Enlightened Empire

Chapter 354: A Round of Drinks

Although they had only addressed one of their two major problems so far, morale in the briefing was already low. While they contemplated their difficult position, everyone sat in thought. In the silence, Sumaci stood up and walked towards the bar in the corner of the room.

With everyone else watching on, the clanging of glass and ice rang through the room, as the queen prepared an old-fashioned with the rye whiskey the city had started to produce. It wasn’t her usual fare. Rather, the kind of drink her husband would enjoy.

“Oh, thank you for that,” Corco said. “I guess we could all use a drink right now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want one too?”

Sumaci half-turned towards Corco and took a sip of her liquor. The playful smile on her face together with her casual tone caused some chuckles in the room.

“Yes, very funny, very annoying.”

Although Corco played the role of annoyed husband, he was glad that Sumaci had managed to break the tension in the room. Thus, the meeting was on a short break until everyone had a drink in front of them. With their spirits renewed and some liquor to dull the pain, the king decided to continue the briefing.

“Okay, enough for now about the depressing priest shit,” Corco concluded their previous topic. “We can’t come up with a proper solution anyways, not until we have a full picture. So let’s move on to the next issue.”

He looked at Fadelio and asked, “Is there anything else you need to add on your end? Because if not, I’ll have to inform everyone about Mayu’s goals, and how they play into what’s happening in the city right now.”

“I would still have to sum up some more issues in the city, like the increased crime rates,” Fadelio replied, “but compared to everything else, those problems are minor. We can take care of them later, after we all have a complete picture.”

“Right, so it’s my turn then.” Corco clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention, even though all eyes were on him already. “While you were struggling here, I was dealing with House Ogulno. You should know why, right?”

“Yes, we received the message,” Fadelio said.

“Right, so I was out to catch Ogulno back home, since I was getting tired of his shit. And who do you think shows up to defend his precious uncle?”

“I’ll tell you,” Corco said before anyone could even try to guess. The guess would have been way too easy anyways. “It’s Mayu, appearing out of nowhere, together with an army of about two thousand warriors.”

“That’s impossible! How did he raise that many men without our notice!?” Tama stood up in shock. If Atau hadn’t been quick with his hands, her drink would have spilled all over the expensive carpet.

“Well, he didn’t raise them alone, that’s for sure,” Corco said and took a sip from his own glass. The alcohol was smooth and cool, a mood he hoped to project to his staff as well.

“So he was representing other lords besides himself,” Sumaci mused. “In that case, they can all chip in a few men and come up with a rather large number.”

“That’s exactly it! Ten points to Gryffindor! He is traveling under the flags of the southern lords, tasked to represent them.”

After Corco’s revelation, everyone was stunned into silence again. The king continued to enjoy his drink while the others gathered themselves.

“Wait, all of them?” Fadelio was the first to snap out of the confusion.

“Nah, nothing that extreme. If we count Ogulno and Mayu himself, he ‘only’ has ten estates under his belt.”

“That’s… still way too many. How can there be this many traitors?” Sumaci asked in a low voice repressed from shock.

Since she had only been a fringe figure during the succession war, she had never really seen Medalan lords fight each other. Maybe the last few years of relative harmony between the southern lords had given her the false impression that friendly cooperation was normal for them. Now, she would finally realize just how fickle and selfish the nobles of their kingdom were.

“Well, the benefits he offers are are good. That’s about all they need.” Corco shrugged as if he wasn’t fuming inside as well.

Although he knew that these people were easily bought, the southern lords still had made a fortune under his leadership. Not to mention all the Saniya soldiers who had died protecting the southern kingdom from foreign invasion over the last few years. All the lords of the south owed Corco a great debt, so their betrayal was especially painful.

“As their representative, Mayu’s asking us to hand over the recipe for the fertilizer to the southern lords, and to give them supervisory power over all our other industries,” Corco continued in a calm tone, despite his own anger.

“Oh, he can fuck right off!” Atau shouted. This time, it was Tama’s turn to hold his drink.

“See, that’s what I said, but he tells me that he wants to raise an army if we don’t retreat. What am I supposed to do with that information?”

“Then we’ll just fight them if he wants to die so bad!” Atau insisted.

“Another war? Against our own people?” Fadelio asked before Corco could. There was a frown on his face, and he hadn’t touched his own drink even once.

“Yeah, if we fight now, it’ll be bloody, and nasty,” the king added to Fadelio’s concerns. “Even if we win, we can forget about peacefully taking over the estates of the losing lords like we planned. For most of the locals there, we would be looking like invaders, not liberators. Not to mention that there’s no guarantee we’d win the war in the first place. There’s plenty of enemies to go around.”

“So who are our allies?” As usual, Sumaci asked the most important question. “Since only nine of the lords are siding with Mayu, surely at least a few of them would stick with us as well, right?”

“There should be. We’ll need any sort of help we can get, so we should contact all the remaining lords who aren’t part of Mayu’s group already.”

