Lux's Farewell

In the eyes of many people, the current Commander-in-Chief of Noxus, Darius, can be regarded as the "spiritual successor" of the former Commander-in-Chief Swain.

The two seemed to be half-brothers, adhering to many similar political philosophies. In a sense, they were simply carved from the same mold.

There is not much problem with this statement, because Darius and Swain are both adherents of the Noxus spirit. They both believe that the greatness of Noxus is that this country is never divided by natural origin. The crowd all thought that "the world's authority makes people kneel, but Noxus makes people stand up."

It is precisely because of this understanding that in order to maintain this spirit, they will not hesitate to start a war. In the eyes of many people, they belong to the ranks of "war mongers."

But when it comes to facing the issue of war itself, Swain and Darius actually have many differences.

Swain is closer to the thinking of a politician. For him, war is a means and tool to solve problems. The victory or defeat of the war itself does not completely mean whether the goal is achieved or not. War is an extension of politics.

As for Darius, who was born as a soldier, although he worked hard to improve his political level after becoming the commander-in-chief, once the matter came to the war itself, he would still instinctively regard winning the war as his first priority. Target.

Like this collaboration with the Freljordians.

If it's Swain, let's not talk about the possibility that he may have a more clever plan. Just say that if he chooses the same plan as Darius and is willing to join forces with the Freljord people on a limited basis, Premise - His choice is also different from Darius.

Even if he sends troops to the Rakstad Plains, he will first calculate the cost within his means to determine the cost of his operation.

He would carefully place the lives of 100,000 miners on the scale in his heart, weigh them carefully, and then use this weighing result as a parameter to carefully plan his next actions.

In contrast, Darius's military style makes him prioritize victory after making up his mind to join the war.

This is the biggest difference brought about by the different origins of the two.

Although on the whole, Swain's choices tend to be more rational, it is undeniable that if the focus is on the war itself, there is no doubt that Darius's choice will be more likely to bring a war to Noxus. victory.

as it is now.

Although Noxus, which had not yet fully regained its territory, was in a frighteningly tight financial situation, with domestic deficits and deficits, he still provided the best military supplies and cold-proof equipment to the battle groups heading north to the Freljord.

This level of armament would have been a waste of time in Swain's era, but in Darius's case it could only be regarded as "a serious expedition."

Such a large-scale armament must be an extremely heavy burden for Noxus' already modest economy, but Darius did not take it seriously.

In fact, what he was trying to achieve was the idea of ​​"having more debt than you need to worry about". Darius, who had a military mentality, was much more direct and sharp in his methods than Swain.

Interestingly, Swain acted moderately in the past, largely due to the constraints of the old nobles and the Black Rose, but after the Battle of Tobitsia and the substantial treason of the Black Rose, the new people led by Darius The first thing Noxus should do is to conduct internal liquidation. Even if the Noxus Empire is torn apart, it must be properly sorted out.

Without the internal restraint of the Black Rose, Noxus has really completed a certain degree of internal cleansing. Although the soldiers who followed Darius seemed to have some trends in the new military aristocracy, But it is undeniable that at least they are very capable.

Therefore, in this situation, Darius' simplicity and crudeness became the optimal solution.

The Black Rose was finished. Those organizations and individuals who had not dealt with the Black Rose in the past had a significantly better impression of New Noxus. Taking this as an opportunity, Darius recruited many mages and formed A new mage army was formed.

Although this mage army looked like a group of noisy wild mages who were not proficient in war magic and joint spellcasting, when Darius broke them up and assigned them to various battle groups and combat units at all levels, they were Miraculously, he showed a completely different ability and level from those mages in the past.

They are no longer glass cannons gathered together, but auxiliary and output in small battlefields.

This change led to the military reform of Noxus. This military reform not only rebuilt the relationship between the mages and the chapter, but also accomplished something that Swain had always hoped for but never realized.

Unify the promotion paths for warriors and mages.

In the current Noxus Chapter, mages are also members of the Chapter. Their promotion does not go through a separate channel, but is the same as ordinary soldiers. They will not be listed separately, but will be together with the soldiers. Promotions are based on merit.

Although mages are much more effective than large soldiers, and their promotion speed is often as fast as a rocket, this system still combines mages and warriors, making the Noxians more united, and making the whole people more united. The system looks fairer.

If Kalya were here, he might comment that "absolute fairness is unfair", but at least now, when the Noxus Empire just collapsed and the Noxians were confused, these measures made Noxus People have found a clear direction and a motivation to work hard.

Nowadays, Noxus does not have as many vampires as it once did (this is a metaphor, but also in a literal sense). Under this kind of open and honest absolute fairness, the people who had gradually lost trust in Noxus were finally encouraged. Then they united together again and began to act according to the will of the commander-in-chief.

This war machine that was almost falling apart looked like a classic car. After a lot of beating, it finally roared again.

........................

Due to Black Rose's defection, the intelligence department of New Noxus was now completely new. Although they worked very hard, the news of Noxus' massive armaments was not completely blocked and spread quickly.

Suddenly, many areas fell into panic.

After the Black Forest Federation returned to the embrace of Noxus and the Ironthorn Kingdom played itself to death, the Second Republic of Shining Silver, the Kingdom of Loklond and the Overwatch League, the three regions that separated from the Noxus Empire, quickly All are on heightened alert.

Although due to the unreliability of the New Noxus Intelligence Department, the information about their procurement of cold-proof materials was leaked together with the armament information. It seems that New Noxus' target is in the north, but in this delicate situation now, No one can be sure that New Noxus has no possibility of attacking from the east to the west.

