Warhammer

"What traditions and righteousness are these?"

Al sighed, walked forward a few steps, uncovered the covers one by one, took a look, and then covered them again, looking at the other bodies one by one.

"If it's because of these, they can just use the name of 'King's Army' and not kill the Estalia people. There's no need to kill them! They can just capture them and take them away. If they want to debate with the sutras and make them 'turn from darkness to light', they can just take them back and lock them up, and then 'educate' them slowly."

"These soldiers joined my legion, converted to the Mother Goddess, and swore allegiance to me. But what is wrong with them? What has happened to them? What has happened to their Kingdom of Estalia?"

"Since Pina started the rebellion, neither the beastmen nor the new human army have fought against the real Estalia. They have only fought against the greenskins and pirates. Occasionally, there are casualties against the puppet army, which is unavoidable for everyone. These people have made contributions to their country, to Myrmidia, and to the people of this land, but in the end..."

Al said angrily:

"I think it's all because of a 'profit' in the end!"

"Attack for profit! Kill for profit!"

Except for the patrol team that discovered the anomaly and returned to report the news, and a few survivors who managed to escape from the forest, the rest were all killed in the battle - perhaps some surrendered and were killed, but we won't go into the details.

Normally, surrender would be enough. Even if one could not expect the other party to surrender, taking them back and locking them up would only be a matter of feeding more mouths. However, this army under the banner of "Tyrell" slaughtered all the people left by the patrol, and humiliated them including the corpses, such as carving a hexagram and then marking it with an X.

The werewolf Tamir had his head chopped off and was arranged in the shape of a hexagram along with several other Blood Mother believers' soldiers. The bodies of the others were hung up and placed upright on the beach.

Even if the real Tyrells came, they couldn't be so ruthless as to leave no one alive.

After all, no matter what, Aiel's regime came in an open and aboveboard manner, it was legal, had legal basis, popular support, and was even recognized by many countries. After Aiel ascended the throne, he accepted visits from envoys from some countries, including Tyrell, which was considered a recognition of him as a king and this country. Later, after changing his ways, he also sent envoys to many countries in the name of the "United Kingdom", and they were all treated formally.

His kingdom still follows the path of cultural integration and racial equality. He is not like the former Arab wizard Sultan Jafar who invaded the south without reason and became notorious and was hated by everyone.

If the Tyrells did this, Aiur could have "hired a few storytellers under the overpass, made a play out of it" and spread it around the world, anyway, to gain a moral high ground.

But no matter what the Tyrells did, it was already shameless for them to take advantage of the situation. If they committed such atrocities before the official war, they would be condemned and criticized. Although it doesn't matter as long as you are thick-skinned, Aiur's power and reputation are not so high that everyone would give up business to please them, but they still have to have some shame.

What you said is normal after the war started. The Imperial Army often extorts villages and towns in the name of training, otherwise they will designate farmland, canals and other places as artillery targets. Now is not the same as before. Are they afraid of bullying people to death and attracting Chaos corruption?

joke!

The subspace has been locked, do you want to surrender to the evil god?

no way!

Only a group of people are capable of doing such things and still shamelessly claiming to do so under the banner of "justice" and "truth".

Estalia Royalist - Traditionalist!

But now they have a unified name in Al's eyes:

The White Bandits Returning Home!

Chapter 34: Terror versus Terror

Al recalled the preparations he had made before his first (second) meeting with the Imperial Expeditionary Force in the wilderness of the small town of Samana:

“Not to be a true and good Lord”

“There will be a sword on the earth”

"Don't fight for the benevolent princes, don't be afraid of the overlords and tyrants"

The practices he has adopted since entering the country and the results he has achieved, if viewed on average, are certainly very good. After all, he was able to rule a major country with such a strong alien label, and his reputation both at home and abroad is above average.

But in some aspects, due to Al's personal ideas, he did something "extraordinary".

