I will be crowned king

On September 2nd, the day after the Holy See of the Ring of Order officially announced the end of the war and recognized the independence of the Free Confederacy, the Free Confederacy entrenched outside the city officially settled in Beluga Harbor and officially recognized the town as the capital of the Free Confederacy.

Of course, basically everyone in the Confederation understands that from the day Anson Bach built the Supreme Council and established the New World Company, it has been the capital in a de facto sense. Just decided.

But even without this incident, Beluga Harbor is still suitable as the current capital of the Free Confederacy - it is located close to the south-central part of the Confederacy, Gray Snow Town and Winter Torch City to the north, and Long Lake Town and Red Hand Bay to the west; To the east is Daocao Town, the gateway to the five eastern colonies, and it is close to the sea, making it very convenient in every sense.

The economic level is also impeccable, especially after a long siege in Sailing City. Most of the colony was burned to scorched earth, and a third of Black Reef Port was destroyed by Ed Levent’s army. Red Hand After the Bay was simply reduced to scorched earth, the almost intact Beluga Port has successfully become one of the most prosperous and rich areas in the New World.

Of course, there is a more important point, and that is the concern with Clovis.

The newly born Free Confederacy is naturally in a state of hatred and mutual hostility with the Empire. Even if His Majesty the Emperor of the Empire does not send troops to invade again for the time being, the New World and the Empire will probably be in a state of mutual blockade for a long time in the future.

In order to avoid being isolated in this situation, the Confederacy naturally needed an ally that could provide help in the Old Continent; so Clovis, who had complementary advantages at the economic level and echoed at the strategic level, was naturally an excellent choice.

As the only country in the New World isolated outside the Old World, the Free Confederation is almost inherently marginalized, even more so than the three North Sea countries; but if it can form an alliance with Clovis, this marginalization will immediately change. A huge advantage!

The distance is far, so even if it forms an alliance with Clovis, the Confederacy will have almost no military pressure. However, it can still provide the strategic resource that Clovis needs most at the moment - the port.

Slave Port, White Whale Port, Red Hand Bay, Black Reef Port, Sailing City... The Confederacy can provide Clovis with at least five ports that can accommodate merchant ships and warships, especially Sailing City and Ice Dragon Fjord because of the climate and environment. The port is still ice-free, which is a great temptation for Clovis, which has only one port in the country.

In the past, Clovis never made use of Beluga Harbor. On the one hand, Clovis's interests were almost all on land rather than at sea. At the same time, only one of them was of little help and the distance was too far; but now there are five of them. And it also includes Sailing City, which is very close to Adlan... This makes it possible to strategically blockade the Imperial Fleet from the sea.

Well, just maybe.

But even if it is only possible, it is enough to prove that the two countries are completely learning from each other's strengths and compensating for their weaknesses in all aspects, and at the same time they will not put too much extra pressure on each other; so on the day they entered Beluga Port, Louis Bernard made a speech as the Marshal of the New World Army. Statement, establishing an alliance and trade agreement with Clovis.

The reason is also very simple: in response to the reluctance of the people of Ice Dragon Fjord towards Clovis and the selfless dedication of the Storm Legion in the War of Independence of the Free Confederacy, the Thirteen Colonies unanimously recognized Clovis as the purest comrade-in-arms. The establishment of an alliance is a completely natural result of love.

As a representative of Clovis, Ludwig naturally fully agreed with this, and said that the Osterian royal family would respect the colonial people's yearning for freedom and would never interfere; Anson Bach and the Storm Legion The suspicion of being rebels will also be lifted, and the kingdom will wash away the slander they have suffered and restore the honor that loyal ministers deserve.

But before that, a certain self-proclaimed commander-in-chief and his group of similarly "curvedly loyal" subordinates have to go back to Clovis to accept the evaluation from the War Department and the trial of the House of Representatives - even if everyone knows what happened. No matter what, the process still needs to be followed.

Louis understood this, or even if he didn't understand, there was nothing he could do about it. After all, it involved Clovis' internal affairs, which was no longer something he had the ability to intervene in. Moreover, looking at Anson's confident look, he seemed to have been prepared for it.

