our family is gone

As for the three-day festival holiday, it is now that Hamlet needs to recuperate.

After experiencing the extreme darkness and the blood moon, their spirits were too tense. If they suddenly relax now and go straight into work without any adjustments, problems will arise.

It's like a serious illness. Even if you get better, you still have to recuperate, otherwise it will be troublesome if there are sequelae.

Another reason is that adjustments need to be made below and above, because the death of the ancestor means that the previous decisions made around the main contradiction of "killing the ancestor" have become invalid.

This means that the next policy will definitely be different from the previous ones, but resuming work immediately now will be according to the previous arrangements, and then there will be changes in a few days.

If this difference is noticed, it may be suspected of "changing orders every day", which will not only damage work efficiency, but more importantly, people's hearts.

Taking a few days off just leaves room for a buffer before resuming work, allowing senior management enough time to adjust strategies and make new decision arrangements, and then proceed directly according to the new decisions.

Anyway, we have been stopped for so many days, so it doesn’t matter if we stop for two days.

Lance retreated without much nonsense and returned the joy to them.

Ordinary people were happy, but Lance was not, because what happened to Hamlet after he left was revealed to him through a detailed report.

The blood moon, to be honest, Lance didn’t see it, because it appeared when he opened the portal connecting the darkest dungeon and reality. It was most likely the projection of the ancestor.

Later, the ancestor passed away, and the so-called blood moon naturally disappeared. When Lance walked out of the dungeon, it was daytime and there was only one sun in the sky.

A disappearing thing is not worth Lance's attention. He is more concerned about the losses caused by the blood moon.

Many people were affected, and more importantly, because of this, most of the adventurers in the town in front of the ruins were lost.

If we open it up now, I'm afraid the situation will get even worse. Even if all kinds of information have been released, it will be of no avail. People will become immune to the same trick after using it too many times, and all of Lance's leeks will run away.

What's even more troublesome is that the blood moon caused the beasts in a large area of ​​Hamlet to go crazy and attack humans, and the rats in the ruins also became bigger and crazier, and began to overflow, becoming more difficult to deal with than the skeletons.

"I knew those adventurers were unreliable."

Lance could only complain at this time, but he was not angry. The original purpose of developing the ruins and bringing them in was to attract the attention of the cultists and provide cover for his detour and sneak attack on the old house.

Now, let alone the old house, all the ancestors have been killed and their role is no longer so important.

The only pity is that we can’t reap the benefits. We originally wanted to use this to promote development, but now we may have to change our approach.

Lance didn't care much about the wild beasts in the wilderness and the rats in the ruins, but the following information made him pay more attention to it.

According to the information sent back by the intelligence personnel stationed in the surrounding areas, the surrounding territories did take action after all, but the circumstances were a bit special.

In order to respond to the call of the cult leader or ancestor, those cultists may be really desperate and have no time to infiltrate slowly, so they can only instigate some people to invade Hamlet.

But according to the intelligence, not all of these people were mobilized. It seemed more like they were mobilized by themselves, and the local lords probably allowed such behavior in order to test Hamlet's intentions.

Of course, those nobles who were instigated by the cult wanted to occupy more land, so they wanted to take over those extremely dark and uncovered areas first.

The cultists certainly wouldn't be able to do that, as they wanted to attack Hamlet directly. It was this chaotic situation that caused them to fail even after the blood moon had passed.

This news has been out for some time, so we don’t know their specific situation now.

After daybreak, the army received the news and began to send Laura and Boslake to lead reconnaissance. It is estimated that they should be able to get the news soon.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Lance summoned Hamlet's top executives to discuss the matter.

Military commanders like Reynald and Barristan were called back again not long after they returned home.

Barton also rushed back from the town ahead. More and more people gathered. They seemed to understand that this holiday had nothing to do with them.

After all, I have followed the lord for so long and I know Lance's habits to some extent.