For example, in the previous anti-counterrevolutionary movement, from Al's perspective, he was holding an imperial sword, and took the opportunity of clearing out traitors to carry out targeted purges, destroy the old system, and extend his tentacles deep into it. At the same time, in order to speed up the progress and win the hearts of the people, Al took this opportunity to start "clearing old accounts" and took over many things before the Greenskin War.

His behavior certainly won the support of the people. It was like another blow after the greenskins' big blow, which completely shattered the old vested interest groups. However, it still offended the old elites to death. What they couldn't understand was:

You point out the traitor, okay, no problem, everyone supports us, the traitor deserves to die!

But what does it mean to bring up old accounts while you're clearing them up?

Which nobleman or wealthy businessman would dare to pat his chest and swear to the gods that the inheritance he inherited and the fortune he earned were not made with the loss of several lives and were not stained with blood - but what does this mean!

Just like prostitution and hangovers, and just like taking addictive drugs, everyone knows that this is "bad" and "wrong", but it can never be avoided and no one will really use "laws" or "public opinion" to punish these behaviors in the "traditional order"!

The church's income has been derived from the following sources over the past 150 years. In addition to relying on donations from society and the output of church real estate, the church now has a more important source of income:

Murder and lending.

The War Church has funded a large number of mercenary groups scattered around the world. They are hired by people from all walks of life to kill, burn, rob, kidnap and exterminate families. They do whatever makes money. The factory owners of the empire like to use these foreign mercenaries to suppress workers' unrest, because there is no psychological burden of "working" in a different place, and they are ruthless enough. A steady stream of blood money flows into the hands of the church from all over the world. Every golden shield is covered with the blood of either their own people or the enemy, including the natives of the colonies, the enemy's soldiers, and the rebellious workers...

Innocent blood will be shed.

At the same time, the War Church also serves as a "bank". Families and individuals can entrust their wealth or objects to it for deposit and withdrawal, but they need to pay high interest based on the amount. After the church has gained a large amount of funds by relying on its traditional status and reputation, it is basically unwilling to use it for investment to promote development due to conservative considerations. Only the arms (mercenaries) and lending industries are the easiest and most favored by them.

Once any matter involves huge profits, don't expect much tenderness. A typical example among the cases that Al investigated is:

The local priests deceived the people into raising funds and borrowed a loan from the church. They hired a group of people and formed a so-called colonial fleet to explore a newly discovered virgin land. After giving the people some sweet benefits in the early stage, they claimed that a gold mine was discovered there and then announced that the outpost had suffered considerable losses from a sudden tsunami and urgently needed a large amount of capital investment. They asked the people to mortgage their own properties. As a result, the colonization naturally failed. Not only did the investors lose all their money, but they also owed the church a large loan after mortgaging their properties.

Finally, they had to accept the church's "good intentions" and all the able-bodied laborers boarded the ship and went out to sea to work for the church to pay off its debts. They went to a real colony that had just been reclaimed and had abundant production and fertile land. The only drawback was that there were Nagas in the sea, lizards on the land, and pterosaurs and harpies building nests and fighting in the sky. It was a high-risk area with dangers on land, sea and air.

Yes, it was the "real thing". The priest used his clever brain and eloquence to fool everyone. He and the hired mercenaries together made up stories. In fact, there was no colony, ruins or tsunami. From the beginning to the end, this matter was a scam that only existed on paper. He simply spent some money and used the relationship with the church to get two trucks of ordinary antiquities and gold ore excavated from another ruins for a local exhibition. Then he pretended to be generous and distributed them to investors, saying that the colony had a huge output and they just worried about not having enough manpower to transport it, etc., and successfully got people to continue to invest in it.

Finally, with the help of the church's power, he forcibly confirmed the "investment failure" and forced most of the debtors to go out to sea to do hard labor. Because of this ingenious operation of making money out of nothing and adding a large amount of wealth and debt slaves to the church out of thin air, he was promoted after a year of immersion and became a regional bishop.