During the whole process, if anyone was dissatisfied with the result, of course, it was only Philos and the Holy See he represented. The original promise to build a cathedral in Sailing City was because he believed that the Free Confederacy would choose to establish its capital here, so that The Holy See had the opportunity to exert direct influence within the Confederacy.

It's good now. The two sides are directly separated by half of the New World. Not to mention the influence, it's not sure whether they can participate in the internal affairs of the New World.

However, being far away also has its advantages. This means that in the future, the Free Confederation centered on Beluga Port will be increasingly beyond the reach of Sailing City, the second largest city in the new world; a cathedral based here can completely Start from scratch and run this town into another base camp of the Holy See in the New World.

Also dissatisfied with this result is the Holy War Army from the empire... Of course, it is not the imperial nobles headed by Fernando and Pavel, but the main body of the Holy War Army composed of middle- and lower-level knights, ordinary believers, and fanatic believers.

Most of them were summoned by the Holy See and embarked on this extremely long expedition for the Ring of Order. They thought they were waiting for a glorious war and rich rewards, but in the end it turned out to be a farce with no beginning or end. I didn't get it either, so I had to go back obediently.

Although the Free Confederation and the Holy See have reached an agreement to build a Jihadi Army base camp in Red Hand Bay, it is certainly impossible for a mere colony to accommodate all the Jihadi Army, let alone allow each of them to own their own land, farm or industry. Those who become the ruling class of the base camp must be a very small number of people who are either rich or noble.

Not surprisingly, this result aroused great dissatisfaction among the members of the Jihadi Army, and even the public stirred up rounds of protests, demanding that the Jihad be carried out to the end.

Since the number of Jihadi soldiers from the empire was the largest, accounting for almost one-half or more of the entire army, the voice of protest quickly turned into a unanimous request from the middle and lower levels of the entire army. Even a few army commanders could not suppress it. Philus could only be asked to respond as the commander-in-chief of the Jihad Army.

Philus was actually quite happy when he got the news at first. After all, if it turned into a situation that couldn't be ended, he could use this to continue to blackmail the Free Confederacy for more things, such as directly taking the territory west of Red Hand Bay. The land, along with Sailing City, Black Reef Port and even Gray Pigeon Castle, were all ceded to the Jihadi Army.

But soon, Grand Commander Grad Manfred brought him information that chilled his heart... This group of middle- and lower-class jihadists seemed to be making a big fuss, but in fact they had no preparations and plans to continue the fight. The idea is to cause trouble, and the purpose is to deceive the upper-level leaders of the Jihadi Army into appeasing them.

Even in order to avoid causing "misunderstandings among friendly forces", they truthfully conveyed this to the New World Army through various intelligence in advance, clearly guaranteeing that they had no intention of starting a war. They just felt that the upper levels of the Holy See and the Holy War had treated them badly, and they were unbalanced.

Now Philus couldn't stand it anymore, and he understood why things had reached this point. No one from the Free Confederacy came to ask him about the armistice. It turned out that he had received the news a long time ago!

The collapsed Philus and the silent Grad looked at each other. Neither of them had experience in this area and really didn't know what to do.

However, their lack of experience does not mean that others are also confused... At this critical moment, Bernard Morweis, the former colonial minister, stood up and said that he was somewhat better than others in this regard. However, A merit worth mentioning is that he is willing to solve problems for the Holy See.

Of course, it's not free - the Holy See must ensure that it will not be held accountable by the Levent family afterwards, at least not in personal danger.

After all, Bernard basically tricked one of his friends to death in the New World. In addition, as an important heir of the Levent family, the probability of not being approached after the war is very slim; and the relationship between the Holy See and the Levent family is irreversible. , is the only force that can come forward to mediate.

For this request that could not be said to be difficult, but definitely not easy, Philus finally agreed and hoped that Bernard would also lend a helping hand, and the sooner the better.

In fact, his method is also very simple - didn't the troublemakers say that they will carry out the jihad to the end? Then just carry it out to the end!

Anyway, although the jihad is over, the jihadi army has not announced its disbandment; if anyone expresses dissatisfaction with the placement of the jihadist army's base camp, the base camp will pay them a traveling fee so that they can continue to "carry out the jihad to the end."

