What's wrong with building a steel torrent in a dungeon?

"A conspiracy?"

"Damned Fran... She first pretended to be weak to the dwarves, chose a location to negotiate with the dwarves, and then waited for an opportunity to launch a sneak attack! She directly destroyed the dwarves' main fleet, and forced the dwarves to surrender." said the elf messenger.

Why does this scene sound familiar?

Margaret thought about it and finally remembered. Wasn't this the conspiracy of the elves to trap the trolls and kill the second prince of the trolls, Suleiman? They just looked through their own history and randomly found a passage to pin on Fran.

"So in order to stop the evil power of Fran from spreading outward and eroding our civilized and bright main continent, our Northern Alliance and Chinese Alliance have decided to put aside their past grudges and deal with her together!" The elf messenger said, "And Your Majesty, as one of the few leaders in the entire Calradia continent who has not colluded with Fran, our Northern Alliance and Chinese Alliance urgently need your help."

This hat is too high.

Margaret certainly would not be flattered by the votes she received. She said, "Then, what do the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance need me to do? They can't ask me to declare war on Fran right now. As you know, the capital is now occupied by Fran, and I am just an exiled monarch in name only."

"Your Majesty, you are too kind. It was not because you were so wise and single-handedly stopped the evil undead disaster, but suffered heavy losses, that Fran took advantage of you." The elf said: "But the people have sharp eyes. The people in the occupied areas of the Holy Roel Empire miss you very much and hope that you can regain real power one day."

As he spoke, the elf messenger calmly handed a thick stack of papers to Margaret.

"This is?"

"This is a joint signature from the nobles, heads of the Chamber of Commerce, clergy, and local gentry representatives in the Holy Roel Empire who hope that you can regain power." The elf messenger said, "As long as you are willing to rise up and openly oppose Fran's tyranny and take back Vienna, they will actively respond."

How can this be a response list? This is clearly a list of traitors, and a list of traitors recognized by the elves.

Margaret flipped through the book casually, cursing them thousands of times in her heart. She didn't expect that these nobles who were fickle, cowardly, and fled at the critical moment would now have the nerve to claim to be righteous and come to support her!

But on the surface, Margaret still put on a happy expression.

"So, what do the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance think I should do?"

"We hope you will do the following three things," the elf messenger said. "First, publicly announce the relocation of the capital to New Vienna! Move the Imperial Parliament, the army, and various state affairs offices to New Vienna. Second, publicly purge the army and station it near Vienna for training. Third, and most importantly, publicly criticize Fran."

As he spoke, the elf took out a thick gold-stamped document like a magic trick, and then said: "This is the detailed plan we have drawn up."

This elf messenger came well prepared.

Margaret pretended to look at it carefully for a while, then put it aside.

"What do you think, Your Majesty?"

"The first one is easy. After all, everyone who can follow has already come here." Margaret said, "As for the second one... openly purging the army and stationing them near Vienna is not a problem, but all of this requires money. The Holy Rohr Empire is in a state of disrepair and has too many places to spend money. It is difficult for the treasury to maintain the high military expenditure."

"Don't worry about that." The elf messenger said, "The Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance will support you! Whether it's weapons and equipment or military funds and food."

Margaret smiled and said, "But it doesn't seem to be written here."

"Ah... This! It may be an oversight!" The elf messenger immediately said: "Regarding the supplies provided, I will go back and prepare a detailed report and present it to Your Majesty."

"Then I am extremely grateful to the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance, the two main planes' civilization beacons. As for the last point... it seems to be open to discussion."

"You mean, publicly criticizing Fran? But why? This should cost you nothing." The elf messenger asked with some confusion.

"It's just a few words, of course it doesn't matter. But I think... there's no point in criticizing Fran. She's thick-skinned and doesn't care about the outside world's opinions at all." Margaret said: "On the contrary, as the Queen of the Holy Roll Empire, I should remain restrained and rational in formal occasions, and create an image of me forbearing in front of the people, so as to win more people's hearts."

The messenger hesitated for a moment, then said, "Your Majesty, what you said makes sense. I will report your suggestion to the Empire right away."

"Okay! Miss Envoy, you've come all this way. We'll have to work together to deal with Fran in the future."

"Yes! More cooperation!"

When the messenger's figure completely disappeared at the palace gate, the smile on Margaret's face immediately cooled. She handed the list and plan brought by the elf messenger to Wallenstein, and then said, "Make a copy of both of these things and send them secretly to Vienna."

"Yes!"

Margaret looked into the distance and said, "You want me to deal with Fran, but you also want to get it for free? You're dreaming! I want to see how much these elves are willing to pay to let me deal with our little Fran."

Chapter 263: The World is Changing Fast

A few days later, the detailed plan that the elf messenger brought to Margaret and the list of people who supported Margaret appeared on Fran's coffee table.

Fran was eating pastries with her feet up, admiring the masterpiece jointly planned by the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance.

"How is it, sister?" Christina looked at Fran curiously.

