Warhammer

"Tell me - are the people standing on this great warship despicable cowards! Or are they proud, the people of the goddess! The unyielding descendants of Tyrell!" Marco roared, and the sailors and petty officers responded to him with fierce enthusiasm, shouting:

"Tyrell! Tyrell!!"

Chapter 85: Port Massacre

"You hope that they will regard us as heroes, so that all the conscientious Tyrells will be proud of us, shed tears, and raise their fighting spirit after hearing our deeds; or smile contemptuously: Ah, that's them! The so-called invincible fleet at sea! When the motherland and the goddess needed them, they were fighting with sea monsters, and then sent an intact fleet to the enemy without firing a shot!"

"Never! Never!"

The sailors stared with their eyes wide open and their necks stiffened, with a tragic feeling of sacrifice in everyone's heart. They lined up on the neat deck, performed the sail-raising (flag-raising) ceremony, and then began to destroy the powerful warship beneath their feet.

All fortresses are most easily destroyed from the inside; and destroying one's own vehicles and warships is far easier than destroying the enemy's fleets and fortresses.

......

On the Tyrell battleship "Sea Overlord", Captain Randolph from Tobaro, the commander-in-chief of this "combined fleet", stood on the deck, watching the lifeboats of all sizes leaving the gradually capsizing fleet. An officer with pale skin and a unclear look stood with him. This was the man who had jumped into the sea to die and was rescued, and then for safety reasons, he had been under house arrest by a special person. After the decision was made to sink the fleet, everyone on the ship was evacuated, and only he insisted on staying and sank into the deep sea with his fleet and the independent and great Tyrell Kingdom.

Randolph took one last look at the land, then turned his gaze back to his fleet.

He watched his fleet sink. In the long years before, he had watched enemy ships burn and sink countless times, but this was the first time he had this experience, and perhaps it would only happen once in his life.

He stood on the deck until the last moment, and then sank into the abyss beneath the warm surface of the vast ocean with his ship and the depressed but determined officer.

"The ocean is full of waves, who is the king among the thousands of ships?!"

"Tyrells! Tyrells!"

-------------------------------------

Misha looked at the port, where lifeboats kept coming in. The sailors and naval officers who had just destroyed the fleet they were so proud of were boarding the port with mixed feelings, ready to meet their future fate.

The expressions of those Tyrell followers present were unsurprisingly ugly. Some of them secretly looked at Misha, hoping to get a glimpse of what His Majesty's eldest son and first heir thought about the matter.

She was ordered to come here to welcome the Tyrell United Fleet into the port, carrying with her a pardon document with the seal of El, which stated that she did not care about the fleet's burning, killing, looting, suppressing the uprising, and bombarding Margarita before. When the two countries merged and became one for a long time, the Tyrell Fleet would be promoted to the main fleet of the Southern Kingdom, the First United Fleet, and so on...

But now, all this cannot be achieved because of the proud patriotism of the Tyrells.

Misha breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the increasing number of Combined Fleet sailors and petty officers approaching the dock.

"A tragic and heroic action, a counterattack launched with all one's strength when the building was about to collapse - if such a story did not end in blood, it would inevitably lack some great elements that are worth remembering."

The eldest daughter's eyes revealed a cold meaning. After the whole grand welcoming ceremony, a tragic and blackly humorous "great action", Misha only said one sentence at this time:

"Since there is no fleet...what's the point of me having sailors?"

The Tyrell representatives standing at the steps in front of the eldest daughter shuddered, but few dared to look back.

At this moment, she didn't need to ask Al's opinion, nor would she contact him about this matter, although she knew that if she asked Al, her father would not necessarily kill these sailors, or it was highly likely that he would not.

But she is different.

If there hadn't been a telephony, Misha, who had received the letter, would have launched an attack on the enemy and retaliated fiercely if she had been on the front line.

