Black Iron's Glory

The sudden coup from the royal guard to push the fourth prince to the throne was quite unexpected. Claude had to storm his brain for quite a while only to realise that his deployment of Thundercrash on the mainland had interrupted the royal guard corps’ plans by a whole year. It seemed that the royal guard was deeply suspicious of the autonomous region. While they weren’t outright hostile, they didn’t seem inclined to play friendly either.

The other unexpected thing was how Stellin XI would actually be shot dead in his quarters in the crossfire. Usually, a coup like that would see the king imprisoned for life or forced to go into exile. But they outright killed Stellin XI, their monarch and biological brother of Fredrey.

Bolonik was quite happy and immediately sent a congratulatory ambassador mission to the royal capital. Borkal wasn’t the one who represented this time, but rather, a few members of the governing council. Bernard was there as well as the leader of the mission.

Bolonik hoped that the autonomous region could restore their relationship with the kingdom back to normal like when Stellin X reigned. That was to say, to have free movement of people and win-win economic development.

Claude was rather lukewarm about the gesture of goodwill the autonomous region was trying to send. He suspected that the new king, Fredrey I, might not necessarily be up to the task of stabilising the kingdom. Since Stellin XI’s death, Claude believed the fourth prince would have no way to hold the royal guard firm in his command. Doing so would have him remembered for fratricide and he definitely wouldn’t have wanted that for himself.

From the 3rd to the 6th month, much news about the royal capital came from Griffon in Whitestag. Since Fredrey I’s ascension, he made three changes in policy. The first was the abolishment of Stellin XI’s new seven new taxes, which came as a relief to the populace. The second was the absolution of the crimes and charges levied during Stellin XI’s purge. The third was the encouraging of development and production of locals, as well as the deployment of the royal guard to wipe out the bandits in the area to restore order to the kingdom.

The new king did seem rather decent based on the first moves he made. He gained some good repute among the populace as well. However, when the ambassadors of the region returned during the 7th month, they brought with them bad news. The requests the kingdom made was rather difficult for the council members to accept. Claude, of all people, was even more unwilling to accept the ministry of the army’s conditions.

Based on what Bernard and the rest reported, Fredrey I was merely a puppet king. The real power lay in the hands of the old nobility. Their demands seemed rather excessive to the council members as they were still regarding the colonies in an old light.

The first demand was for the colonies to renounce their status as an autonomous and be called simply the colonies once more. That was something they were able to accept as a compromise, but the kingdom also demanded for the disbandment of the governing council. It came as no surprise that the council members were against that, since nobody would be willing to give up their own power and benefits.

The second demand was for the tribute collection in the colonies to resume. That alone proved that the royal capital viewed the colonies the same as before. They demanded 500 thousand crowns yearly from them, which in itself wasn’t excessive since the colony had an annual income of two million crowns. However, asking for another seventy percent of all the ore mined in the colonies was far too excessive.

The third demand was an explicit slight against the autonomous region. The royal capital believed that the colonial wars had ended for good and that the military rule could be relinquished. They also wanted Thundercrash and Monolith to be downsized into folks. They would be allowed to keep their names, but they would be subordinate to the ministry of the army after their numbers were halved.

The fourth demand was regarding the fleet. The kingdom wanted the long-distance patrol fleet of the region to be subordinate to the ministry of the navy and be renamed Whitewhale. However, half of the members of the fleet would have to be discharged for another patrol flotilla at the colonies to be formed. In essence, the kingdom was trying to get the fleet free of charge.

Lastly, the kingdom also demanded for the designs of the new rifles and their detailed production process to be handed over to the kingdom. The conflict between Thundercrash and Reddragon had made the old nobility aware of the might the new rifles possessed. They had pined after those rifles for some time now, but their relationship was testy back then, being an ambiguous mix of friend and foe. In fear of angering Thundercrash, they forced themselves to hold back.