"Not very good." Fran said, "I thought that the plan designed by the elves and dwarves, as the two most powerful forces in the main plane, should be very clever and sophisticated. However, this looks very mediocre. I'm not saying that even the nine major families in the dungeon can come up with such a plan.

"Is it that bad?" Christina asked curiously.

"The dwarves and elves want to contain me, but they don't want to do it themselves, so they find Margaret. The trick of supporting an agent is too common and heartless," said Fran.

"Use Margaret as your proxy to fight against you." Christina covered her mouth and laughed, "Not to mention that she is on the same side with us now, even if she really defected to the Northern Alliance. With the power she has now, I'm afraid she can't compete with us at all."

"So, the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance must give Margaret a blood transfusion at the same time." Fran said

"Blood transfusion? The Northern Alliance has already transfused blood to Margaret, but it is only to help her build a new capital." Christina said: "And after the dispute between you and the elves in the Feruman Empire ended and you started the naval battle with the dwarves, they are not very concerned about Margaret's new Vienna."

"So, in order to support Margaret, they formulated an ambitious plan to revive the Holy Roll Empire. At the same time, they also promised to help Margaret rebuild her army." Fran said, "It seems that they want to use military force to suppress and threaten me."

"Rebuilding the army again?" Hearing this, Christina couldn't help but sneer: "They have been using this system for hundreds of years, why haven't they changed to a new one now?"

Helping other forces build their armies is a very old-fashioned tactic used by the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance.

By controlling the economic lifeline of the army, they can infiltrate the country's army, train pro-elves officers in the army, and then completely control the country's military power. With the army, they can do whatever they want.

Mining, tariff control, diplomacy control, everything else will be easy.

Because this trick is used so often, even farm women who never ask about politics know the tricks behind it. So this time the elves helped Margaret rebuild the army, and the calculations were heard by the demon world. It can be said that everyone knows what Fran is thinking.

Once Margaret is captured, the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance will be able to use this as a claim to confront Fran openly.

Before, there had been disputes between the two sides in the Feruman Empire and in the Endless Ocean, but those places were not the core areas of Fran after all. However, if the battle took place in the Holy Roll Empire, the situation would be different, because this was Fran's home base after all.

As long as Margaret could defeat Fran here, not only would Fran have to consider relocating, but her sphere of influence would also be cut off, and she would have to rely on the sea route to maintain it. In this way, Margaret was like a knife against Fran's heart, which was extremely dangerous.

"So... Margaret agreed?" Christina asked.

"She's asking for my opinion." Fran said, "My opinion is, I agree!"

"Why? Aren't you afraid that the Northern Alliance will really raise an army in our territory that obeys their orders?" Christina frowned and said.

"The traditional method used by the elves to control the armies of other countries is to train rebels by any means possible. They offer official titles and promises to important military officers, as well as bribe them with money and sex." Fran said, "Such tactics are indeed effective in dealing with those greedy noble officers, but don't forget that we are also good at military construction, especially grassroots military construction."

"Yes! Our officers are selected from ordinary soldiers, and they hate the practices of the old army." Christina could already imagine the frustrated look on the faces of these foreign officers.

"Of course, it's not my style to just thwart their tricks." Fran said with a smile: "They bit me! I have to bite them back!"

"Sister means..."

"Don't they want to influence or even control Margaret's army? It just so happens that I also want to influence the Northern Alliance's army! Especially the elves' army! The conflicts within their army...bloodline, faction, power, family, class, are no less than those of the Holy Roel Empire's army before! If only we could influence them!"

"Isn't that the other way around controlling the elves?"

Fran said confidently: "I have an idea... Sister! Your handwriting is more beautiful, and your choice of words and sentences is far better than mine. So please help me write a letter to High Priest Galannodil!"

“What’s the content?”

"Emm mmmm... Just say that the people here are stupid and have a lot of money, so come and develop the revolutionary team quickly."

A few days later, representatives of the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance gathered in the New Vienna (which was in a state of disrepair), and signed a contract with Catalina with great fanfare.

Representatives of the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance expressed their willingness to help the Holy Roll Empire, the greatest contributor to the war against the Undead Scourge, restore its economy and military capabilities.

As soon as these words came out, they were immediately booed by the other forces below.

After all, everyone knows that the biggest contributor to defeating the Scourge is none other than Fran!

However, the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance control the media machinery after all.

First, they ignored the facts and only talked about the sacrifices in the war, portraying Margaret as a tragic hero. They said that in order to buy time for the rear, Margaret fought to the death and so on.

Well, since Margaret is the biggest contributor, then we in the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance will naturally support her! After all, we are the beacon of civilization.

In this way, they once again stood on the moral high ground.

The elf is very familiar with this combination of punches.

After that, they calmly laid out the contents of the contract.

The contract was very long, but most of the things in it were unimportant, nothing more than economic support, material support, continued repairs to the city, etc., and other forces were not surprised. However, among these many agreements, a military-related cooperation agreement was particularly eye-catching.

The contract stated that the Huameng would provide weapons, equipment, supplies and food to help the Holy Luo Empire of the Dead God to re-recruit its army, restore its military structure and strive to return to its pre-war size.

