Chapter 200
Connecting blood (1)
‘I still remember the moment I first met you on an unnamed field as if it was yesterday. You were like a lost lamb, like a child, so very wet, with no shelter from the rain. It seemed to me at the time as if I was seeing my past self. You probably don’t how pained my heart felt.
Therefore, I pledged that I would be the sturdy roof under which you can avoid the storm. Because I thought that it was what I should do for my brother …’
The first half of the letter was filled with many useless platitudes and expressions of love that were entirely on another level.
“Can he really be this crazy?”
I laughed and quickly read through the rest of the letter.
‘The current situation in which my spears and swords face against you, you who are like my brother, is a tragedy in itself …’
The middle section was a rambling story soaked in tragedy and sorrow. I glanced over it.
‘I was forced to take the position for the good of my land, but I held no intention of taking my brother’s fortresses and territory, from the very beginning. Now the time has come, and I want to return the fortresses I had looked after for a while to their original owners …’
I had begun to wonder if the entire letter was just insane bullshit, but there was a point to it.
‘I am about to end this tragic war. Everything will go back to how it was before. In the time when you and I had undergone the bond of brotherhood …’
The letter was a one-sided declaration that the war was at an end.
“Haha.”
Bitter laughter came from me as I considered the degree of shamelessness expressed in the letter.
It was the Empire that started this war. It was the Empire that invaded the lands of Leonberg. The kingdom has already lost its mother, its queen, and many others. But now, the third princeps had decided to return everything to as it was before the war.
I read the last part of the letter again.
‘Don’t forget that just as you and I are brothers, so too the Empire and the kingdom are like brothers. Brothers do not stab each other in the back.’
He wrote that, as we were brothers, we should not attack if the other’s back was turned. The princeps would return the occupied fortresses to cement the peace. He was in a situation where he was at war with his own flesh and blood brother, so all this talk about brotherhood was very uncomfortable. However, despite the naive words of the princeps that things would become as they were before, his proposal itself was not bad.
The kingdom was already at its limit. It wasn’t about defeat or victory, but rather the post-war reality. The kingdom was currently operating as many troops as it could mobilize and was pouring all of its resources into the war. It was no exaggeration to say that Leonberg had bet everything to survive and win this war.
It was natural that the longer the war went on, the greater the burden the kingdom would have to bear. And it was in this situation that the third princeps proposed an end to the war, even giving away the fortresses he had occupied. It was indeed a difficult offer to reject.
Nevertheless, I was not happy with it. It felt as if the offer had been covered with dirt.
I turned my head and saw the imperial knight who stood under the wall. Even while Leonberg’s knights surrounded him, he showed no signs of fear. He was firmly convinced that no one in this citadel would dare so much as touch a tip of his hair, notwithstanding the death of countless imperial knights and soldiers in this stronghold not long ago.
The knight was arrogant, like a royal messenger who came to offer his lessers a great reward. He was inundated by a sense of superiority, like a rich man borne aloft over the heads of the poor.
The moment I realized this, I recognized what emotions I was feeling.
Accepting peace like this would mean extinguishing the embers spread by the queen’s death with my own hands. Countless knights and soldiers of Leonberg had devoted their lives to turning everything created by the Empire to ash. The kingdom’s victories and honors would become hollow, and the imperial knights would once more consider the royal knights as beneath their notice.
As the imperials would remember, the war’s end would be a consequence of their negotiations, not Leonberg’s victory. The evidence of this was the knight who stood beneath me. I hadn’t even said that I would accept peace, yet the knight was already trembling with arrogance as if he has offered us a generous gift. It was an unpleasant sight.
I no longer had any reason to see such an ugly thing. However, there was something that had to be done before we expelled the envoy.
“Malcoy.”
“Yes, your Highness?”
Malcoy had waited close by; he now came to me.
I gave him a brief summary of the situation and instructed him to write a reply immediately.
“What should I write?”
“If you want to end the war, then take it seriously. Don’t think about ending it by sending me one of these letters.”
Malcoy pondered for a bit, then nodded.
“You are saying that we should negotiate the end of the war properly.”
He took out a pen and parchment on the spot and wrote the reply in one go.
“Would this be enough?”
I skimmed through the letter Malcoy had written. I didn’t like the useless platitudes and polite tone, but I could not fault the content itself.
“Good. Let’s send it like this.”
