Claude quickly met Bolonik, but he didn't look too well. Anyone who got shot in the right rib would be in a lot of pain.
Moreover, the governors and commanders of the three colonies did not provide General Bolonik with the best medicine and medical environment. Even after half a month, General Bolonik's injuries had yet to recover.
There wasn't much to say about the process of taking over Cobicus Port. When Thunderbolt 131 entered the outer city, the enemy didn't notice them at all. It was only when they reached the inner city that the guards hurriedly closed the gates.
Following that, the viceroys and commanders of the three colonies rushed to the walls with their guards, only to find that they were birds in a cage.
Originally, the viceroys and commanders of the three colonies wanted to threaten Claude with Bolonik's life and force him to retreat.
However, Claude called the old messenger over and wrote a letter for him to bring to the viceroys and commanders.
After the old messenger was hung up on the walls, the viceroys and commanders were dumbfounded when they read Claude's letter.
Claude only wrote a few sentences in the letter. It was as he had said to Skri before he set off. If anything happened to Bolonik, it would be simple. All viceroys and admirals were to report to the kingdom of the god of war.
Claude swore that if anything happened to Bolonik, he would hang all the viceroys and commanders, as well as their families and kin, on the trees by the side of the road. He meant what he said.
Only then did the viceroys and commanders on the walls realize that reality was completely different from what they had imagined. Even the imprisoned Bolonik had become a hot potato.
As the people on the walls were still arguing about what to do, Claude ordered Thunderbolt 131 to lob grenades at the walls.
The moment the grenades exploded, there weren't many people left standing on the walls. The city gates were blasted open and Thunderbolt rushed in. The viceroys and commanders of the three colonies were all taken captive.
In the end, when the projectile exploded, there weren't many people left standing on the city walls. Following that, the city gates were blasted open, and Thundercrash's soldiers charged into the city. The governors and commanders of the three colonies were all taken captive.
Claude's side went smoothly. Moriad's attack on the docks, on the other hand, had some hiccups.
As a military port, a small fortress was built in the dock area. The Storm Fleet sent a battalion of naval assault team to guard it to prevent the military port from being attacked by pirates.
Originally, the Stormtroopers were not under the control of the governor or admiral, but the governor of Tyrrsim convinced the Stormtrooper to swear loyalty to Prince Hansbach.
Therefore, when Moriad led his troops into the dock area, they were intercepted by the Navy's assault team. However, the cannons on the dock fortress were aimed at the sea and not the land.
Thunderclap Regiment 1302 immediately launched an attack. After three rounds of grenades, the defenders of the stronghold raised a white flag and surrendered.
Tyrrsim fell into Claude's hands just like that. Not even Bolonik could stop Claude from doing as he pleased.
According to Claude, it was a crusade against rebellion. He then started a purge of the three colonies. All the officials and families who signed the oath of loyalty to Prince Hansbach were captured and sentenced to ten years of hard labor.
Unlike the colonies under the jurisdiction of the warzones, the local powers of these three colonies were deeply rooted. Governors and Commanders could only effectively manage the colony capital and a few large towns, while the other towns and cities were controlled by powerful individuals and local powers.
That was something Claude had heard from Eiblont and Beechklin. Now that the three colonies were going to be under the war theatre's jurisdiction, Claude decided to make use of the rebellion to wipe out all the local powers in the three colonies. That way, the war theatre's orders would be carried out in the future.
It took General Screed and General Beechlin twenty days to reach Tyrrsim with their men. By then, General Bolonik had almost recovered from his injuries and was able to get up and move around in his sickbed.
Eiblont didn't come. He still had to watch over Port Vebator.
There was no helping it. The eight colonies were just too big. It would take at least a month to travel from Aduras to Port Vebator on horseback.
Bolonik, Claude, Scrim and Beechklin held a meeting in Tyrrsim to discuss the future of the eight colonies. It was decided that Tyrrsim, Mormaly and Arturas would be under the war theatre's jurisdiction.
At the same time, he decided to cancel the disarmament order and maintain the quota of 130,000 for Thundercrash and Monolith Corps. He also decided to form 18 local garrison regiments with a full complement of 5,600 people in the eight colonies to act as backup troops for the various colonies' garrison troops and war zones.