"Although we have defeated the cult that corrupted Hamlet and put an end to their abuse of this land, victory has not yet arrived. Now the remaining cultists are colluding with the surrounding territories and preparing to attack Hamlet. This is something we cannot tolerate."

Lance unfolded the detailed map left by the ancestor, "This is the real Hamlet area, but where are we now? Most of it has been occupied by these guys. They are enslaving our people and destroying our land. This is unbearable!"

When everyone heard this, they seemed to sense something. Didn’t they know that Hamlet had been invaded?

In fact, everyone present knew that even people from the military had proposed to retake the territory many times, including Reynald.

Because the military enlightenment course tells about the situation of Hamlet being invaded, and for those soldiers, the lord’s humiliation is their own humiliation.

It is somewhat as fanatical as the church going so far to launch a holy war just to retake the so-called holy city.

But they were all suppressed by the lords, who put those issues aside and focused their main efforts on dealing with the cult.

The simplest thing is that if the Knights of Bastia attack, just take the money and be done with it.

The fact that the lord now mentioned this change shows which direction the wind will blow next.

Lance had no intention of hiding his intention and revealed his goal very directly.

"I asked you to come here today to tell you that I will recover all of Hamlet next."

When this trend emerged, the people in the military were excited. After all, if they enjoyed this treatment, they should fight for Hamlet. Only war could bring them glory.

Others did not have much opinion on this, because it was impossible for them to change the lord's strategy in such a big direction.

"The troops will stay, and the rest will go back and sort out the details of the period of extreme darkness and blood moon as soon as possible. This is related to the formulation of future policies."

"Yes!"

After everyone responded, most of the people in the meeting room left, and only Patton, Leonard and others were left.

Lance generally doesn't like to drag things out. Now that he has decided on the next main task, he starts to describe the situation according to the map.

"Hamlet has the sea to the east, ruins to the north, and mountains to the northwest, so..."

It can be clearly seen from the map that the areas occupied by Hamlet are mainly in the west, southwest and south.

Among them, Bastia is mainly located in the west. Of course, it actually also includes a large area of ​​land. It has the strongest military strength, but many of them are plateaus and mountains.

Owendo is in the southwest, which is the throat of Hamlet's old road leading to the outside world. That is why it is controlled by the emperor of the empire, who wanted to lock Hamlet up, but now things have changed.

Everyone is familiar with the first two, but the South did not produce a single earl, but three barons. The strength of a territory has nothing to do with the title, but with courage.

Bastia was not originally a countship. It was because of the barbarian invasion that he fought off the barbarians and kept the border stable for more than ten years, forcing the emperor to confer him the title of count.

The three guys in the south were also the ones who annexed and developed when Hamlet fell during the catastrophe. If you really count, their territories are even larger than the Viscount's.

Therefore, there is a huge difference between nominal and actual control. The feudal aristocratic system of the empire has too little restraint, not to mention that the entire Hamlet area is far away from the core of the empire and belongs to the northern frontier. This situation is even more obvious.

However, the position of these guys means that they do not need to deal with the threat of foreign enemies, so the war preparations are relatively general, and they mainly rely on the system of aristocratic warfare.

In other words, the main fighting force is still the noble knights with fiefs, and they will recruit serfs and the like when the war breaks out.

Intelligence estimates show that the three of them together can probably gather more than fifty noble knights, and give them one or two retainers. Some families have fathers and sons going into battle, so at most there are less than two hundred people who can mount horses.

If we take into account the cavalry or archers that the local lords should have on hand, and count them as one hundred each, there will be three hundred in total.

From this, we can infer that the war potential of these three families is only two hundred knights, one hundred cavalrymen, and two hundred archers.

The core combat strength gathered together is only about 500.

However, An Yi has not had a major war for so many years, and Bastia's war preparations have been neglected and have problems. I guess they won't be much better off, and part of their combat power will have to be discounted again.