If Al had not appeared out of nowhere, this matter would undoubtedly have sunk forever into the soil and buried deep in the sea.

By the time the Blue Hats finally find some of the original victims and disclose the entire story of this "failed investment" to the public, the truth may be buried.

The bishop, whose brilliant performance caused the destruction of hundreds of local people, from wealthy businessmen to civilians, and who was semi-forced to be sent on board ships and became debt slaves in the New World, was hanged in the temple where he had preached to the people about the "endless wealth of the New World" for three days and three nights in front of the statue of the goddess of war that was destroyed by pirates. His feet were roasted in braziers by the angry people, and a basin of cold water was placed on his head, in order to make him spit out all the fat he had eaten.

Finally, he poured the gold liquid produced by the original ore that investors had brought in to deceive people into his coffin, and then pushed the bishop into it. He was executed in a way that could be called cruel, but in contrast to his own behavior, it was somewhat tender.

Even the church is like this, so it is no surprise that Al's desire to "avenge the dead and avenge the dead" and his massacre of the powerful elites is so controversial.

But Ai'er's army is there, and public opinion is high (to put it another way, public resentment against them is boiling), so they are not stupid, and they will naturally not do something that will lead to their own failure. They can only endure Ai'er's "harshness and cruelty" and the "temporary violence of the mob."

Al knew that the old elites were very dissatisfied with his system, but at that time he felt that it was not unacceptable. He believed that time would prove right and wrong. He just killed some people who had blood debts and had not washed away the stain. If I don't take action now, and wait for the real Chaos to come, you guys will either be killed or join the Chaos to kill me. It is better to kill you early than late!

I am being merciful by not killing all of you!

Back to this point, they think that Al is too harsh and cruel when he takes action against the old elites and anyone who is tainted with public resentment and anger. On the other hand, his behavior of preferring to let go rather than kill the wrong people is generally considered to be: You are indeed too soft-hearted!

Basically, there are only two types of judgments:

Death penalty and others.

As for the death penalty, there is naturally nothing to say. Those who only begin to repent after being discovered and caught are not worthy of atonement or the opportunity to make amends.

As for those who were not satisfied, El had basically abolished corporal punishment, and basically only had two options: forced labor (according to normal work arrangements) and exile. This, in the words of the Pleasure Demon [Valentin, the Brutal Pleasure]:

Southerners are more or less afraid of public wars but brave in private fights. If it is a private grudge between two people, both sides will be like bulldogs and will not give in until one side is defeated. If it is a hatred between two families or forces, then they will do anything to get revenge, whether it is the elderly or women and children, they are all targets of revenge...

You bring them to public trial, humiliate and crush their past glory, pride and everything else, and even deprive them of their property (ill-gotten gains). Then, instead of killing them all, you release them to overseas countries where they have some relatives and friends. It is impossible for them not to retaliate against you.

At that time, Al felt that Valentine was considering the present with the same thinking as that of hundreds or even thousands of years ago. It was too exaggerated. I have done such a good job, and the people all welcome me wholeheartedly. I have the best time, the best location, and the best people!

Those who "punish past mistakes, warn future ones, cure diseases and save lives" were attacked too cruelly by the blacks. I am directly dividing life and death. Am I not merciful enough?

Compared to the current struggles where interests are at stake, where your entire family will be killed and your birthplace will be exterminated, what Al did can really be described as "being soft-hearted and letting the tiger go back to the mountain".

Then the exiles used the ambush and massacre suffered by the Third Legion squad to make Ai'er understand this point:

The struggle for interests has nothing to do with anything else. It is a battle between the enemy and me. Either you or I, or me or him!

.........

"We must do our utmost to fight back against the enemy's cruelty!"

"We must use our most noble terror to fight the enemy's terror!"

"For all those who choose to be hostile to us for whatever reason, especially those 'old people' who were able to leave this land alive due to our mercy, they should be regarded as 'enemies of the people'. All members of the United Kingdom have the obligation and responsibility to hunt them down in any situation. Regardless of their status, all consequences and impacts will be borne by the Kingdom."

