Free Web NovelChapter 273: The Royal Court Begins Moving
With the Imperial Overseer’s departure and the death of former Minster Mace, the ranks of the pro-action party of the Royal Council swelled and plans for a large-scale deployment of the Army were at last approved.
However, despite the biggest obstacle to a full mobilization having removed itself from the equation, that didn’t mean that everything in Rockwell City just started moving smoothly.
Orders needed to be drafted, soldiers needed to be recalled, relief aid needed to be gathered, money had to be allocated, and a million other things were necessary before the kingdom was able to re-assert control over the situation in the South-West Province.
Now, some of that had quietly been going on the background, so some immediate actions were taken, just not the full, comprehensive response that was necessary.
Over half a Battalion worth of Aerial Cavalry from the Golden Wings Legion was already in Iron Rock together with Commander Clark, and through the few round-trips Vanessa had made, General Gunthar was more up-to-date on the situation than most others in the capital.
Because of this, the grizzled old General was able to make appropriate preparations and as soon as he received permission, he deployed the First, Third, and Fifth Regiments of his Army to the south-west.
Another 300 soldiers from the Steel Shield Legion, the Army from the capital most likely to assume control over Iron Rock when the dust settled, were also deployed alongside the reinforcements from the Golden Wings Legion as scouts.
The reason for this somewhat disjointed operation was mainly because there was no central command of the military in the Rockwell Kingdom.
In theory, all 10 Armies reported to the Minister of War, who reported to the Royal Council and King, but in practice, each Army functioned independently of the others. While this decentralization helped maintain the political and power balance, it also resulted in a significant increase in response time during emergencies.
Ordinarily, this didn’t matter, as all other kingdoms in the surrounding region suffered from the same problem. Preparing for war was never something that happened overnight, so taking a few extra days to assemble troops and move supplies wasn’t a major issue.
When a disaster, like the giant explosion in the Great Western Forest, occurred, however, the sluggishness of the various Armies became far more noticeable.
Nevertheless, under the constant urging of the King himself, the various ministers and bureaucrats of the different branches of government worked tirelessly to get an appropriate response to the crisis moving.
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As more aid and troops were beginning to pour into the South-West Province, Iron Rock’s western districts underwent a massive renovation, with hundreds of buildings being demolished to make space for barracks, armories, stables, and warehouses of all kinds.
The walls were reinforced with additional troop emplacements and siege weapons, while thousands of temporary labourers were employed to clear structures, forests, and fields outside the city to open up a wider line of sight.
Plans were even being drawn up to add a moat around the western part of the city, one that would be at least 5 metres deep, and 15 metres wide, big enough to hamper the advance of even Fourth Order Beasts.
Simultaneously, the smithies in Iron Rock picked up production.
Copious amounts of Gold from both the Balfour and Carlson Families kept the furnaces running day and night, with a massive initial order for 10,000 sets of armour, 10,000 swords, 20,000 spears, 30,000 shields, and 10 million arrows.
Civilian construction also saw a massive influx of money, with demand for new homes on the eastern shores of the Belton exploding.
A month ago, Iron Rock had a population of around 60,000, and while several thousand of these original inhabitants had fled during this crisis, all estimates pointed to the number of permanent residents living in the city reaching at least 90,000 when all was said and done.
A lot of these new inhabitants would be soldiers, but many would also be refugees who simply had no other place to go.
These issues, and many more, kept everyone in Iron Rock extremely busy, with many people going several days without sleep just to not fall behind schedule.
For his part, Lucas was also run ragged, hopping between various meetings, planning sessions, and negotiations all-day-long. His schedule was filled to the point where aside from an hour for cultivation or physical training in the morning, he had no free time at all.
It wasn’t until 10 days after the three Regiments from the Golden Wings Legion arrived in Iron Rock that Lucas finally had a chance to catch his breath.
It had now been 39 days since that fateful evening in late September, barely more than a month ago, but to Lucas, it felt like several years had gone by.
