In the blink of an eye, it was year 588, 4th month. It had been more than a year since the Battle of Balingana.
For the victors and losers of the battle, many changes had taken place during that time.
It would have a profound impact on the future of Nubissia and the colonial war that would take place on the continent.
For example, the defeated Shiks not only refused Aueras' envoy who came to negotiate a truce, they even said they would form ten new standing corps to fight the colonial war to the end.
At the same time, they hired the combined fleets of Nasri and Canas, as well as two volunteer mercenary corps made up of retired veterans from the two nations. They managed to protect the colony of Vebator, which had an excellent naval port.
On the other hand, the victors of Aueras, the old king, Stellin X, was bedridden for a long time, causing chaos in the country.
In order to effectively control Ranger, a powerful force of the royal guards, they had to prevent General Michelc from gaining too much influence in the army and making them obey his orders.
The royal family of Stellin chose many of their relatives to serve in Ranger so that they could effectively control the royal guards.
General Fansnik, for example, who took over after the Battle of Balingana, came from a side branch of the royal family.
It was said that his grandfather was a cousin of Stellin VIII and had his own territory and a hereditary title of count.
However, after Stellin IX revived the kingdom and started a war with the nobles, he stood against Stellin IX because of his territory.
In the end, his territory was confiscated. Thanks to his family name and royal bloodline, he managed to keep his life. However, his hereditary title of count was lost and he was demoted to an honorary viscount.
He relied on his annual income of 200 crowns as an honorary viscount and another 100 crowns as a subsidy from the royal family to maintain a decent living.
When Stellin X ascended the throne, General Fansnik's grandfather passed away and his title of honorary viscount was lost.
Although his father was conferred the title of an honorary baron by the royal family, the annual income of the title was halved.
This had a huge impact on the lives of General Fansnik's family. It took a lot of money to maintain a respectable lifestyle for an old noble family, and his mediocre father's investment failures made things worse for the noble family.
Ever since he was young, General Fansnik knew that when the next king ascended the throne and his father passed away, he had no hope of receiving a title from the royal family.
Although they belonged to the same Stellin royal family, the longer time passed, the thinner the kinship became. Blood ties couldn't last for three generations, so he had to rely on himself for his future.
Thus, General Fansnik had enrolled in the Royal Youth Military Academy when he was young. Through his hard work and diligence, his service in the army after graduation had been smooth sailing.
Actually, General Fansnik wasn't a brave man. Because he was afraid of death, he chose to specialize in logistics management. That way, he wouldn't have to risk his life on the frontlines during the war.
As a professional logistics technical officer, he was very qualified. At the same time, because his surname was Sterling, he had a lot of advantages when it came to promotions and promotions. It only took him 21 years to become a logistics director, a colonel.
What was worth noting was that he had always been in the logistics department of the army and had never been on the battlefield.
Taking up a post in Ranger was the most important turning point in his life.
Firstly, he was promoted from colonel to major-general. He was now 48 years old and had finally passed the most difficult promotion hurdle for a logistician of the kingdom.
Secondly, it meant that he was back on the royal family's radar and might even be recognized as a member of the royal family once more and be conferred a title.
The battle of Balingana had just begun when General Fansnik received the order to take up a post in Ranger.
The five standing corps of Shiks were marching towards Cromwell with great fanfare. Ranger easily gave up on Wickhamsburg and moved to Balingana. The situation there seemed to be very tense.
So, General Fansnik fell seriously ill. He vomited and had diarrhea. He couldn't even stand straight. None of the herbalists he hired could help him.
In front of his friends and military colleagues who came to visit him, the ashen-faced General Fansnik laid powerlessly on the sickbed. He lamented that he was really unlucky and shouldn't have gotten sick at this time.
He had hoped to go to the Kingdom's colonies on Nubissia and fight alongside Ranger against the invaders, but he didn't expect the illness to delay his journey.
But when news of the great victory in Balingana was confirmed, General Fansnik leapt out of his bed and packed his luggage to rush to Nubissia.
