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Vol 05 Chapter 151: Second Southern Conquest II

A week has passed since the Second Southern Conquest began. We are currently in the midst of capturing the fourth city.

The Kirisian soul of this city’s residents seems to be on fire. They kicked away the surrender notice we offered without even reading it. Because of that, we have been held up for three days.

However, this ends today.

「Your Majesty, the tunnel is complete.」

「Good. Have the entire army prepare to storm in. Collapse the walls on my signal.」

We dug a tunnel and reinforced it with wooden pillars. After the tunnel reached under the city walls, we spread reeds and oil inside and set it on fire as we retreated.

Once the wooden pillars reinforcing the tunnel burn, the tunnel will collapse, and naturally, the walls above it will also crumble.

This is a traditional tactic that has been used since ancient times. This time, we’ve added gunpowder for extra measure.

「Collapse it!」

At my signal, a low whistle echoed. The smell of burning filled the air, and soon the city walls crumbled away.

「Charge!!!」

Forty thousand troops poured through the collapsed walls simultaneously. Thus, the fourth city fell effortlessly.

◇

The city turned crimson. Consumed by flames, everything inside the city burned down.

We finished plundering the city already, so I don’t feel like we are wasting resources.

「You’ve become a bit stricter, Your Majesty.」

「Well, I’ve learned my lesson from the rebellion.」

I forced a wry smile. This was a message to all the Kirisian city-states.

If they don’t hurry and negotiate peace, we’ll burn every city to the ground like this.

Moreover, this also serves as a way to relieve the soldiers’ frustrations. Up until now, we had strictly forbidden any looting in the cities that surrendered.

However, the soldiers were reaching their limit. This was a perfect opportunity to calm them.

I’ve become quite accustomed to the way of thinking of this world.

If you look past modern Earth ethics, burning down a city is quite an effective method. Not only does it have a visual impact, but looting also helps secure war funds. Additionally, with the enemy’s stronghold in flames, the risk of rebellion is reduced.

The Kirisians have a strong sense of ethnic identity. The only way to govern over them is to give them limited autonomy, if autonomy can’t be granted is better to burn the city down. It may be ruthless, but it results in fewer deaths in the long run.

「But it’s been a week since the war started. It’s about time to end it.」

Raymond muttered.

Crops require continuous care. It’s already been a week since the war started. Large-scale mobilization like the one we are doing right now has a significant impact on the country’s productivity.

「But now is our chance. We should occupy as many cities as we can while we have the opportunity. Such chances won’t come again.」

Bartolo seemed eager to continue the war.

In reality, the enemy’s preparations for a counterattack don’t seem to be ready yet. We can capture several cities without resistance if we continue like this.

What to do…

「If they propose peace, I intend to accept it. However, I have no intention of proposing peace from our side.」

If we propose peace, it would show our weakness. We must remain in a position of power.

「Now then, Bartolo, I hear there are three cities around here.」

「Yes, that’s correct. This city is surrounded by three cities. It’s a location from which we can attack in three directions, but it’s also vulnerable to attacks from three directions.」

In other words, it’s both easy to attack and easy to be attacked. It’s a strategic point that’s difficult to maintain.

Well, since we’ve burned it down, it doesn’t matter much now.

「The surrounding three cities have populations of sixteen thousand, twenty-four thousand, and thirty thousand, respectively. If we capture these three cities, this entire area will be ours.」

Even if we negotiate peace, I definitely want to take these cities first.

「But if we attack one, the others will come to its aid. What do we do?」

「I have an idea.」

Bartolo said with a sly smile.

◇

Siege warfare takes time and produces heavy casualties.

Our country can maintain the currently deployed forces for two more weeks at most. Ideally, I want to wrap this up within a week.

However, it’s unrealistic to capture three large cities by siege warfare within a week.

Moreover, focusing on one city will invite reinforcements from the others. Dividing our forces is a bad strategy. So, what should we do?

「Your Majesty, we have successfully formed an alliance with the three northeastern city-states.」

「I see. That makes it six now.」

Listening to the report from the patrician I dispatched as a diplomat, I marked the map.

Many of these city-states aim to maintain independence. However, maintaining independence is exceedingly difficult.

This region is where the Adernian powers and the Kirisian powers intersect. The powerful Kirisia city-states like Lezado, Nemes, and Gehenna, and the Adernian countries—formerly King Belvedire’s Country, now King Rosais’ Country—have been meddling in their internal affairs.

The small countries sandwiched between these great powers have two options.

