley and Faklin Legions to lay down their arms and surrender to the Autonomous Territory. The Dahli Regiment was originally a local regiment formed in the three counties of the Plains of Manoli, and most of its officers and soldiers were locals whose fathers remembered themselves as nationals of the Kingdom of Breot. For this reason, the envoys sent by Avitre I came in contact with them very smoothly, and finally Avitre I took the risk of travelling personally to persuade a large part of the Dakhley army to return to their home countries.

The Facklin Legion, on the other hand, is a lonely army, isolated after the return of the Daghley Legion to the Kingdom of Breot. The three Mountain Regiments of the Legion of Thunder and the Kingdom of Breot were both deterred from sweeping the strength of the 350,000 armies that the Buckler Regiment and the Bruce Regiment had assembled, and because there was now only one standing legion left with more than 60,000 men. Coupled with the exchange of the two Legion Chiefs, under the persuasion and introduction of the Legion Chiefs of the Dahli Legion, the weapons were pushed down like water to preserve the lives of the entire Legion's officers and soldiers...

The second good news came from General Albert, who guarded Wang Jing, and after three and a half months of mapping operations, the Storm Regiment and four Hicks Returning Division generals captured a total of 270,000 so-called hostile resistance elements and resistance suspects in the city of San Hiprian and Wang Jing districts of Wang Jing. In the process, more than 41,000 resistance elements were shot or stabbed in the spot for possession of weapons and hostile acts of resistance. The Storm Regiment and the Hicks Return Regiment officers and soldiers were responsible for nearly 6,000 casualties during the capture and mapping operations.

The end of the mapping exercise meant that the city of San Hiprian in Wang Jing and the district of Wang Jing were indeed under the control of the autonomous military region and that security order had been restored locally and within the city. Perhaps there are still resistance groups in the dark. But, at the very least, there will be no more shooting at the occupiers in broad daylight. And the Storm Regiment and the Hicks Return Regiment are no longer in danger of spending their lives in a tavern near the barracks.

This good news clearly means that the Autonomous Territory has complete control of the situation in the city of San Xiprian and the Wangjing area of Wangjing, but the good news implicitly is that in the process of identifying and apprehending the resistance elements, the total value of the scratches has reached almost 30 million gold kroner.

The folk of the Kingdom of Hicks have been more affluent than Claude had ever imagined. Together with the seizure of the Royal Hicks Inner Reservoir, the property currently being searched in the city of San Hiplian and the Wangjing area of Wangjing alone has met the desired target of 50 million gold kroner before the Autonomous Territory's troop contribution. General Albert even thought that he could just let go of the big robbery in the city of San Hiplian and the Wang Jing area and retire...

This, of course, is bullshit. The looting of property from the Kingdom of Hicks to cover future financial expenditures of the Overseas Autonomous Territories is not the main reason, although it is a reason for the troop contribution to the Kingdom of Hicks. The biggest problem at present is transporting the families and relatives of the eight members of the Hicks Return Corps to the Overseas Autonomous Territories, under the responsibility of the local administrations of the Autonomous Territories, to give the immigrant families an estate or property for their integration into the Autonomous Territories.

It is estimated that the number of relatives of a former SLA soldier ranges from five to six, so that the overseas SLA will receive more than 3 million new immigrants. But it now appears that this number will far exceed the original estimate, because the 560,000 military families gathered in the city of San Hiplian in Wangjing, counting only the families and relatives of less than 40,000 members of the Return Regiment, almost every soldier gathered more than doubled the number of relatives.

Originally, these soldiers who participated in the Expeditionary Army of the Kingdom of Hicks were the most despicable serfs and inhabitants of society, and if the colonial war prevailed, the soldiers were discharged home as serfs and inhabitants and their status remained unchanged. But now the Kingdom of Hicks had failed in the colonial war, and those soldiers had been taken prisoner and had served in bonded labour overseas. Now that the overseas autonomous leaders have agreed to allow them to emigrate with their families, this is the best opportunity to change the status of society.

Even if they're all little people, they think and seize the best opportunity. When I found my family, I took all my friends and family with me, so I changed my name and became a cousin. Some even married their wives, and then they were bright enough to take their wives with them, so that their relatives suddenly became more. This situation was encountered once by the overseas autonomous territories, also in order to obtain free pastures from immigrants, so that the officers and soldiers of the Legion of Thunder and the Legion of Rock brought more than two million so-called relatives from the mainland of the Kingdom.

But then the Thunder Legion and the Rock Legion combined for over 100,000 men, and now the eight Hicks Return Regiments for nearly 300,000 men. The Overseas Autonomous Territories also had more than 200,000 missed Hicks prisoners who, although unable to join the Return Division, dragged their comrades back to their families and relatives and had compiled rosters.

