I will be crowned king

After leaving the tavern, Anson did not go to the port area, but chose to wander around aimlessly. At the same time, he used the ability of the conjurer to change the shape of the casting range to control the location of the supernatural observation outside the Red Beard Tavern for surveillance.

If the other party makes any big move immediately, it proves that they have been exposed just now; if the other party still pretends that nothing happened, then there is a high probability that they are just being vigilant, and at most they have discovered some abnormalities.

Twenty minutes later, the tavern was still filled with bustling noises, and nothing had changed.

Anson breathed a sigh of relief before turning around and walking into the alley, leaving the port area in the direction he came from and heading towards the church in the parliament area.

Generally speaking, a Universalist church is quite simple - as the sect most opposed to the church, Universalist Church insists that so-called rituals are extravagant and wasteful gimmicks. Anyone who is pious to the Ring of Order can do anything anytime, anywhere. Anyone can pray, and there is absolutely no need to make the “residence of God” look like a palace.

But now this core stronghold used by the garrison to maintain urban security has nothing to do with "crudeness"; even though it didn't last long, the Storm Division still transformed it as much as possible under limited conditions - a tall sentry Tower, surrounded by a protective wall with anti-climbing spikes, and a fence to block the road...

It's like "upgrading" a building in the game. Apart from its general shape, it's hard to connect this building with a history almost as long as Beluga Harbor.

Fabian and Karl have even planned to buy the houses around the church, demolish them, and then build a small arsenal, dormitories for city patrols, arrest rooms, interrogation rooms, and underground prison cells on the vacant land to completely transform the church. Build it into a small fortress that can control most of the city.

One of them had no experience in managing public security, and the other was only good at violent law enforcement and arrest and interrogation. The base camp of the security team in Beluga Port that they imagined was probably a military base and a large prison.

Entering the church, the hall originally used for prayer has been transformed into a semi-open office, and even a dedicated rest area and reception area have been drawn.

Due to the current lack of manpower and the fact that this place was originally a church, this headquarters also assumes half of the responsibilities of a court. It spends most of its time dealing with all kinds of trivial "civil disputes", from extortion and pickpocketing to neighbor relations. Within the jurisdiction of the Storm Division.

Pushing the door open and walking into Carl Bain's room, Anson looked at the chief of staff who was processing documents with two dark circles under his eyes. Anson said directly without politeness:

"Send a platoon to the port area. I have found the whereabouts of the Faithless Knights."

The stunned Carl Bain stared blankly at Anson who barged in without saying hello. He was stunned for a full minute before he understood the meaning of what he just said:

"Are you finally going to kill them all?"

"No, it's just surveillance for now." Anson sat down and took the wine bottle on the table and poured himself a glass:

"I have roughly figured out the location of their stronghold and negotiated the terms of exchange. What I need to do now is to prevent them from splitting internally and causing commotion in Beluga Port."

Since the Faithless Knights are really related to the Crecy family, Anson certainly cannot let go of such a good opportunity to obtain the "Great Magic Book".

Judging from the process of their internal negotiations, Ian Clemens, who claims to be the "leader of the Faithless Knights", does not have a decisive say among his friends, and even needs to persuade and explain to others. There seems to be information that others don't have.

This proves that either they have a clear internal hierarchy, or the Faithless Knights are not a strict organization, and the origins and identities of the members are relatively complicated. They barely maintain unity for the same goal or reason, and are not as unbreakable as they thought before.

The advantage of this relatively loose organization is that it is easy to break down one by one. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to reach an agreement with everyone in one go, and you may have to persuade them one by one.

"Let a platoon enter the port area and be careful not to move around, right?" Carl Bain understood, but at the same time he also had a trace of concern:

"But will they really not regard it as a demonstration and provocation?"

"As long as there is a suitable enough excuse, no." Anson's mouth showed a proud arc:

"Let them station themselves near Wetzler's residence in the name of 'protecting Chairman Mason Wetzler'; by the way, let the cavalry company go over and maintain traffic security in the port area - remember to bring the two cavalry cannons." .”