That night, Lucas’ world had been turned upside down; he had lost his home, his parents, and more friends than he cared to count.
Some of them, he would do everything in his power to see again, but others were gone for good, and would never be returning.
Sitting on the steps of the guest villa he had been staying at for the past 22 days, watching the sun quietly set over the distant horizon, Lucas let out a sigh of exhaustion.
The threat of attack from Sixth, or possibly even Seventh Order Beasts was enough to convince the major noble families of the South-West Province to cooperate with Lucas’ radical plan.
The Baker Family of Herald City, Moore Family of Port Calden, Carlson Family of Iron Rock, Patterson Family of Yarrel, and Drax Family of Southbridge had all, in one way or another, signed on to support the mass-evacuation and relocation of nearly 40% of the province’s population.
None of these noble families dared to take chances when beings capable of wiping whole cities from existence might be lurking nearby.
The danger was only underscored by the fact that over 60,000 people, about 10% of the total population of the province, had already perished.
However, just because they were willing go along with what they assumed was Marquess Balfour’s plan to empty the Baker County, Moore Viscounty, and a significant portion of the Carlson County, that didn’t mean these powerful nobles were all happy about it.
Evacuating, housing, feeding, and finally resettling some 200,000 refugees was no easy task, nor was it cheap by any stretch of the imagination. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
In the face of such a monumental and expensive undertaking, it was hardly surprising that voices advocating for ’a less involved approach’ had appeared amongst many circles. Even some of the highest-ranking members of the leading noble families wondered if it wasn’t better to just ’let nature takes it course’ regarding the displaced population.
Certainly, abandoning such a massive number of civilians under their rule would damage both the finances and public image, but trying to save all of them would also result in huge strains on their resources.
Without someone actively pushing for a more comprehensive and coordinated response, these nobles would most likely have just done the bare minimum to protect their own interests while allowing the common riff-raff to fend for themselves.
A bit of relief grain might have been distributed, some skilled labourers might have been recruited, a few temporary shelters might have been opened up, and the minimum number of troops may have been deployed to safe-guard critical locations, but that would likely have been it.
What’s more, no one would have raised any issue with this kind of response; at least, no one with the power to do anything about it.
In the world of Servist, the only true law was the law of the jungle. Strength was king, and benefits were the only eternal currency, so if 50,000, or 100,000, or even 250,000 commoners died due to an unexpected disaster, then that was their fault for being weak and powerless.
Lucas knew all this, and he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that people would do the right thing simply because it was the right thing to do. He understood that with the prestige of his Master, the local nobles could be made to cooperate on the surface, but if he really wanted them to mobilize the totality of their wealth and influence, he would need to provide them with appropriate incentives.
Morality and righteousness were wonderful concepts, goals to be striven towards by all civilizations, but reality was harsh and unforgiving, so if Lucas wanted these people’s earnest assistance, he needed to make it worth their while.
For the Baker Family, things were relatively simple.
After being ’disciplined’ by Marquess Balfour, Count Richard Baker and his uncle Arnold had turned over all governing authority to Celestina in exchange for her agreeing not to petition the Royal Court to strip their family of their wealth and noble rank and execute them for crimes against the Rockwell Kingdom.
Obviously, there was no greater incentive than being able to keep one’s life, so there was no need to further ’persuade’ the Baker Family to cooperate.
The complete emptying of the Baker County, as well as the huge drain on the Count’s coffers, was also eased somewhat by the simple fact that it was by far the hardest hit by this disaster. When one is on the brink of losing absolutely everything, giving up most of what you have left for a chance to survive and rebuild suddenly became much easier.
Now, whether the Baker Family could retain its status or recover in the future was highly questionable; however, that wasn’t something Lucas cared about.
True, he wanted to return and rebuild Redwood Town at some point in the future, but by the time Lucas was ready to do that, he doubted he would need help or approval from a corrupt, decaying noble house.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how one looked at it, the other noble families which ruled over large domains in the South-West weren’t as corrupt and hapless as the Bakers.
