I will be crowned king

June of the 100th year of the Apostolic Calendar was a month full of darkness for the Carinthians.

In less than thirty days, they experienced the collapse of the Seven Cities Alliance, the disintegration of the order of the land, the rout of the Ysel elves, the rebellion of the ocean fleet, the invasion of Clovis, and the rebellion of Aiden...

Carindia, which was once extremely rich, now has its shipping routes cut off, and only one-half of its land trade remains; one-third of its territory has been ravaged by former allies, leaving only a piece of scorched earth, and two-thirds of its territory is now Thun —Clovis Union Occupation Zone.

Even their pride, the great port of Carindia, the leading city in the entire land, has now become the barracks of the Storm Division.

In order to ensure the prosperity and stability of the Carindia Port—actually to completely control the city and facilitate cutting leeks—Anson Bach took Major Fabian’s suggestion and split the Storm Division into two parts to attack Carindia. Port zoning control and occupation.

This is actually the former "Guards model". The core main force is stationed in the Lighthouse Palace to intimidate the Carindia Parliament; the remaining troops are organized into companies and establish military stations on various main roads and communities in the city to monitor the entire city.

At the same time, the Storm Division recruited three thousand "Carindia Regiment" from the city's taverns and slums - only giving them the simplest weapons and the minimum ammunition, allowing them to fly under the banner of Clovis Patrol the streets.

The advantage of this is that the Storm Division can control a large city with a population of tens of thousands with the lowest cost and manpower, and with the "Carindia Regiment" sandwiched in the middle, the Storm Division does not need to directly conflict with the citizens in the city. You can also act as a mediator to resolve problems.

The disadvantage is that just like the former Guards, this kind of control is very unstable and can only be a temporary emergency measure. Once the Storm Division leaves, the city will immediately lose control... but it does meet Anson's current needs.

And even if this method is really low-level, it is only for the Clovis people, or the officers who came from Clovis city; for Hantu, whose military tactics are extremely backward, the simple and crude "Guards model" is useless. It’s already a very advanced gameplay.

Their military level was still at the feudal level. They couldn't understand why the Clovis people could so easily divide and combine the army at will, and still keep the army disciplined and obey orders?

But no matter what the reason was, after seeing that the Storm Division completed control of the Carindia Port in just three days, the Carindia nobles finally bowed their heads and admitted defeat unwillingly.

Of course, it is unrealistic and impossible to ask Carindia to spend 1.8 million gold coins immediately, but 800,000 gold coins is still no problem.

With a flick of the little clerk's quill on the ledger, there were only crying rats left in Carindia's treasury.

As for how to solve the remaining one million, "not worth mentioning" Alan Dawn also proposed a solution to the Carindia Council that sounded very good and excellent.

That's an IOU.

It's not that the Carinthians gave the Stormmaster an IOU, but the opposite. It was the Stormmaster who wrote down the IOU, and then handed it over to the Archbishop of the Vast Cathedral, who then asked the Carindia Council for payment—— Until one million gold coins are reached.

Of course, it involves one million gold coins, which is by no means a small amount even for the church, and it is even more impossible to guarantee Carindia for no reason - even if the relationship between the two parties is really good - there is absolutely no collateral. No way.

So Archbishop Hantu, who was very talkative, made a particularly "generous" suggestion: the Lighthouse Palace and the port of Carindia Port.

If the Carindia Council cannot honor the one million IOU on time, it will pledge a commission from one-half of the annual income of the Carindia Port.

If the annual revenue from the port cannot fill the hole, then the church will unconditionally have the "temporary ownership" of the Lighthouse Palace. Every family with official positions and seats in the Carindia Parliament will have to pay a sum of money to the cathedral according to their status and position. , as a "rent" for "renting the Lighthouse Palace".

This is to ensure that the Carindia Council, which is extremely good at corruption and corruption, will never default on its debts.

Finally, this treaty has an additional clause, that is, if the Carindia Parliament has not paid off the million in more than ten years, then Hantu Cathedral will directly own half of the Lighthouse Palace and Carindia Port. until redeemed by the Council of Carindia.

