The spacious, brightly lit conference room had maps of the various nations in the central-southern and southern regions of the Galentea Continent hanging on the walls. There were few people in the room —
Tagel and his two deputies were sorting through a pile of documents. After a while, Tagel picked up a thin wooden stick and walked up to one of the maps on the wall.
"Since the Glass War, the Forde Commercial Alliance has swallowed up nine nations in one stroke, including the Trinbo Kingdom, not counting the Dukedoms of Luorm and Mubia, which voluntarily pledged allegiance. In other words, the Commercial Alliance has instantly become the largest country on the Galentea Continent by territory. At the same time, its relations with the various nations in the central-southern regions have deteriorated sharply — trade routes have been severed and borders sealed. The neighboring countries are deeply wary of the Commercial Alliance, which has grown into a colossus.
Four years ago, the Seven Giants of the Commercial Alliance consolidated their newly expanded territory, re-established legal and commercial order, eased internal contradictions, and once again turned their gaze toward the central-southern nations. They hoped to eliminate the hostility of neighboring countries, ease relations, lift the border blockades, and restore trade routes and commercial exchanges. But the surrounding nations responded with continued skepticism and suspicion, because the Commercial Alliance had already become a threat no less than the former Krisen Empire, and they did not trust the promises of those merchants."
Tagel tapped the wooden stick against the full map of the Galentea Continent hanging on the wall. "For over three hundred years, the central-southern region has been a self-contained world. Although the thirty-four nations of the region had their own disputes, they could unite against outside threats. This was the very basis on which they withstood the three great powers — the former Krisen Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Havistan Khanate.
From a geographical standpoint, the south's defense against the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate relied primarily on the Kelia Kingdom and the Qigeda Kingdom. However, the Qigeda Kingdom had the Olimalev Mountains as a natural border barrier against the Roman Empire, as well as the formidable Madreles Pass, so it could rest easy. In truth, the burden of opposing the two great enemies — the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate — fell almost entirely on the Kelia Kingdom's shoulders.
The former Kelia Kingdom had the Storm Sword Saint to safeguard the nation, and its rulers were skilled at maintaining a delicate balance between the two great adversaries while also receiving strong support from seven neighboring nations. That was how nearly thirty years of peace were achieved. For the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate — these two mortal enemies — they could not simply stand by and watch the other side swallow up the Kelia Kingdom. Because once Kelia fell, it would mean their rival had the opportunity to devour the wealthy kingdoms and duchies of the central-southern regions, while they themselves were shut out. If the balance of power shifted that way, the consequences would be unthinkable.
It was not, as popular legend had it, that the Kelia Kingdom possessed a Storm Sword Saint and therefore the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate dared not invade. One must remember that both great powers also had a Sword Saint of their own. Moreover, it was said that the Storm Sword Saint's relationship with the Kelia royal family had been extremely poor. According to an insider's account from the trip to
This was the true story behind the fall of the Kelia Kingdom, and the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate tacitly divided the spoils of Kelia between them before going to war with each other. The conflict between the two nations had now lasted nearly three years, and both sides were already exhausted, though the Roman Empire held a slight advantage. However, according to reports from covert agents sent to the Roman Empire, most of the empire's nobles were now demanding that Emperor Roman XI take what gains he could and sue for peace with the Havistan Khanate...
With the fall of the Kelia Kingdom, the Qigeda Kingdom became the hope for resisting future incursions by the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate into the central-southern nations of the continent. The thirty-four kingdoms of the central-south were merely a very loose defensive alliance; broken down, they could be divided into four or five factions of varying sizes.
To the north, the Forde Commercial Alliance led a bloc of over a dozen nations against the former Krisen Empire. To the south, the Kelia Kingdom had been the leader of the coalition facing the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate. In between, there were two or three additional alliance groupings of different nations. These factions intermarried, their connections entangled like gnarled roots, making their relationships extraordinarily complex. When it came to resisting outside invasion, they would mobilize the full might of their kingdoms to aid one another — yet in the very next breath, they would wage war with their neighbors over a river or a hill.
In its day, the Krisen Empire had fought the Commercial Alliance for over a hundred years in a grueling struggle to conquer the Mana Hill Plains. In truth, what the Krisen Empire faced was not merely the Forde Commercial Alliance, but all thirty-four central-southern kingdoms. That was the real reason the empire could never force the Alliance into submission, no matter how great the price and sacrifice.
