Why did the lord rebel

Chapter 508 Chapter Many Talents Fill the Court

For a short while, Xiahou Yan really thought that the Imperial Army had suddenly changed its ways:

  Compared to the mission of "frontally attacking the three western gates of Thorn City" undertaken by the Empire's regular army and the elites of each territory, the mission of "feinting an attack on the 'Aurelian Gate'" assigned to Frost Maple Ridge by Chief of Staff Quentin sounds a bit too simple!

Since it was a "feint attack", it meant that the soldiers of Frost Maple Ridge did not need to risk their lives and charge towards the city gate under the heavy bombardment of the Glorious Federation - as long as they could make some noise near the Aurelian Gate and attract the attention of some federal defenders, the mission of the "Wagner" special forces would actually be accomplished.

On the other hand, the troops that actually attacked the other three city gates had to go through a real test of blood and fire, and only then would they be able to knock open a city gate after paying the price of countless sacrifices.

Xiahou Yan was quite skeptical whether the imperial guys, who had always wanted to squeeze the last bit of surplus value out of Frost Maple Ridge, would really allow the Igor family to undertake such an easy combat mission in this crucial battle of the Eastern Expedition.

——Chief of Staff Quentin did not disappoint Xia Houyan, and quickly revealed his true colors in his subsequent speech:

  After requesting Frost Maple Ridge to take on the mission of "feinting the attack on Aurelian's Gate", Chief of Staff Quentin changed the subject and tentatively asked Xiahou Yan if Frost Maple Ridge could provide an additional "Apocalypse" chariot to support the main attack forces at the other three city gates while the "Wagner" special forces were carrying out the feint attack mission?

The imperial army's little tricks were too obvious, Xiahou Yan almost laughed out of anger:

After the battles in the Burning Crystal Canyon and the Blood Front, the Empire had already figured out the temperament of Frost Maple Ridge and knew that this group of unorganized and undisciplined Soul-Splitting Land thugs would never work closely with other friendly forces of the Empire. In this case, it would be better to send Frost Maple Ridge aside and execute a simpler feint attack plan.

However, since our military has given you such an easy job in Frost Maple Ridge, you have to repay us in kind, right?

——Support us with a few "Apocalypse" tanks to fill in our lack of heavy armored troops and help us hold the front battlefield. Lord Elliot Igor, you must agree to this, right?

Xiahou Yan had to admit that this hidden deal proposed by the imperial military did maximize the interests of both parties:

On the one hand, Frost Maple Ridge can avoid the trouble of cooperating with a bunch of stupid imperial troops, and can also reduce the casualties of its own troops;

On the other hand, the Empire has obtained the maximum support from Frost Maple Ridge - looking at the entire military sequence of Frost Maple Ridge, what the Imperial Military is most jealous of and needs the most is not the "Apocalypse" chariot's outstanding defensive performance that is almost immune to physical attacks?

As long as three "Apocalypse" chariots stop in front of the three city gates, it is equivalent to setting up three small fortresses on the battlefield. The Imperial Army can fully rely on the defense and firepower support of the "Apocalypse" chariots and use them as bridgeheads to carry out charge, advancement and sabotage operations.

Xiahou Yan didn't believe that such a clever tactical deployment was thought up by that bastard Marquis Liam. It was probably the work of two old foxes, Archduke Rosario and Chief of Staff Quentin.

For the sake of the overall situation, Xiahou Yan was too lazy to argue with the imperial military. He waved his hand and agreed to Chief of Staff Quentin's request, promising to temporarily allocate the three "Apocalypse" tanks and their crews to the military command at that time - on the premise that the empire first paid a reasonable lease fee to Frost Maple Ridge.

Grand Duke Rosario and Chief of Staff Quentin looked at the malicious smile of Lord Frost Maple Ridge, and both felt a dull pain in their hearts: according to the nature of Frost Maple Ridge, the final right of interpretation of what amount of the lease fee is considered "reasonable" must belong to Bob Brooke.

There is actually another reason why Xiahou Yan agreed so readily:

Because he didn't want to waste time unnecessarily, he just wanted to quickly advance the progress of the meeting - the real fun of today's war parliament was yet to come!

  After quickly finalizing the tactical mission for Frost Maple Ridge, Chief of Staff Quentin flipped over a page of a table and began to discuss a more important topic:

Assign tasks to each territory in the siege of Thorn City.

For a mature commander, before starting any battle, the responsibilities of each unit, each squad and even each soldier must be clearly defined as much as possible. This is especially true for a large-scale battle like the Siege of Thorn City involving multiple territories.

