Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 404 The Last Chance for Peace (Part 1)
The "Alliance Congress" held every four years was originally called the "Inland Sea Conference".

After the Battle of Golden Saddle, at the strong urging of Ned Smith (who was not yet a field marshal at the time), the representatives of the people of the foothills gathered in Guido and sat in a room for the first time to "seriously discuss the current situation and future of the duchy," which is known as the First Inland Sea Conference.

In the context of the alliance, the first Inland Sea Conference was an important watershed moment, marking the end of the "partial resistance phase of the sovereign war" and the beginning of a vigorous full-scale uprising.

Imperial official documents refer to the so-called “local uprising phase” of the southern rebels and the subsequent “resistance against the tyranny of the Duke of Arlian” together as the [First Suppression War] – distinguishing it from the [Second Suppression War], which was led by Emperor Richard IV after the Duke of Arlian’s defeat and death.

The empire believed that the "war against the rebellion" consisted of two separate battles, led by the Duke of Arlian and Emperor Richard IV, respectively, with a brief one-year truce in between.

The Cenas Alliance insists that the "sovereignty war" occurred only once, and that the earlier peaceful petitions to the emperor and the anti-tax movement, as well as the later brutal confrontation between the two armies, were merely different stages of the sovereignty war.

The reason why the two sides have different views is naturally because they have different interests, which goes without saying. Let's turn our attention back to the first Inland Sea Conference.

The first Inner Sea Conference had fifty-five delegates, mainly from the autonomous cities of the Piedmont, with only six from hereditary noble territories and bishoprics.

Most of the elected representatives are self-appointed, without any form of public election or formal authorization from the autonomous city they represent.

Even while a meeting was still being held in Guitu City, the citizens' assemblies of four autonomous cities had already passed formal resolutions, immediately reaffirming their loyalty to the emperor and distancing themselves from the "rebels of Guitu City," fearing that they might get into trouble.

The delegates to the first Inner Sea Conference were of varying qualities; most of them were passionate young people who believed in Protestantism.

A month ago, they learned that the Protestants of Guitu had driven away the brutal and incompetent Governor Count Chattelion and were gathering men to prepare for the final battle against him. So they prepared their own weapons, called on their friends, and rushed to help him under the cover of night.

Next came the Battle of the Golden Saddle, a battle that will forever be etched in the history of the League.

Militia from various municipalities clashed with a coalition of royalist nobles on a small hill east of Cotterell.

The royalist coalition consisted of four hundred fully armed heavy cavalrymen and nearly two thousand infantrymen and crossbowmen, their most prized private army.

Their enemies—the militia arrayed on the hill—though outnumbering them by two, were nothing more than lowly weavers and peddlers, who could only flee in terror at the sight of the fully armed heavy cavalry.

Therefore, Count Chattelion and his royalist nobles, confident of victory, completely disregarded the rabble opposite them. Following standard procedure, the Count first sent crossbowmen to exchange arrows, then deployed his infantry. After a brief melee, the rebels suffered a steady defeat, their lines shrinking continuously.

Seeing that the morale of the rebel army had wavered, Count Chattelion recalled the infantry and sent out heavy cavalry composed of noble sons to seize the spoils of victory.

The impatient nobles grabbed their lances, mounted their horses, and scrambled through the retreating infantry, across streams, trenches, and muddy ground, rushing headlong into the militia square that had shrunk into a dense formation.

It crashed and shattered into pieces.

They failed to break through the militia's formation and then found themselves trapped in the broken terrain, unable to move, surrounded by enemies on all sides.

Realizing he had made a grave mistake, Count Chattelion personally led his last cavalry in a desperate charge, attempting to break through the center and turn the tide of battle.

Count Chattelion's relentless assault broke through the militia's first and only line of defense. Then... he was crushed in the mire by his opponent's last-ditch reserves. Until his death, he couldn't understand how he had been defeated by a motley crew.

With this battle concluded, the allied forces of the rebellious nobles suffered a crushing defeat, and their gilded saddles became prized possessions fought over by the militia. Nobles, large and small, who were unable to escape perished under muskets and halberds—the militia had no need for prisoners. The royalist nobles of the foothills were thus broken, rendered powerless to influence the situation.

Ned Smith, who led the militia to a brilliant victory, became the de facto leader of the militia—whether he liked it or not, his name gradually became a household name in the foothills.

Then came the Uchihachi Conference, which marked the "formal end of the local uprising phase."

……

At the first Inner Sea Conference, the fervor sparked by the glorious victory had not yet subsided, and the spirited "representatives of the people" dared to utter any bold and ambitious words.

You said you wanted to wipe out all the tyrannical nobles in front of the mountain in one fell swoop, and he said he wanted to send troops to cross the Shaded Mountains and fight his way to the Eternal City.

Ned Smith had to repeatedly pour cold water on the delegates, stating the vast disparity between the Empire and the foothills, and between the Emperor's army and the militia.

Perhaps because he poured too much cold water on them, the delegates' emotions went from one extreme to the other, so much so that the only achievement of the first Inland Sea Parliament was that the delegates jointly signed a document.

This document didn't even have a title; the Alliance called it the "First Manifesto," but that came later.

Anyone with literacy who has read the entire First Manifesto will find that the document is ambiguous in attitude, humble in wording, and vague in stance.

It contains no words of uprising, rebellion, revolution, independence, or freedom, nor does it express any denial of the emperor's authority. It merely restrains, even somewhat humbly, the suffering and plight of the people of the foothills: corrupt governors, unreasonable taxes, arbitrary garrisons, a suffocating religious atmosphere… all in the hope that His Majesty the Supreme Emperor will understand the people's suffering and, at his discretion, abolish the oppressive laws and policies. It is more of a petition than a declaration.