As for the serf soldiers, based on the population, the three families can probably mobilize two to three thousand, and it is not impossible to mobilize five thousand if they are more aggressive.

However, the above figures are calculated based on the combined figures of the three companies. In reality, can the three companies really be combined?

There is no shortage of dirty tricks among the nobles...

"These are just estimates based on intelligence and can only be used for reference. The actual situation may be more complicated because I can't say for sure whether there will be extraordinary people involved. This is an uncontrollable variable."

Lance then looked up at everyone and gestured, "Tell me, what do you think?"

"Bastia is mainly mountainous, with fortified cities and better preparedness for war. I think we should eat the fat meat first and then gnaw on the hard bones."

"But isn't this giving Bastia more time to prepare? If we take down Bastia first and then charge towards Owendo with the momentum of victory, we won't have to worry about the rest."

"Indeed, Bastia can really unite the strength of the territory. However, those who each have their own interests may not be able to unite even if given time..."

All parties gave their opinions and started discussing, while Lance was also thinking.

Because future battles would be more artillery-based, he felt that he had to take this opportunity to really start a big war, not just to knock out skulls and such, but to go after the real core of the aristocratic system, the knights.

Only by crushing them can it truly represent the arrival of the times.

"I'm going to have a real hard fight."

When Lance spoke, everyone else put aside their arguments and looked at the lord, waiting for orders.

“Even if the guys in the entire south unite, they only have 5,000 soldiers, most of whom are serfs. I, Hamlet, have 3,000 professional soldiers, which is more than enough to deal with them.

This time we want to"

"Sir, shouldn't we leave some soldiers behind to guard and provide security? Especially at the ruins, as there are more and more attacks in the wilderness."

Someone reminded us not to forget that there is still a "bomb". If all of them are withdrawn, it may cause instability.

"The military has always been for external affairs. Internally, we have the police and armed police, as well as the reserve forces and the militia. These matters are left to them."

The reason why Lance was so confident was simple. He had no intention of sending the guards out but keeping them inside.

While preparing to recover the territory, Lance was also preparing to sort out the internal affairs.

Because no one in the entire Hamlet knows better than him that in order to concentrate his strength, many problems that had been ignored or even suppressed before need to be solved.

"All military personnel are on leave now. The operation will be carried out in three days, which is when the leave ends. The code name of the operation is [Spring Cleaning]. We need to clean the house and have a good New Year."

Lance had no interest in mortal wars, so he used the simplest method and just plowed through them.

"I emphasize again, our main task from now on is to retake the entire Hamlet. I don't care who stands in our way, crush them!"

"Yes!"

"Now let's talk about these evil cult remnants that escaped..."

Lance has always held sole power in military affairs, and neither Greendale nor Baldwin interfered.

But if the army wants to launch a war, it certainly cannot do without the support of all parties.

Otherwise, there would be no such saying as "the food and fodder must be sent before the troops move out", and what is faster than military action is the public opinion offensive.

Somehow, topics such as the history of the invasion of Hamlet's area, the miserable life of Hamlet's people under the rule of those nobles, and the oppression they suffered began to spread.

But it wasn't enough, Lance was waiting.

Waiting for the remnants of the cult to come over, he even suppressed the news about those guys, at least most people didn't know about it.

Lance was ready to let those guys rush over to give the people of Hamlet who were on vacation a little shock, as long as the situation was under control.

It is easy for him to do this because Hamlet has been missing those places for so long.

In more than ten years, as we say now, a generation has been replaced, and the Hamlets today also come from other places.

It can be said that there is no relationship between the two sides. From the perspective of ordinary people, it is difficult to understand why the lord would start a war again just after stopping.

So we have to thank the cult for giving him a reason even at this time.

Nothing works better than a cult, and those guys support the cult invasion, so they must be bad people.

This is the importance of having a legitimate reason to be a teacher, he needs broad support.

Soon, Laura and others who went out for reconnaissance returned to Hamlet with the news... (End of this chapter)