Take the example of selecting elite troops from various territories to form a "tower-grabbing commando": the empire is preparing to divide its army into three groups to attack three city gates, which means that it is necessary to determine the composition of three elite commandos. Which lord's extremely powerful person will go to which commando is a topic that needs to be discussed in detail;

Moreover, the noble territories had not only elite warriors but also a large number of territory troops and temporarily recruited militiamen in this battle. How to integrate these various military forces into effective combat power and redistribute them to various offensive directions was a great problem that required the lords of each family to rack their brains at the war council.

As the meeting progressed, the discussion atmosphere among the imperial nobles quickly moved in the direction Xiahou Yan expected.

In short, they quarreled.

The dispute arose when Chief of Staff Quentin included the chief wizard of Silverhelm and a Rose Knight from Misty Ridge in the elite commando team that was to attack Merton's Gate.

  As a result, before Chief of Staff Quentin finished speaking, the Baron of Misty Ridge stood up and loudly questioned why the Imperial Army made such an arrangement - as everyone knows, we Misty Ridge and Silverhelm have a bloody feud and are irreconcilable! The knights of Misty Ridge must never work with the idiots of Silverhelm!

The nobles who were more familiar with the history of the Empire knew very well that the so-called "family feud" mentioned by the Baron of Misty Ridge was actually just that the previous Earl of Silverhelm had once snatched away a mistress of the Baron of Misty Ridge - in the circle of imperial aristocrats where the family relationships were so complicated that it could make Mendel cry, it was really not even a trivial matter.

Even Xiahou Yan, who was ten feet away, could hear clearly what Baron Misty Ridge was really thinking:

"Merton Gate" is the western gate of Thorn City, and it must be the direction where the Glorious Federation has the most troops stationed and the most tightly guarded. Baron Misty Ridge talks about the righteous name of "irreconcilable", but in fact he just doesn't want to send his precious Rose Knight to Merton Gate to die, so he found an excuse to make a fuss.

  However, although the Baron of Misty Ridge's psychological activities were obvious enough to make Sima Zhao look like a top conspirator with deep scheming, no noble stood up to expose his pig bladder:

The reason was simple, because everyone was not sure whether their elite troops would be assigned any difficult tasks later. As long as they allowed the Baron of Misty Ridge to find a reason to refuse the tasks assigned by the military, they would have more room to maneuver when they needed to disobey orders in the future. On the other hand, if they rashly stood up and exposed the true intentions of the Baron of Misty Ridge, it would be difficult to find a good reason to escape when they were in trouble.

Then, an extremely strange scene appeared:

Although all the nobles in the parliament were well aware of Baron Misty Ridge's schemes, they all stood up to support the baron's proposal.

Marquis Herodotus of Morningstar opened his arms sanctimoniously, citing the ancient laws of the Empire and listing twenty reasons why Misty Ridge must not cooperate with Silver Helmets, ranging from illegality to incest to blasphemy.

  Earl Yellen of Archer's View claimed with tears in his eyes that Silverhelm and Misty Ridge were both his good brothers, and that brothers fighting against each other would only make their relatives sad and their enemies happy. In the end, he somehow started to tearfully accuse the Imperial Army of trying to sow discord between Silverhelm and Misty Ridge. Duke Rivera of Sanshui Bay stepped forward with great compassion, and "on behalf of all the Imperial colleagues" gently asked Chief of Staff Quentin whether the arrangement of letting Silverhelm and Misty Ridge, a pair of enemies, attack Merton Gate together was indeed a little inappropriate? Could they find a way to rearrange it?

In the end, even the Earl of Silverhelm himself stood up with tears and snot, expressing his sincere apologies to all the imperial nobles for his father who had snatched the woman of the Baron of Misty Ridge because he could not resist "the temptation of that busty maid". He also asked the military to move all the troops of Silverhelm and Misty Ridge to attack from other city gates.

As the meeting became more chaotic, Chief of Staff Quentin, Marquis Liam and several other military personnel looked as if they had lost their parents.

They had more or less guessed that the various nobles participating in the war council would have disagreements during the discussion and would have violent disputes in order to protect their own interests.

But they never expected that these stupid nobles would be so ignorant. They had just been assigned the first task, and some scumbags who were eager to create chaos in the world took the opportunity to make trouble!

Look at the way the imperial nobles are moving one after another. If this war council doesn't last for three fucking months and everyone fights each other to the point of bleeding, there's no way we can figure out the attack plan for Thorn City!

  Chief of Staff Quentin sincerely wanted to say sorry to Lord Elliot Igor: he originally thought that Frost Maple Ridge was unruly enough, but compared with this group of imperial nobles with ulterior motives, Lord Frost Maple Ridge, who took on the task without complaint, was so sensible, so concerned about the overall situation, and so damn loyal to the empire!

Seeing that this disgusting war parliament was about to develop in an uncontrollable direction, Chief of Staff Quentin hurriedly knocked on the podium and announced a temporary recess.

