Kingdom Bloodline

Chapter 503 The Divided Western Wilderness

In the main hall of Lorenburg, Gilbert's pupils reflected the light of the inextinguishable lamp in the distance.

“Lord Williams informed me that a few days ago, Duke Cyril Falkenhaus unexpectedly visited you.”

The former foreign minister asked, in a mild but cautious manner:
"I think he brought you more than just a sword?"

I paused for a moment.

“He did say a lot.”

The boy swallowed the piece of meat, his gaze slightly focused, as if deep in thought:
"It also makes me very uneasy."

Gilbert's expression darkened.

"Interacting with different people is always the most direct way to understand the ways of the world."

Gilbert's words remained gentle, but with a hint of caution and deliberation:
"But, Your Highness."

“Make sure you never forget,” Gilbert said meaningfully, sitting opposite him.

"Everyone shows you what they want you to see."

"Especially when your position is so special and your identity so sensitive."

Thales stopped eating and fell into a daze.

"What a coincidence."

“Not long ago,” Thales said, his expression a mixture of helplessness and mockery.
“Count Cloma said something similar.”

Kilbert stared at him intently, as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.

Thales continued eating his dinner until the cunning fox of the stars sighed:

"Now that you have met them, Your Grace."

"So what kind of people do you think the nobles of the Western Wilderness are?"

Thales slowed down his movements.

The nobles of the Western Wilderness...

what kind of person?

His thoughts drifted back to the moment when he met the three noblemen, Falkenhausen, Kloma, and Bozdorf.

The prince squinted his eyes:

“They’re not stupid, they know you… they know what we want to do.”

"From Baki Camp to Grace Town."

Thales stared intently at the lights in the distance.

Gilbert frowned slightly, then cleared his throat:
"So how did they deal with it, I mean... with 'us'?"

How to deal with...

Thales fell into deep thought again, lost in what he had seen and heard in the Western Wilderness.

"It's hard to say. From the Guardian Duke to the Conferred Earl, from the Four-Eyed Skull to the Raven and the Black Lion, from the new nobles to the old forces, it's clear that their relationship is not good and they have different opinions."

Thales, frowning, cut the already neatly and evenly cut steak into irregular small pieces:

"I guess they didn't handle it very well."

In the lamplight, Gilbert's expression became somewhat complicated.

"Is it."

Thales nodded, not without concern:
“And we are gradually forcing them to come together to fight against us, against their common enemy.”

Gilbert hummed in agreement, then suddenly asked:

"for example?"

Prince raised his eyebrows:

"For example—Williams."

The thought of that name, and of the mangled remains of the chisel on the sand, made Thales feel nauseous at the thought of the meat steak in his mouth.

Gilbert nodded in realization.

Thales forced down his food, not waiting for the other person to speak:
"Why him, Gilbert?"

Thales put down his knife and fork, turned to Gilbert, and looked at him with a serious yet puzzled expression.

"Why is it this... this cold-hearted guy who stays in the Western Wilderness, representing the Restoration Palace and the Royal Family, and ruling the Baki Camp?"

Thales shrugged:

"He couldn't even work well with the people in the Royal Secret Service."

Gilbert's expression changed several times:
"Your Highness..."

But Thales didn't let him interrupt him:
"Based on my limited understanding of him in that short time..."

Thales raised his index finger and frowned deeply:

"Every minute that the Winged Legend stayed at the Blade Fang camp made the local nobles of the Western Wilderness more desperate and uneasy, pushing them further away from the Palace of Restoration and exacerbating their conflict with the royal family, until they took a desperate and reckless step."

"Don't even mention comparing them to the shrewd and meticulous Kingdom's Fury, or the seasoned and prudent Fortress Flower..."

The prince turned around and looked at Gilbert, whose face was full of complicated emotions.

"To be frank..."

Thales sighed, searched for suitable descriptions, and said helplessly:
"Even the Fallen One is better at dealing with people than him."

Gilbert frowned and remained silent.

His gaze first fell on Thales, then drifted to the plate that the prince had ate in a mess, and he remained silent for a long time.

Just when Thales thought his questioning was fruitless and he could only turn away in frustration to continue struggling to finish his dinner...

"Just as you were six years ago, Your Highness is as sharp and intelligent as ever."

Gilbert let out a slow sigh, his gaze sharpening:
“But, my Duke.”

“I think you might need to step back, stand at the height of the kingdom, at the breadth of history, and at our perspective, and then look at the situation in the Western Wilderness again.”

The height of the kingdom.

The breadth of history.

From our perspective.

Thales blinked, looking puzzled.

"Leaving aside other unexpected minor nobles, just take the three major families of the Western Wilderness that you mentioned. They do have different attitudes toward the Fuxing Palace."