The original copy of the declaration, jointly signed by fifty-five representatives, was immediately sent to the Eternal City. Having accomplished this, the representatives intended to disperse.

However, Ned Smith managed to persuade more than half of the delegates to remain in Guido, thus preserving the form of the Inner Sea Council as a "temporary permanent body" that temporarily assumed the authority of the governor of the foothills and was responsible for coordinating the militias of the free cities.

The old marshal went to great lengths to keep the Inland Sea Council alive, not because he liked having someone in charge, but because he pessimistically and calmly realized that without a common enemy, the militia would revert to a state of disarray; without a unified entity to contain all the militia, these people who were fighting side by side today would sooner or later turn on each other due to old grudges and new hatreds, leading to the collapse of the entire organization.

However, he soon no longer needed to worry about "lacking a common enemy," because after the First Declaration was presented to the king, Richard IV responded swiftly.

The emperor viewed it as a direct challenge to imperial power—despite it being a humblely worded petition. In response, Richard IV dispatched his most ferocious war dogs.

The war reignited, followed by the Second Inland Sea Conference, the Third Inland Sea Conference, the Fourth...

More and more representatives attended the meeting. In addition to the representatives of the people of the foothills, envoys from the city-state of Veneta gradually began to appear around the long table, along with a small group of onlookers with stiff frontier accents and surnames that they thought were flawless but were actually so strange that they could be seen through at a glance.

Starting from the Battle of Jinma'an, the "second phase" of the sovereignty war lasted twelve years, while the Inner Sea Conference was held eleven times, almost once a year.

Representatives and officers from the United Provinces, Venetia, and Palatour frequently argued and even fought each other within this temporary permanent institution.

Everyone was dissatisfied with this temporary permanent institution, but it was the only one that could coordinate the armies, supplies, and manpower of different factions, regions, and systems, and the only one that could put the United Provinces, Venetia, and Platt all in one bag.

By the time Richard IV withdrew his troops in Imperial Year 531 and the republics won the final victory in the War of Sovereignty, the Inner Sea Parliament had become the de facto supreme authority of the alliance.

However, it needs a new name. After all, with the merger of the Republic of Monta and the Republic of Van, the territory of the alliance is no longer limited to the "inland sea coast". The proportion of inland areas has long surpassed that of coastal areas.

Therefore, in the same year that Richard IV withdrew his troops, the Inner Sea Parliament was officially renamed the League Congress.

According to the old marshal's plan, the change from the Inland Sea Parliament to the Alliance Congress was just a name change, with all the structure, functions and operating methods remaining unchanged.

As long as the alliance continues along its established path, although there are still differences between the republics, they will eventually become an inseparable part of each other.

As long as the great alliance of the republics remains unbreakable, they will never need to fear any external enemies.

But Ned Smith failed to realize that the legacy he wanted to leave to future generations was no longer what he thought it would be. Perhaps he never intended to control the army and the country he built, but the army and the country he built had objectively lost control and could not and did not want to obey his wishes.

The old marshal thought the name change was just a name change, but in reality it was the collapse of the Inland Sea Parliament.

The United Provinces, Venetta, and Palatul launched a joint attack, effectively sidelining the Alliance Congress. Since it was now the Alliance Congress, it was now "only responsible for matters related to the Alliance"—meaning it was no longer responsible for any actual affairs.

The republics divided up the Allied forces, and the troops from the United Provinces, Venetia, and Palatul returned to their respective territories, transforming into the regular army of the republics.

Although they inherited the same set of tactics, systems, and rules, they have become distinct from one another.

It's like raising a child. You can raise him to be strong, intelligent, and skillful, and you can proudly watch him grow from a toddler into a vigorous and agile young man, but you can never be sure what path he will take.

In the year 532 of the Imperial Calendar, the Allied Army Academy was officially established, with Ned Smith personally serving as its first principal, choosing to place his hopes on the future.

In the same year, representatives of the republics unanimously adopted a new proposal at the thirteenth Union Congress, changing the Union Congress from an annual event to a quadrennial event.

Because it was too troublesome to do it once a year, none of the high-ranking officials or members of parliament of the various republics were willing to travel so much for this nominal institution every year.

So the delegates either allocated the delegate slots to those insignificant minor figures or increased the intervals between congresses. The delegates from the republics unanimously chose the latter—after all, alliance members at least had some nominal value.

Increasing the intervals between conferences salvaged the last shred of dignity for the event.

Unintentionally, because the status of "representative of the people" is automatically assigned to the heads of government and parliamentary leaders of the republics, the Alliance Congress inadvertently became a rare opportunity to bring together important figures from the republics.

Naturally, the quadrennial Alliance Congress became the most important "diplomatic occasion" within the Alliance, allowing the men who ruled the republics to look each other in the eye and talk face to face.

In the year 560 of the Imperial Calendar, when tensions were running high between the United Provinces and Veneta, the 18th Union Congress hosted by the Republic of Varen would be the last chance for peace.

[I am guilty, Or2]
[I went to save Aurora City from the 17th to the 20th, I am guilty...]
[But it was just too cold from the 20th to the 22nd, really too cold... ≡(▔﹏▔)≡]
[I'll pay back the debt slowly over the next few days, or 2]
[Thank you to all the readers for your collections, reading, subscriptions, recommendations, monthly tickets, rewards, and comments. Thank you everyone!]
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(End of this chapter)