——If Quentin didn't quickly curb the trend of these stupid nobles coming out to support Misty Ridge, he had a feeling that they would continue to make trouble until midnight.

Throughout the entire war council, the one who had been watching calmly from the sidelines was actually the prestigious Lord of Frost Maple Ridge. Based on his understanding of the despicable nature of the imperial nobles, Xiahou Yan had long known that this war council would inevitably turn into this, and was not surprised.

  After Chief of Staff Quentin announced the adjournment, several imperial nobles immediately came to Xiahou Yan's side, obviously wanting to seize this precious opportunity to get close to the powerful Duke of Frost Maple Ridge;

But they never expected that the Lord of Frost Maple Ridge, who was sitting well in his seat just a second ago, disappeared without a trace in the blink of an eye, leaving only a few nobles in gorgeous clothes standing there, staring at each other like stupid geese.

Chief of Staff Quentin was also going to talk to the Duke of Frost Maple Ridge, but he watched helplessly as the black-haired young man disappeared on the spot. He stamped his feet, pushed aside a group of blind imperial nobles, rushed out of the meeting room in two steps, and then found out breathlessly——

——The Duke of Frost Maple Ridge was leisurely smoking a cigar in the corridor outside.

"My dearest Chief of Staff Quentin!" Xia Houyan blinked hypocritically, "What's the matter?"

  "Something's wrong." Chief of Staff Quentin held his waist and took a few deep breaths, and then he recovered from the pain caused by the intense exercise. The head of the Imperial Army limped to Xia Houyan and gritted his teeth and said:

"You saw what happened just now, didn't you, Lord Igor?"

"I saw it." Xiahou Yan nodded seriously, "The discussion was quite lively!"

If Chief of Staff Quentin had not just experienced the chaos in the meeting hall, he would have even thought that Lord Frost Maple Ridge was talking about some exploratory magic seminar in the Academy.

"Lord Igor!" Chief of Staff Quentin resisted the urge to grab the Lord of Frost Maple Ridge's meticulous white uniform. "You can see that this war council is a complete mistake! We need help from all the territories of the empire, but we don't need these noble gentlemen to come to the front line to argue! If this goes on, by the beginning of next spring, we won't be able to reach any consensus on military deployment!"

"Well..." Xiahou Yan took a puff of his cigar, looking as if it had nothing to do with him. "It depends on one's opinion... It depends on one's opinion..."

Chief of Staff Quentin looked at the Lord of Frost Maple Ridge in despair.

If Chief of Staff Quentin were allowed to choose, he would probably prefer to be a soldier with his head on his belt on the battlefield in the East like he did twenty years ago, rather than face a group of entangled imperial nobles like he is today - and the Lord of Frost Maple Ridge who obviously wants to stay out of it and has no internationalist spirit.

"Lord Igor, I beg you..." Chief of Staff Quentin's tone was almost pleading, "At the very least, can you persuade those nobles in your southern border to stop messing around? You also know how important it is to finalize the siege plan as soon as possible..."

"The word 'persuasion' has many meanings in the Frost Maple Ridge dictionary." Xiahou Yan continued to play dumb, "You mean..."

"Use words, fists, or fucking Bofors cannons. Anything is fine!" Chief of Staff Quentin gritted his teeth and said, "As long as you can find a way to control those southern nobles... I know they are all afraid of you..."

Xiahou Yan laughed:

"What are you talking about? My dear fellow nobles in the southern border and I are all comrades serving His Majesty Basil III. There is no such thing as one being afraid of the other... I have no jurisdiction or influence over other nobles. If you really want the lords of the southern border to reach a consensus, I recommend you to go to our most respected governor of the southern border, Lord Dimitri! I and other lords of the southern border are all loyal servants of Lord Dimitri!"

Quentin remembered that the last time he saw Count Dimitri, the Governor of the Southern Territory appointed by His Majesty the Emperor, he was busy organizing the "Soul-Splitting Land Cultural Festival" in his own Trout Castle, saying that he wanted to help the respected Lord Elliot Igor popularize and spread advanced culture.

Chief of Staff Quentin had a deep suspicion that even if Elliot Igor farted, the damn Dimitri would take two deep breaths and then say it smelled so good.

Therefore, the Lord of Frost Maple Ridge's overly obvious excuses made Chief of Staff Quentin give up his last hope.

"Well..." Chief of Staff Quentin said weakly, "In return for helping to restrain the southern nobles, what exactly do you want from our military?"

“Don’t make it sound like I’m blackmailing you!” Xiahou Yan rolled his eyes. “This is just us helping each other! Besides, aren’t the judges from the Inquisition helping to mediate? Don’t worry!”

The two were about to speak when a shrill scream suddenly came from the corridor not far away.