Kingdom Bloodline

Chapter 238 A Century-Old Chess Game (Part 1)

“Him? Mindis III?” Grand Duke Ronnie shook his head, a mixture of amusement and exasperation on his face. “He’s the threat you’re talking about?”

"A docile king who died over a hundred years ago?"

Rumba stared coldly at Archduke Ronnie.

His gaze made the latter very uncomfortable.

Grand Duke Lecce sat down again at the dark brown rectangular table and coughed deliberately.

A few seconds later, Rumba finally turned his head to the side.

“Most people—including you—may think his achievements are mediocre, or even somewhat cowardly,” the Black Sand Grand Duke snorted. “Don’t worry, I thought so when I was a kid.”

His eyes turned cold: "Mindis Star III".

Trudida, who had been watching Rumba the whole time, was slightly startled.

That look...

“What does this have to do with him?” Aurelius asked.

Rumba took a deep breath and looked at Aurelius.

"Do you know him? This so-called 'wise ruler'?" the Grand Duke of Black Sands asked indifferently.

The dukes frowned almost simultaneously.

“I heard from Bachelor Costa a long time ago, not much,” Ronnie squinted, recalling his past study days, “but I heard he didn’t do anything significant.”

Rumba's eyes flickered, then he snorted coldly: "Didn't do anything major?"

“I don’t have much of an impression of him. I heard he managed to drag out the Fourth Continental War through various diplomatic means,” Ronnie replied casually. “A king who does nothing—even among the stars, there are few like him.”

Rumba's expression remained unchanged.

“I heard he was a weak king who compromised with his vassals at every turn,” Trudida rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “For example, the so-called Council of High Nobles and the Council of State Affairs were both left behind by him—turning the Palace of Restoration into a noisy marketplace, which was both inefficient and unsightly.”

"That's all?" Rumba raised an eyebrow. "Nothing else?"

“He promoted a large number of people to manage his territory, and he especially liked to appoint officials from among the lower nobles,” Grand Duke Lyco pondered, “and even made detailed regulations for this—thus offending many hereditary vassals.”

Aurelius frowned and chimed in, “Father used him as an example to warn us to be careful of merchants—I heard that Mindis III borrowed money from merchants to pay his taxes and even had to issue charters to cover his debts, so the nobles secretly mocked him as the ‘servant king’ of merchants.”

Rumba let out a long sigh.

"Is this the 'wise ruler' you all know?"

The dukes reacted differently: Trudida shrugged, Ronnie remained expressionless, and Aurelius looked puzzled.

Only Grand Duke Lecco's cloudy eyes shone with a strange and peculiar emotion.

“That prisoner from twelve years ago, Urad told me,” Lumba lowered his eyelids, as if sighing, “was a lowly tax collector in the North who was conscripted as a supply officer during the war—a lowly tax collector in peacetime, but responsible for transporting supplies during wartime, a common sight in the armies of the southern and central regions of the planet.”

Rumba suddenly opened his eyes.

"But whether it's a tax collector or a grain inspector, these positions all require passing an 'examination' to obtain—tax collectors must be proficient in arithmetic and able to distinguish between accounts."

Before the dukes' bewildered expressions, the Black Sand Duke continued speaking, his tone weathered: "Even the most noble people, if they cannot pass this test, are not qualified to serve as officials."

"What did you say?"

Trudida asked with some confusion, "An assessment?"

Rumba nodded.

“It sounds unfamiliar, doesn’t it?” the Grand Duke of Black Sands said coldly. “I bet you will never hear this word again in your life, except when you were a child and were punished in the study for not being able to recite a certain family motto.”

The dukes were all slightly taken aback.

“But this is the grain supervisor in the Star People’s army,” Rumba took a deep breath, his eyes showing apprehension and seriousness. “Not only that.”

“Their officer corps also included military judges, clerks, logistics officers, medical officers… there were too many to remember,” Rumba’s expression turned grim at that moment, as if recalling some unpleasant memory. “When there was no war, they were all professional officers with fixed jobs, having undergone specific assessments—military judges had to be well-versed in the law and able to distinguish right from wrong, clerks had to be proficient in procedures and able to interpret messages, and logistics officers had to be intimately familiar with all kinds of supplies…”

Trudida interrupted him.

“I know what you’re talking about,” the Grand Duke of Reconstruction rolled his eyes, raising an eyebrow slightly. “You mean the core officers of the Starshine Legion are all made up of these literate, knowledgeable people? That’s why they were able to regroup so quickly…”

“Bullshit,” Rumba retorted without hesitation, choking off the rest of Grand Duke Trudida’s words: “Most of our officers in Exter are also nobles, literate, can count, and even read poetry; some can even recite a line or two of the temple’s scriptures.”

"But what can they do when they are sent to the army to lead those rural conscripts?"

Grand Duke Leco gently tapped the square table and looked at Rumba across the table.

"So you're saying," the Grand Duke said softly, "that the key to the Starshine Legion's endurance lies in these insignificant little officials?"

Rumba glanced at the other three grand dukes.

“I remember my uncle Kaslan, when I was young, he often boasted about how versatile the White Blade Guard was—the rigorous and brutal training made them capable of almost every position, from suicide squad members, messengers, logistics, scouts to executioners.”

"An elite force rarely seen in the world."

The Grand Duke of Black Sands then changed the subject:
"So, whenever a war begins, countless soldiers are conscripted, and the king deploys his bayonet guards and loyal nobles to fill positions ranging from junior officers to guard commanders—just as we dukes send our personal guards and confidants to various posts. You're all familiar with this scene, aren't you?"

Rumba tilted his head, his weathered face flickering in the firelight. "And what about the Star People's army?" he asked calmly.

