The messenger from the hawks said that the colonel didn't return alone. Instead, he brought with him 48 tattered transport ships of all sizes, smugglers, and fishing boats to the port of Cobicus in Tyrrsim.
These ships were filled with more than sixty thousand refugees from different parts of the kingdom. They relied on bread dumplings made of wood chips, tree barks and wild vegetables to endure the arduous sea voyage for more than twenty days, and finally reached the overseas colonies …
On top of that, only 37 of the guards who had accompanied Borkal to the royal capital to deliver the gifts returned.
Including Borkal's personal guards, a total of 24 people were sacrificed.
Most of their sacrifices were due to the bandits, thieves and bandits they encountered on the way to the kingdom. It was said that the most dangerous time was when they were surrounded by a group of three to four hundred bandits on a small hill. They only managed to escape after a bloody battle …
Also, the main reason Borkal didn't return was because of the refugees. That was because Stellin XI hadn't come up with any policies to help the kingdom recover from the war.
Instead, the people who sided with Prince Hansbach during the war were brutally punished. As a result, the kingdom was in turmoil and countless people lost their homes.
In order to bring the refugees to the colonies and give them a way out, Borkal had spent all of his funds and his family's fortune.
In order to gather enough ships to set sail, Borkal spent three months traveling to the various ports and fishing villages along the kingdom's coast, purchasing and hiring people, as well as salvaging and repairing them. Finally, he managed to assemble such a tattered fleet.
After the refugees were loaded onto the ships, the fleet finally set sail for the colonies.
However, the voyage didn't go smoothly. Two fishing boats sank and even though they were rescued in time, hundreds of refugees still died.
The worst part was that they ran into the Blacksail pirates. Fortunately, the people on the ships were refugees and there wasn't much to loot.
After the Black Sail Pirates inspected the ship, they let the refugees go while cursing. They even took pity on them and gave them some food and water, as well as some green carrots and old pumpkins …..
Claude stayed at Port Vebator for three days. 1st Folk headed to Monknad Castle, while Wolfang followed Claude back to Lanu. 2nd Folk stayed on the ship as usual.
Five days later, the Alliance Fleet arrived at Port Patres in Robisto. All the warships and transport ships were docked there, waiting for the war zone to be reorganized. The Alliance Fleet would be reorganized into an ocean patrol fleet for the war zone.
Claude and Eiblont led Wolfang and Thundercrash 2nd Folk back to Lanu. In less than half a year, Lanu became a huge construction site once more. Dust flew everywhere, ditches and scaffolding could be seen everywhere.
"Actually, it's a good thing that Lanu City is in ruins!" General Eiblont suddenly said with a sigh.
"Huh?" Claude didn't understand what Eiblont meant by that.
"You might not know this, but General Skri faced a huge problem during the expansion of Lanu City.
Many homeowners in the old city weren't willing to renovate their houses, so much so that the underground sewers couldn't be built.
In the end, General Skri had no choice but to move the city to the east and build a new district. The roads and underground sewers in the new district and the old district are two different systems.
Now that Lanu City has been reduced to ruins, we can merge the old city and the new city into one during the reconstruction process, carrying out the overall planning of the city … "
Claude nodded. That was true. General Skri had wanted to renovate the old districts for a long time. Many large cities were divided between the new districts and the old districts, which resulted in the old districts being reduced to slums and the territories of the underworld gangs.
Due to the many alleyways and remote locations, it brought a lot of trouble and danger to public security.
Lanu City was in ruins. Even though it was a huge loss, it was like a blank piece of paper that could be rebuilt.
Claude didn't see Borkal when he arrived at the command center. After asking, he learned that he had gone to settle down his family.
This time, Borkal had moved his family and relatives, as well as the employees of his family's trading company, to the colonies.
General Bolonik gave him half a month's leave so that he could settle down his family and relatives.
Even though he didn't get to see Borkal, Claude could see his diary and report.
Putting the two together, he realized that due to the civil war, the kingdom was in a state of devastation. The people had no way of making a living, refugees and bandits were everywhere.