Pre-war size?

Before the Scourge of the Undead, Margaret had five legions under her command, totaling 100,000 men. In other words, they had to help Margaret recruit at least 80,000 soldiers.

This is simply an astronomical figure, especially in the war-torn Holy Rohr Empire.

If the Chinese Alliance provides money, then the Northern Alliance provides people!

The Northern Alliance said it would provide Margaret with hundreds of military advisers and officers at all levels to help train soldiers.

After the full version of this contract came out, the entire Calradia continent, and even the entire main plane, was in an uproar.

The Chinese Alliance and the Northern Alliance have been fighting for hundreds of years, but now they are cooperating.

A year ago, the elves and Margaret were fighting each other on both sides of the Soul-Guiding River, but unexpectedly, they shook hands and made peace in the blink of an eye.

It’s not that I don’t understand, it’s just that the world is changing too fast.

I haven't written for half a year, and I forgot how to use the scheduled release, so I set it to be released tomorrow. Fortunately, I found it while staying up late to watch TI, so I posted it right away.

Chapter 264: Winter is Coming

If we were to say who is the most discussed person in the entire Holy Roll Empire, it would definitely be the nominal emperor - Margaret.

Before signing the cooperation terms, Margaret had always been known as a military genius, future emperor, and the ruler of revival.

Even though she suffered a horrible defeat in the Scourge, her popularity was still very high. After all, she encountered the undead army without any preparation, and even the Elven Empire was helpless, let alone Margaret. It was already very remarkable that she could return alive.

Moreover, during the Battle of Orilagle, she did not choose to flee like other nobles, but resolutely stood at the front of the battlefield. This also restored a lot of her image.

Such a queen would never allow the tentacles of other forces to reach into her body, especially the most important part - the army.

However, Margaret actually agreed to the agreement between the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance! Not only did she open the door wide, but she also handed over all her private things.

If Margaret had not enjoyed such a high reputation among the people, she would have been labeled a traitor and a coward by now.

This behavior is like a strong heroine who has appeared in 99 episodes, but at the last moment she gave in to a yellow-haired hooligans. Even if it was the Youth Frontline II or the Butcher, they would have to admit defeat.

All the people of the Holy Roll Empire are filled with resentment.

As a result, the contract immediately set off a storm of public opinion in the entire Holy Roel Empire. For a time, taverns, teahouses, and markets were all discussing this matter. Even in some romantic places, guests would put aside their serious business and talk about this kind of thing instead.

Because they discuss politics while doing that kind of thing, the male and female operators in brothels would jokingly call this behavior "evil politics."

However, although the public discusses this a lot, people with insight are actually very clear about one thing.

The protagonist of this incident was not Margaret at all.

She is just a chess piece on the chessboard of the continent called Calradia. No matter how glamorous the appearance of this chess piece is, or how important her status is, it is still just a chess piece.

Sitting on both sides of the chessboard are the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance, which have dominated the plane for a hundred years, and the city of Orila, which has risen in recent years, on the other side.

They are the real players on this chessboard.

Before we knew it, the bitter cold winter had quietly arrived.

This also means that the new year is about to pass.

After being ravaged by the undead scourge, the entire Calradia continent finally gained time to recuperate. But they never expected that after only one year of peace, it would once again become the main battlefield for the struggle between various parties.

After the Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance announced their cooperation in a high-profile manner, they began their plan impatiently, and did not even wait until the spring of the following year to let the poor working people of the Calradia continent have a good new year.

Not long after, warships from the dwarves, loaded with a large amount of equipment, arrived at the east coast of the Holy Roll Empire, and then began large-scale construction.

It was obvious that the dwarves had even spared no expense to help Margaret. They had transported a large number of mechanical cores to the Holy Roel Empire, built a large number of factories on the spot, and began to process materials continuously. Coupled with the extremely powerful golem troops, the construction speed of the new Vienna city soon advanced by leaps and bounds.

The elves obviously would not let the Chinese Alliance monopolize the limelight. They brought a large amount of supplies for the winter and distributed them to the people, using small favors to enhance their own image.

When the people were no longer so hostile to outsiders like the Chinese Alliance and the Northern Alliance, they finally showed their true colors and started their plan - conscription!

The Northern Alliance and the Chinese Alliance chose to take action when winter came, not only because they were anxious to compete with Fran and restore the army for Margaret in the shortest possible time.

Winter is really a great time for conscription.

In Calradia, winter is the eternal enemy of all life.

Even in peaceful times, every winter there would still be a large number of disaster victims, thousands of miles of fertile land, starving people everywhere. This phenomenon was even more common in the Holy Roll Empire, which was a loose sand that was neither sacred, nor Roll, nor an empire.

There may not be large balls for the nobles this year, but there will definitely be victims of starvation.

When facing hunger and cold, anyone who is willing to provide the victims with food to fill their stomachs and a place to shelter from the wind and rain would probably be willing to sell their souls.

This is why, after every winter, the land deeds in the hands of the nobles will become thicker, and a large number of new faces will appear in both brothels and slave mines.