A Tale of Strategies For the Throne

The Great War in the North was over, and after Garlan rewarded the Army of the North, he led the Central Army on the road back to the Royal City.

When the road construction started, the first thing Garlan focused on building was the avenue from the royal city to the northern border.

It has been nearly a year now, a large sum of money has been spent, and almost all the road builders are freed slaves. For the first time in their lives, they have exchanged their own labor for their own property, and they are all very motivated. There is no need for supervision and urging from the supervisor at all, so the progress of road construction is very smooth.

From the northern border to the royal city, from the muddy and uneven roads to the neatly built, spacious and flat avenues, everyone has truly felt the benefits of building roads.

The generals who led the army were particularly touched. Since they embarked on the new avenue, the marching speed of the army has almost doubled or tripled compared to before.

There are side lanes on both sides of the main road. Caravans can usually walk on the main road, but once they encounter an army marching, they must take the initiative to give way to the side lanes.

When the army was moving forward, looking to both sides, the side roads were full of bustling caravans.Compared with the sparse teams and pedestrians on those muddy roads, the new road here is full of traffic and bustling.

However, even if there are a lot of people, the side road will not be blocked at all, because a new "road law" just announced by the Shamash Temple to the whole country stipulates that the side road is only allowed to go one way in one direction, and if it is caught in the wrong direction, it will be blocked. Hefty fines will be imposed.

In this way, the jam situation caused by the encounter of large caravans coming from different directions is avoided.

When King Garlan's chariot passed by, the caravans and pedestrians on both sides of the road stopped one after another, faced the main road, knelt respectfully, and bowed their heads to their king.

After the king's chariot passed by, they stood up and looked curiously at the black and majestic army on the road that could not be seen at a glance.

The army returned from the battlefield with a chilling aura of iron and blood, and the overwhelming sense of oppression made everyone on the side shudder.

The people couldn't help showing their eyes of awe to these soldiers who guarded their tranquility and the safety of the country with their bodies.

Many young people, no matter men or women, looked at those strong and powerful soldiers, their eyes were shining with scorching light, young men yearned for them, and young girls admired them.

The gates of Aaron Landis's royal city were wide open. Under the leadership of the high priest of Shamash, Shemu'er, all the dignitaries and ministers in the royal city went out of the city to welcome King Garlan's return.

Amidst the cheers of the people on both sides of the road in the city, the young king rode his steed white horse and walked slowly on the avenue, stepping on the petals thrown by the people on the road. Palace of the Moon.

On the night when Garlan returned to the palace, many people tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep at night.

Especially those powerful nobles who participated in the murder of Garlan, they were all panicked.

But during the day, they had to pretend to be nonchalant, because they still had a little luck, thinking that their collusion with foreign enemies was done secretly and would not be found out.

They closely followed Garlan's every move, trying to make correct judgments from the other party's behavior in order to better deal with it.

However, after King Garlan returned to the royal city, he was only busy dealing with the accumulated government affairs and did not take any action.

Because Garlan directly handed over the investigation and interrogation to Suo Jia.

In his plan, the Temple of Nanna will bear the responsibility of torture in the future, so he has gradually begun to hand over similar matters directly to the Temple of Nanna.

Knowing that this was King Garlan's tempering of the Nanna Temple, and it was also a test, Suo Jia did not dare to relax at all, and began to investigate secretly after receiving Garlan's secret order.

With the joint efforts of Tal, the leader of the intelligence department, he found out everything as quickly as possible.

In the era of King Kamos, the powerful nobles occupied more than half of the royal court and possessed great influence.

However, after the big battle two years ago, it weakened a lot.

Although the war caused a lot of damage to Aaron Landis, it also destroyed many fiefdoms of powerful nobles.

Coupled with Garlan's deliberate containment after he came to power, now, less than one-third of the powerful nobles who control the fiefdom city are left in the royal court.

Among these nobles with real power, some are still loyal to King Garlan, such as Carleni, who was proclaimed the Lord of the city by the father of King Kamos, but he did not hesitate when King Garlan gave an order. Abandoning his identity as the city lord, he worked tirelessly to guard the western region.

Some of them were not very capable, but they were obedient and obediently followed King Garlan's orders.