But with the decline of the former Krisen Empire and the outbreak of its civil war, the Commercial Alliance finally eliminated the threat from the north. The Glass War caused the Alliance to fall out spectacularly with its former allies. In particular, the Alliance brazenly swallowed nine central-southern kingdoms in one gulp, vaulting to become the largest nation on the Galentea Continent by territory. In the eyes of the remaining twenty-four central-southern kingdoms, the Alliance had simply become another Krisen Empire — an ambitious predator with its sights set on the entire central-south.
Tagel took a document from one of his subordinates' hands and opened it. It was a copy of the Morant City Weekly from three years ago, bearing the headline: "Central-South Allied Forces Brazenly Invade — Three Hundred Garrison Soldiers Heroically Sacrificed!"
Nobody had paid it much mind. The Commercial Alliance had assembled an army of one hundred and forty thousand to face off against over two hundred thousand troops from the Central-South Allied Kingdoms for nearly a year. When negotiations broke down, a war sparked by this sort of border clash was considered entirely normal.
But on this trip to Morant City, I learned some new information from people in the know. One account held that three years ago, the Central-South Allied Kingdoms had not been remotely prepared for war with the Commercial Alliance. They had assembled their coalition purely for self-defense. At that time, the Alliance had already become a colossus that none of the central-southern nations dared to offend. They mustered two hundred thousand troops solely to strengthen their negotiating position. Given that, how could the Central-South Allied Kingdoms possibly have struck first against the Commercial Alliance, only to be utterly routed?
What was interesting was my discovery that the unit which actually struck first against the Alliance had been dispatched by the Qigeda Kingdom. After the war broke out, this Qigeda force used the accusation of having fired the first shot as a pretext to rage-quit and withdraw back to their own country. There were several very interesting points worth noting here. First, the Storm Sword Saint had left the Kelia Kingdom and defected to the Commercial Alliance, after which the Kelia Kingdom was promptly and tacitly divided between the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate.
Second, immediately after destroying the Kelia Kingdom, the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate fell upon each other, as though determined to settle their own score before turning on the wealthy central-southern kingdoms.
Third, with the Kelia Kingdom gone, the Qigeda Kingdom should have shouldered the burden of resisting the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate, becoming the new leader among the surrounding nations. Strangely, Qigeda ignored the two blood-soaked behemoths waging war right next door, instead dispatching troops thousands of miles away to the front line where they faced off against the Commercial Alliance. They even provoked the war between the Central-South Allied Kingdoms and the Alliance — and then withdrew their forces, sitting back to watch the Alliance's army counterattack and shatter the allied coalition into pieces.
Fourth, the Qigeda Kingdom was the most steadfast war party among the twenty-four Central-South kingdoms in opposing the Commercial Alliance, yet their bark had always been far worse than their bite. Aside from dispatching a force at the very beginning to provoke the war against the Alliance, they had provided no substantive support to the front lines. When the Alliance's armies routed the Central-South coalition on the front, the Qigeda Kingdom did nothing but berate the coalition commanders for their incompetence and blunders.
As a result, the ten-odd nations surrounding the Qigeda Kingdom elected Grand Duke Fausta of Qigeda to serve as supreme commander, and he reassembled a coalition army of two hundred thousand. This was nothing less than an act of fracturing the alliance at the very moment the twenty-four Central-South kingdoms faced the Alliance as their common enemy. In my personal assessment, the damage the Qigeda Kingdom inflicted upon the twenty-four Central-South kingdoms was far greater than the offensive launched by the Commercial Alliance.
The fifth point worthy of our attention is that after reassembling the two-hundred-thousand-strong coalition, Grand Duke Fausta kept his forces in place and refused to move. He not only turned a blind eye to the Chicked Trading Company territory belonging to the Alliance — the very one situated right on his doorstep, formerly the Ulubaha Duchy — but also used the excuse that he had not yet clarified command authority with the remnants of the original Central-South coalition army, which was still locked in pitched battle with the Alliance's main force, as grounds to refuse dispatching troops to reinforce the front...
As we can clearly see on the map, the Alliance's Chicked Trading Company territory sat isolated beyond the Alliance's sphere of influence, separated from the Alliance proper by the Titanini Mountains held by the Dwarven Kingdom. From the Qigeda Kingdom, it was separated by only a single kingdom and a single duchy. Grand Duke Fausta could easily have seized the entirety of the Chicked Trading Company territory first, yet he took absolutely no action.
Whenever anyone asked about it, Grand Duke Fausta would let out a long sigh, citing any number of reasons — the coalition had not yet been reorganized, its combat strength had not been reinforced, there were wolves before and tigers behind, move one thread and the whole body follows — and only now did he suddenly recall the threat posed by the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate to the Central-South. In short, he refused to attack the Chicked Trading Company territory; the best course of action was to hold steady and let things develop on their own — all of which had been reported in the newspapers.