Among the Second Silver Republic, the Kingdom of Lokronde, and the Watch League, the Watch League is the most tense. The Overwatch League is an alliance composed of the core trade cities of Besilico, Fendor, Corixe, Ironwater City, and Chuxiduo along the Sea of ​​Watch. It was originally supposed to be an area loyal to the Immortal Fortress. When Yin and Darkwill fought, they once stood on Swain's side.

However, the support for Swain here is not because they also believe in the Noxian spirit like Swain, but because Swain carried out a large-scale purge at that time.

The big local businessmen and local tycoons were physically destroyed by Swain. The remaining small businessmen, craftsmen, various citizens and farmers were unable to fight against the Immortal Fortress like the previous local tycoons.

Although Swain charged them high taxes after crushing the head power that had previously hindered them, their lives turned out to be better than before, so these people initially supported New Noxus.

So, using these supporters as his base, Swain pulled together a strong team to fight against Darkwill until they marched into the Immortal Fortress.

Everything seemed to be going in a good direction until the collapse of the Noxian Empire.

The second and third eldest children in the families of small businessmen and craftsmen went to the Immortal Fortress with Swain with enthusiasm and hope. As a result, despite the ardent expectations of the family, they failed to return home in fine clothes, and most of them were buried in the Tobitsia.

When the news of Tobitsia's failure came, almost every family in these areas that once belonged to Swain's base was crying.

Of course, if it was just sacrifice, it would not be enough for them to choose to leave Noxus.

What is really fatal is the subsequent endless tax increases.

In order to clean up the borers inside the Immortal Fortress, Darius had to maintain a large army after the failure in the Battle of Tobitsia, and the expenses for maintaining these armies were placed on the heads of these cities.

At that time, the scale of maritime trade in Runeterra was increasing year by year. Demacia's northern trade opened up the Ionian route, and then the Demacian royal family also established the Shurima trade route. At this time when everyone went to the sea , the port city on the southeastern coast of Noxus that originally wanted to take advantage of the situation, was interrupted by a sudden increase in taxes.

The profits that originally seemed to be okay were completely taken away by the Immortal Bastion. They just watched helplessly as they missed the biggest opportunity, and watched Vazuan and Bilgewater completely divide the routes and income of the Sea of ​​Watch. .

The small businessmen, handicraftsmen, and farmers who originally supported Swain, after contributing their two or three sons, were squeezed out of most of their profits and most of their grain. In this case, , even those who were unspeakably loyal in the past will inevitably turn into rebels everywhere.

Therefore, when the trend of disintegration of the Noxus Empire began, these small businessmen, craftsmen, and yeoman farmers who had contributed huge support to Swain angrily united together and announced their separation from Noxus.

"It wasn't the Overwatch League that betrayed Noxus, it was Noxus that betrayed the Overwatch League!"

This is their slogan.

Because the physical destruction that Swain presided over here before was too complete, even in this case, no reliable leader with enough reputation was born locally, so the entire Overwatch League organization is quite loose, and everyone can at most Each city will form a civil government to promote autonomy, and then the cities will sit together to discuss internal tariff exemptions and that will be almost complete.

military?

You can't expect these people to still have the energy to form an army. Rather than forming an army, the locals are actually more inclined to hire an army, and then form an alliance with the neighboring Kingdom of Lokronde to protect themselves and act as horns for each other.

Then, the news came that the Black Forest Federation had surrendered and the Iron Thorn Kingdom was over.

This not only means that New Noxus no longer has any worries in the north, but also declares that any "mutual horns" plan that tries to make Noxus retreat or be unable to escape will not work at all.

Well, if they are willing to read more history and look at the rise of Noxus, then they will find that in the face of a unified Noxus, scattered forces unless supported by rival forces, Otherwise, just relying on each other's horns will end up being annexed by Noxus.

The only lesson that mankind has learned from history is that mankind cannot learn any lessons from history.

With the news that Noxus had begun large-scale armaments, the Watch Alliance was a little numb. When they contacted the Kingdom of Loklond again, they found that the other party could not reply at first, and the envoys they sent were delayed in Loklond. No one brought back any useful information.

It seems that the Kingdom of Lokronde has made up its mind to defend itself by relying on the Valzhu Mountains - after all, in history, this place was conquered by Noxus mainly because of traitors. As long as the Noxians are still flesh and blood, It would be difficult for them to directly cross the Valzhu Mountains and launch a direct attack on the Loklund Plain.

Rocklund can defend himself behind closed doors, but the Overwatch League can't!

Seeing the situation getting worse, the shortcomings of citizen autonomy were also exposed - due to the lack of reliable decision-makers and speakers, the citizens' assembly soon fell into endless quarrels, and some even pessimistically believed that Noxus After the army arrives, the citizens' meeting may not come up with any effective plan.

In the end, many cities in the Overwatch League did not come up with any effective plans.

But precisely because of the special nature of the town hall meeting, they have a lot of ideas that are beneficial and cost-free.

And among these messy, eccentric, and costless plans, one was titled "Ask Demacia for help."

Although previous diplomatic actions have proven that Demacia is not interested in the expansion of Noxus, at this time, we should still treat it as a dead horse and give it a try no matter what.

Therefore, the Overwatch League's envoys set out from Ironwater City and headed west along the Valoran Strait, heading straight for Demacia, with all the true and false information they had collected.

A month later, Lux, who was already selecting a location for the new city, received an exaggerated warning from the Watch League.

The computer motherboard has been repaired.

It was the pins of the CPU socket that were crooked. The manufacturer corrected the pins and everything got better!