There is also a small group of people who are extremely dissatisfied with King Garlan's way of weakening their power and depriving them of their wealth.

During the murder of King Garlan, those powerful nobles with collateral blood of the royal family especially danced happily.

Because Heymos, the only one with the right to inherit the orthodox throne, is dead. If King Garlan also dies, then the next King Aaron Landis can only be re-selected from the collateral line of the royal family.

They felt that King Garlan was also from the collateral blood of the royal family anyway. Since he was able to sit on the throne, why couldn't he be of the same origin?

To be honest, being a brown-skinned person is even more noble, isn't it?

These aristocrats of the royal family who were so secretly slandering in the bottom of their hearts completely forgot that when the Gastadians called, they were afraid of becoming the opponent's target, and they shrank their heads like a quail and did not dare to move.

They completely forgot that when King Kamos died in battle, if King Garlan hadn't summoned an army to turn the tide and defeat the Gastadians and save Aaron Landis, all of them would have become slaves of the country long ago. .

——Maybe they didn't forget, but they just chose not to think about it.

The temptation of the throne made them dazzled, and they decided to take the risk.

They secretly contacted and colluded with the old nobles of Kanal and the remnants of the Gastadians, seized the great opportunity of King Gallan to go to Kanal, and plotted to kill King Garlan.

They managed to get hold of Mittayas' wife and daughter, poisoned them, and threatened Mittayas with their lives.

A series of conspiracies unfolded.

First, the remnants of the Gastadians intentionally attacked Kareni's army, delaying Kareni's marching speed, allowing him to reach Kanal King City one step behind King Garlan.

After arriving at the royal city of Kanal, Mitayas, who was an internal response, secretly passed the news that Garlan would sacrifice the dead soldiers in the early morning to the old nobles of Kanal.

The old nobles of Kanal, who were local snakes, arranged archers on the only way to attack Garlan.

Of course they didn't think that such a simple strategy could kill King Garlan.

The archer attack was arranged for the purpose of putting on a show.

Mittayas, who had known about the attack for a long time, deliberately injured himself by an arrow in order to protect Garlan, so as to gain Garlan's trust and be able to share the same room with him.

In this way, he could take the opportunity to kill Garlan at night.

If it succeeds, once Garlan dies, Aaron Landis will be in chaos.

At that time, Aaron Landis will be too busy to take care of himself, and the old nobles of Kanal and the remnants of the Gastads will be able to regain control of the turbulent Kanal.

The powerful nobles of Aaron Landis can also support the new king who is more beneficial to him.

In this way, all three parties are happy.

However, the hope is beautiful, but the reality is tragic.

The final result was that all three parties were completely defeated, while King Garlan won a complete victory.

The remnants of the old nobles of Kanal and the Gastadians were dug out and wiped out in one fell swoop, and the royal city of Kanal was completely under the control of Garlan from then on, and from there it gradually expanded its control to the entire territory.

As for Aaron Landis, after Suo Jia found out everything, those powerful nobles who intended to murder Garlan were all accused of treason and conspiracy, and their crimes were announced to the whole country in the name of Nanna Temple. Then he was beheaded in public.

Once these nobles with real power die, all the cities entrusted to them will be taken back and brought under the direct control of the central royal court.

As a result, the number and power of the powerful nobles in the royal court were further weakened.

In this way, the centralization that Garlan wanted to implement took another big step forward.

As for the wife and daughter of Mittayas who were taken hostage by the powerful nobles, although they were rescued in the end, Mittayas' wife is a woman with a strong personality. After hearing that her husband had assassinated King Garlan, she So he gave his daughter who was less than two years old to a kind and honest couple who had never had children for adoption.

Then, she left a suicide note saying that she was shameless and continued to live, and committed suicide to apologize.

The Mitayas couple had no other relatives, and in the end Kaihos came forward to collect the remains of the two and bury them together in an unnamed cemetery.

…………

It took a full month for Garlan to clean up all the follow-up matters and the relevant personnel involved in this matter.

Then, he was finally able to rest for a while.

While he was busy, time flew by and summer was here again.

The courtyard is full of greenery, tall olive trees stand in the greenery, and the crescent-shaped pool draws a bend in front of the gazebo. The clear pool water sparkles in the sun.

