"… Do you understand now? When that cousin of yours, Queen Sissi, wrote a letter to you asking for help, she hid most of the truth. She talked about her love with Knight Wyksas in a way that shocked the heavens and made the earth cry, just to move you. In fact, she doesn't even know who the child in her womb belongs to … "Laurist stroked Princess Sylvia's soft, slender hair as she nestled against his chest.
Princess Silvia raised her head with tears in her eyes. Even if her cousin, Princess Sissy, had many lovers, it was still two lives. She could not let it go for a long time.
"I hate Grandpa. How could he do it? Sissy is his biological granddaughter, and the child is about to be born …" Princess Silvia choked with sobs.
"Baby, don't be sad. It's already happened. Let it go …" Laurist comforted her. "Actually, it's not that His Majesty doesn't know about Queen Sissy's love affairs. It's just that he doesn't care about it. He married your cousin for his own benefit. He wanted to pull the Fisablon family into his chariot, and at the same time, balance out the Norton family. So, all he needed was a queen from the Fisablon family so that your grandpa could stand with him.
If your cousin Sissy knew her place, His Majesty wouldn't care no matter how many lovers she found. However, she shouldn't have seduced Knight Wyksas, and she even got pregnant. You know that Knight Wyksas is His Majesty's illegitimate child, and also the heir that His Majesty wants. Queen Sissy seduced Knight Wyksas while she was dating other lovers. In the end, she got pregnant without knowing whose child it was. That was suicidal.
His Majesty said that he had to stop the child from being born because he was worried that after the child was born, someone might use the child to make things difficult for Knight Wyksas's inheritance. So, he could only make this decision. Although it was cruel and cold, it was his only choice. Your grandpa knows this very well. We are nobles, not ordinary civilians. We can't tolerate things that go beyond the rules … "
Although Princess Sylvia was still sad, she was not an unreasonable person. She laid on Lollister's chest without saying a word and fell asleep. Laurist held her in his arms and gently placed her on the pillow at the side. He covered her with a light velvet quilt and continued to lean against the headboard in deep thought.
The second prince came and went in a hurry. The first reason he came was to inform Laurist of what happened in the Imperial Capital. After all, Laurist was the Kingdom's Sword Saint. There were many things he needed Laurist's support. Secondly, he hoped that Loriste would accept Weixas as his disciple. This was paving the way for his illegitimate son. However, Laurist refused. Laurist said that the disciple he wanted had to be 16 years old and be his attendant for two years. He would only consider whether or not to accept the disciple after examining their character. Unfortunately, Knight Wyksas did not meet Laurist's requirements in any way.
The last thing the second prince wanted to do was to report his itinerary and arrange the date of his coronation. Originally, the second prince had planned to hold a grand celebration ceremony half a year after returning to the imperial capital. He would announce that he had restored and unified all of the former Crimson Empire's territories and would once again use the name of the Crimson Empire. He would also ascend to the throne as Emperor Orotheg.
However, the second prince did not expect that Queen Sissila's pregnancy would be a blow to the head. After dealing with this royal scandal, the second prince did not have the face to hold any grand ceremony in the short term. He did not even have the face to continue staying in the Imperial Capital. He could only delay the date of his coronation. Thus, he used the excuse of inspecting the entire Empire as an excuse to go to the provinces to see how the people were doing. Then, he would go to the Fisablon Family's territory to marry a queen. Finally, he would return to the Imperial Capital to hold the coronation.
Apart from these three things, the second prince also wanted to see if he could reach a truce with the Trade Union in two years to restore peace. He did not want the Trade Union to mess up the coronation in two years. However, Laurist clearly told him not to hold any hope of peace talks with the Trade Union. It was better to carefully study how to eliminate this enemy.
Now, Lollister had to consider an application submitted by the autonomous council of Morent City. This time, it was not a request for money, but a request for the Norton Family to reclaim the Christopher Hills or provide assistance to the autonomous council. The report said that the Christopher Hills had been a territory of Moronte City since ancient times. Although it was barren, it was indispensable. It provided Moronte City with firewood, meat such as pigs, dogs, cows, sheep, and poultry, as well as coarse grains such as potatoes and oats, as well as many raw materials for production. Most importantly, the trade route from the Christopher Hills to the Titanic Mountains allowed them to trade with the Dwarf Kingdom. This was very important to the revival of Moronte City's commercial economy.