These actions were humiliating to Al, even though his young father did not take these false "prestige" and "royal power" seriously. Once he saw through Rodrigo's letter, he would pull Niu Niu and jokingly write a humble reply letter to him.

But all the descendants of Ai Er, the eldest daughter has been pent up with anger in her heart. Hera used bombs to clear the way in Miragliano, and the fire spread to almost half of the city. Only then did she vent some of her anger towards the enemy...

Soon, a legion of descendants behind Misha rushed to the dock with the eldest son's order.

Still immersed in the sorrow of the tragic suicide, the non-commissioned officers of the Tyrell fleet, unable to extricate themselves, immediately met their final fate.

The angry legionnaires used the swords, spears and halberds that were originally used only for decoration and ceremony in this ceremony to their true purpose, cutting through armor, piercing flesh, and severing tendons and bones!

A one-sided massacre occurred on Tobaro Pier in an instant.

Countless sailors, who had just stepped onto the land from the lifeboat and reached their homes within half a minute after a long and depressing journey at sea, were ruthlessly slaughtered.

They were crowded together, their flesh chopped by axes and spears by the merciless beasts, with the cold sea water behind them and the equally cold or even colder swords in front of them. Many people began to regret, cry, surrender, and beg for mercy... But the sharp blades of the double-headed eagle showed no mercy except orders, they pushed forward, and neither the desperate struggle nor the wailing of surrender could slow down their steps.

Combat boots stepped over countless broken corpses, and many people were forced to jump into the water. However, the Nagas who had been lurking in the port for a long time just in case soon joined the bloody massacre. They drove all kinds of sea monsters and began to ruthlessly strangle the fleet sailors who jumped into the water. For many people, perhaps dying on the spot at the hands of the beastmen's weapons was better than being entangled by tentacles, squeezing out the air in their stomachs bit by bit, and finally dying in despair from suffocation and entanglement.

Or they may be bitten by a group of snakes and die in endless pain.

The massacre frightened the Tyrells present. On the stands, the local dignitaries who were originally used to add to the appearance were either stunned or horrified as they watched the bloody massacre at the dock and their precious sailors - even the previous moment, many of them were secretly sighing in their hearts for the tragic act of sinking their fleet, and silently showing sympathy, but the next moment, they were devastated by the horrific killing.

All the glory and tragedy seemed insignificant in the picture of hell before us, and even seemed a bit darkly humorous.

Despair, anger, wailing, begging for mercy, there are brave warriors who stand up to resist, although they are insignificant; there are also cowards who behave in an ugly manner, although it is meaningless.

All in all, if Aiel ultimately failed and was forced to evacuate Tyrell, and they regained their proud and free independence, then the self-sinking led by Captain Randolph today would undoubtedly be a great totem in the hearts of the Tyrell people, a common memory of a nation. They would remember that today, in the dark days when almost all of Tyrell had fallen, a group of once great expedition warriors, a group of lonely patriots who were now adrift on the sea, with no one to rely on, used their last efforts to slap the conqueror in the face, and roared with their lives and pride:

Tyrells!

Never surrender!

The totem forged with blood will become the totem of resistance in the hearts of millions of Tyrells. The unyielding will will accompany all of them to resist foreign races and invaders!

As long as they can finally obtain that free and glorious independence...

......

The sea dyed the veil red.

The massacre came to an end.

Chapter 87: Afterwards

The sailors were unwilling to hand the fleet over to the enemy, so they chose to destroy it themselves.

The eldest daughter expressed her understanding.

But if only the ship sank, how could it be considered the destruction of the "fleet"?

The bloody massacre at the port of Tobaro caused only a tiny wave in Tyrell. Some people regarded Randolph, who ordered the fleet to sink, as a tragic hero, while others were annoyed by his stupidity. For example, the people of Tobaro were not moved by his deeds, but extremely angry about it, because Aiel had decided to use Tobaro as the home port of the combined fleet, and Randolph himself was from Tobaro. It can be predicted that Tobaro's influence will account for a large proportion of the future Confederate Navy.