He told his friends and family that he had missed the fruits of victory due to his illness. Now that the war had just ended and they had captured 300,000 enemies, it was obvious how busy the logistics department was.
He definitely couldn't give up his duty just because he was sick. Now was the time for him to put his skills to good use.
General Fansnik only took a month and a half to rush to Ranger's camp and take over as head of logistics.
On his first day, he ordered the four four-wheeled carriages that Claude had handed over to corps command to be sealed up and handed over to the royal family to show his loyalty and filial piety.
Even Michelic didn't expect the new head of logistics to be so unconventional.
He tactfully reminded General Fansnik that he left the four carriages with the new head of logistics in the hopes that he could use the opportunity to build a good relationship with the officers of Ranger.
If he handed over all the spoils of war to the royal family, he would easily offend the officers of the corps as it would go against the traditional rules of spoils of war.
However, General Michelic was soon defeated by General Fansnik's suggestion that Ranger was the royal guard of the Stellin royal family and everything they captured on the battlefield belonged to the royal family. Only by handing it over to the royal family and letting them distribute it would they be able to show their loyalty and care towards the royal family.
Because of the traditional rules of spoils of war that General Michelic mentioned, Fansnik criticized him for being disrespectful to the royal family. He suspected that General Michelic thought too highly of himself and didn't take the royal family seriously.
Right after that, Fansnik pushed all the troublesome matters of expanding Ranger, getting new recruits and changing equipment to Colonel Skriti and the others.
He focused all his attention on the spoils of war Ranger got from the Balingana campaign and soon found a huge sum of 500 thousand crowns worth of military expenditure for the five corps from the Shiksan logisticians.
It was as if he had found a treasure. He immediately started looking for trouble with Line 131 and Claude, who had taken over Wickhamshire Castle where the military funds were kept.
However, Fansnik didn't expect Claude to be such a troublemaker. He and Line 131 showed Fansnik what it meant to be arrogant and valiant.
They didn't even take General Fansnik, the head of logistics, seriously. Not only did they refuse to meet him in private, offer him money and gifts, but they also complained loudly about how they were being wronged. They accused the general of being selfish and disregarding the interests of Ranger for the sake of getting promoted and not caring about Ranger.
Not only did Claude refuse to cooperate with the investigation, he even openly announced the route taken after taking over Wickhamsburg as evidence.
It was proof that they had only occupied the area for a short period of time. In order to complete their mission of burning down the stores, they had unintentionally missed out on the huge amount of Shiksan military supplies stored in the area, causing them to go missing when the stores exploded.
It was an unintentional mistake and General Fansnik didn't have the right to pursue it. After all, the military expenditure wasn't part of the kingdom's wealth.
General Fansnik was forced into a passive position. His reputation in Ranger continued to plummet to the point where no one wanted to talk to him anymore because of the enemy's military expenses.
There were only two reasons why Fansnik didn't let Claude off the hook.
One of the Shiksan logistics officers said that the military funds stored in the warehouse were all in coins and not paper items like the scroll. Even if there was a fire or explosion, there would still be traces of it. It was impossible for it to disappear.
The second reason was that he didn't like Claude at all. He also knew that Claude was a trusted subordinate of General Michelc.
He could make a big fuss about the missing military funds and make Claude the biggest suspect of embezzlement. He could easily be suspended from his post as Line 131's commanding officer and be investigated by the higher-ups.
That way, not only would it free up a position for the high-ranking officers sent over by the royal family, it would also reduce General Michelic's influence in the corps.
At the very least, Line 131 wouldn't listen to General Michelic's orders anymore. Fansnik believed that his actions would be seen by the higher-ups and they'd like his performance.
However, Fansnik didn't think that Claude would actually bring Line 131 to the ruins of Wickhamsburg to dig for the military expenditure.
At first, he treated it as a joke. It wasn't like he didn't send people to search for it. But the warehouse that was supposed to be used for the military expenditure turned into a huge crater due to the explosion. Those people dug around the crater and didn't find any chests filled with gold and copper coins, so they could only return.
However, Claude found something after half a month of digging in Wickhamsburg. He didn't bother with the crater and instead searched through the rubble and rubbish of the castle.