It's only early summer, but Wangcheng is already very hot, and all the lotus flowers are in bloom.

The green lotus leaves float on the water, and when the wind blows across the water, Aaron Landist's unique light blue lotus sways gently in the pool.

Garlan sat by the crescent pool, dipping his bare feet in the cool water.

A big lion with a golden-brown mane is immersed in the pool water, swimming back and forth patter.

As soon as it stopped, Garlan would throw a pebble at it, and then it swam obediently again.

Originally in summer, because it was too hot, Nega would become lazy and refused to move.

But in this way, the big lion that ate and slept became chubby at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Garlan, who couldn't tolerate his mighty and majestic lion turning into a ball of meat, brought Nega here every morning and forced it to swim.

Nega wanted to be lazy at first, but as soon as he was lazy, Garlan halved its favorite fresh meat, so in order to fill his stomach, the big lion had to swim back and forth in the pool water he hated every day.

A cool feeling came from under his feet, which dissipated the heat in his body. Garlan shook his calf immersed in the water and felt much more comfortable.

Heymos, who was standing beside him, glanced at Garlan with a smile in his eyes.

He raised his head, raised his right arm with the leather gauntlet, and blew a whistle.

A long cry came from the sky, and a vigorous eagle descended from the sky, folded its wings and landed on Heymos' right arm.

Staring at its owner with sharp eagle eyes, Anu let out a short cry.

Garlan looked up at it and laughed.

"I was still worried about where it went, but it came back by itself."

When he returned to the palace, he found that Anu was already here, and Shemur, Tapti and others also knew that Heymos was safe and sound.

It turned out that Heymos didn't want him to worry, so he asked Anu to fly back to the royal city to deliver a message to him shortly after entering Kanal.

It's just that Garlan happened to have arrived at Kanal King City at that time, so he missed it.

Heymos fed Anu a small piece of fresh meat.

He said: "When I lost my way on the snow field, it found me and brought me out of the snow field."

"So it saved your life?"

Garlan rolled his eyes.

"No, I can get out by myself without it."

Heymos lowered his head and looked at Garlan who was sitting by the pool with a smile in his eyes.

He raised his hand and sent Anu back to the sky.

He leaned over and squatted down on one knee.

The golden-red eyes narrowed slightly, staring deeply at the young man in front of him.

"There is only one person in this world... who can make me die, and the body will crawl back to him."

Heymos looked softly and said in a low voice.

Then he leaned over.

Seeing their faces getting closer and closer.

Suddenly, a cold glass cup abruptly came in from the side, blocking the approaching Heymos.

"Please don't come back in the form of a corpse, Lord Heymos, that will cause panic and cause trouble for us."

The voice of the female officer sounded from the side.

"Here is your honey juice."

The ice cubes inside rattled, and the glass cup that Tapti handed over almost touched Heymos' face, completely separating Heymos from Garlan.

Heymos had no choice but to step back and raised his hand to take the juice.

After thinking about it, he simply sat down beside Garlan.

Shoulder to shoulder, very close.

The female officer standing behind Garlan couldn't help raising her eyebrows when she saw it. She was about to speak when Nega, who had swam around, swam back with a puff.

It swam straight to Garlan, and then stepped on the underwater stone steps to Garlan.

His golden-brown mane clung to his body wetly.

So, following the instinct of a feline animal, the big lion who walked up to Garlan shook his head violently and swung the water.

Garlan raised his hand in time to cover his face.

But Heymos, who was still holding the glass of honey juice in his hand, was caught off guard, and was immediately thrown over by Nega.

The black hair that had been splashed by the water dripped onto his face, and the water continuously flowed down his face, and the juice that hadn't taken a sip in his hand was splashed with water from a lot of big lions.

He stared at Nega blankly.

Sensing the murderous aura, Nega turned his head and opened his mouth at him.

ooh-

Heymos continued to stare at it blankly.

ooh ooh-

One man and one lion confront each other for a moment.

Garlan, who was hugging Nega's neck, was already lying on the big lion with a smile.

…………

The female officer standing behind looked at the bright smile on the boy's face, her eyes softened.

She stood quietly, watching the scene in front of her with a slight smile on her face.