I sealed the parchment roughly there and then and handed it over to Malcoy, who in turn handed it over to the knight. The imperial ambassador grew conspicuously stiff when he received it.
“Go. Your business here is done.”
I gestured with my hand, waving the envoy away.
“Then-”
The imperial knight had not shaken off his air of arrogance, but he was more silent now.
Of course, the mission he had believed would be a success has suddenly turned into something else, and the man seemed only concerned about the third princeps’ reprimands. There was no reason for me to care about the arrogant imperial knight’s situation. What I needed to care about now was the state of the Empire, and what Leonberg could gain from it.
To do that, I had to force the third princeps to the negotiating table.
Fortunately, that wouldn’t be difficult. For once, time was on the kingdom’s side because the princeps had to return to the mainland as soon as possible. If the civil war instigated by the fifth princeps succeeded while the third remained on the border, everything would be in vain.
It was enough for the third princeps if Leonberg made peace and pretended it did not want to grab him by the ankles. If the princeps wanted to, he could have hurried back to the imperial capital, ignoring the kingdom’s forces. However, he would then have to be prepared to face the stigma of forcefully pulling out his forces and letting his front lines collapse.
So this peace offer was also a result of the third princeps’ greed.
Shortly after the war broke out, the Empire continually pushed troops into battle. Most of them were smashed at the beginning. Those legions who had arrived later went through repeated battles and were either destroyed or forced to reorganize.
The grasping third princeps then absorbed not only the Empire’s northeastern legions – which had become decimated – but also intact legions. It had become impossible to hold the border without the princeps’ troops. The moment he pulled his troops from the front line and hurried back, he would be ripping a great gash in the imperial battle lines.
Of course, he had the option of dividing his troops and leaving for Hwangdo while keeping the border secure. However, there was no way that the greedy princeps would leave behind the same amount of troops on the border as those he would take with him to fight his brother.
If he had planned to do that from the beginning, he would never have bothered dispatching envoys and bidding for peace. If I had been in that situation, I knew the only course of action was to rush to the capital. I had no intention of letting him go back to Hwangdo, however.
I would try to hold onto his ankles for as long as possible.
“Send orders to all frontline fortress commanders. Tell them that when the command is given, they must switch to the offensive and prepare to attack behind enemy lines.”
The Sky Knights busily flew all along the border, delivering my orders. The troops of the Gifted Lion Citadel were also ready to campaign. I was making sure that the Imperial Army recognized our intentions; we were very loud and violent. The effect of my ploy was swiftly revealed. When our allied forces acted as if they would throw open their gates and charge out, the third princeps sent another envoy.
“The third princeps says that anything can be done for the sake of peace between our two countries.”
This time, the envoy was a proper, formal negotiator. I entrusted Malcoy and other citadel staff to start negotiating the terms for a cessation war.
“This chance will never come again. Tear as much away from them as possible.”
When I expressed my opinion, there were those who expressed their concerns, saying that it would be a loss if the negotiations broke down.
I knew they were thinking about what was best for the kingdom, but I dismissed their worries.
Of course, the negotiations could collapse due to us making truly excessive demands, but that didn’t matter much. After all, we wouldn’t be negotiating for eternal peace.
For how long would the promises of a princeps, not even the emperor, remain in effect after the urgent situation was over? How trustworthy would they be?
It would be promises kept only until the end of the civil war.
Despite knowing that, I felt justified in focusing on negotiations that might not prove meaningless. If one looked at it from a high place, peace on my terms was different than the initial terms offered by the imperial princeps.
As the negotiations proceeded, Leonberg was able to claim reparation funds for the war. We also acquired barren imperial territory south of Leonberg’s border. These lands belonged to the old kingdom four hundred years ago, having been conquered as time passed.
Although no victory or defeat was specified in the negotiations, it was safe to assume that the Empire recognized defeat and accepted responsibility for the war.
It was unconventional. It was too unconventional even for me, who wanted to reap as many benefits as fast as possible.
“It’s weird. There is no reason to give up their country’s land so easily, no matter how barren the territory, or how devastated by war it is.”
It was as Malcoy said. Handing land from one country to another was not a matter for a princeps to decide on. The third princeps was accepting our conditions too easily; only a madman would do it.
However, the third princeps wasn’t crazy; it was just that the situation around him had changed so rapidly that he was eager to jump into action and protect his position.
“The high lords and the Imperial Spire’s mages are all supporting the fifth princeps!”
I only heard the news after the initial negotiations were over.
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