Bolonik decided to expand Lanu into a city and make it the headquarters of the war theatre.
The original plan to move to Wickhamshire Castle was scrapped. This was because after the warzone included Tyrrsim, Mormaly and Aduras, Lanu City was in the center of the eight colonies, so it could take care of both sides.
Claude suggested building a garrison fleet for the colonies, staffed by the thousand or so sailors who were unwilling to serve Hansbach from Whitestag.
While most of the ships they brought back were light cruisers and transports, they were able to gather six fast cruisers, two medium warships, one large warship and four light cruisers taken from Shiks docked at Port Vebator. That was enough to form a garrison fleet to maintain the safety of the colonies and ensure the safety of shipping between colonies.
However, Bolonik and Skri were rather hesitant. While a patrol fleet would give the colonies a greater sense of security, it would also mean that the theatre would have to bear a huge amount of military expenses.
Moreover, a naval fleet would cost more than a land army.
While it was only a fleet of around ten fast cruisers, its expenses were already comparable to that of a second-rate corps.
Claude smiled and showed them the spoils of the three colonies that Thundercrash raided in the past half a month. They were worth 1.2 to 1.3 million crowns, of which the viceroys and commanders of the three colonies contributed more than 400,000 crowns.
Claude believed that a patrol fleet would only cost around 300,000 crowns a year.
Now that the three colonies were under the jurisdiction of the war zone, they could clean up the bureaucracy. Without all the various exploits, the taxes of the three colonies would naturally increase greatly. At that time, it would not be a big deal to have an extra patrol fleet as their military expenses …
As the head of logistics, Skri was satisfied with the amount of wealth Claude took from the three colonies to make up for the deficit, but he didn't think much of Claude's idea.
He told Claude straightforwardly that the tax revenues of the three colonies wouldn't increase in the next few years. Instead, they would decline.
The reason for that was simple. The three colonies' tax revenue was built on oceanic trade. The annual trade with the kingdom was what ensured the prosperity of the three colonies and guaranteed their tax revenue.
Now that the trade between the kingdom and the colonies had been severed, that was also the main reason the viceroys and commanders swore loyalty to Prince Hansbach. Their goal was to restore oceanic trade with the kingdom and reap huge profits from it.
Now that Claude had taken down the six viceroys and commanders in the name of suppressing the rebels, he no longer had any hope of continuing oceanic trade with the kingdom.
Without trade, the commerce of the three colonies of Tyrrsim, Mormaly, and Aduras would be greatly affected. In the future, they would have to turn to trade within the colonies. Therefore, the theatre of operations would not be able to collect as much tax revenue from the three colonies for military expenditure. For this reason, General Skri did not advocate the formation of a patrol fleet.
Another problem was that 18 local garrison regiments would be formed in the war zone, reducing the original local garrison forces.
These 18 local guard regiments were all made up of the older soldiers of Thundercrash and Monolith Corps. Each local guard regiment had a total of 5,600 people, so the 18 local guard regiments needed about 100,000 soldiers in total.
That meant that apart from the 30,000 veteran officers and elite soldiers of Thundercrash and Monolith, they would also have to recruit 100,000 young men of suitable age.
That was indeed Claude and Bolonik's idea. First, it was to reduce the pressure on the families of the soldiers in Cromwell and Balingana.
As long as 100,000 new recruits were recruited, the immediate family members of these 100,000 new recruits would be able to obtain 30 mu of farmland or 300 mu of pastures. It was estimated that 600,000 to 700,000 family members of officers and soldiers who had no property would no longer have to rely on the theater of operations to support their lives and work. This would reduce the financial pressure on the theater of operations to invest in public facilities and infrastructure construction.
The second reason was that Claude felt that most of the soldiers of the two corps were too old and that it wouldn't be beneficial to the development of the corps.
Thundercrash, for example, had an average age of 31. Even though they still had a strong fighting capacity, Claude felt that they were getting a little lethargic. They were starting to get a little too conservative in their use of battle tactics.
So, Claude decided to tear down the old corps and rebuild it from scratch. He would build a younger corps while the older soldiers were still able to fight.