The dukes suddenly felt a pang of anxiety.

Rumba's deep, resonant voice echoed throughout the hall:
“They have been accustomed to a fixed system for a long time.”

"The grain inspector was only responsible for calculating numbers and transporting supplies, the logistics officer was only focused on distributing supplies, the military judge was only responsible for beheading according to laws and orders, and the clerk was responsible for coordination and communication..."

"They only know how to do one thing well, with a clear division of labor, each performing their own duties without interfering with each other, and without being hampered by the king's or the duke's trusted confidants."

"The logistics and management of conscripted soldiers do not need to be decided temporarily by people sent down from above, nor will they be completely changed due to a change of commander."

Rumba slammed his hand on the table, his eyes burning.

The stares made the dukes unhappy.

"Can you imagine?"

Lumba gritted his teeth, his expression ferocious: "We Northerners—no, almost all armies in the world—have been accustomed for hundreds of years to throwing out a handful of gold coins when recruiting soldiers from our territories, letting our trusted confidants and guards, that is, our vassals, manage those big shots themselves. They just need to provide them with pay, food, and equipment, and beheading them, chopping wood, and killing prisoners, right?"

“What you’re describing are procedures that only a standing, professional army has the time and resources to refine,” Grand Duke Ronnie retorted, lowering his arms and frowning. “But victory or defeat on the battlefield hinges on the moment of close combat. Rather than wasting energy on these personnel matters and offending countless vassals, it would be better to…”

Lumba suddenly looked up and scanned the Duke of Qiyuan City.

He shook his head inwardly with disdain.

“Yes, in war, these are trivial matters that are insignificant to the war, but cannot be ignored,” Rumba said patiently despite his disdain. “Only professional armies that are constantly on standby and have experienced countless battles can gradually get used to, become familiar with, and form their own military traditions and rules after years of fighting, such as the White Blade Guard and the Glacier Outpost.”

But the Grand Duke of Black Sands immediately changed his expression: "But the Starshine Legion is also a conscripted army!"

Ronnie's face stiffened.

"But that's how it works: its logistics and transportation efficiency is more than twice that of ours, personnel reorganization is easy, military discipline is well maintained, rewards and punishments are clear and transparent, and there are well-defined rules from attack to retreat."

Rumba scanned each of the grand dukes with a serious and solemn expression, observing the expressions on their faces—some incredulous, others filled with doubt and uncertainty:

"It's these trivial matters that those newly recruited child soldiers, whom we've always looked down on, who are weak and feeble, do countless times better than us—so even after a defeat and collapse, they can immediately resume logistics, regroup, and quickly restore their combat effectiveness by following a set of self-contained procedures and habits."

Rumba took a deep breath, his expression grim.

“Twelve years ago, back in the rear, I listened to that good-for-nothing Pefit nagging about the injustices they suffered every day,” the Black Sand Duke’s eyes blazed with anger: “'Why is it always us, Beacon City?' That little brat only knew how to curse like that.”

Aurelius and Trudida exchanged a glance, sensing each other's unease.

Rumba's tone grew increasingly angry: "What he can't see is that our entire army of 100,000 is on the verge of collapse just because of Horace Star's few surprise attacks. Even the siege of the fortress had to be halted."

"He also couldn't see how much time we spent after taking down that Star Butcher, amidst the shirking of responsibility by the nobles and the perfunctory responses of various forces, to reallocate manpower, arrange routes, gather provisions, and painstakingly reorganize logistics and supplies to deliver the sustenance for the war to the front lines."

"What he couldn't see was that, at the same time, taking the Starshine Legion in the south as an example, the Star People, trapped in dire straits, through those ordinary officials who had been specializing in this for many years, were still able to arrange the next supply, the next replenishment, the next rest stop, and the next regrouping point for the army in an orderly and continuous manner under high pressure, and quickly and efficiently regroup the scattered deserters and stragglers—this is the truth of 'Undying Starshine'!"

Rumba exhaled sharply through his nose, as if to release all the resentment of the past twelve years: "King Nuen keeps complaining that we're holding him back in the war: because of that brat Pefit's loose tongue, Nuen even ordered his grandfather to abdicate as punishment—sometimes I think: maybe compared to the other side, we really are holding him back."

Leko's face was grave as he stared blankly at the square table, deep in thought.

“If that’s all you’re saying,” Ronnie frowned, “the Star People have decent legion logistics… that’s still far from enough to convince us.”

Rumba curled the corners of his mouth into a faint, cold smile.

His laughter was filled with disdain, contempt, mockery, and a hidden anger.

Rumba slowly stood up from his seat, his figure projected into the center of the hall, like an ice bear that had just awakened.

"You think that's all?"

“None of your territories are closer to the stars than mine,” Rumba said, his hand on his sword, his eyes fierce. “Do you know what I’ve seen in these past ten years?”

Trudida squinted.

A vague unease rose in his heart.

Aurelius let out a deep breath.

Ronnie resisted the urge to interrupt and waited quietly for Rumba to speak.

“No,” the Black Sand Duke’s face was contorted with rage, his tone terrifying: “The undying starlight is but a scale of a dragon, a corner of the galaxy’s brilliance.”

"I don't know when it started..."

"That's how their entire kingdom operates."

Grand Duke Leco stared at Rumba's face and listened to his words, feeling a strange sense of panic.

That's how it all works, isn't it?

This is……

What do you mean?
I've adjusted the chapter titles again. For those using the mobile app, please remove this book from your bookshelf and re-add it for the chapter titles to be correct.

Okay, it's almost dawn, I'm going to sleep.

Looks like I'll be fishing again tomorrow.

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(End of this chapter)