On the 21st of October, Year 590 of the Sacred Light Calendar, five days after General Bolonik and General Eiblont led the imperial guards to the town of Lanu, the emissary group finally announced the final plan of handling the assassination.
Given that Claude and Birkin were also heavily injured from the assassination attempt, they were absolved of any responsibility.
After the assassination attempt, Bolonik rushed back to Lanu to take charge of the situation. He made the snap decision to lead the royal guard to attack Port Vebator and take over the only deep-water port on Nubissia, ending the colonial war.
He was promoted to lieutenant-general and acted as the highest commanding officer of the theatre.
After the assassination attempt, General Skri immediately organized an army to surround and intercept the Magicians in grey robes who came to assassinate him, killing five of them.
Bolonik led the royal guard to stabilize the situation in the theatre on his own and organized a highly efficient logistics team to supply the frontline troops with endless supplies.
His merits offset his faults and he wasn't punished.
General Eiblont was in Wickhamsburg when the assassination attempt took place. When the Praetorian Guard Division attacked Port Vebator, he led Thundercrash to assist in the siege and contributed to the end of the colonial war.
As such, he was absolved of any responsibility and became the chief of staff of Thundercrash while Claude recovered from his injuries.
The only unlucky one was General Saljorak. Everyone knew that.
After all, the one who was assassinated was a high-ranking general of the kingdom who came to the theatre to earn merits for his promotion to a marshal. Who would've thought he wouldn't be able to go back?
Someone had to bear the responsibility for such a huge incident. General Hazor, who was in charge of the local garrison, public order, and guarding against enemy spies, was the best candidate to take the blame.
Even though Saljorak did his best to uncover the truth behind the assassination attempt, he only managed to lessen the blame slightly.
He was relieved of all his duties and was stripped of his military rank. He could only retire from the army as a soldier.
Fortunately, he retired as a private with 15 years of service and still had the status of a citizen.
However, in Nubissia, there wasn't much of a difference whether one was a citizen or not.
In any case, the rights that the citizens of the Kingdom had were also available to the commoners here. At most, they would be given the priority of becoming a civil servant.
General Saljorak could not return to the kingdom after his retirement. He had already set up his family business in Anfiston, and his family had moved to the capital, Grinosburg.
The assassinated General of the kingdom, the hereditary earl, and the supreme commander of the war zone, General Algers, was posthumously awarded the title of Field Marshal of the kingdom. His body had been cremated and his ashes had been collected. He would be brought back to the kingdom by the special envoys to be buried in his family cemetery.
The other high-ranking officers of the Praetorian Guard Regiment who were killed in the assassination attempt would also be dealt with in the same way. The three gray-robed magicians who were captured alive would also be escorted back to the Royal City by the special envoy team.
Since the envoy already knew that Bolonik would be leading the Royal Guard to attack Port Vebator, the Ministry of the Army gave the envoy some authority. They could make decisions about personnel and military affairs in the war zone.
After discussion, the special envoy group decided to reorganize the three monolith divisions into a monolith corps, with General Bolonik as the commander of the monolith corps. After General Birkin recovered from his injury, he would become the chief of staff of the monolith corps.
That way, the war zone would have Anfiston, Robisto, Balingana, Cromwell and the newly added Port Vebator colony under its jurisdiction.
The main focus of their defence was the two deep-water ports along the coast, Port Vebator and Port Patres, to prevent the pirates and Seaking from attacking them.
As such, the reorganized Monolith Corps would be in charge of the coastal defences, while Thundercrash would be in charge of the inland and border defences.
He also had to keep a close eye on the mountainous northern coast of Port Vebator, as well as the war between the nikancha kingdom and the Shiksan colonies in the hinterland and the refugees from the war. He also had to prevent the nikancha from invading Port Vebator if they lost their minds.
Claude had thought that the war zone would be abolished after the capture of Port Vebator, but the envoy team said that they didn't have the authority to do so and could only make some changes in personnel and troops.
Whether or not the war zone would be abolished would depend on the royal capital's decision. After taking Port Vebator, they didn't have to worry about Shiks sending more troops to Nubissia for the time being.