Laurist found that many times, plans could not keep up with changes. Sometimes, plans could not keep up with the changes in the situation. Just like the second prince's plan to gather a million troops to the border of the Mana Hill Plains. He was prepared to use such a huge force to force the Trade Union to agree to his request to return the occupied territory of the former Christen Empire and sign a peace treaty. Unfortunately, the Trade Union only sent out a Storm Sword Sage to make the second prince lose face. In the end, the two sides still fought a bloody battle on the Mana Hill Plains for three years.
Another example was the Norton Family's armed forces defeating the Invincible Fleet, landing at Hidden Gold Bay and occupying Moronte City and the Mana Hill Plains. They were prepared to use this to force the Trade Union to admit defeat and sign a truce to restore peace. No one expected the Trade Union to abandon Moronte City and withdraw their troops from the Mana Hill Plains so cleanly. In the end, Laurist and the Norton Family's armed forces stepped into the huge pit that was Moronte City, unable to escape even if they wanted to.
Therefore, Laurist had no choice but to start anew. He prepared to establish a Freedom Alliance to compete with the Trade Union. For this, he even invested a huge sum of 14 million gold fords in Moronte City to increase the strength of the Freedom Alliance. However, the current situation was that the people in charge of Moronte City's autonomous committee were not fools. They were all sly and cunning people. They did not reject becoming the new rulers of the Freedom Alliance, but they also understood that without the support of the Norton Family's armed forces, they would not be able to resist the invasion of the Trade Union. Therefore, they could not wait for Laurist and the Norton Family's armed forces to be entangled with the Freedom Alliance as much as possible. This was also the reason for the application to recover the Crystal Hills.
Laurist sighed. To him, the ideal situation was for the Trade Union's armed forces to fight the Freedom Alliance's armed forces on the Mana Hill Plains, while the Norton Family's armed forces watched from behind. When the Trade Union's armed forces revealed any flaws, they would deal a fatal blow. This way, they could obtain victory without paying too much of a price. Furthermore, they could be seen as the saviors of the Freedom Alliance. That was the perfect ending.
However, the autonomous committee of Moronte City's plan was to push the Norton Family's armed forces to the front line of the Mana Hill Plains to block the attack of the Trade Union's armed forces. This would give the Freedom Alliance time to develop. Now that the six Freedom Army had completed their training, they were ready to head to the six fortress cities on the Mana Hill Plains to exchange with the Norton Family's armed forces. Therefore, they came up with the idea of recovering the Crystal Hills. It was obvious that they did not want the Norton Family's armed forces to withdraw from the front line so easily.
In more than five months, the Norton Family's armed forces had helped the autonomous committee of Moronte City form six small Freedom Army units of 8,000 men. They were prepared to defend the six fortress cities on the Mana Hill Plains. However, the autonomous committee's application for recovering the Crystal Hills stated that they hoped to deploy three Freedom Army units to recover the Crystal Hills with the help of the Norton Family's armed forces. The remaining three Freedom Army units would defend Thomas City and Gipsius City, and the last one would stay in Moronte City.
They were all smart people and had a good plan. Laurist smiled bitterly. Thomas City and Gipsius City were the two fortress cities closest to Moronte City. The land around the cities had already been cleared and developed. Soon, it would be distributed to the residents of Moronte City who had bought farms to cultivate and plant crops. It could be said that these two fortress cities were very safe. The four fortress cities at the front could face the attack of the Trade Union's armed forces at any time. Those fellows of the autonomous committee clearly wanted the Monolith Army to continue guarding the four fortress cities at the front so that they could resist the assault of the Trade Union's armed forces.
Moreover, why would the Crystal Hills need three Freedom Army units to recover? The Trade Union had once divided the Crystal Hills into 52 territories and conferred nobles to those 52 territories. However, these conferred lords were not from the Trade Union. Instead, they were people of virtue and prestige in the eyes of the residents of Moronte City. For example, the deans of various academies, retired civil servants who had served Moronte City for most of their lives, as well as famous scholars, experts, professors, and pharmacists.
However, most of these lords who were conferred titles by the Trade Union did not buy it. Apart from a few lords who went to their own territories to manage, many of them did not even know where their territories were. What was worse was that they even burned the documents of their conferment. They refused to accept the nobility and territories conferred by the Trade Union. They said that the villagers living in the Christopher Hills were already suffering enough, so how could he treat himself as a lord and exploit them …
This was the current situation of the Crystal Hills. Laurist was no stranger to this place. Back when he was still a happy mercenary in Moronte City, he would often receive missions to run errands in the Crystal Hills. From Laurist's point of view, the real reason why the villagers of the Christophe Hills were so poor was because of the Trade Union's inaction. If the Trade Union had carried out large-scale infrastructure construction in the Christophe Hills, the villagers of the Christophe Hills would have become rich long ago.