One is to form a union with other small states. However, this is extremely difficult.

It’s impossible to unify the will of dozens of countries. And they aren’t completely friendly with each other either, many of them have territorial conflicts with their neighbors.

Thus, the only answer is to seek the protection of a great power.

Until now, these city-states have been under the protection of King Belvedire’s Country. However, due to the recent war, the influence of King Belvedire’s Country has receded, forcing many city-states to fend for themselves.

However, is impossible for them to keep their independence by themselves. Therefore, they formed alliances with Lezado and Gehenna to somehow maintain their autonomy.

In other words, the city-states in this region are allied with Lezado and Gehenna. But have Lezado and Gehenna actually helped these city-states so far?

No, they haven’t even sent reinforcements. Because, officially, Lezado and Gehenna need to maintain neutrality against us.

However, in reality, these city-states were incited by Lezado and Gehenna to provoke our country into military intervention. But our swift victory thrashed their plans.

Both Lezado and Gehenna claim that they had no involvement in the conflict and that it was an independent action of the city-states. Thus, they cannot openly protest when we capture these city-states or bring them under our alliance to eliminate the threat.

Until now, we’ve received indirect protests and peace mediation offers from Lezado and Gehenna, but their military hasn’t moved yet.

Lezado and Gehenna likely wish to avoid conflict with us. Our military power poses a significant threat to them.

Moreover, there are merchants who gain substantial profits from trading with our country. To them, maintaining a good relationship with us is far more important than their ties with the small Kirisian city-states.

The ones who are truly unfortunate are the small Kirisian city-states. They were told they would receive assistance if needed, waged war based on that promise, were defeated, and then abandoned.

The unity among the Kirisian city-states has disintegrated by now. This creates an opportunity for us to intervene.

We only had to propose separate peace treaties to each city.

Small city-states with populations of only a few thousand, which can barely be called city-states, maintain their security by being protected by larger city-states. Of course, they pay substantial tributes in exchange for this protection.

From their perspective, it doesn’t matter who provides the protection as long as their autonomy is guaranteed.

Thus, we have been trying to win over the smaller cities…

How does this relate to the conquest of the three large cities?

「Watching the city-states they considered their vassals fall one by one to King Rosais’ Country must be quite displeasing for them.」

「Moreover, if the surrounding city-states become autonomous cities under our rule…they will find themselves isolated in enemy territory.」

Bartolo and I speculated on the sentiments of the leaders of the three cities.

Earlier, I explained how small city-states are under the protection of larger ones. In this region, the three major cities are the local powers providing such protection to the surrounding smaller city-states.

However, the three major cities have closed themselves off and are not fighting the invaders. Their influence is rapidly declining.

If things continue this way, all the small cities in the area will fall under the control of King Rosais’ Country without a fight. Surrounded, they won’t be able to trade, and their water sources could be cut off. It’s a losing situation.

To break this stalemate…

「They’ll have to take a desperate gamble. The three cities have a combined population of seventy thousand. If they mobilize to their limits, they can muster twenty thousand. Forty thousand against twenty thousand—well, they can’t win.」

Bartolo shrugged.

Even if they arm the elderly, women, and children, it would be useless. They’d be scattered in no time.

In other words, the three cities alone cannot change the situation. What can’t be done, can’t be done.

And they can’t rely on reinforcements. The city-states still haven’t unified their intentions.

Given this, the three cities have three options.

「One, they surrender. Two, they go all out in a desperate battle. Three, they wait forever for reinforcements that will never come. Those are the choices.」

Bartolo grinned. In other words, they’re in a checkmate situation.

From my perspective, surrender is the best option…

「Your Majesty, we have a message from the magician monitoring the movements of the three cities. They’ve raised their armies. When combined, they number about ten thousand!」

Ten thousand, huh. At least they had the sense not to include women, children, and the elderly.

They’re not complete fools, it seems. Well, we also don’t want to kill women, children, or the elderly. Good, good.

「Inform the city-states to keep their gates tightly shut and neither aid nor attack.」

Even if the smaller cities attack, it won’t significantly reduce the enemy’s ten thousand troops. It will even be problematic if they move.

In this world, armies typically acquire food locally during wars. While our country refrains from looting, we do enforce the compulsory purchase of food supplies.

If the small city-states prevent the enemy from acquiring food that would be enough.

「So, how do we deal with their ten thousand troops?」

「We’ll subdue them with poison.」

The smile on Bartolo’s face after he said this was like that of a child who had thought up a mean prank.