Chapter 869 (1/2)

Chapter 869: The Eastern Front Offensive

Translator: TransN Editor: TransN

“That’s Valencia?” Iron Axe adjusted his telescope and was observing a city which looked gray and brown in the distance.

“It should be Valencia according to the map. After all, there’s only one Sanwan River. We can’t get it wrong,” said his lieutenant, Bearpaw. Like Iron Axe, he was also a former hunter living in Border Town and among the first batch of Roland’s militia soldiers.

“It looks a little weird…” Iron Axe frowned.

“Why?”

“Valencia is a major city in the Eastern Region and a well-established trading center of Graycastle. Together with the old king’s city and the Eagle City, they formed the most thriving Central Region of the kingdom. I heard about its name even back in the Southernmost Region,” said Iron Axe, “but don’t you think it’s weird we’ve seen very few merchant ships here these days?”

“I’ve no idea about this,” Bearpaw shrugged his shoulders and said. “The previous pirate attacks might have terrorized the merchants, so they might not dare to come here to do business again.”

“The attack happened two years ago. No matter how much damage it caused, the merchants should have recovered from the shock by now.”

The city wall looked mottled and bloated. It seemed to have been thickened recently, but probably because of the lack of stones, they just plastered up the original brown wall with some red mud mixed with a lot of gravels and wooden materials, making it look like the early rubble wall in Border Town. In addition, the surface of this city wall was covered with a layer of glittering things. Because of the distance, Iron Axe could not clearly discern what they were.

However, it was obviously not a comprehensive reconstruction of the city wall. The plastered wall sections now were twice as thick as the old wall, but some other parts still remained the same as before. Looking from a distance, it seemed rough and bumpy and looked nothing like a construction of a city famous for its wealth.

“Who cares. No matter what, we must occupy this city.” Bearpaw fished out a fire lantern fruit and threw it into his mouth. “His Majesty ordered us to capture the whole Eastern Region, so we have to seize every city we see in this region, even if it’s not called Valencia.”

Hearing that, Iron Axe helplessly shook his head. Bearpaw was still a short-tempered person as he had been in the past. Once he had set his target, he would go for it with a javelin in his hand, and when he had returned with his capture, the other hunters would still be busy with setting traps and sending hounds to stalk their preys. It had been said that even the most ferocious animal in the forest, the black bears, would have been reluctant to confront him. That was how he had gotten his name Bearpaw.

Iron Axe believed that Bearpaw would have been promoted to a position higher than a lieutenant if he had learned to use his brain. Even Van’er was already the commander-in-chief of the Artillery Battalion.

Bearpaw continued. “But what matters isn’t the battle itself but how to restore order after it. If we mess up the Eastern Region, City Hall will certainly find fault with us. However, if we don’t resort to violence, it’ll be hard for those officials to control the situation here. Did His Majesty tell you how to deal with these cities?” Iron Axe was a little surprised by Bearpaw’s thought.

“No, His Majesty just entrusted me to make decisions depending on the situation.”

“That’s a real headache for you. But you’re the boss here and I’ll follow your instructions.” Bearpaw grinned.

Iron Axe was intrigued. “Oh? What do you mean by this headache?”

“You really don’t know or are you just testing me?” Bearpaw leaned his palm against his brow. “You’re definitely going to have a headache when you have to think about how to deal with those nobles. They’ve held this land for such a long time, waiting for a chance to fight back, but only get to see His Majesty getting stronger. The situation here is complicated. When you seize a city here, most of the nobles will surrender, but without Lady Nightingale, how are you going to make sure they’re telling you the truth?”

“Continue.” Iron Axe nodded and realized that Bearpaw was not totally mindless.

“Hey, you’ve really never thought about this?” Bearpaw glared. “This Eastern Front Army doesn’t have many soldiers. We can only station a limited number of them in each city we capture, and they can barely take care of the inner city, but this region used to be Timothy’s domain! It’ll be alright if the nobles are willing to cooperate with us, but what if they’re malicious and still think about seizing back the power? Even if there’re only a small number of such people, we’ll still have no peace from them. Once we leave a city, they’ll make City Hall a puppet or even kill the officials we send here. They’ve many ways to achieve this, such as poison, assassination and bribery. These problems can’t be prevented by flintlocks.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” Iron Axe asked curiously.

“Boss, that’s your business.” Bearpaw rolled his eyes and spat out the seeds into the tumbling river.

“Let’s assume that now you’re the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front Army. Come on, let’s just talk about it hypothetically.”