However, Laurist also knew that the Trade Union, which was at the height of its power back then, could not raise a huge amount of funds to carry out large-scale infrastructure construction in the Crystal Hills. The Trade Union, which was led by the Trade Union, would not be able to fork out gold to develop the Crystal Hills. He remembered that when the Trade Union had just been established, they had mobilized their army to quell the rebellion of the mountain people in the Crystal Hills. That war had caused the seven giants of the Trade Union to suffer heavy casualties.
That was why the big Trade Unions did not have a good impression of the Crystal Hills. Even after a hundred years, they still regarded the Crystal Hills as a wilderness. When the famous people of Moront City criticized their policy of not developing the Creste Hills, the seven leaders of the Trade Union simply conferred the Creste Hills to the people who cried out the loudest. If you have the ability, you can go and develop the Creste Hills yourself!
According to Tagger's investigation, recovering the Christopher Hills was very simple. They just had to send a random army to make a trip there. They only needed to send a random army to make a trip, because there were no defensive forces in the Crystal Hills. There were no decent territories or castles there, and the mountain people living in the hills were still used to living in villages. However, the real difficulty was that after reclaiming the Crystal Hills, they would have to station an army there. Secondly, there was a huge package in the Crystal Hills, which was Elbani Port, which had been burned down by the North Sea Fleet's Thunderstrike Fleet led by Sunbarwood.
This was a port city located at the junction of the Christophe Hills and the Titanic Mountains. It was also the only city in the Christophe Hills, and it was a major transportation city that connected the mountains and the sea. It was said that after Sunbarwood burned down, there were still fifty to sixty thousand refugees gathered there. They lived by gathering wild fruits, picking up seafood and fishing by the sea.
Sadly, Laurist discovered that if he agreed to reclaim the Crystal Hills, it would be another huge pit. He might even have to bear the responsibility of rebuilding Elbani Port. However, the reason on the application report submitted by Moront City's autonomous committee was also fair and just. The Crystal Hills were related to Moront City's fuel, meat, coarse grains, and raw materials, which were important sources of livelihood. It could not be excluded from the jurisdiction of the Freedom Alliance.
Currently, the relationship between the Norton Family and Moront City's autonomous committee was very delicate. Both sides relied on each other and used each other. The Norton Family had invested a huge amount of money in Moront City, so they naturally wanted something in return. Moreover, Moront City would become the most important dumping and wholesale base for the family's products in the future. Therefore, Laurist did not want to incite the rebellion of the millions of citizens in Moront City. He needed the autonomous committee's cooperation to help him maintain the business order in Moront City and become an enemy of the Commerce Alliance.
On the other hand, the autonomous committee of Moront City saw the Norton Family's armed forces as a safeguard against the invasion of the Commerce Alliance's armed forces. They similarly did not want Moront City to fall under the rule of the Commerce Alliance's Chamber of Commerce again. That would be a period of darkness. On this point, the autonomous committee and Laurist had the same goal. They were also willing to establish an independent Freedom Alliance. However, under this premise, they also wanted to preserve their own armed forces and use the Norton Family's armed forces as a shield.
After thinking about it, Laurist finally made up his mind. Tomorrow, he would inform the autonomous committee of Moront City that the original plan of six Freedom Army taking over the six stronghold cities in the Mana Hill Plains would not change. Laurist needed to withdraw the Monolith Army before sending them back to the family's territory. After all, the family's armed forces could not all stay here. Someone had to go back and guard the family's territory.
Moront City would be guarded by Aire's personal army. Aire came from a society organization in Moront City and was also the boss of Ledos. It would be easier for him to communicate with the autonomous committee. The Hunting Cavalry would still be responsible for patrolling and guarding the Mana Hill Plains. As for recovering the Crystal Hills, he would let Ross the Ferocious Tiger lead the Flying Tiger Army there. With such an arrangement, he believed that the autonomous committee of Moront City would have nothing to say.
On the 21st day of the eleventh month of the year 1779, the Norton Family sent the Flying Tiger Army to occupy the Crystal Hills before winter arrived. The Commerce Alliance still did not respond.
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