Anyway, the new world is so vast, and there may not even be a tenth of the area where settlements have been established. Let them continue to advance inland and seize territory from the indigenous people, ferocious beasts, and primitive evil beliefs.

The captured territory, no matter how big or small, can be sent directly to the name of the Holy See and the Holy War Army, and their identity is the "Jihad Army Stronghold Guardian Lord"; if this is not possible, it can also be based on the size of the captured territory, the level of military strength, and the colonists they protect. Quantity grading is also entirely feasible.

As for identity? Then call it the Jihad Expeditionary Force - let the newspapers under the name of the Jihadi Army and the Free Confederacy collectively publish reports, hyping up this "unprecedented" initiative, vigorously promoting the conquest of territory for the Ring of Order, and protecting the colonists as the supreme responsibility of all Jihadi armies. The glory of...

At that time, there is no need to think about it. Some people who are greedy for comfort will either stay in the base camp or return to the homeland in despair; and those guys who are ambitious and have no understanding of the new world will definitely think that they have taken advantage of it, and they will leave regardless. We embarked on an expedition with a nine out of ten failure rate.

After all, if the New World was really so good at colonizing, the Empire's colonies would not have lasted more than two hundred years and would only be as large as they are today.

Bernard was proud of his good idea, while Philus and Captain Grad were shocked. They always felt that they had seen this pattern somewhere, and it looked very familiar, but they just couldn't remember what it was. What.

However, Leon Francois, who received the news, reacted immediately, but did not take any action; after all, Hantu was too far away from the new world, and even if he obtained the new territory, it would not make much sense. He just took this The "good news" was told to the knights under his command to see if any of them would be brave enough to spread branches and leaves for the family in unfamiliar territory.

Little Leon himself was thinking about seeing Anson again before leaving, but unfortunately this wish seemed to be difficult to realize - let alone saying goodbye, his cousin seemed to be too busy to touch the ground and could not see him at all. Until he has any free time.

But regardless of the negotiations with Clovis, the settlement and aftermath of Beluga Port, the next deployment of the New World Army... these seem to be what Louis Bernard is doing right now.

So what is he busy with?

………………………………

Beluga Harbor, suburbs.

Standing on the roadside under a sign made of weapons and horse-proof stakes, Anson chewed his pipe and silently looked at the pocket watch in his hand, concentrating on the rotating hands on it, as if he was attracted by some kind of magic.

"Who are you waiting for?"

A pair of footprints wearing coarse cloth shoes stopped in front of him. Anson, with a normal expression, gently closed the cover of the watch and put it in his pocket:

"you."

"……I?"

Bishop Riper was stunned for a moment, then laughed out loud: "I am no longer worthy of the commander-in-chief's special attention, right?"

"On the contrary, in the entire Free Confederacy, the only person who is qualified for me to wait for you is you."

Anson sighed softly: "I did not take the initiative to betray the Universal Sect, but I did use the existence of the Universal Sect as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Holy See, and used this bargaining chip to obtain concessions from the Holy See; the independence and freedom of the Free Confederation came from The recognition of the entire world of order...are all based on the sacrifice of Universal Sect."

Bishop Ripper said nothing.

He took a deep look at Anson, said nothing, and walked away with a smile.

"I'm sorry!" Anson shouted, stopping him in his tracks:

"Although I failed to protect Universal Sect's right to survive in the new world, I have chosen a new way out for you! I mean..."

"Qiu Zhenzong."

Bishop Riper, who was walking away slowly, turned his back to Anson and said, "From now on, the headquarters of the Universal Sect will be moved to the Eastern Colony and Winter Torch City, and at the same time, it will operate in the name of the Seeking Truth Sect."

"A group of new friends told me that for a long time in the future, the Holy See's attention will be on how to gain a foothold in the new world. If we show others the most harmless face of the Seeking Truth Sect in the past, we may be able to paralyze the Holy See. Vigilant mentality, so as to survive and wait for the era of the collapse of the authority of the Holy See."

"This is the destiny, path and way of fighting of Universal Sect; before the moment of true rise comes, continuing to survive is the most important thing." Riper stopped and looked back at Anson, who was still standing there:

"And you, Commander-in-Chief, your path is not here."

"You...it's time to return home."