Gilbert sat up straight, a smile playing on his lips, as if he had transformed once again into the tireless instructor he had been six years ago:
"One is moderate and conservative, another is radical and dissatisfied, and yet another is apathetic and ambiguous."

"How do you see the situation for us?"

Thales leaned back in his chair, his eyes darting around.

mild.

radical.

numbness.

A crow, a black lion, and a skull—three different figures, one old, one middle-aged, and one young—appeared before him.

"Good thing."

Thales tried to remind himself that he belonged to the Starry Sky Royal Family and should speak from the right standpoint:

"Our opponent—if the Western Wilderness is our opponent—is divided and disunited, a loose collection of people, making it more vulnerable and giving us an advantage to devise separate plans and defeat them one by one."

He shrugged, looking disgusted.
"But our strategy is... Williams?"

"really?"

Gilbert laughed at his exaggerated expression.

“We’ll devise a plan separately and defeat them one by one.” Gilbert looked at him just as he had in class six years ago, his eyes filled with admiration.

"Just like you did in Exeter six years ago?"

Thales paused.

He found that compared to the old crow's encouraging questions that were unconditional and persuasive, Gilbert's questions were more explicit, intentional, and clearly directed.

"Yes, just like Exter."

The prince frowned and nodded:

"Unless we force them to stand together, put aside their past grievances, and fight against... against Canxing."

Thales swallowed the last sarcastic remark, "Thanks to a certain handsome pretty boy wielding a double-headed gun."

Gilbert nodded and laughed.

"Please do not misunderstand me, Your Grace. In fact, I greatly appreciate your idea."

"But Your Highness, the strategy we should adopt depends on the kind of opponent we are facing."

Thales also discovered that Gilbert preferred direct narration to Puttier's sarcastic and quirky rhetorical questions.

"Exter is the greatest enemy of the Star Kingdom for hundreds of years. Its borders are thousands of miles wide, easy to defend and difficult to attack. Its people are fierce and their ferocity is untamed. In addition, it has a strong army and many powerful rulers. It is a formidable natural enemy that we may not be able to overcome even at our peak."

The former foreign minister seemed to sigh over something, pausing for a few seconds before saying quietly:

"For us, a divided Exter is naturally more in the best interest of the stars than a unified dragon kingdom."

The next second, Gilbert's expression changed.

"But, the Western Wilderness?"

"This is the territory of the stars, and its lords are His Majesty's vassals. They are merely a corner of the chessboard, completely under our control, and we are determined to win."

Gilbert's gaze sharpened:
"In this situation, is the chaos and division in one corner of the chessboard really to our advantage?"

Thales frowned in confusion:
"How to say?"

Gilbert chuckled, cleared his throat, and gazed at the distant lights before beginning his explanation.

"More than two thousand years ago, at its peak, the ancient empire spanned the continent, with two territories, five districts, and nineteen provinces under its jurisdiction."

At this moment, Thales finally discerned a hint of the old raven and Putila's storytelling in his tone.

"But of these twenty-six known locations, the ones that give Triumph City and Pegasus Throne the biggest headaches are not the powerful Northlands, the ancient Chauvin, the treacherous wilderness, the complex Green Heart, the untamed Kisseri and the wild Nieda, or even the elusive Sea of ​​Flames and the far East that are beyond their reach..."

Gilbert then changed the subject:
"On the contrary, it is the southwest of the empire, a remote and insignificant thorny area."

Thorny ground.

Thales recalled the world geography he had learned in the North. Fortunately, the Northmen had nothing to hide about the Thornlands.

Based on his memory, the prince tentatively asked in return:
"Because they are conservative and xenophobic, and never submit to outsiders, or even the rule of an empire?"

“I read a thousand-year-old proverb from the Thornlands in the books of the Northerners: ‘Children of thorns are born to rebel.’”

Gilbert nodded, a sense of relief in his eyes that seemed to say, "The people of the North are finally willing to read."
"Yes, Your Highness, yes, but it's not just that: the Sons of Thorns submit not only to the rule of outsiders, but also to the rule of their own people."

Thales looked puzzled.

Gilbert smiled:

"Even before the rise of the empire, the small land of Thorns was known for its division and chaos: warlords rose up, various factions existed, oligarchs emerged everywhere, turmoil was frequent, and even the internal religious beliefs were difficult to unify, let alone find a leader who could win people's hearts."

"This caused trouble for the empire at the time: after the easy conquest, their subsequent rule was like being mired in a quagmire, unable to move forward."

"If we want to win over and appease people, we can't find a single agent in the entire province who can be trusted and relied upon; if we want to intimidate and shock, every time we take down a leader of the rioters, there will always be his opponents or supporters who emerge years later and cause trouble again."

Gilbert gave a light snort, his words carrying a hint of disdain:
"This characteristic of the thorny lands persisted for millennia, remaining to this day even after the empire fell."