This is definitely a good excuse to kill two birds with one stone.

On the one hand, this can be used to intimidate the Faithless Knights, so that they dare not act rashly and think that they can still fight back.

On the other hand, this can also express his attitude to the entire Beluga Port, letting everyone know that Chairman Mason Wetzler is "a good person that the garrison commander can absolutely trust". He has abandoned a certain speaker who has lost power and has taken refuge in a brighter future.

"No problem - since we have to send the cavalry company over, I'll let Lieutenant Jason lead the team." Carl shrugged and glanced at Anson, who was obviously a little too proud:

"Are you really sure you want to negotiate with them?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you weren't like this before."

Karl stared directly at Anson: "I almost got killed last night, and today I want to make them my own... Did you make the wrong move, my Lord Commander?"

"What's wrong...isn't it always like this?" Anson chuckled a few times:

"The fewer enemies the better, the more friends the better - isn't that how we won the Hantu War?"

"Yes, the premise is that you either know the details of the opponent, or it is profitable, and you can escape anytime and anywhere." Karl said word by word:

"You rush to take action without even knowing who the other party is... The last time you did this was when you received a letter from Ludwig asking for help and had to storm the Iron Bell Castle."

Anson's expression froze.

Karl lowered his body and leaned forward from behind the table, his expression suddenly became cautious: "Is there any other reason?"

"...Yes." Anson lowered his voice so that only two people could hear him.

Carl paused, and then asked another question slightly nervously: "Then...is it better that I don't know?"

Anson nodded imperceptibly.

It's not that he doesn't trust Karl. In fact, it's because the two of them have a tacit understanding that Anson wants to avoid exposing him to these things as much as possible; the less he knows, the safer he is, and often this is taken literally.

Carl Bain also understands this, so he just won't ask if he shouldn't ask; the occasional "crossing the line" is also due to the work requirements of the position of Chief of Staff. He is not only responsible for the Storm Division, but also must be responsible for Anson's whereabouts and The security situation is well understood.

"By the way, there's one more thing." While Anson didn't leave, Karl took a document from the side:

"Bishop Ripper found me this afternoon. He wants the Promise Keepers League to also participate in maintaining security in Beluga Harbor - not just some simple supervision and publicity work, but also to have some people participate in patrols... with weapons. "

"What do you think?" Anson took the document, but did not open it immediately.

"I think it's a matter of time." Karl shrugged and said quite directly:

"If you want to manage a port city with tens of thousands of people, one or two thousand people is not enough. It is good that there are fewer people on the streets in winter, but spring is coming, and then just maintaining security at the port will take up a lot of manpower. "

"This protest march is a particularly good example - without the cooperation of the Promise Keepers League and the clergy, the 2nd Infantry Regiment and the Cavalry Company alone would not be able to keep thousands of people in order and prevent them from running around; even so, it is difficult to control the march The team also wasted a lot of our manpower, and several communities were almost empty except for the soldiers who stayed at the strongholds."

Hmm... This is considered a common problem in city management. Anson frowned slightly.

The gathered population has brought about a rich labor force and consumer market, which is also the basis for the rise of industry and commerce, but with it comes management problems; rural areas with a dispersed population can solve most problems by self-government and regular military patrols, while densely populated cities This will require several times more manpower to provide adequate security services to various communities anytime and anywhere.

Once the manpower is insufficient and management is neglected, violent coercive measures must be used when problems arise. Over time, they will end up in the same fate as the Guards... In this regard, Fabian, a former Guards officer, definitely knows it deeply.

Anson did not intend to devote one third or even half of the Storm Division to maintaining law and order in the city, but this was the basis for the existence of the Storm Division; not to mention that he finally controlled the White Whale Harbor Council, so he really wanted to leave it alone. It was equivalent to returning the Parliament to Harold.

Looking at it this way, it may be really impossible to give part of the security authority of Beluga Port to Bishop Ripper... Wait.