But now everything is ruined.

They were even worried that this would anger Aiel, who would carry out a great purge in Tobaro or something like that. The good things that Aiel implemented in the United Kingdom might not be noticed by outsiders, but the notoriety of such movements as the "Great Purge" and "Purge of Counter-Espionage" were widely spread. It was said that far away in Kislev, the female tsar, who was troubled by the internal struggles among various factions such as reform, conservatism, freedom, and centralization, had mentioned the words "purge" and "purge movement" on many occasions recently. It was said that she was influenced by a "little daddy of a country" in the south.

Regarding the sinking of the fleet and the massacre at the port, there are generally two views based on one's standpoint:

One is to kill the prisoners. The local patriots of Tyrell believed that the fleet had not been officially returned to the army of the former Tyrell Kingdom. They did not want their ships to fall into the hands of the then hostile United Kingdom, so they sank them, which was normal and in line with the rules of the battlefield. Then they chose to go ashore and return to the port, even if they had surrendered to the Double-Headed Eagle. The suppression by the eldest daughter was undoubtedly a massacre of prisoners, so as to weaken the patriotic power of Tyrell.

The other is to quell the rebellion, Tyrell - the United Kingdom. The mainstream establishment within the Southern Alliance generally believes that after Tobaro signed the "Covenant of Remas" on behalf of Tyrell (Eir did not use the term "armistice agreement" to appease the emotions of the Tyrells), the two countries have in fact merged and share the same master. Although the joint fleet has not yet returned to the port and incorporated into the system, it is legally a regular military force of the Alliance.

After all, the ship was not built by the sailors. Could it be that the flagship of Lord Randolph, the Sea Overlord, which he ordered to sink, was built by him and the sailors on the ship together?

Warships are the kingdom's weapons of war. The sailors' disobedience to orders and destruction of ships is undoubtedly tantamount to treason. The bloody incident that occurred in the port of Tobaro was nothing more than the legitimate behavior of His Majesty's eldest daughter, the leader of a legion, to suppress the rebellious sailors under her command.

After the incident, Aiel, who was preparing for the construction of the post-war system in Remas and summoning dignitaries and elites from various principalities of Tirell to "discuss state affairs", was "furious" when he heard the news and sent a harsh order to Tobaro.

Send the eldest daughter back to China.

"You didn't do a good job on this!"

"Go home!"

"Send Margarita to exile! Keep that place in good order!"

Although the father and daughter knew the truth, they just did it for Tyrell to see, just to appease the people. No one would take it seriously, needless to say between father and daughter. Who among Tyrell's discerning people would think that transferring his eldest daughter back to the capital of the country as an official was a punishment?

But Al was still afraid of wronging Niu Niu, so he ordered Margarita to hold a grand triumph. Because the two countries' armistice was nominally not based on victory but on merger, it was not appropriate to use the name of a triumph, but instead a grand ceremony to celebrate the armistice. For the people of Margarita, it was just a grand triumph with a different name.

At the same time, taking into account the mentality of the Tyrells, Aiel also ordered all places in Tyrell to open warehouses for a "celebration ceremony" to jointly celebrate the arrival of peace and the establishment of the alliance.

.........

During the entire Southern War, thanks to Al's control over his legion and the discipline requirements that had been continuously strengthened since the establishment of Pina's army, there had never been a serious massacre of prisoners of war or civilians.

Except for the beginning of the surprise attack, when the Legion conducted a blood trial on the Northern Army's prisoners with a mortality rate of more than half, converting a group of Blood Mother fanatics, during the Southern Expedition, Aiel did not perform this cruel ritual on ordinary prisoners except in very few special cases.

In addition, we will draw one out of five enemies who still raise the banner of rebellion after the occupation policy is made clear...

But these fall into the category of "punishing with a warning", "open and aboveboard" killings rather than massacres.

