Zhang Fan stayed overnight at the Marquis's Mansion on Moonlight Island. After all, the agreement with Marquis Charlie couldn't be finalized in just a few words; there were still many details to discuss.
After returning to his room, Zhang Fan glanced at the agreement and wanted to throw it in the trash. He didn't believe a single word of it, but considering it might be useful in the future, he decided to keep it for now.
The next morning, the butler, Ralph, woke Zhang Fan up, saying that the Marchioness had invited him to breakfast. Zhang Fan gladly accepted, thinking it would be a small gathering of a few people for morning tea, but when he arrived at the manor's dining room, he found that more than a dozen people were already seated at the long table.
Marquis Charles sat at one end of the table, with the Marquise and Princess Alice sitting close to each other on the right. There was an empty seat at the head of the table on the left, while two rows of children, ranging in age from a few years old to teenagers, sat at the foot of the table.
The Charles family is a large family, and these dozen or so children are all descendants of the Marquis Charles, but not born to the Marquis and the Marquis.
Keeping lovers is a very normal thing in the Ryan noble circle. Many nobles even take pride in it and compete with each other. Some nobles will even give each other lovers to show their loyalty or enhance their relationship.
One can only have one wife, but one can have many lovers. It is not unusual to give lovers away as gifts.
These dozen or so children were all illegitimate sons of the Marquis Charles, not including some who had already grown up and were gaining experience abroad.
Although the lovers also had permanent residences within the Marquis's mansion, they were not entitled to sit at this dining table; only the children were allowed to sit there.
The group of children, neither too young nor too old, stared at Zhang Fan with wide, curious eyes. After all, opportunities to see strangers sitting at this table and eating were rare.
After Zhang Fan sat down and greeted everyone with a good morning, the servants began to serve the meal. Alice, who was sitting directly opposite him, had a tense face and didn't want to give him a friendly look.
A table full of children sat down, but the atmosphere wasn't as lively as expected. Zhang Fan noticed that the servants had placed some cute little snacks on the plates in front of the children, but no one touched them. The youngest children, though their mouths watered as they stared at the food on the plates, refrained from eating.
Only after seeing Marquis Charles pick up his cutlery and begin to eat did the children start to eat their snacks. It seems the Marquis's household has quite strict rules; the children seem to have an instinctive fear of their father and dare not relax at the table.
Alice is an exception, of course.
When Zhang Fan reached out with his chopsticks to pick up a piece of pastry from the plate on the table, a pair of chopsticks reached out from the opposite side and snatched the pastry away first.
Zhang Fan was stunned for a moment, thinking it was just a coincidence, so he went to pick up another pastry, but it was taken by the person opposite him. After several such attempts, Zhang Fan looked up at the person opposite him with a black line on his face. He saw Alice with her chin slightly raised, putting the pastry into her mouth with a smug look on her face.
boring!
Next, Zhang Fan picked up whatever he didn't like to eat, and later he only picked up unfilled steamed buns, since the person opposite him would take them first anyway.
Not long after, Zhang Fan finally managed to grab the snack, not because he was quick, but because the person opposite him was too full.
Alice frowned as she struggled to eat her steamed bun; several more remained on the plate in front of her.
"Alice, why do you have such a good appetite today?" Madam Qiu chuckled from the side. "And didn't you used to hate eating steamed buns?"
"It's all your fault!" Alice glared at Zhang Fan across from her. Now that she had calmed down, she realized that her momentary anger had led her into his trap.
Zhang Fan was speechless. You grabbed mine and now you're blaming me?
The atmosphere during breakfast was quite pleasant.
After breakfast, Marquis Charles had to rush back to the Senate to handle official business. Although Alice had taken a break from school, her tutor ensured she didn't fall behind in her studies; her mornings consisted of piano practice. After breakfast, the children also went to their private lessons. Finally, only Madam Qiu was free to see Zhang Fan off as he left Moonlight Island.
"I really like the atmosphere this morning."
At the dock, just before Zhang Fan was about to board the ship, Qiu Wanyan walked up to him with a smile on her face.
"So you've met his parents now, right? It's not easy to get his approval."
"Do a good job, and I promise Alice will become your wife, hehe."
Zhang Fan smiled noncommittally and waved goodbye to Madam Qiu.
The Moonlight cruise ship sails in Manchester Bay.
Standing at the bow, Zhang Fan could already see several Gothic-style rooftops on the distant mainland coastline; those were the rooftops of the Royal Military Command Academy of the Duchy of Ryan.