Corco pulled out a piece of paper and began to write down the names of their potential allies.

“First, I’m sure Lord Macuy is a dead set ally of ours,” he explained. “House Macuy used to essentially be servants under House Ogulno. But a couple years ago, their lord used Ogulno’s weakness to align himself with us and get rid of Kapra’s influence. I’m sure my uncle hasn’t forgotten about that. Plus, Macuy’s Utusku territory is not only right north of the Ogulno estate, he’s also on the eastern front. So he will need our protection from both Kapra and the Arcavians. If he wants to survive the war, he needs our protection. He’s about as safe of an ally as we can get, I’d say.”

“It would still be better to remain careful and properly probe his intentions,” Tama said. “There is no reason to take any unnecessary risks.”

In response, Corco nodded.

“True. You can do that stuff at your own discretion, just send me reports with the results later. There’s also Lord Huaman of House Queru. He’s been one of our first allies in the south, and his flag wasn’t with Mayu’s army either.”

“That’s a bit of a surprise,” Atau said as his eyes checked the map in the corner of the room. “House Queru is all the way on the southern coast, with Puscanacra between him and us. Wouldn’t he be isolated and at the mercy of Governor Mayu if he insists to stick with us?”

“Lord Huaman is a man of great integrity and loyalty,” Fadelio replied. “I’m sure he’ll support us so long as he thinks that our cause is just.”

While Corco wouldn’t be as quick as his attendant to believe in honor and loyalty, he was inclined to agree this time. Huaman had been one of Corco’s first allies in the south, even though back then, there was no large benefit for him to do so. In general, the king judged Huaman to be someone who valued long-term alliances, so he was at least 90% sure that they could count on his troops.

“Beyond that, there are also House Llasto’s Rufalasta south of Port Ulta and House Makipura’s Tacicir estate north of Qarasi Castle in the Narrows,” the king continued. “Both estates are isolated from the rest of the kingdom and on the front lines. Both will need our help if they want to survive the war, since both are targeted by enemies across their borders. So they’ll know who to support. That should be it as far as guaranteed allies go.”

“Sp only four names.” Sumaci frowned as she looked over at Corco’s list. “That leaves another seven estates undecided, right?”

“Six,” Fadelio corrected her. “We obviously can’t count Port Ulta on our side.”

“The allegiance of the last six lords will be a lot harder to read, I think,” Corco said. On the way here, he already had plenty of time to think about their position. “They could throw their support either way, though the fact that they haven’t joined Mayu yet bodes well. I think we’ll be able to keep them at least neutral in a war. I mean, Mayu and his gang have taken a very extreme attitude this time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they considered anyone who doesn’t align with them an enemy by default. So I’m sure we’ll be able to win at least a few more of the neutrals over.”

Again, everyone returned to silence, as Corco looked over the names of undecided estates he had just written down.

“To be honest, the most surprising among the neutral names is Cashan,” he said. “No idea what to do with them.”

“The little pirate lord Villca isn’t siding with Mayu?” Atau asked. “Now there’s a shock.”

“That’s right. Considering our mixed relationship with them, I expected them to go along with Mayu, but it seems like they’re smarter than the rest,” Corco replied.

“This could be our chance!” Fadelio realized as he looked at the map again. “If we can win them over, their two allied estates east of here will join us as well. That would be three more estates fighting for us. Once we count the Chawir marshes as an estate as well, that would give us eight estates to Mayu’s ten. Those already sound like manageable odds.”

“What about our commoner armies then?” Sumaci asked, her own drink gripped tight in her hands. “I thought the number of trained troops is going up quickly? Surely, Saniya’s troops cannot be measured up by the power of a single estate.”

“That would be correct.” Fadelio said. “As our population has grown over the years, we’ve continued to increase the size of our military to maintain close to a 10% ratio of active soldiers. Not only Saniya has been growing in size, but Harkay town and even the surrounding villages have expanded in size as we reclaim and cultivate more and more land. By now, our army has a size of around 30,000 soldiers total, which is enough to match at least five or six average southern estates. Those calculations don’t include the advantage we have in weaponry either. In large scale battles, that advantage of firearms is far more pronounced, so our advantage grows even further.”

“Then why the long debate!?” An excited Tama asked. “We just fight them as soon as possible. We wipe out the armies of the rebellious lords before they are fully mobilized, so the war won’t affect the people. Then, we force the lords into a peace contract that lets us go back to how things were before, minus some powers and rights for the rebels.”

Corco could only sigh at Tama’s gordian knot-type solution.

“Your enthusiasm is commendable, Lady Tamaya, and I’d love to just go out and beat all the rebels to death as well… But as usual, it’s not that simple. You’re forgetting that these ten estates are not the only enemies we have. There’s still two armies waiting for a chance to invade on our northern borders, both Pacha and House Ichilia. And then there’s the Arcavians in the east as well. All of them are ready to pounce as soon as we’re busy with something else, like, say, a civil war.”