"From the date of this notice, immediately stop all ongoing hostile activities that may cause damage to your homeland. For those who have already caused fait accompli, I advise you to either return to your country to accept a fair trial, where the people will give you a chance to reform, or hide in any place you can think of and linger like a maggot!"

"We will eventually find you, catch you, and judge you for your sins!"

Chapter 35: On the Eve of the Conference, the Elf Fleet

The "Burn the Four Seas" mobilization speech by Barbatos, the Third Heir and Lord of the Third Legion, and the "Terror against Terror" speech by the Centurion of the Sixth Legion and external spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were both seen as signs that the tribes under Aiel's rule, the Kingdom, and the United Kingdom's chariots were beginning to turn to external strategies just two years after they had peacefully rested and recuperated.

El held a grand funeral in Margarita for the members of the Third Legion squad that had been attacked. The coffin containing the warriors' remains entered from the East City of Margarita, passing through the Golden Palace where El officially governed, and then to the old royal palace where he was coronated. It is now used as the city government office. Nearly 100,000 people visited the funeral ceremony.

At the funeral, Al listed the life stories of the warriors who had died. The youngest of them had served for nearly a year and had participated in the battle to clear out the Chaos beasts in the great forest located in the southeast inland, south of the Inara Mountains.

The werewolf Tamir was not from Huangpu, but was the sixth class. Although he did not catch up with the Southern Expedition, he led the troops in the Northern Expedition, fought three life-and-death battles and beheaded the greenskin generals, making great contributions to the liberation of the North.

As for other human soldiers, there is no need to mention it. In Ai'er's legion, except for those new recruits who have just completed training, there is no soldier who has never actually been on the battlefield.

He has always been able to completely wipe out the Chaos beasts and greenskin remnants in the southeast forests and northwest hills, but Aiel wanted to use them to train troops, so he has never completely eliminated these filth that still entrenched in the territory of the United Kingdom.

In short, they were all United Nations fighters who had made outstanding contributions to the country and the people, but they were ambushed and killed in such a cruel, unjust, and despicable way! Even their bodies were humiliated!

At the funeral, Aiel pointed the finger at the Tyrells—the remnants of the royalists who were sheltering. Strictly speaking, they should be called the Old Kings or the Eighth Generations, but it doesn't matter.

It was claimed that the United Kingdom had already found out that such a heinous act was the result of a joint effort by a group of radical followers of the old prince's bloodline in Margarita and traitors who had committed serious crimes in the country and were forgiven by the people and Al but chose to defect and go abroad.

He called on the Tirells to set an example and show sincerity if they really wanted to negotiate for peace, and hand over the list of these people to the United Kingdom, or expel them from the country, and prevent them from carrying out anti-United Kingdom activities in Tirell, or simply hand them over to us...

Naturally, these legitimate demands are impossible to be met, even though the Tyrells are still negotiating internally whether to go to war or to what extent.

But if these are used well, after the Tyrells win on the battlefield, they may be used to further restore the Kingdom of Estalia, establish a puppet under the control of the Tyrells, or even further form a tool of the "Southern Federation" dominated by the Tyrells. They will never be handed over.

So the response from the other side was perfunctory:

Oh, this is your internal affairs. Balabala——The eighth prince has a deep friendship with Tyrell. How could we hand over his offspring to our political enemies? Balabala…

Of course, Al did not expect that a few words of advice would make the other party throw out the pseudo-government reserve, but this attitude of not even providing a few scapegoats still made the people, who were already extremely dissatisfied with the neighboring country's provocations and destruction of peaceful development, even more angry.

The attitude towards the "old royal faction" who caused such a thing also dropped from "indifference" to "disgust".