Although he had only been away from the academy for a few months, Zhang Fan felt as if he had been gone for several years.
Today is the college's fall semester return-to-school day, and the streets of No. 1 Jinpu Road are packed with people, giving Zhang Fan a fleeting feeling of when he first came to register for the spring semester.
The enormous banner embroidered with the "Shadow Fang" flame emblem above the gate of the military academy remains awe-inspiring.
Unlike the spring back-to-school day, there was an additional white flag with gold trim, and the emblem in the center of the flag was a saber-toothed tiger with long fangs.
Zhang Fan pinned the bull's head badge from the F Training Camp to his chest. To make his return to school day more solemn, he specially changed into the uniform of the Ryan National Army.
"Good morning, sir!"
Zhang Fan showed his officer's ID card. The guards at the entrance of the military academy saw a general's insignia on Zhang Fan's shoulder and immediately stood at attention and saluted.
"Why are third-year students on guard duty?" Zhang Fan glanced at the badge on the guard's chest as he entered the school gate, then stopped and asked, "Where are the fourth-year students?"
"Sir, all fourth-year students at the military academy are out on field training. The campus security team will be led by third-year students!"
"Oh." Zhang Fan nodded.
Nie Yun and Hua Hua officially entered the fourth grade on the fall back-to-school day. It seems that none of the fourth graders came back for the opening ceremony. I wonder how they are doing in Benghazi now.
Walking to the central square of the military academy, nearly ten thousand students were gathered there for the opening ceremony. The students looked excited and thrilled, clearly freshmen who had just changed into their uniforms. On the stage, a dean was giving an opening speech.
"Never abandon! Never give up! This is Ryan Military Academy!"
Zhang Fan was embarrassed. Erwin didn't even bother to revise the speech; he just used it directly. However, the dean on the stage wasn't Erwin.
Zhang Fan walked up to the 10th floor of the administration building. On the rooftop garden terrace, facing the central square where the opening ceremony was held, an old man dressed as a farmer was turning over the soil in the flower bed.
"You really have a lot of free time," Zhang Fan said as he walked over to the old man and watched him dig up the lawn in the flower bed with a shovel and plant cabbage seedlings.
"When I have nothing to do, I grow some vegetables to eat, so I can be self-sufficient." Erwin clapped his hands, stood up, and looked at the vegetable patch he had cultivated with great satisfaction.
Although his trousers and sleeves were covered in mud, he seemed quite proud as he looked at the green vegetable seedlings.
"I'm not trying to be mean," Zhang Fan rolled his eyes, somewhat exasperated, and sat down on a bench next to the flowerbed. "Do you know that the cost of this patch of lawn you've ruined is enough to buy a truckload of cabbages from the supermarket?"
"This is the meaning of labor! It's not about money!" Erwin exclaimed, his beard bristling. "Can vegetables you grow yourself taste the same as those you buy in the supermarket?"
“Indeed.” Zhang Fan looked at the other vegetable patch that had already grown next to him and nodded in deep agreement. “These bok choy are thin and wilted, and you can tell they’re malnourished. They definitely won’t taste as good as the ones you buy at the supermarket.”
"You...you're so boring!" Erwin stormed out of the vegetable garden, stepped into the nearby fountain to wash his hands and feet, and added, "And that patch of cabbages isn't bok choy, it's Chinese cabbage!"
“Big…” Zhang Fan’s eyes widened. “You call that thing a cabbage?”
"I'm going for the high-quality, meticulous approach," Erwin said angrily, sitting down on the bench opposite Zhang Fan. "The essence is in the details, don't you understand?"
Zhang Fan was too lazy to argue with him. How bored could he be to use the water from the musical fountain, which was powered by electricity and rose from the ground to the 10th floor, to wash his feet and water his vegetables?
"And why did you bring out my bathtub?" Zhang Fan pointed to the electric bathtub placed on the edge of the terrace, where one could bask in the sun while enjoying a bird's-eye view of the campus.
"What do you mean 'your bathtub'? That's always been my bathtub!" Irwin said angrily. "I'm using it now, so don't even think about touching it!"
"Are you that idle now?" Zhang Fan asked helplessly.
"I'm getting old," Erwin said slowly, gazing at the central square of the military academy. "I've handed over the affairs of the academy to the executive vice president. Now, I'm mostly in charge of logistics."
"What about the fourth-year students?" Zhang Fan asked.
“They’ve all been moved to Benghazi.” Erwin poured himself a cup of tea and said, “With Muli, Haig, and Anlin as our logistical bases, there’s plenty of space there. I’ve handed them over to Wang Desheng to handle.”