If that were the case, the number of people expected to emigrate to the overseas autonomous territories would more than double, which would be the greatest difficulty for the overseas autonomous territories, after all, from the Kingdom of Hicks to White Deer City to the overseas autonomous port of Cobichous, where maritime navigation would almost double.

Back and forth from the port of Bai Lu in the mainland of the Kingdom to the port of Cobichous, about every two months, the Overseas Autonomous Territories mobilized all the shipping vessels, together with the help of the Kingdom's storm fleet, which accomplished this enormous transport task in a year and a half. The Overseas Autonomous Territory Ocean Fleet now boasts more than 400 large ocean sailboats and an Ironclad Fleet escort capable of transporting 450,000 people at a time. Seems like a lot of luck, but the same stretches the voyage by three months, only four times a year, up to two million people.

So the increase in the number of relatives of the Hicks Return Corps, both officers and soldiers, meant that the increase in the number of immigrant overseas self-governing citizens was accompanied by additional problems. Two regiments in the Overseas Autonomous Territories need to stay longer in the Kingdom of Hicks, spend more on these immigrants, spend more war, and need more sea shipping...

Four months have elapsed since the Legion of Thunder and Storm in the Autonomous Territory surprised the city of St. Hiplian, Wang Jing, in the Kingdom of the Hicks. Those local counties in the Hicks kingdom have reacted by summoning young men and women to assemble local guards to wage a people's war against the invasion of the Kingdom of Ovilas and the Overseas Autonomous Territories, led by territorial nobles or local officials.

Since the beginning of the New Year, the Allied Lords have suffered a lot of losses. They have taken possession of the ten western counties from Claude. In fact, they have the right to loot property. This land belongs to you. Any amount of money you can loot is your own gain, and the Autonomous Territory does not care. Nearly 100,000 horses of aristocratic allies have invaded three local counties in the west from the beginning, burning and looting, doing whatever they want, or not doing anything evil...

The bad news spread in these three counties, and counties elsewhere became vigilant and began to assemble local guards to fight these heinous bandits and robbers. After eating and wiping out those three unlucky local counties, the noble coalition was resolutely resisted when preparing to attack the neighboring counties. The battle finally took over a local county, but found that the county had already been cleared of solid walls, guerrilla battle squads were everywhere, and the noble coalition had suffered some casualties for a while, and had to send a messenger to the Legion of Thunder in the hope that Claude could pull them off.

Claude also wrote directly, rejecting a request from the coalition of nobles. In fact, 100,000 aristocratic coalitions are already a very powerful force. The problem is that these aristocratic coalitions robbed everyone of their full backpacks in the first three western counties and now face a hard battle to live and fear death, hoping that the Legion of Thunder will come to make them cake. Let the Legion of Thunder do it, rob and make their own fortune, really consider the Autonomous Leadership Region as a pinching role for them...

The encounter of local resistance by the coalition of nobles had long been anticipated by Claude, not to mention the coalition of nobles, and the seriousness of the situation was evident from reports of troops sent by the Hicks Return Division to various counties to search for the families and relatives of officers and soldiers. In the first three months, officers and soldiers of the Hicks Return Division of a battalion were able to penetrate the counties, whether in aristocratic territory or royally administered towns, and their movements were very smooth and progressing very well.

In this regard, all the officers and soldiers of the Hicks Return Division who impersonated the soldiers of the Kingdom of Hicks went to search for the families of the Expeditionary Officers and received assistance and hospitality from the local authorities. Initially, local officials and territorial nobles also wanted information from their mouths about the current situation, questioning them and taking away the families of these expeditionary officers and soldiers, and being used by these Returning Division officers and soldiers for hostage-taking and prisoner exchange to fool them...

Over time, however, these Returning Division units, which had travelled to various counties to locate the families of Expeditionary Officers and soldiers, also faced increasing difficulties, having been questioned not only by local officials and territorial nobles, but also besieged by local guards. Even well-informed territorial nobles have taken the families of the expeditionaries hostage, so much so that the Return Corps has had to abandon its programme of sending small units into the counties to bring back family members of its officers and soldiers.

Even the Red Dragon Corps, which entered the Kingdom of Hicks to sweep the central county of Orvillas, reported tough resistance to occupying two local counties. However, the Red Dragon Corps, armed with new rifles, was quite strong and easily crushed the rebellious areas to guard their armaments. The only weakness was the excessive consumption of bullets, which they thought could last until the end of the war with three million rounds of ammunition before marching out, and the unexpected consumption of one-third of the new rifle bullets in just two counties...