He believed that the explosion in the warehouse could have sent the military expenditure flying all over the castle. Following that line of thought, he found a bountiful harvest as expected.
The other Ranger units were envious. If Line 131 could dig it up, why couldn't we do the same?
Thus, they were led by their respective officers to Wickhamsburg Castle, occupied a piece of land, and joined in the bustling excavation.
It seemed that all the excavating teams had a good harvest, and the officers in charge were all smiling …
General Fansnik hurried to Wickhamsburg to check on the news, only to be disappointed. Claude and Line 131 were cleared of any suspicion of hiding the spoils of war.
They really didn't know about the existence of the Shiksan military expenditure. Just as Claude expected, the gold, silver and copper coins were scattered all over the castle due to the explosion and were covered by the mud.
The pieces of gold, silver, and copper coins that they brought up as a result of the explosion, as well as the deformed coins, clearly showed the truth of the matter.
But what disappointed Fansnik even more was that he couldn't confiscate the spoils of war from the Ranger units.
The excavated coins were no longer spoils of war and he didn't have the authority to order his officers to hand them over.
Now, the entire Wickhamsburg Castle had turned into a gold mine with close to 500,000 crowns hidden within, but he could not get a share of it.
That was especially true when he saw a soldier pick up a gold kepton, a Shiksan coin, and stuff it into his pocket.
He felt a deep sense of jealousy and agitation at the scene, so he immediately rushed back to the corps and tried his best to get General Michelc to order all the troops digging in Wickham Castle to be recalled back to the so-called military discipline.
Fansnik then brought all the logisticians to the ruins of Wickhamsburg and sealed off the entire area before ordering the soldiers to excavate.
It took him more than a month to find ten thousand crowns worth of gold, silver and copper coins, and that was only after he closely monitored the excavating soldiers.
He had always suspected that the soldiers below had hidden the coins that they had dug up, and he had almost personally searched every soldier who had dug up the coins.
But the truth was that he didn't find anything when he searched a few soldiers who were suspected of hiding the coins.
This made him suspect that the soldiers did not hide the coins on their bodies, but stored them somewhere else, waiting to come back for them in the future …
Looking at the coins he found, Fansnik felt extremely wronged. Of the five hundred thousand crowns worth of Shiksan's military expenditure, he only got the smallest portion of it. He had to distribute it to the troops who participated in the excavation.
Otherwise, he'd be accused by his subordinates of using military power for personal purposes. That was a huge crime in the military and he'd be prosecuted even if his surname was Stellin.
However, there weren't many left in his hands after the next round of attacks.
That was why General Fansnik went to the commanding officers who had excavated the ruins of Wickhamshire Castle and asked for a share of the spoils.
He felt that the reason he didn't get much was because he came too late. The troops found more than half of the military expenditure during the excavation, leaving him with nothing.
However, the commanding officers felt that Fansnik was being a little too greedy. While they did find something in the ruins, it was only worth a little more than ten thousand crowns.
Of course, the soldiers had their own stashes, but no matter how much they did, it wouldn't be much. They estimated it to be worth one or two thousand crowns at most.
If a single squad could reap this much, then the seven or eight squads digging through the ruins of Wickhamsburg would have a total of a hundred thousand gold coins. Perhaps Ranger 131, who was the first to dig, would reap even more.
Out of the five hundred thousand crowns worth of Shiksan's military expenditure, everyone only got a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand at most. The remaining three hundred thousand was taken by Fansnik alone.
Not only did he use his authority to force everyone to return to camp, he even led his troops to excavate for more than a month and came back to claim that he didn't get much and wanted everyone to give him a share of the spoils.
Only a ghost would believe his story. Claude suspected that he was hiding the truth and pretending to be poor in front of everyone. Everyone believed Claude's story …
Just as Fansnik was about to go mad with rage and everyone in Ranger looked down on him for hiding the hundreds of thousands worth of military expenditure, Claude received a summons from General Michelc.
The first thing Michelc said shocked Claude. "Claude, I'm going to ask you to leave Ranger."