Ai'er didn't want to be compared to the worst, but compared to the big brother of the Empire, he suppressed the uprising of workers and peasants in his own country, directly pulled out field artillery to bombard the rioting citizens in the city; he repeatedly used the means of first talking and then killing to deceive the rebels to lay down their arms, and then turned against them and massacred the rebels. All the survivors were locked up in dark prisons and flesh factories, and those who were lucky were sold to Kislev and border territories as serfs...

Among all the deeds that could be called modern-day evil, his actions during the Tyrell War were already at the level of a moral role model.

Even during the siege of Miragliano, after entering the street fighting stage, the vanguard suffered considerable losses due to the joint resistance of local residents and defenders. In post-war reflection, Al did not order to attack first and then judge when encountering people who looked like civilians and could not be confirmed as a threat.

Those who resist are the enemy in disguise, and those who do not resist are the well-trained enemy...

Instead, they summarized the experience gained in the process of siege and occupation of places, promoted it in the legion, and allowed the soldiers to master the experience and some skills of how to fight in hostile foreign territories.

After the failure of regular military forces, as long as the Legion's occupation policy is not too retrograde, in Aiur:

With the attitude of "I don't care who starts the trouble, as long as there is a riot, I will kill three types of people first: the rich, the powerful, and the people with status", the local vested interests will be the weakest in their resistance as long as their own rights and interests have not suffered too much damage. They may even take the initiative to appease potential patriotic organizations among the people for the occupiers, and use reasons such as "take it step by step", "accumulate strength", "wait until the royal army counterattacks and then join forces inside and outside to raise the flag of justice" to suppress the radical resistance forces among the people for the legion.

But as time goes by, even if Aiur's occupation can be described as harmless and the army of the kings, it is still far from reaching the level of "Liberator". In addition to its own shortcomings, the less serious conflicts on this land are also a problem.

The innate and righteous hatred of the invaders will eventually prompt brave patriots to take up arms spontaneously and hold high the flag even if they know they cannot win.

However, these problems were no longer a problem before Al's rapid offensive.

After the signing of the Remas Covenant, even if the patriots launched an armed uprising, they had already lost the legitimacy of their resistance. Invaders? Where did the invaders come from? His Majesty Al was now the king of two countries. To oppose him was to oppose one's own king, and to be a traitor!

Even the ruling forces in various places, in order to avoid the double-headed eagle coming here indiscriminately - if there is chaos in a place, eliminate the powerful first!

They would try their best to negotiate, to resolve, and even to organize private soldiers to suppress local uprisings before the arrival of the legion, and then wait obediently for the arrival of the Double-headed Eagle to deal with the aftermath.

In order to quickly eliminate these "destroying the overall situation" rebels who would endanger their lives and property, they even used methods that were ten or a hundred times more cruel than those of the double-headed eagle. For example, when the legion suppressed the uprising, they directly used swords and weapons to eliminate the rebels' bodies and undermine their will; but when the local forces and gentry were suppressing the uprising, they kidnapped women and children, tortured them, bribed assassinations... They used all kinds of means to the extreme, for fear that the rebellion could not be quelled quickly and the army would arrive.

In the eyes of these people, now that the two countries have ceased fighting and merged, and the nobles of the principalities have come to worship the same master, they no longer have any reason to resist. The Grand Patriarch of the Visconti family is dead, but isn't there still a Grand Patriarch Gregory who serves concurrently - will it be our turn as the Tyrells in the future?

What the hell are you doing!

If you want to die, don't drag me down!

Therefore, they were very hostile to the rebels. Sometimes, after the legions arrived at the local area, they had to step in to stop the local dignitaries and the rebels from killing each other. The traditional bloody revenge of the Tyrells was introduced into this process, including kidnapping, burning villages... In some places, hundreds of lives had been lost before the legions arrived.