As he spoke, Erwin placed a stack of documents on the stone table in front of him.
“Wang Desheng would send me a report every week, but I would only receive it and not send it back. He is a general in the field and knows the actual situation better than I do, so I don’t want to give him any trouble by giving random orders.”
Zhang Fan glanced through the stack of reports and gained a general understanding of the situation in Benghazi and the Chaos Lands.
After internal purges, the three bases of Muli, Haige, and Anlin have been largely cleared of resistance forces and have become stable logistical bases.
Wang Desheng's White Tiger Brigade then turned to external operations, using Benghazi as its base, and stirred up a bloody storm in the chaotic land.
The support fleet that was originally transferred from the Asiatic Starfield to garrison the three stars of Muli, Haige, and Anlin in the Chaotic Lands has almost become the logistics force of the White Tiger Brigade.
This was mainly because Wang Desheng's White Tiger Brigade only cared about killing and not about burying the dead. After crippling, frightening, and forcing local forces to surrender, they would just leave without a care, leaving the support fleet to clean up their mess.
The forces in the Chaotic Lands are numerous and scattered, which is precisely what has been a headache for the Ryan Kingdom's army. If a large force attacks, these forces disappear like water splashed into sand; if small groups fight, they become like a leech, swarming around and slowly devouring you.
Wang Desheng divided the Academy Army into several small teams, each tasked with targeting a specific faction in a chaotic area and carrying out a decapitation strike.
The smaller factions around Samsung have been terrified and dare not show their faces easily. If they do, they will be severely beaten and then left without any lingering attachment to your territory.
These smaller factions dared not gather together to launch a counterattack, because gathering together would make them too conspicuous and attract the bigger "white tiger." In the face of a fierce tiger, numbers are meaningless.
"Wang Desheng did a good job," Zhang Fan said approvingly, closing the report.
“His main task is to train troops,” Erwin said leisurely, taking a sip of tea. “He only needs to be in charge of fighting; I’ll leave the land occupation to Old Zhu and his men.”
This tactic of breaking up large forces into smaller units, using speed to overwhelm slow forces, and employing small units to penetrate key enemy positions, captures the essence of mobile warfare.
Although the combined forces in the Chaotic Lands far exceed those of the White Tiger Legion and the Academy Army, these forces are numerous and scattered.
When a small squad of the Academy Army spots a target, it will summon several nearby squads, thus creating a local numerical advantage. Moreover, the equipment of the ragtag troops in the chaotic area is incomparable to that of the Academy Army.
This special unit, which relies on the special channels of the Ryan military for supplies, has tactical equipment that is considered elite even by the standards of the entire Ryan National Army, and is basically on par with "Shadow Fang".
"I heard you recently went to Xiliang?" Erwin seemed very interested. "Did you find anything?"
"How should I put it?" Zhang Fan thought for a moment, "It's like going to pay respects to our ancestors."
“Xiliang is truly a wonderful place,” Erwin said, pointing to the dean’s office behind him. “I still have a few of Mr. Qiu’s calligraphy and paintings hanging there, but it’s a pity I never had the chance to meet her and learn from her about calligraphy.”
“I went to Moonlight Island before I came here. This is the agreement that Marquis Charlie and I signed.” Zhang Fan placed the agreement on the table and then grinned. “The terms he offered were simply irresistible.”
Irwin picked up the agreement and glanced through it.
"The outside world only knows that the Senate is Prince Reinhardt's backer, but it seems that Marquis Charles has not placed his bets on him."
“It’s not just him,” Zhang Fan said with a hint of helplessness. “Including Madam Qiu Wanyan, and you, the three of you have surprisingly similar goals.”
"I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Prince Reinhard now. With the three of you against him, there's no way he can win."
“This is a good thing. Although our purposes are different, our goals are the same.” Erwin handed the agreement back to Zhang Fan. “We don’t have much time left. We need to speed things up and give Reinhardt a push from behind.”
"How do you plan to push this out?" Zhang Fan asked. "Since you all have the same goal, I'm actually in the most relaxed position. It doesn't matter who I help or not."
“We need to add fuel to the fire,” Erwin said, lighting the small stove in the tea set and placing the teapot on it. “We need to put Reinhardt on the fire, to make him feel that he has to act sooner or the throne won’t be his.”
"Okay." Zhang Fan nodded and asked, "Where should I start this fire?"
"The fire comes from here." Erwin placed a stack of intelligence marked "Top Secret" on the table.
"The Marquis Ferlinan".
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