In some sense, nobility old and new had the same quality: greed. The only thing old nobility did better than the new was that they knew how to hold back, unlike the new nobility who threw their weight around without any regard. Their current priorities were to restore production and order on the mainland to stabilise the kingdom and push for economic development.

Yet, they still saw the autonomous region in the same light, thinking that those territories were under direct jurisdiction of the royal family. They were still trying the old suppress-and-rob trick. Based on their first two demands, it was obvious they were trying to bring back the old days when the colonies were slave to the mainland. They hated the formation of the autonomous region and the progress and changes that happened out of their control.

Bernard said the royal capital told the ambassadors that if the region agreed to those demands, the king would absolve the region for their crimes of stealing the kingdom’s industrial equipment and people as well as their declaration of self-governance.

As for the five generals and soldiers of the corps, they would be given their due reward for their contributions in the colonial wars personally by the king. Claude and Bolonik, for instance, had a good chance of being promoted to full general rank and receive higher Titles. Skri, Birkin and Eiblont were no exception either.

Claude laughed dryly at the piss-poor attempt at temptation they were trying to pull. They didn’t even have anything good to offer and couldn’t move them in the slightest. While Bolonik was trying to be a loyal subject of the kingdom the best he could, his face turned cold after he heard Bernard’s reward. It practically spelled out his disagreement.

“Ridiculous!” Eiblont was the first one to let loose. “What do those bigwigs in the royal capital think we are?! Dogs wagging our tails and begging them for food?! Why should we downsize when our two corps are obviously much stronger than theirs? They should be the one to downsize!”

“By the way, I forgot to mention something,” Bernard said, “When we returned, we heard the royal guard was trying to get another folk to form a grand corps with four folks. Their total number will be equal to our two main battle corps.”

The royal guard already had three folks in their ranks. They would leave one behind to guard the royal capital every time they deployed. Adding another folk to their ranks would bring their total up to around 100 thousand, more or less the amount of Thundercrash and Monolith combined. If they added another garrison folk down the line, they would be able to fight two corps on their own.

Curiously, Skri asked, “Didn’t they say the national treasury has been emptied out? Where’s the royal guard getting the funds?”

Bernard sighed. “The royal guard’s coup was far too sudden. Nobody could’ve predicted it. During the coup, they sealed off the whole royal capital and not a single one of the new nobility on Stellin XI’s side managed to escape. They were all captured. When we arrived at the royal capital, we heard rumours that all their assets were seized, amounting to a total of near ten million crowns.

“That’s why the kingdom made those three policy changes to remove the seven taxes to decrease the burden on the people. On the day of the announcement, the citizens of the royal capital cheered and paraded in the streets and thanked Fredrey I for his benevolence. In fact, all that had happened was the royal guard managed to gather a huge fortune from the new nobility. If they use it wisely, it’ll be able to last the kingdom three years, which should be enough time for the kingdom’s economy to return to normal.”

“How many of the new nobility were captured?” Skri asked.

Bernard shook his head and said, “I’m not too sure myself. A few hundred houses, perhaps. I read that only 45 were punished with hanging for their crimes and the other vassal houses were stripped of their status and sent to the labour camps.”

Skri gave it some thought and said, “Then it shouldn’t be just ten million crowns. The ambassadors that we captured were crying and begging to be let free for a ransom of 300 thousand crowns to be sent back to the mainland. If the new nobility’s purge included noble houses like those, then our new king really made a killing this time.”

Bolonik slammed the desk angrily, interrupting Skri and Bernard’s discussion. “Stop going off on a tangent. What are your thoughts on the demands? Let me state first that I am against them. Who do they think we are?! The demand for our new rifles alone is reason enough to reject them! Claude, what say you?”

“Me?–” Claude shrugged. “–There’s nothing to say about this. The old nobility are already letting it get to their heads so soon after coming to power. Do they really think they can handle us? Just refuse them.”