In this way, the storm division was equivalent to getting a million in white notes from the church, and could use the money to "justifiably" loot all the supplies in the Carindia Port without restraint.

And the church did not suffer any losses - all the financial operations of the Storm Master were handled through the accounts of Hantu Cathedral. It was equivalent to getting the money from the Storm Master with the left hand and lending it to Anson Bach with the right hand. There was no loss at all. What's more, there is Carindia's treasury to provide the final scoop.

So everyone is very satisfied with the result, and it can be said that everyone is happy.

There is also a "little episode" in the middle - regarding Carindia's compensation, whether it should be distributed according to spoils of war or according to convention.

If according to the rules of spoils of war, then the Storm Division can fully absorb the money, and at the same time distribute it fairly according to previous experience; if it is according to the convention, the Storm Division has no right to seize the compensation paid by the enemy country and must hand it over to the army for disposal .

In the past few times, because the amount was not too high, and there was not much cash but supplies, the embezzlement was embezzled; but now Carindia really took out 800,000 in cash, and if he concealed it, Luther Vichy could not protect his little army colonel.

However, the Storm Division was generally dissatisfied with this result - if it was reported to the Army and the Privy Council, leaving aside the one million IOU, according to regulations, the Storm Division could only receive a quarter of the 800,000 compensation at most. Just two hundred thousand.

Of course, 200,000 is really a lot, but for a group of guys whose appetite has long been cultivated by Hantu, a mere 200,000 can be divided evenly among the 5,000 Stormtroopers, so that they can make a living in the Green Valley. They couldn't accept being beaten to death.

After all, the purpose of their coming to the Southern Legion was to make a fortune. The reason why they were willing to join the Storm Division, a side division destined to have no future, was because Anson promised that there would be more money here than the main force of the Southern Legion.

This incident even affected the morale of the army. The disaster caused by Anson's previous "spoils equalization system" was finally exposed at this moment; the soldiers who originally had little to do with the money also began to pay attention to it because it was closely related to their own interests. There were voices of dissatisfaction with the Army.

So Anson, who had just been happy for a few days, once again encountered the same dilemma as before.

……………………

"So what should we do about this?"

Anson, who was holding his shoulders, raised the legs of his chair with a depressed expression and looked at Karl and the others.

The chief of staff, who was holding a glass of rum, and the commander of the Grenadier Corps, who was drinking coffee with sugar, looked at each other and couldn't say anything.

The little clerk in the corner of the room obediently lowered his head and processed documents and accounts lists. Except for the "rustling" sound made by the pen tip, he was as quiet as a delicate sculpture.

The three of them stared at each other in silence for five minutes.

In the end, it was Fabian who broke the dead silence - not because he was so loyal, but because he choked on his coffee and was stared at by two people at the same time, and had to speak.

"I think...ahem..." Clearing his throat, Fabian carefully placed the scalding coffee on the table, and then looked at Anson:

"We can't fight against the Army and the Privy Council, or at least we can't fight openly; the risk to you and all the officers of the entire Storm Division is too great. If you are not careful, it is very likely to be blacklisted - demoted and exiled. At the very least, if things go wrong, we will be thrown into some hellish place, and our lives will not be saved, and we will have to take the blame for the mistakes of some big shots."

Anson glanced at Karl next to him: "For example?"

"For example... throw you or one of us into a certain position or city that is destined to be lost." Fabian thought for a moment: "Or exile us to the eastern front, or to guard the mines in the frozen colonies in the north... As long as It’s not impossible that you don’t have the general’s badge on your chest yet.”

"Even if you are a general, the Privy Council can confine you to a fortress or the countryside where you will never have to fight, and let you grow moldy and be forgotten until you enter the grave... So we must not confront the army or the Privy Council head-on. "

"My Lord, no one here wants to go against the Privy Council." Karl rolled his eyes:

"The problem is that if we report it truthfully, those idiots who were blinded by 800,000 gold coins will definitely cause trouble - they don't care whether they will be exiled to the colonies, they just feel that the gold has entered their Pocket!"