"Even today, after the final war, in the old land of thorns, neither the Kingdom of Allenbia nor the Tarundi Co-rule has ever been at peace: the former's royal family changes every season, while the latter's internal strife is like a daily occurrence, happening regularly."

Thales listened attentively to what the other person had to say:

"You mean, the Western Wilderness is to us what the Thorn Lands are to the Empire?"

"Unable to maintain a stable rule?"

Gilbert paused for a few seconds, seemingly searching for the right words.

"Not entirely, but..."

Gilbert looked at Thales seriously:

"Tell me, Your Highness, if you were your father, facing these three powerful families in the Western Wilderness who seem to have differing political views, different ideas, shifting stances, and whose allegiance is hard to discern, who would you reward, who would you strike at, who would you support, and who would you let go?"

This question surprised Thales.

"From what I saw..."

He reviewed what he had seen and heard over the past few days and answered cautiously:
"Reward Cloma because they can distinguish right from wrong and are pragmatic?"

Gilbert didn't speak, but looked at him expectantly.

So Thales tentatively continued:
"To strike at Bozdov because they are arrogant, confrontational, and have a clear stance?"

"Are they trying to win over Falkenhausen because they've been silent for so long, perhaps they're waiting for the right price?"

Gilbert's eyes lit up.

“That’s good, because that’s what we thought from the beginning.”

Hearing this strange tone, Thales frowned:
"but?"

Gilbert, as expected, smiled and continued Thales's words:
"but."

"In the years immediately following the Bloody Year, before Williams was knighted, everything from major policies like conscription, tax reforms, and land consolidation to minor ones like rewards, punishments, investiture, and appointments—whatever national policy or law was to be implemented in the Western Wilderness…"

Gilbert's gaze sharpened, just like his tone:
"When the Restoration Palace has a legitimate reason to act and proceeds methodically, such as implementing the Timely Conscription Act and the emergency supplementary plan for the Desert Wars, conservatives like Cloma often drag their feet and feign compliance while secretly resisting."

"When His Majesty adopts a conciliatory approach, offering support and appeasement, such as temporarily suspending the 'Exemption from Taxes on Frontier Expansion' as a compromise and gesture of goodwill, stubborn individuals like Bozdov jump out and push their luck, resisting to the bitter end;"

"When Yongxing City was determined to take action and strike swiftly, such as punishing nobles who violated the Central Tax Law, the unpopular Falkenhaus suddenly appeared again, making jokes, playing dumb, and even stirring up trouble in the Western Wilderness and spreading it throughout the country, causing our plans to come to an abrupt end."

what?
Listening to these specific matters, Thales felt a headache coming on, and his brows furrowed more and more tightly.

This is……

Another perspective on the Western Wilderness?

"The other minor and middle nobles all took sides without exception."

Gilbert's words carried a hint of resentment:

"No, not just a few years, not just one or two generations, but the past decades or even centuries. Whenever a royal decree was about to be issued or a major policy was about to be implemented, every opponent in the Western Wilderness could always find a place to belong: whether it was the notoriously tough Black Lion, or the seemingly submissive One-Winged Raven, or the shrewd and experienced Four-Eyed Skull who was indifferent to everything."

Thales became increasingly alarmed as he listened.

"No matter what we do, among the three parties who are not on good terms, there will always be one who can play an unexpected trump card, play the rules of the game with great skill and ease, or dodge and maneuver, or cheat and delay, or strike a blow, catching our plans off guard and making them less effective."

Gilbert's words were tinged with deep apprehension:
"They seem to be at odds with each other and divided in the Western Wilderness, but they always manage to break into smaller groups when faced with the king's decree from the Palace of Restoration. They cover each other on the smallest front line and use their combined strength from different directions to build the most appropriate obstacles, cleverly undermining our efforts to conquer the Western Wilderness and the entire kingdom."

The lights in the main hall remained on, and several members of the royal guard faithfully came to relieve them, but they all wisely kept a great distance to avoid disturbing Gilbert and the new Duke of Starlake's conversation.

It took Thales a long time to process the information Gilbert had given him.

but……

“Gilbert, you mean…”

Thales turned his head in disbelief:
"The three major families of the Western Wilderness, the three-way division they presented to us, were they in cahoots?"

"Was it intentional?"

Thales recalled Falkenhausen's terrifying smile, Deler's heartfelt words, and Bozdorf's aggressive manner.

From the idea that power originates from violence to the warning sword, from the history of Gracetown to jokes about Cohen, and then to that gleaming nine-pointed star flag...

That moment was like...

It was as if someone had broken a mirror.

All that was left for Thales was a ground covered with countless faces, yet the pieces could not be pieced together.

(End of this chapter)