Other things aside, the first and second demands alone wouldn’t be passed by the council. The council members just got to be able to run things, so who would be willing to be bossed around again?

Not to mention, the patrol fleet was formed from the spoils of the two corps and never belonged to the ministry of the navy in the first place. The war theatre had reformed the captives of the Alliance’s fleet into their own fleet to patrol the region’s waters and invested much funding into its formation. The royal capital would only get the fleet without paying a single penny in their dreams. Perhaps they were still holding hopes for the reestablishment of the shipping routes to the colonies.

Their demand for the Sonia 591s, the sole thing that offered the region a significant survival advantage, would definitely come to the objection of most of the council, to say no more about the five generals. Who would hand their trump cards to a possible opponent?

The mortars alone were the prime example of what would happen. Once Claude allowed the old nobility to make their own mortars, the other Freian nations began coming up with forgeries, which came back to bite the war theatre in the rear when Shiks overwhelmed them with their crude, but effective mortars. Nobody would be willing to suffer a loss of that magnitude ever again.

Though, Claude didn’t personally didn’t mind if the rifles were leaked. The true key to cracking the rifles lay in the cartridges and the special gunpowder Sonia invented. The recipe was kept top secret and the only ones who knew how to make them were Angelina and her students. Each time, they made a large barrel that could last more than ten days of cartridge production. Each cartridge only had to use a pinch of the powder.

Without the special mix, the cartridges would easily misfire. Misfiring new rifles would be no more useful than a spear. Claude could live with giving the royal capital new rifles, but never the recipe for the powder. Then again, there was still a possibility other nations would know how to make their own forgeries once the new rifles ended up in the hands of the old nobility.

Claude didn’t dare to bet that there was no person who could create something similar to the gunpowder to decrease the rate of misfire. Should that really come to pass, he wouldn’t even have any tears left to shed. So, he decided he couldn’t allow the demand to be followed through.

“How should we respond to the demands?” Bernard asked.

Claude chuckled. “Why do we even have to respond to what they say? We’ll give them a set of demands we’re willing to compromise on and that it. We’re going to bargain like we do at the markets. They make an offer, and we make a counteroffer. If we can’t agree on the terms, we can go our own respective ways.”

“Alright, let’s leave it at that. Let us discuss what sort of conditions we’ll have for the royal capital,” Bolonik decided.

Soon, the executive committee came up with a response. They agreed to change the designation from autonomous region back to the colonies, but insisted that the self-governing council and war administration be kept in place. Additionally, they agreed to pay the 500-thousand-crown tribute. However, mineral ores had to be bought by the kingdom, though at a discounted price of 70 percent.

As for the two corps of the region, they would fund themselves and remain under their own jurisdiction as they had been decreed to protect the colonies by Stellin X. For the calculation of merits earned during the war, the royal capital was urged to hurry up with the process instead of dallying and fiddling around with it.

Regarding the fleet, it was the spoils of the colonial troops and was now under the jurisdiction of the war administration. While they could help the kingdom’s ministry of the navy form their own new fleet, they refused to hand their own fleet to the ministry. The new rifles weren’t brought up at all. It was a clear sign for the nobles to forget their ludicrous ideas and move on.

“What if they don’t agree?” Bernard ask.

“We’ll leave them hanging then. It’s not that we have to rely on the mainland for anything now anyway. The most they can do is to not give us our promotions, not that that would affect us in the least. Our troops are long used to the unfair treatment by the royal capital. It would be surprising if they really agreed to our terms. I’m sure I’ll start to wonder if the sun will rise from the west next,” Claude plainly said.

Little did he know that the response they sent sunk like a rock into the sea. There wasn’t the slightest bit of an echo from the kingdom. However, Griffon’s corpsman, General Hadro, wrote a letter to Claude from Whitestag that the bigwigs were flaring with rage and calling the autonomous region traitors, proclaiming that they would be the kingdom’s first target to punish after they recovered.