Anson's expression was stunned, and he snapped his fingers "Pah!"

"What kind of evil plan did you come up with again...I mean, the perfect plan?" Karl raised his eyebrows.

"No, I just suddenly thought that we can actually completely hand over the patrol security work to the Promise Keepers Alliance." Anson chuckled:

"The Second Regiment only has 600 men. Counting the temporary cavalry company and Lisa's guard company, the strength is less than 1,000. Spreading this number of manpower evenly across the entire Beluga Port, it is barely enough to maintain daily security. It’s just that in the event of an emergency, it’s difficult to take immediate action, so we still have to rely on reinforcements.”

"In this case, let's simply shrink our forces and only control the core of each community church, plus the two most important communities of the port area and the parliamentary area. The rest of the places will be completely entrusted to the Promise Keepers Alliance for management. If there is an emergency, we will send troops to reinforce it... What do you think?"

"Let me see?" Carl pointed to himself with some surprise:

"Of course it's OK; but the Alliance of Promise Keepers still only has a few hundred militiamen who have been trained for less than half a month. They follow the soldiers and pretend to patrol, and they can barely handle daily chores. It's really hard for them to If you go out alone on the street and maintain law and order, you will definitely get into trouble...ah!"

The chief of staff suddenly understood and stared at Anson with wide eyes: "Do you just want them to..."

"Exactly." Anson nodded slightly and smiled even more proudly: "Since they want it so much, let's not be too stingy and just be generous."

"As for whether there will be a problem? Well, we will definitely have to wait until something goes wrong to know, right?"

"You are absolutely right." Karl nodded matter-of-factly:

"I just thought you suddenly became kind-hearted and decided to be a good person - now it seems that I was overthinking it."

"How could..." Anson waved his hands repeatedly, his expression extremely sincere:

"I really feel that since it is a city in Beluga, it should be managed by the people of Beluga - this is fair. We, the local army, only need to maintain the minimum bottom line."

Kal Bain rolled his eyes.

In addition to waiting for the Promise Keepers Alliance to make mistakes and proactively hand over the security authority to beat the Universal Sect, Anson had a second thought.

That is to continue to expand and intensify the conflicts between immigrants and indigenous peoples.

Originally, the White Whale Harbor Council was still under the control of Harold and others. Any initiative taken by the Storm Division would easily arouse the resentment of the colonies and prompt them to unite; but now that the Council has been divided, the next step is to increase interests. It’s time to expand externally.

The first thing to do before expansion is to reach an internal consensus, stir up opposition, and cause the entire colony to resent and hate the natives. It would be too rough and direct to let the Storm Division come forward for this kind of thing, so it is more appropriate to let the Promise Keeper Alliance do it.

And this is not an injustice to Bishop Ripper. Faith expansion and holy war are the ultimate vision of the entire Universal Sect; he just accelerated what he wanted to do very much, just a little bit.

……………………

Port area, Red Beard Tavern, three o'clock in the morning.

Ian, who put on a black trench coat and a half-top hat again, pushed open the door and walked out of the kitchen, and casually found a seat in front of the bar to sit down.

At this time, the tavern had become deserted. Except for drunkards and a few guests lying on the table and sleeping soundly, there was only mess everywhere.

The bartender who was cleaning glasses at the bar quietly came forward and placed half a glass of dark rum in front of him.

Ian picked up the glass and did not drink it. Instead, he leaned closer to the bartender and lowered his voice:

"Did anyone follow me in today?"

The bartender lowered his head and wiped the glass to hide his thoughtful expression. After a while, he said:

"No."

"But someone came to our door, hoping to hire the Faithless Knights."

"Hire us?"

Ian was stunned for a moment: "Who?"

The bartender did not answer directly, but carefully observed the surroundings first, making sure that no one was paying attention to them, and then lowered his voice and said:

"The other party didn't say it directly, but from the price he offered and the confidence he had when speaking, I guess he is..."

"Chancellor Harold!"