Prime Minister Blancat deliberately sent a message to Claude asking the Autonomous Territory to bear the ammunition depletion of the Red Dragon Corps. Claude likewise refused the unreasonable request and replied that the bullet was to be bought with money. Paralysis You robbed a local county for at least a million gold kroner, and you asked me to consume this bullet supply, how dare you say that...

Claude now has a lot of headaches, most notably the reunification of officers and soldiers of the eight Hicks Return Regiments with their families and relatives, and transportation issues. At present, the eight counties in the south and the overseas autonomous territories alone, the counties already occupied by the coalition of nobles and the Red Dragon Corps, have gathered close to 780,000 military dependants, which has had a significant impact on the supply of goods in the autonomous territories.

While sufficient material is currently seized from the Kingdom of Hicks, the longer the army is assembled, the more material consumed is an astronomically numerical expense. So it is imperative that Claude get the first soldiers aboard as soon as possible to the Overseas Autonomous Territories so that they can return to normal life as immigrants.

As for the battle reports submitted by the Hicks Return Division, Claude thought it would be better to wait for now. Those returning division officers and soldiers who were anxious to reunite with their relatives wrote letters to the Front Line Command of the Autonomous Leadership Region, voluntarily demanding to attack their home county and rescue their families and relatives...

Claude instructed his deputies to be patient in responding to these officers' and soldiers' battles, etc., and when Front Line Command arranged a strategic layout, the Command Force would sweep the entire Kingdom of Hicks and would definitely free the families and relatives of all the troops. It's just a matter of urgency and sequencing. It depends on the actual situation and changes in the situation. I just hope everyone has a little patience or something...

Bullshit, now go attack those local counties, then the soldiers of the assembled returning division will soon become a burden on the front-line command of the autonomous territorial military region and the occupying forces. The more troops assembled before the ocean fleet returns, the more burdensome the burden will be, let them stay in the counties for a few more months...

People are always forced by real problems and have to learn to think about real problems. In addition to the issue of military gatherings, there is also the issue of prisoners, which afflicts all senior officers of the Front Line Command of the Autonomous Territories equally.

To date, more than half a million prisoners have been captured by two regiments attached to the Autonomous Territory, including officers and soldiers of the four collapsed Hicks Standing Army regiments, local guards for prisoners who surrendered armed, as well as resistance elements captured by the Storm Regiment and the Hicks Returning Regiment during their inventory operations in the Wangjing area and the city of San Hiprian in Wangjing, as well as local officials and territorial nobility. And the care of so many prisoners has become a major problem.

Killing them all is the most definitive solution, but the problem is that they can't be done or killed. Otherwise, once the news of the massacre of prisoners was spread, the Overseas Autonomous Territories became a negative role for all the countries of the Farea continent to cry out for, and nobody could shoulder that responsibility. Wanfu was referring to the end of the disease, and no one in the Autonomous Territory was willing to be the butcher.

Return to the Overseas Autonomous Territories to dig? That's a good idea, but be alert, and with this shipping capability, Claude wouldn't be worried about the military gathering. At present, even those military dependants need to travel every three months to return to the overseas self-governing territories to transport these prisoners...

It is even more unlikely that these prisoners, once released, will ensure that the Kingdom of Hicks is more resilient than ever before, and that is simply placing themselves in trouble for the operations to be carried out by the Front Line Command of the Autonomous Territories. But the problem is that so many prisoners are held together, which involves a great deal of human, material and energy on the part of Front Line Command, and that the care of these prisoners alone requires a Hicks Return Division. Fortunately, these prisoners do not need to eat and wear warmth, get some wooden sheds to shield them from the wind and rain, and it is enough for the captives to huddle together and warm...

Fortunately, King Avettelli I of the Kingdom of Breot, who decided to select 200,000 prisoners after the rainy season and escort them back to the Manoli Plains for full development. This is good news for the Autonomous Territory Front Line Command, and Claude himself negotiated with Avettelli I to say the least he promised to take 300,000 young and powerful prisoners.

Whether these 300,000 young and powerful prisoners are escorted back to the Breot kingdom to open wasteland, go into mountain mining, or build roads and bridges, they are stronger than letting the Autonomous Territory Front Line Command keep these prisoners for nothing. At the very least, it is a good thing for Claude that these hot-handed gourds get rid of most of them. As for whether these prisoners are dead or alive in the Breot kingdom, it has nothing to do with the Autonomous Territory...

It took Claude half a month to think there was a Hicks Standing Army waiting for him to fall. He hastily summoned Colonel Bock Al to gather intelligence on this Facklin Regiment and show himself what to do with this surrendered Hicks Regiment...