Before signing a peace treaty with Shiks, they still had to guard against sudden attacks and harassment along the coast. Without a war zone, it would be difficult to maintain a unified command and security along the coast.
However, five of the kingdom's eight colonies were under the war zone's jurisdiction, which made it difficult for them to do anything about it.
The main reason was that the war zone's two corps had to be funded by the taxes from the three colonies that weren't under the war zone's jurisdiction.
However, the envoy team didn't care about that. They believed that it would be best for the war zone to remain as it was before the royal capital made a decision.
They hurriedly packed their bags and prepared to leave with the royal guard. There was urgent news from the kingdom that Stellin X, who had been bedridden for many years, had finally breathed his last and returned to Wargod's kingdom on the morning of the 7th of the 10th month.
In his will, it was written that the heir to the throne wasn't Prince Hansbach, but Prince Wedrick.
A storm was brewing in the kingdom and there weren't many in the upper echelons who had the time to worry about the colonies anymore.
Prince Hansbach left the royal capital in a huff after finding out that he wasn't the heir to the throne and no one knew where he went.
The influential figures in the royal capital had to organize Stellin X's funeral and Prince Wedrick's coronation ceremony. At the same time, they had to keep an eye on the eldest prince's whereabouts.
They also had to order all the garrisons in the kingdom to guard the roads and check on the eldest prince's whereabouts.
Everyone knew the prestige and influence of the eldest prince in the Kingdom's army. Once he raised his flag and declared himself king somewhere, it would be a nightmare for the Kingdom …
The envoy group didn't bother to clean up the mess and quickly led the Imperial Guard Division on their way back.
When news of Stellin X's death reached them, another order from the ministry of the army arrived. The emissaries were to lead the royal guard back to the royal capital.
Most of the royal guard belonged to an old noble family and they would follow Stellin X's will and serve the new king, Prince Wedrick.
Compared to the other units of the royal guard, the eldest prince had the least influence on them. The ministry of the army needed them to return to the royal capital as soon as possible to stabilize the situation around the capital.
Bloweyk also followed the emissaries back to the royal capital. Claude ordered Alek to bring two servants with him to help him deal with some family matters.
The next thing he had to do was to recuperate from his injuries. However, he still couldn't find any peace. Even though Bolonik was the acting commander-in-chief of the theatre, there was a situation he couldn't make up his mind about. He had no choice but to gather everyone to discuss how to solve it.
Thundercrash and Monolith were facing a mass retirement of the lowest ranking officers. Their fifteen-year service was up.
Most of them were veterans of Ranger who had participated in the Eastern-Border War five years ago. They joined Ranger and were transferred to Nubissia to fight the Shiksan colony war.
Another five years passed in the blink of an eye and Aueras finally won the war.
Due to the transfer from Ranger to the five enhanced folk, they were promoted from veterans to the lowest ranking officers and became the backbone of the five folk. When the folk were reorganized into corps, most of them became junior officers.
Now that the war was over, many of them were tired of their military lives. Given that junior officers were the peak of their careers, they decided to retire and settle their marriages and start their own businesses.
Of the twenty thousand soldiers who transferred from Ranger to the five enhanced folk, the lowest rank was now a sergeant major and the highest was a captain.
Nobody could've imagined that more than ten thousand of them would apply to retire and return home. All the officers in HQ were dumbfounded.
What troubled General Bolonik the most was that they had indeed completed their service. According to the regulations of the Ministry of the Army, in peacetime, these veterans and officers would be allowed to retire and return to their hometowns.
However, this was the war theatre in the kingdom's colonies and not the kingdom itself.
If such a situation were to occur to any of the kingdom's trump card armies, they would simply recruit a new batch of soldiers to fill in the gaps and retrain them until they had a certain amount of combat power. There were plenty of replacements, and it wasn't like mass retirements had never happened before.
However, the war theatre didn't have such conditions. Those who met the requirements were all in the two corps.
Once the ten thousand officers retired, not only would they not be able to fill in the gaps, even the fighting power of the army would plummet.
The ten thousand veterans had all been honed on the battlefield. As the lowest ranking officers, they were the most trustworthy people in the eyes of the soldiers they led.
Regardless of whether they were there or not, the lowest ranking troops would react differently to orders from their superiors.