The sixth key point is a remarkable coincidence: the Commercial Alliance appeared to cooperate perfectly with the Qigeda Kingdom's maneuvers. After capturing one kingdom and two duchies, the Alliance's great army halted its pursuit of victory, established only a simple defensive line, and then transported the bulk of its forces by sea to the Chicked Trading Company territory, as if intending to first crush the newly formed Central-South coalition army under Grand Duke Fausta's command in a single decisive blow.
The Alliance's forces sortied frequently from the Chicked Trading Company territory, sweeping through five nations surrounding the Qigeda Kingdom. And Grand Duke Fausta lived up to expectations — at each moment when the situation grew most dire, he defeated the Alliance's armies and forced them to retreat back to the Chicked Trading Company territory. Yet amid this succession of fierce battles, the uninformed public forgot one rather simple fact.
Which was that the current state of affairs meant the Qigeda Kingdom had effectively occupied all five of these surrounding nations, and the royal families and heirs of each of those kingdoms and duchies had either perished or gone missing in the Alliance's surprise attacks. These five countries had in effect become protectorates of the Qigeda Kingdom, and after the war, the most likely outcome was their annexation into it.
The Alliance had also suffered considerable losses in these engagements, which was precisely why the Qigeda Kingdom and its coalition commander Grand Duke Fausta had not drawn public suspicion. But during my investigation in Morant City, I discovered that the troops lost by the Alliance were not the main legions of the seven giants — they were almost entirely second-tier trading companies' levies and mercenary companies that had joined the fight. It was said that the Alliance's armies would always garrison these second-tier forces in whatever kingdom they captured, and the moment the main force withdrew, the coalition army under Grand Duke Fausta would arrive to "reclaim" the territory...
The objective was none other than to swallow up the remaining nations in the central and southern reaches of the continent. Perhaps after the war concluded, the Qigeda Kingdom would become a nation with territory as vast as the Commercial Alliance itself. By that point, having become a great power in its own right, the Qigeda Kingdom would have no need whatsoever to fear the two enormous threats at its doorstep — the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate."
This was the grand conspiracy Tager had suspected. The people in the conference room listened as if hearing a tale from the Arabian Nights, exchanging stunned glances — it was almost too incredible to believe. If this were true, it meant the balance of power on the Galentea Continent was about to undergo a massive upheaval. Several great powers would emerge in the central and southern regions, and once those kingdoms and duchies were consolidated, the continent would see a clash of titans rather than a prolonged era of warring states.
"Are the kings of those central and southern kingdoms and the grand dukes of those duchies a bunch of dead donkeys? Not a single one of them suspected anything?" Supervisor Sper asked Tager.
"Some probably did, but I'm not entirely sure. After all, it's too far from our family — Wolbeier's hand can't reach those countries in the central and southern parts of the continent, so we can't obtain reliable intelligence. But from what we've been able to piece together, those who were in the thick of things couldn't see the forest for the trees. Those kings and grand dukes were mostly focused on personal gain, trying to profit from this great war, and never once suspected that they were very likely the next targets to be swallowed up.
We, being outsiders, were able to grow suspicious of this bizarre war situation and gather intelligence to analyze and reach a conclusion. However, among the twenty-four kingdoms of the central and south, there were certainly clear-headed people. When I traveled to Morant City this time, I made a point of visiting the front lines, where Sir Lunmede introduced me to the Crown Prince of the Jacano Kingdom. His Highness is a very clever man, and he too had grown suspicious of the war and the Qigeda Kingdom. He was captured by the Commercial Alliance and gravely wounded precisely because he was investigating a lead — luckily, Sir Lunmede rescued him.
Before I left, the Crown Prince of the Jacano Kingdom was already preparing to form alliances with several neighboring countries for mutual protection. They wanted to break away from the central-south allied forces under Grand Duke Fausta's command and establish their own military to defend against the Commercial Alliance and the Qigeda Kingdom. Perhaps they would also be compelled by circumstances to merge into a single great power to continue resisting the Commercial Alliance. The only regrettable thing is that trade routes with our Northland are cut off — they desperately need the military equipment and daily supplies our family produces..." Tager replied.
Lorist rose to his feet. "That will be all for today. You've all gotten a picture of the situation in the central and south from Tager's report. The war between the Commercial Alliance and the central-south allied kingdoms is, after all, far too distant from our Northland. Even if, as Tager reports, there is a grand conspiracy that will reshape the continent, any impact on our family is still a very remote concern. I have always held to one belief: as long as our family itself remains strong, no storm can bring us down..."
"Yes, Your Highness."
...