“It’s all planned out well in advance,” Fadelio realized. “All of them have coordinated to take us down.”

“You wanna hear the worst part?” Atau asked as he swung around the drink in his hand. Alcohol spilled over the brim and landed on the carpet. No wonder, since this was already his second drink in a short time. However, as an experienced drinker, he was still sharp enough to make his point. “Even if there is a war, there is no guarantee our soldiers would properly fight anyways. You’ve seen how things are in the city. All the people got confused by those damn priests. Well, turns out, soldiers are people too. If we fight now, I guarantee you that we won’t fight with good morale… And in the worst case, we’d have to deal with mass-defections too.”

“That’s what it comes down to,” Corco concluded. He had come to a similar result in his head, but hearing it all laid out by someone else made the danger feel even more real. “Powerful outside threats, who are waiting until our inside threats have ground us down enough that we become easy pickings. We managed to resolve our fight in the Verduic Sea early, which is our biggest advantage, but I don’t think it’s enough. Unless we can solve the internal problems all at once before the northerners and Arcavians can react, there’s a real chance of total destruction this time.”

“So what, do we send assassins and try to catch all the conspirators at once? Sow some chaos in the enemy estates, make them careful, and win enough time to stabilize the situation at home.”

Corco didn’t even have to look over to know that this was another one of Tama’s plans.

“That may have been an option before, but now all the lords who oppose us have left Saniya,” Sumaci said before Corco could. “Are we meant to assassinate them in their army camps? Even if you manage to sneak a couple ghosts in there, we absolutely won’t catch all of them. Once we attack the lords directly, we just turn our standoff into a proper war, which is exactly what we don’t want.”

“I might be repeating myself, but there won’t be any killing,” Corco added. “It’s poor form, not to mention counterproductive. For now, we need to contact all the neutral lords. I’m willing to make some concessions, so long as we can increase the number of our allies. Let’s stall for time until we’ve done so… and hopefully, that will also give us enough room to find a better solution to our problem. Because if we don’t, we can only go to war.”

By now, Corco had begun to formulate a solution to their problems in his head, even though he really didn’t like the plan he had come up with.

“So what does stalling for time mean, exactly?” Fadelio asked, ready to write down his master’s orders.

“It means giving in, of course,” Corco said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “We’ll give Mayu and his gang exactly what they want.”

“What!?”

“That’s ridiculous! We’re just giving up like this!?”

As expected, the room exploded after Corco offered his solution. However, the king remained calm.

“If we don’t give in before they assemble their army, they attack us.” He shrugged. “And then we can’t stall for time anyways. Plus, it’s not like I’m willing to just let them do whatever they want.”

Corco turned towards Ronnie, who had been silently watching the meeting all this time while drinking hos ostentatious, bright red cocktail.

“Great master Hieronymus, if those lords send people into your lab, how long can you stall them before they can steal our technology? Without breaking any laws, if you can.”

With just a little hint, Ronnie understood Corco straight away. That much was obvious from his sly grin.

“In the chemistry lab, I can stall them however long I want. Don’t worry, oh noblest of kings. I know what to do. The other manufactories might be a problem though.”

“Wherever we can’t stop them, we can just close down for a while. Fire hazards, spies, unsafe working conditions, there are plenty of excuses to temporarily deny them entry,” Brym added. “With our current finances, we can probably close down all our manufactories until the end of winter. By then, we really need to get our economy going again, or we’ll run out of money to pay our soldiers.”

“And there it is. Enough time bought to do something productive with.” As he addressed the whole room, Corco spread his arms. After, he turned to Brym again. “Though we should throw them a bone to make sure they don’t throw a fit first. It’s fine if they get a few minor bits of technology, so long as they don’t take away anything important. I won’t have my shiny, new industry gutted by them. In the meantime, I’ll look for a solution from the side of the Pacha priests.”

“And how will that work?” Atau asked. “They don’t seem like they’re willing to cooperate any more. And they’ve wasted all the good faith we may have had in them before.”

While the religious Corco didn’t want to admit it, he had to agree. After the sudden verbal attack from the priests, there was no more trust between the parties. In fact, the priests may as well have declared war on the southern kingdom at this point. Still, he had to do his due diligence and at least try to reconcile.

“Well… they’re only here because of a few disagreements, right?” he said, while counting the disagreements on his fingers. “The mercury in the thermometers, firing some priest judges, ordering the map makers to depict actual geography, rather than come up with fantasy maps… We can’t really move on most positions, but we can compromise in one or two areas. Plus, we can compensate them in other ways too. At least there’s a chance that the priests are just fishing for benefits with their recent power move. Everyone should go prepare for the return of Mayu and his gang of bandits. Meanwhile, I’ll talk the priests into a compromise.”

“And what if they’re not willing to compromise?” Sumaci asked.

At the thought of his alternative plan, Corco’s brow furrowed deeply. He stared at the small rest of liquor in his glass, before he downed it all at once.

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that,” he said at last.