Chapter 113 King Caesar
In late February, the north was still shrouded in bitter cold. Looking out from the windows of the fortress, the entire Einweiden was covered in ice and snow.
In the morning, Olivia had breakfast with Theresa, Sansa, and Lainie.
Breakfast was set up in a large living room on the third floor. Each person had four or five plates in front of them, and the variety was extremely diverse.
The dishes that Olivia asked the kitchen to prepare today were Cantonese-style, mostly steamed dishes.
There was a basket of custard buns, black bean sauce chicken feet, barbecued pork steamed buns, radish cakes, taro cakes, egg rolls, and pickled duck.
As well as steamed large shrimp, steamed lamb chops, beef soup, and diced shachima with raisins and southern nuts.
Today's drinks include apple cinnamon water and warming ginger milk.
They were in a good mood today because they received the military report from Fort Mandeora last night and learned the good news.
The city of Mandeola was captured, and the news spread throughout the country in just one night.
The Grand Duke even made a big fuss about it, even though the main force of the Duke of Valois was still intact.
The fact that his son failed to defend his hometown was enough to establish credibility for the Grand Duke and boost morale for the tens of thousands of knights.
It was a bit late for Einwidun to find out last night, but it was still quite shocking. All the servants in the fortress were very excited.
Vansh even came to ask her in the morning if she wanted to have a big party to celebrate.
Having made such a great contribution at the beginning of the war, he should be entitled to all the titles and rewards in the future.
But Olivia knew very well that the worst thing to do when playing games was to open champagne in the middle of the game, so she refused and instead ordered a table full of small dishes that suited her appetite.
When the family eats together privately, it is never those respectable-looking bear-paw-swans at the banquet.
Theresa, Sansa, and Lainie all thought this meal was more pleasant than any of the banquets.
But in the eyes of Fanxi and the servants, this meal alone was not enough to feed two baronesses. If it were any other baroness, it might not even be enough to afford to roast a peacock.
These ladies are all very frugal and not extravagant at all.
After dinner, Olivia went to the study to take care of her official business, and took the opportunity to check the situation in the royal capital on the map.
The battle was lost because the eldest son of the Duke of Valois was arrogant and did not listen to the advice of the four-star military talent aide.
He might also think that how could a mere 4,000-man Baron Legion possibly defeat the 6,000 men in his direct territory? The advantage is clearly in his hands, right?
As a result, the situation got completely out of control after the city gates were opened to fight, and the 6,000 people were dispersed and quickly devoured.
The eldest son of the Duke of Valois could only leave here under the escort of his attendants and hundreds of soldiers around him.
As for reinforcements, several barons near Mandeola are also direct descendants of the Duke of Wallowa. They would like to come, but they are always accurately blocked halfway.
After circling for a day, they arrived at Mandeora, but the city had been destroyed and the Duke's eldest son was nowhere to be found.
A part of the mob immediately retreated to their homes, ready to stand at attention and surrender at any time.
The few barons who stayed behind to move forward were all close confidants of the Duke of Valois.
How could they bear such a great humiliation? They sent people to find out where the lord had gone, and at the same time organized a siege and counterattack.
Now, the attackers and defenders switched places, and Caesar and several barons from the north became the ones who had to defend the city.
However, Caesar and old Renault were not panicked at all.
They sent a cavalry of two to three hundred men northward and returned to Einweiden within a day.
Within a day, these cavalrymen set out from Einweiden and headed south, carrying a large amount of supplies and weapons, as well as heavy equipment such as crossbows, and returned to Mandeola under the cover of night.
During these two days, Caesar did not fight anyone who challenged him.
Once the city gates are closed, the city becomes impregnable and no one can open it.
He and other barons stayed in the city and plundered all the gold, silver, treasures and food supplies in Mandeola Castle.
However, Caesar also expressly prohibited other barons and soldiers from harassing the people in the city.
We are all Alta people. It doesn't matter if the nobles fight with each other, but if we ruin our reputation among the people, it will be difficult to deal with it in the future.
However, the barons who followed Caesar to attack the city also knew this truth and were extremely obedient to Caesar's words, otherwise they would not have been able to defeat the enemy with fewer troops.
The gold, silver, treasures, food and supplies in Mandeola Castle are enough to satisfy everyone.
After two days of looting, they placed the crossbows that the cavalry had brought back from Einweiden on the city walls.
Without having to leave the city to fight, we can repel these troops trying to attack the city.
After delivering the long-distance takeaway, these hundreds of cavalrymen were sent out to the various baronies in Valleu County that were not prepared to confront each other directly, and invited their barons and their families to come to Mandeola City for a banquet.
This group of cavalrymen acted as if they were in an empty territory wherever they went, and no one could stop them.
