274 – Side War – Conquest of Britannia (9)
After the Battle of Hastings, I, William von Creutel, and Edward von Brittany, King of the United Kingdom, represented the rest of the Grand Dukes as well. Came across
I am the victor who has achieved a thorough and complete victory, and Edward is the incompetent and pitiful loser.
Looking at the situation where joy and sorrow intersect, I even wonder if human destiny can change so quickly.
The scene I am seeing right now is, of course, not a dream, fantasy or delusion, but reality.
I remember my father saying that before the establishment of the kingdom of Creutel, when we faced each other like this after the war was won or lost, praising the other party’s honorable battle was a basic courtesy.
The knights treat him as a criminal and instead of arresting him and bringing him, they respectfully serve him as the other king while wearing his own armor, and Edward congratulates me on my victory by gnashing his teeth.
“King of the United Kingdom, Brittanya von Edward congratulates you on your victory. Congratulations, William von Kreuttel.”
If it had been a normal war, I would have stood up, held his hand, and said empty words of praise for a good fight.
The justification for this occupation war is to rescue the people of Brittany, who have become unstable due to civil war.
In addition, because of the many expedients already used, if the honor of the royal family and nobles remained even a little bit, later generations would criticize us and their descendants could rise up and rebel.
I had to put him and the rest of the dukes down as incompetent and greedy and bring them down to the level of his traitors.
So I shouted angrily at the knights who had politely served him to protect his honor.
“Are you crazy enough to bring in an incompetent and heinous man who has driven his kingdom into civil war and killed so many of his own people like this? Arrest him immediately and make him kneel!”
Edward couldn’t contain his astonishment at those words, and the knights quickly tied him with a rope and knelt on the dirt floor.
“Now I feel a bit guilty.”
Hearing that, Edward von Brittanya glared at me with an angry expression, as if he were going to eat me, but he became a toothless lion and could no longer frighten me.
“As the Lord of Britannia, the Sinner was constantly suspicious of the subject of failing to properly lead the three Grand Dukes under his command. As a result, you, incompetent, tried to subjugate the weakest of the three grand dukes by arguing that they were suspected of treason.”
To be honest, this board was made by my father and I to take revenge on King Britannia for sinking 20 of our merchant ships and selling them into slavery.
Thus, strictly speaking, it could be said that we were at fault for causing the civil war.
If he had been a little more competent, he would have waited until Prince Chainz rebelled, or he would have tried to destroy them one by one using a different method.
My father saw this and said this.
‘If he had known how to wait just a bit longer, the King of the United Kingdom would have eaten all three Grand Dukes of Brittany.’
“Of course, the Archduke Chains, who, as a vassal at that time, did not even want to properly explain it to his lord, was at fault, but you, the sinner, were the most incompetent. As a result, a civil war broke out between the three Grand Dukes of Brittany and Edward Nenom, and innocent people suffered for eight years.”
If I say this, Edward, who will become the symbol of the incompetent monarch in front of me, may cry out that it is unfair.
What can I do? If it’s unfair, he should have won and trampled on my head and ripped off a hefty ransom from his father.
“Because your crime is so heavy, I can no longer acknowledge you as a knight with the same honor as ours. Therefore, as the Crown Prince of the Creutel Empire, I strictly command you as one of the commanders who will bring order and peace to this land.”
After saying that, I threw the mud-soaked crown off Edward’s head and threw it on the floor.
“I will hold you responsible for being incompetent and suspicious of your subjects, and the three grand dukes for accepting their fiefs from their lords and disobeying them properly and causing a civil war. From now on, let them roam each other’s territories with muzzles in their mouths, serving as a banner to announce the end of the war. After that, the crime will be asked and executed, and the clan and subordinate nobles will enter all monasteries and convents to live in repentance for their sins for the rest of their lives.”
When my words fell out, Edward shook his head as if denying the cruel fate that befell him.
At the point when his situation changed from a defeated enemy king to an incompetent criminal, the soldiers, not knights, violently restrained him even more forcefully, forced him to open his mouth, and gagged him so that he could no longer speak.
“Aww!”
Edward sounded like he had a lot to say, but he had nothing more to say or hear from the incompetent guy, so he looked down at the nobles sitting around him and ordered.
“As you all know, the people are so dissatisfied with Edward and the three grand dukes that the enemy forces open the capital to the citizens. So, from now on, the four corps will go around Donover, Chains, English, and Brittany, holding four flags and calling for surrender. Declare The war is now effectively over.”
After I decided the end of the war and victory, the nobles forgot their dignity and began to cheer.
“We won!”
“Long live the Kreutel Empire! Long live the Emperor! Long live His Highness the Crown Prince!”
“Long live the empire!!”
After watching them for a while, I looked at them and said a word of regret with an apologetic expression.
“Right now, I want to order meat and wine for you to celebrate your victory with the soldiers and relieve your fatigue, but the situation here is not good for that. Of course, we won’t have anything to do with it. The people of Brittany are starving, and the purpose of the war is diluted when we, who claim to be their liberators, eat and drink to our full.”
Since it is the same as completely rooting out the king and nobles, the possibility of a rebellion is close to zero unless it is too corrupt.
So you can assume that if you let them enjoy it, there won’t be any problems.
It is unusual for an empire to come up with a solution when the word comes out that a starving child came out of an orphanage, and the clerk in charge of the city’s welfare department, who is much higher than the orphanage director, has to work overtime to come up with a solution.
In other countries, such matters are taken for granted as long as no allegations of embezzlement are revealed.
As occupation forces, even if we enjoy drinking alcohol and eating meat, we will be called kind if we properly distribute a bowl of porridge to them.
“However, if it is a victory won with the taxes of the empire and the blood of the soldiers, I think it is the duty of the crown prince to use it with even a little more value. Therefore, there will be no banquet held at the level of the Imperial Army until after this expedition is over and their farmland is restored and the village returns to its original state.”
At those words, the faces of the nobles, who were expecting something fun like a banquet in their hearts, were a bit sullen, but none of them objected.
“Instead, I will give generous rewards and grounds to the soldiers as much as I could not properly comfort them, and you will enjoy the honor of participating in the triumphal ceremony with a generous bounty immediately upon returning to the mainland of the Croytel Empire. Originally, triumphant ceremonies would not be held unless it was the Emperor’s own family, but his achievements in stabilizing Britannia would be recognized. Wouldn’t it be okay to enjoy the honor of the triumphal ceremony with me?”
Moreover, it’s an issue that hasn’t been announced yet, but I’ll return home with them as soon as the three-year stabilization work is over and Brittanya is completely occupied.
At that time, I will be acknowledged for my achievements, and I will become a true emperor from a crown prince.
My father is still in his late 50s at that time, so he can work for the emperor for another 10 years, and no one, including me, has asked for it.
How can I stop you if you say it’s to watch over me for about 10 years and give me advice so that I can properly conduct politics as an emperor?
Furthermore, my grandfather said that he would beat me down even if the death came before he saw my coronation ceremony, and he couldn’t shout at the young knight course students wearing armor like 10 years ago and saying that he was weak.
Thanks to taking care of his health by taking a walk for about an hour a day, the 50-year-old royal court doctor says he is much healthier than he is and is envious of him.
So, I can’t delay ascending to the emperor any longer, and the aristocrats who participated in this event are like my immediate aides in the future.
“Now, the corps commanders of each corps go to their assigned areas, open the gates, completely take over the surrounding areas, and conduct military government there.”
From Noble mtl dot com
So, half a year after giving the order, the Imperial Army of Creutel safely took over all of Brittany.
Ciel von Kreuttel created and bestowed the title of King of Brittany on the crown prince.