Bolonik didn't want the veterans to retire and return home, but he couldn't do anything about it. It wasn't that he didn't want to stop them, but that he couldn't.
These bottom-level officers who wanted to retire and return to their hometowns were the most loyal and brave soldiers of the kingdom. They had fought for the kingdom for more than 10 years. Now that their 15-year service period had expired, most of them wanted to retire and return to their hometowns to solve their marriage problems. None of the generals in the theater of operations could stop them. It was unreasonable.
If it was the kingdom's trump card army, it would be easy to solve such a situation. That was to recruit these retired low-level officers as volunteer officers, provide them with superior salaries, and arrange for their families to live in the army's military base after marriage.
This would not only satisfy the basic needs of these low-level officers, but it would also give them further hope in their future military careers.
However, the conditions for the four ace corps to recruit volunteers were rather strict. Only the most outstanding officers could be recruited after their service was up.
However, Thundercrash and Monolith were only second-line corps in the kingdom's army. They only had their current military structure to deal with the colonial war instigated by Shiks.
Now that the colonial war had come to an end, most of the officers were retiring. It wasn't that they didn't want to recruit them as volunteers, but that they didn't have the resources or resources to keep so many of them.
General Bolonik originally wanted to report the situation to the Ministry of Army so that the Royal Capital could understand the real situation of the army's combat effectiveness being greatly reduced due to the retirement of so many low-level officers. He hoped that the Ministry of Army would come up with a reasonable solution.
However, the moment he suggested it, he felt discouraged.
Given the current state of affairs in the kingdom, the royal capital wouldn't be in the mood to pay attention to the retirements in the war theatre. At most, they would approve the applications. They didn't care whether the two second-line corps had enough fighting power.
Even if they did report it, only the heavens knew when they would get a reply from the royal capital.
After all, they could not detain the basic officers who applied to retire and return to their hometown in the army until the king's approval came. According to the regulations of the Ministry of the Army, these basic officers who applied to retire completely met the requirements. No one had any reason to detain them in the army. Otherwise, there would be a mutiny.
General Bolonik, General Eiblont, and General Birkin, who had just recovered from his injuries, were all at their wits' end.
Skri thought of a few ideas, but they weren't feasible given the current state of affairs in the theatre. In the end, he could only smile bitterly and decide that it was best to approve the applications of the officers.
Claude couldn't come up with any good ideas either. On the way back to Weyblon Manor from HQ, he encountered a quarrel between two immigrant families that blocked half the street. In the end, he had to send the guards to drive them away.
However, that incident gave Claude an idea. He hurriedly returned the carriage to HQ and informed the generals to reconvene.
"We can let the officers who are preparing to retire become volunteers," Claude said.
"The theatre won't be able to afford the high salaries and funds to build a base for their families. I don't think that's necessary.
What we have the most in the theatre is land. What we lack the most are immigrants. We can use immigration to attract these retired officers to become volunteers for the two corps. "
Claude's inspiration came from the hundred thousand families that migrated to Anfiston. There were only two reasons why those families were willing to migrate to the colonies. First, they were destitute on the mainland, while they would be given a piece of property, such as ten acres of farmland or a shop. That was something they wouldn't be able to achieve even if they worked their entire lives away from home.
The second reason was that the young men who were forced to retire after the war could continue their military careers. That way, they would be able to become citizens and raise their family's social status.
That was why these 100,000 families of retired soldiers were willing to take the relocation fee from the new business nobles and migrate to the colonies, even if it was a war zone ….
"Cromwell and Balingana are the two colonies that are most suitable for agriculture. But because of the colonial war and General Michaelic's policy of fortifying the walls and clearing the fields, it's been turned into a barren wasteland.
Now that Port Vebator is in our hands, we don't have to worry about the Shiksan army landing. We're also planning to build five stronghold cities in the two colonies to form a logistical corridor.
Now, we can use these five stronghold cities to develop the two colonies and implement an entry policy. In other words, we can restrict the immigration rights. Only soldiers who have served in our two corps can migrate to these two colonies.
Of course, that means a large piece of family property in the colonies, such as a hundred acres of farmland or a thousand acres of good pasture. "