This way, when the veterans of the local garrison regiment retired in a few years, they would be replaced by the two corps that had grown up again. Otherwise, when the veterans retired, the two corps would not be able to recruit new soldiers, and they would not be able to maintain the same level of strength. This would be very disadvantageous to the safety of the colonies.
That was what Skri wanted to remind Claude of. Recruiting 100,000 new soldiers for training and equipping as well as forming 18 garrison lines would require a huge amount of military expenditure.
While the 1.3 million crowns Thundercrash had plundered from the three colonies was a huge sum, it was only enough to last them for two to three years.
Bolonik felt rather troubled. Claude and Skri's words made sense. After cutting off all trade with the kingdom, the colonies would have to turn to self-production.
However, the eight colonies were huge and the cost of land transport was high, so coastal transport became the first choice.
Even so, it didn't mean that they wouldn't be attacked by pirates. Having a fleet of light, high-speed cruisers would ensure the safety of coastal transport, so it was indeed necessary.
General Sterling's worries were reasonable. The war theatre's military expenditure had indeed become a huge financial burden. After cancelling the disarmament order, the recruitment of 100,000 new soldiers, the formation of 18 local garrison regiments, the improvement of the defenses of the three major ports, and the construction of the strategic infrastructures of the war theatre's territories meant that the war theatre would have to invest a huge sum of money. The war theatre's finances were very tight.
After much consideration, General Bolonik decided to build a patrol fleet consisting of six light fast cruising warships. The rest of the warships would be sealed up and expanded when the war zone had sufficient funds.
That way, the navy's expenditure would be maintained at around 150,000 crowns a year, which the theatre could still squeeze out.
After discussing the patrolling fleet, Bolonik and the others discussed the administrative arrangements for the three colonies. It had to be said that Claude did a rather thorough job of cleaning up the mess. Almost all the officials in the three colonies were arrested and imprisoned for treason. Currently, the three colonies were under military control. Otherwise, the local administration would have been paralyzed by now.
General Skri suggested that suitable personnel be selected from the lower-level officers of the two corps who were preparing to retire to serve as the local administrative officials of the three colonies. At the same time, the three colonies would openly recruit administrative officials and conduct examinations before appointing them.
This proposal was unanimously approved by Bolonik, Claude, and Beechklin.
Bolonik decided to return to Lanu with Beechlin in two days to oversee the war theatre's HQ and form six garrison lines to be stationed in the three colonies to strengthen their control.
Claude and Skri, on the other hand, were stationed in Tyrrsim for the time being to maintain order in the area.
When the six garrison lines arrived, Claude could bring Thundercrash's troops back to HQ.
Two days later, Bolonik and Beechlin left with their guards, while Claude and Skri stayed behind at Cobicus to continue their work.
Now that the three colonies were under the control of the war theatre, there were a multitude of things to deal with. Just investigating the assets of the three colonies alone was enough to keep Claude and Skri busy. They didn't even have time to find something to fill their stomachs.
Tyrrsim's port, Cobicus, served as the main port of the kingdom and had a vast warehouse area built around it. All the local products and goods shipped from the three colonies to Whitestag were all stored in that warehouse area.
Now that trade with Whitestag had been cut off, the goods and resources in the warehouse area had to be dealt with as soon as possible. After all, many agricultural products couldn't be stored for long.
"The mineral resources can be stored here. There's no point in transporting them back. The colonies don't have large alchemy workshops, so there's no way to make use of these resources." General Skri said regretfully.
The so-called alchemy workshops were just large metal factories in Claude's eyes. The kingdom strictly forbade the establishment of such large industries in the colonies, so they would rather ship the minerals back to the kingdom and refine them before shipping them back, even if it meant a huge increase in costs. Perhaps it was a way to limit the economic development of the colonies.
"This tobacco is a specialty of Aduras. It's said that it can be found everywhere in the wilderness, but it's an expensive luxury in the kingdom," Skri said, feeling that it was a pity.
"Without a market in the kingdom, the tobacco won't be able to sell at a high price in the colonies. Perhaps we can smuggle it back to the kingdom in the future.
We have to ship the dried codfish and bison back to the theatre to be used as rations. That stuff only has a shelf life of three to six months. The same goes for the cowhide. If we don't take care of it, it'll rot easily. "