Many jokes and stories about the eighth-generation prince, the "fighter" who was a founding member of the National Salvation Association, and the prince's son were circulated among the people, such as:

Sir Harrington Bull convened a meeting in Margarita, where the pirates had just been driven away and half of the city was reduced to ruins. At the meeting, the "fighter" humiliated, ridiculed, and cursed the enemies for their barbarity and meanness, and passionately stated that he would protect the people of Margarita at all costs and fight to the death with all enemies who dared to invade the city. Suddenly, someone handed over a small note from the audience, which read:

"So, sir, where were you last night (referring to the pirates setting fire and looting)?"

Harrington held up the note and asked around who wrote it. After asking three times without any response, he said, "Now you understand, my friend, I was where you are standing last night."

Very ironic.

There are even people who make a living by telling these kinds of jokes, earning tips from passers-by (of course, they also secretly take a share of Al's salary).

On the other hand, on the side of Tyrell's Old Kings, the exiles also had some disagreements over this matter. Harrington, as a elder of the Salvation Society and the exiles, was furious that his reputation had gradually changed from a "patriot and brave fighter" to a clown in a political joke. According to the reports from the spies of the Shadow Servants (military intelligence department), the Bull flew into a rage at the exiles' organizational meeting, denouncing the killing of all the warriors who had made outstanding contributions to Estalia, and even humiliating the corpses, which was a despicable act that only pirates could do.

He warned the radical elements not to take such rash actions again and to wait and see how the situation develops.

And what is the "general trend"?

Naturally, it is the diplomatic talks that are about to be held between the two countries.

It was called "the last effort for peace."

Although in fact both Tyrell and the United Kingdom were ready for war, and although the major duchies on Tyrell's side were still debating whether to go to war or not, Harington knew in his heart:

The Tyrells had actually reached a demand for war in private, and the Shadow Prince had almost convinced the representatives of other principalities except Miragliano to support his proposal simply by showing in words and maps the benefits that Estalia had gained through the ocean and the number of fleets they could now defend.

But at present, they are just negotiating how to divide the spoils.

For example, the Principality of Tobaro, which originally did not support the war because of its rich mineral resources and was able to make money without doing anything, and was geographically closest to its neighbor, now firmly demands ownership of several colonies that originally belonged to Estalia and were famous for their developed mining industry.

As for the United Kingdom, according to the exiles, it may seem powerful, but in fact it is weak inside.

After all, the special land connection between the two countries is destined. Without a navy, no matter how brave and good at fighting, the ferocious beastmen of the tribe are destined to be unable to perform well in this terrain.

The voice was loud, but the requests were very cautious. It seemed that he still did not want to overly stimulate the war enthusiasm of his neighboring countries and was still hoping for a lucky break.

The Tyrells, whose navy was stronger than the combined fleet, could not lose this battle. In order to prevent the invincible fleet from being destroyed by surprise, the Tyrell navy basically did not act in unison, but dispersed to various principalities. Some even went to the New World, intending to seize the Estalia colony as soon as the war officially started.

All of this is undoubtedly a "loss of national interests" in Harrington's eyes. The Tyrells' target is obviously placed on the chaotic territories of the New World. Even if the two countries go to war, will they really support the exiles to restore their country in order to restore the old royal family and for the sake of the belief in the goddess of war?

He didn't dare to think deeply and could only comfort himself silently:

As long as order is restored, traditions are consolidated, and the authority of the City Prince and the Southern Eagle is established... everything will be fine.

Just as the negotiations were about to be held, and the two sides were arguing with each other and internal sentiment was becoming more and more turbulent, a fleet from Osuan also docked at the rebuilt Marus under the banner of peace and harmlessness.

Chapter 36: Extreme Consciousness

Asta Blackblade.

He claimed to be the commander of the elven fleet that suddenly appeared outside the port of Marus. Although the people of the United Kingdom thought it was a bit strange for a fleet commander to lead the way ashore to communicate in an unfamiliar place, they still received him with very high treatment.

A male elf with brown skin and a somewhat... indescribable temperament, but he looks quite handsome and fits the definition of handsome men and beautiful women of elves.