Almost at the same time, less than 50 kilometers away from the Northstream coast, a huge fleet was moving from west to east towards the Northstream Harbor.
The largest ship in the core of this mixed fleet was not the flagship, but the flag hanging on the largest ship was also very interesting.
There were three flags in total.
First of all, the flag representing nationality at the highest point was the blue lion flag of Stormwind with a golden edge.
Then the flag representing the organization in the middle was the Stormwind flag of the Marcus chamber of commerce.
Both of these were fine. What was interesting was the last flag representing an individual – that was the royal flag of Kul Tiras. This meant that the ship was a member of the Kul Tiras royal family.
Generally speaking, according to international practice, a married princess was not allowed to continue to fly the royal flag of her family.
There was only one reason for this strange phenomenon. Sitting on the ship was Princess Jaina Proudmore, the fiancée of the Grand Duke of Stormwind, Duke Marcus.
According to the previous agreement between the leaders of the two countries, Daelin and Laing, Jaina was already a member of the Duque family in life and a member of the Duque family in death. She no longer belonged to Kul Tiras. Therefore, Jaina's nationality was Stormwind.
This was mainly because Daelin wanted Jaina to get out of here as soon as possible. Therefore, before Duque came back to complete the marriage, he kicked Jaina out first.
In fact, in the ten years since Duque disappeared, Kul Tiras' military and merchant circles were really on guard against Jaina.
Of course, Jaina was not Kalia. Or rather, with her outstanding talent and incomparable intelligence, she was not a woman who was willing to be ordinary from the beginning.
On Jaina's 18th birthday, she did not use a copper coin from the Duque family and began to build a fleet under the framework of the Marcus chamber of commerce. Today, the huge fleet of 50 ships, including five battleships, was the result of her efforts.
This was not an easy task.
In the process of her rise, she did not receive any preferential treatment, whether it was from Kul Tiras, Stormwind, or the Marcus family, which in theory would be her backing.
Even the schedule of the shipbuilding had to be arranged through her connections.
She did not understand why Marcus's direct descendants would reject her so much.
At first, Gianna thought that Miss Ilucia Barov, who was probably her fiancé's secret lover, was trying to steal power from the Marcus family.
Soon, she found out that she was wrong.
Marcus Family's structure was completely different from any other family or organization on the continent. It had an organizational structure that transcended this era.
Even though Duque had disappeared.
Everyone in charge was still resolutely carrying out their duties.
Illucia was in charge of the business side. She used her excellent economic acumen and her equally excellent father to provide the entire Marcus Family with an astonishing wealth that rivaled the income of the entire Lordaeron treasury.
Reginald Windsor firmly controlled the family's huge private army, giving them the strictest training and regular combat training with monsters as their opponents. On the surface, the Marcus Family only had 30,000 soldiers. In fact, every single one of them who had returned to their hometown to serve as a militia in the past ten years had strength not inferior to the elite soldiers of the Scarlet Cross Corps. As long as the Marcus Family was willing, they could pull out 100,000 elites at any time.
Edwin Van Cleef was a bit special. He came from the Mason Brotherhood and was in charge of construction and intelligence agencies at the same time. In the end, what tricks he left behind when building the castles, how much power he had in the dark, except for him, no one knew.
Casar Ulysses was in charge of the family's knights. This was a huge group of more than a thousand people, including 300 Holy Knights. They were also in charge of protecting Gianna. Unfortunately, Gianna knew very well that they would not hesitate to carry out their duties, but never had the slightest bit of loyalty to her.
Sylvanas and Lilas, the two sisters, were in charge of a mountain group of five thousand people, a mix of elves and humans.
The family's chief butler, Makarov, was unswervingly carrying out the policy left by Duque before he disappeared. He did many things that others could not understand. For example, tinkering with new technology that even the wisest dwarves and gnomes could not understand. Another example was storing up a lot of things for the family that even Antonidas, a master mage and alchemist, could not understand.
Every year on the 31st of December, these important ministers of the family would gather together and report their work.
Most of the time, there was no specific content, and the report was only about the degree of completion, such as 94%, or 122%. Makarov took out the schedule left behind by Duque and gave out grades and rewards for each person's work.
All rewards or punishments were based on a book of rewards and punishments that would be moderately increased and reduced every year. It was even accurate enough to calculate what coefficients should be used for natural disasters such as droughts and floods.
The annual gathering was not hidden from Gianna, but everyone just treated Gianna as an insignificant bystander. At first, Gianna tried to see if she could control this incomparably powerful family as a fiancee, but she soon gave up in despair.
The entire family was a huge and sophisticated machine. Unless she had wisdom and foresight above Duque's, no one would obey her, an 'outsider' who had not yet officially changed her surname to Marcus.
Gianna really wanted to cry but had no tears.
She was tied to the Marcus Family, but she could not get any substantial benefits as a mother.
Of course, it was not that there were no benefits. For example, the 100,000 gold coins given to the 'fiancee' every year, and the annual increase was 10%. Another example was the large number of magic books that Duque allowed Gianna to move to the Royal Magic Academy in Stormwind City before the battle with Ner 'zhul.
Unfortunately, compared to the amazing treasure house of the Marcus Family, these things were just pebbles on the roadside!
The most terrible thing was that the plan that Duque set for this had a 20-year time limit.
Unless it was confirmed that Duque was really dead, no changes were allowed within 20 years. Even if changes were to be made, it must be unanimously agreed by all the important ministers of the family.
In order to meet the money needed for her magic experiments, in order to prove her ability, the bitter Gianna could only come out to do business …
However, in the year she turned 20, Gianna's luck finally turned for the better.
Her luck was the High Elves' consultant cum butler standing beside her now.
She claimed to be Magna Evans, but in fact, she had an even more amazing name — Magna Aegwynn.
Yes, she was Medivh's mother, the previous guardian, Aegwynn!
"Duque is back, what should I do?" Gianna asked Magna in a low voice.
"Actually, you can learn from me. If the Marcus Family wants an heir, just help Duque give birth. I did the same to Neras back then, it's not like I'm the one raising him. "
Gianna almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
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