It took Aiel half a year to occupy Tireel. There were only a dozen or so uprisings in the occupied areas, and the total number of rebels did not exceed 3,000. According to the system at the beginning, the lottery would include civilians in the rebellious areas. However, when it came to the formal implementation, Aiel would do the same as the Tsar:

The Tsarist government would usually sentence revolutionaries and anti-Tsarist elements to death by hanging, and then announce before the execution that the emperor had pardoned their death penalty.

People with weak wills can easily be shaken by the fear of death and the excitement brought by twists and turns, and turn to support the Tsar father and sing praises for the ruler.

When the Legion has put down the rebellion and people are in panic, the Double-Headed Eagle will take out Aiel's amnesty, exempting the killing of civilian males and only selecting one in five captives to undergo the blood trial.

After the signing of the Covenant of Remas, there was basically no opposition in the various principalities and localities. However, some armed uprisings broke out among the people, numbering dozens, ranging in size from a dozen to hundreds.

Most of the uprisings that were delayed in the past due to various reasons such as "accumulating strength" and "waiting for the royal army" were eventually extinguished with the ceasefire, but there were still some people who decided to stand up and do something for the country.

Even after the ruling class has bowed to the conqueror, some will still take up arms.

Although the Tirells were criticized by the ancient Tirells (the Great Demon) Valentine as "cowardly in public war", their overall character was quite tough; a large number of proactive people chose to join the army, and then when they were defeated on the frontal battlefield, having tried their best and exhausted their courage, they were pardoned and released to return to their homes to settle down.

Chapter 88: Seven Dukes

Because of the speed of Ai'er's attack, it did not lead to a tug-of-war that would cause the greatest harm to civilians. The hatred brought about by the war was not enough to force civilians, who were already at the bottom of the society, to give up their lives that were barely adequate, not to mention rich, to fight the enemy.

After all, the result of the negotiations at Remas was not too harsh for the Tirells. In name, they were not defeated, nor did they need to pay additional compensation. There were no groups of beastmen, Estalia and the like coming to Tirell to grab land. For the civilians, life was still the same as before.

There was just one more king.

so what?

Didn’t we have enough “kings” above our heads in the past?

Life will continue as it is. It seems no different from before the war...

This was Al's plan.

First, use powerful military force to quickly crush the enemy and eliminate their regular military forces, so that they will form a mentality that resistance is a dead end—the double-headed eagle is invincible.

They also used a relaxed occupation policy to stabilize the local situation and used targeted attacks to create a conflict between the interests of local landlords, gentry, and the upper-middle class, who controlled the most resources, and the rebels.

No matter who is causing the trouble, the local elites must be purged (of course, those who have completely surrendered can be spared), and those local powerful figures with large fortunes and wealth will even take the initiative to take on the work of "fake army" and "puppet government" to help the legion eliminate local disturbances.

In this way, there is no need for Ai'er's warriors to even be stained with blood in order to gain a stable occupied area.

Even because of the widespread aggregation of clan forces in the Tyrells, phenomena such as private fights, vendettas, and the majority bullying the minority in cities and rural areas were reduced when the double-headed eagle flag was flying, and local public security improved a lot for a time.

Vagrants, gangs, beggars... These groups that have become extinct in Estalia are regarded as unstable factors that affect governance in the occupied areas. They are either required to find a proper job within a limited time or be forced to be organized into paid labor. Those who are truly unable to take care of themselves will be taken in and provided for.

Ultimately, Aiur governs Tyrell as if it were another Estalia, rather than occupying it and taking advantage of it as a colony.

Compared to Estalia, which is a blank slate, the situation in Tyrell is much more complicated. At the same time, unlike the invasion of the greenskins, which has a broad mass base, there is still considerable hostility and vigilance towards the two-headed eagle in the cities and the countryside.

El estimated that it would take at least two years to complete the initial integration of this newly acquired territory.

It's very troublesome, everything has to be done with caution. Tyrell is not like Estalia. Aiur lacks administrative power. It can directly use the army to implement military control for a period of time to restore production and let the people accept and obey the existence of the center again.