"No, I don't think it's because they are stupid." Fabian objected:

"I think it's simply because they have been too idle recently - after winning the Battle of Green Valley, the Storm Division has no combat target for the time being, which is why they have so many random thoughts."

"Then what do you mean..."

"Either find other things as soon as possible to distract them; or reorganize the army as soon as possible and prepare for the next military operation." Fabian said solemnly:

"It won't be long before the news of the defeat of the Principality of Ayden will definitely fall into the ears of the Grand Duchy of Mist; if they surrender like Carindia out of fear - although I think it is unlikely, then we will lose another A great opportunity to hunt for loot!”

It's not that Karl couldn't understand Fabian's proposal. The army is like this. It can only maintain discipline and organization when there is something to do. Once there is nothing to do, it will immediately start thinking wildly.

But this does not mean that he agrees with the other party's proposal: "This is not possible! Let alone Carindia, we have not even digested the resources in the eastern part of the land; not to mention that we currently know basically nothing about the Grand Duchy of Myster , what’s the difference between entering rashly and risking death?!”

"I'm just giving you a suggestion, not to mention that it doesn't have to attack Mist - as long as you can divert the attention of those idiots from gold to other places."

Fabian shrugged and glanced at Anson thoughtfully: "It can also be done in other ways."

"For example?" Karl raised his eyebrows.

"for example……"

A mysterious smile suddenly appeared on the face of the former Guards officer: "The deputy commander was suddenly assassinated?"

The room suddenly became quiet.

"What?" Looking at the two people who suddenly fell into silence with complicated expressions, Fabian was stunned for a moment:

"Did I say something wrong?"

"No, that's a good suggestion." Anson smiled reluctantly:

"Just for a short period of time, I don't want to be assassinated again."

Um?

Fabian's expression became even more confused.

Anson stopped looking at the two people and turned his attention to the little clerk in the corner: "Alan, what do you think?"

"I didn't think about anything, Lord Anson Bach." The young man raised his head with a smile, and his tone sounded very proud:

"I am your humble scribe, whose only thought is to realize your ideas."

I almost forgot, this is a ruthless working machine... Anson's cheek twitched slightly.

"But if it's about money, your humble secretary does have a small suggestion, which may give you some inspiration." Alan Dawn changed the topic and continued to smile:

"We can't go head-to-head with the Army and the Privy Council, but on the other hand, it's not going to be that easy for them to get the money."

Fabian's eyes suddenly lit up when he heard these words, as if he had guessed something:

"Can you explain it in detail?"

"Eight hundred thousand church gold coins, if converted into banknotes, would be equivalent to a wall. If converted into cash, it would be 400,000 kilograms, which is four hundred tons. Of course, according to the standard gold content ratio of church gold coins, it is only about four tons of pure gold, but it is still extremely A terrifying number." The little secretary explained:

"With such a large sum of money, it would have been impossible for the Privy Council to transport them from Carindia Port to the treasury in Clovis City unless there was absolute cooperation from the Church of Order."

"This involves many links, so if you really need it, I can try to delay every step and let the money be handed over as late as possible." The little clerk smiled.

"Later?" Karl was stunned for a moment and did not react:

"What's the use?"

"On the contrary, it's very useful." A knowing smile appeared on Fabian's face:

"As long as we delay it late enough, we just need to make sure that 800,000 gold coins are handed over to the Privy Council in the end - it doesn't matter whether that 800,000 gold coins or not."

"It's official." The little secretary nodded slightly:

"At the same time, we can do a lot of things with this money - even if we can only hold such a huge sum of money temporarily, there are many ways to make a profit."

Karl, who had no idea what they were talking about, could only shake his head and turned his gaze to Anson: "What are you going to do?"

"Go to Leon Francois and ask him to go to Jinshi City in person immediately." Anson thought for a moment and then said:

"Wait until the beginning of July, unite Aiden and Thun, and attack the Grand Duchy of Mist."

If you want to collect 800,000 gold coins, you must find new enemies and attack directions - indeed, for me, war is the primary productive force!