The barons and knights whose entire families were abducted surrendered tremblingly at first, thinking that they might be in great danger and not knowing how Caesar would treat them.
But when they arrived in the city of Mandeola, they found that all their old acquaintances had been captured and seemed to have really invited them to dinner.
They relaxed and expressed their willingness to serve the Grand Duke of Roslingay and obey Caesar's orders.
Caesar integrated the forces and, with the addition of the wealth of the barons who were not opposed to belonging to him, he was able to gather a total of 7,000 people.
These people are not directly commanding anyone's army, nor are they anyone's confidants. It is only now that they have come together to form a force that cannot be ignored.
As Caesar expected, two days after he finished all these things, the Grand Duke sent a letter to him, ordering him to go to support the royal capital.
Caesar deliberately waited until the Grand Duke came to ask for help before he had his troops ready. He counted 4,000 men and headed for the royal capital, which was in chaos.
Eindhoven, late February.
Dozens of boxes were slowly transported from Mandeora to Einweiten by logistics soldiers and directly sent to the vault room in the fortress.
The most important letter, along with a box of treasures that had been passed down in the Duke of Valois' family for a hundred years, was delivered to Theresa and Olivia.
Two adults were reading the letter.
The two younger ones, Lani and Sansa, were studying these most magnificent trophies.
They took out a few crowns and discussed with each other, saying that these things were worn by some princess in the past of Alta.
The wife and mother of the old Duke of Valois were both royal princesses, so they were relatives of pure blood.
Olivia believed that the Duke of Valois's son was so mentally retarded probably because his ancestors were all close relatives.
She had no interest in the spoils and gave them all to Lani and Sansa, only keeping the letter.
The current tense situation is still in the huge royal capital.
The royal capital is a place with convenient transportation, abundant water networks, numerous lakes and rivers, and thousands of hectares of arable land, needless to say.
Currently, the southern part of the royal capital and the capital are in the hands of the queen's party. Although she has been crowned as queen, she is only supported by two or three princes from her mother's family.
In terms of numbers, they could barely muster 30,000 troops, which was considered a tough challenge, but it was a bit difficult to completely defend the base camp in the south and the royal capital at the same time.
As for Duke Vallu, his troops gathered in the eastern part of the royal capital, which is the main grain-producing area in the royal capital's territory.
He was stationed here and didn't have to worry about logistics. He could handle the fierce battle with the Queen's party in the south. To the west was the Grand Duke of Roslingay, but they had not officially started a war.
As for the north, Marquis Desiso's men are eyeing it.
The Duke of Valois originally thought that, regardless of the marginal barons in his county, at least Castle Mandeola was still impregnable.
But unexpectedly, the ragtag army of four men, consisting of a dozen barons from Constant County, marched straight ahead.
They managed to break into the cities of the two barons, and even Mandeola fell into the hands of this mob.
After hearing the news, he was so angry that he almost vomited blood on the spot. However, within two days, his good-for-nothing son arrived at the royal capital with more than a thousand remaining troops.
Seeing that they could not take down Mandeora Castle, the other trusted barons also came over with their men.
Therefore, the Duke of Valois currently has about 20,000 people under his command.
This situation was not good for Grand Duke Roslingay, who had only 10,000 men on the west side of the royal capital.
Only then did he give the order to summon Caesar and others.
If the count's two sons had previously considered Caesar a worthy opponent, they now both considered him a thorn in their side.
Normally, everyone does business in the territory, and it's normal for people to come and go, so whether they are close or not is not noticeable.
But this war exposed all the factions among the barons.
In its current form, among the twenty or so barons of Constantine and Roslingay.
A small number of them supported the eldest son, Delova, and five or six were relatives of the second son, Odinson.
And the remaining barons, whom they had never taken seriously, now all followed the orders of the two barons of Einwidden and Dunfermline.
It seems to have become a unique style.
Besides, Caesar also had many useful people in the Direct Knights, and they looked loyal and fearless.
He had rescued the emperor before and was now attacking the city, which made the old man look at him with admiration.
This made the two lords feel extremely uncomfortable.
But now that Caesar has made great contributions and has the support of the people, they cannot exclude him on the surface. They can only grit their teeth and let the old man transfer Caesar to his side.
Both of their sons were still alive. Caesar, an outsider, brought his troops to the royal capital and joined the army, and then he directly became the commander of the Knights Templar.
According to their informant's report, the old man promised Caesar the position of marquis after the dinner on the first day of his arrival.
The two were so angry that they beat their chests and stamped their feet for a long time. When they woke up the next day, they heard that Caesar had led the knights to attack the royal capital in the early morning.
It had only been a dozen hours since he arrived in the capital, and both of them wondered if he had some kind of sorcery. Was he made of iron? Did he not need to rest?
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