Not only did the local officials not try to appease the people or get rid of the bandits, they even exploited the people even more. Their only goal was to curry favor with Stellin XI so that they could keep their positions and avoid the kingdom's ongoing investigations.
Actually, Borkal didn't really get along well with the soldiers on the Storm fleet. They didn't have a good relationship with each other.
Sometimes, Borkal even suspected that he would be ambushed if he was on the ship alone. He would be tied up and thrown into the sea in the middle of the night without leaving any clues behind. They could even say that he jumped into the sea in the middle of the night or accidentally fell off the ship.
So, the eighteen days on the ship were tough for Borkal. He made sure his guards were careful at all times, especially when it came to food and water.
When they finally reached Whitestag, Borkal was stunned. All he saw was a wasteland. The bustling city of the past was like a bubble that only existed in his memory.
Hansbach and Wedrick's armies had been fighting in Whitestag for more than a year. There weren't many intact buildings left in the city.
All that was left of the ruins were tattered shacks. However, Borkal didn't find many familiar faces in Whitestag. Most of them avoided him in fear when they saw his military uniform.
The local officials in Whitestag had been replaced. They were more concerned about the dozen or so Storm warships that returned and the specialties the naval officers brought from the colonies.
Borkal was an envoy from the war zone who came to see Stellin XI on behalf of the war zone. He was only given a travel pass and two carriages to carry the gifts and luggage.
Since there wasn't anything else, Borkal had no choice but to use his own money to buy sixty or so draft horses for them to ride on.
As a result, the pack horses and carriages made them fat sheep in the eyes of the bandits. They were besieged and robbed seven times along the way.
The most dangerous time was when they were surrounded on a small hill by a bandit group of three to four hundred refugees. Borkal said he heard the refugees shouting, "Charge, kill them, steal their horses, and they'll have meat for dinner tonight."
Fortunately, the guards that protected Borkal were handpicked elites with excellent marksmanship. Three rounds of muskets were fired and more than a hundred of the bandits at the front were taken care of.
What followed was a melee with bayonets. The guards fought one against three. When the bandit leader was killed with a single shot, the rest of the bandits fled.
However, seven of the guards died and eighteen were injured in that battle.
The security situation only improved when they reached the Ibnister Plains where the royal capital was located.
The recovery rate there was better than other prefectures. After all, it was a region under the royal capital's jurisdiction. With the royal guard there, it was rare for large scale bandit groups to appear.
However, the roads around Ibnister Plains were set up to prevent refugees from other prefectures from entering the plains under the royal capital's jurisdiction.
Borkal and his party successfully passed through the checkpoint and traveled for a few more days before reaching the royal capital.
They were going to the mining and commerce association's office in the royal capital, but they didn't expect to be greeted by a huge fire when they arrived.
According to those in the know, it was the first prince's Bluefeather soldiers who had to retreat from the royal capital after losing the battle, so they started looting in the commercial district.
The mining and commerce association's office was unfortunately destroyed. It was highly likely that their resistance had angered the soldiers and they were killed. In the end, to cover up their crimes, the soldiers set the place on fire before leaving, burning half the street to the ground.
However, a few members of the mining and commerce association's office managed to escape. When Borkal saw them, he realized that they were reduced to beggars.
The reason was that the bank accounts, seals, and documents hidden in the office were all reduced to ashes in the fire. The funds the mining and commerce association had stored in the national bank were then swallowed up by the bank's staff. They couldn't even file a lawsuit because all their savings and withdrawals were gone. They couldn't even find proof to report the loss.
Furthermore, the royal capital's business had been in a slump due to the war and hadn't improved much since then. They had to guard the ruins in case the people from the colonies couldn't find them. So, they could only do odd jobs or beg for a living and spend the night in a small shed built on top of the ruins.
Now that they saw Borkal, a special envoy from the colonies, they all cried and begged him to bring them home.
Borkal could only agree and shove them into the group, preparing to bring them back to the colonies when they left.
Borkal had no choice but to find another inn. He noticed that the prices of goods in the royal capital were two to three times higher than they were after the war ended.
To save money, he went to the royal guard's camp in the royal capital and wanted to stay there.
Unfortunately, his request was rejected by the officers in the camp. They said that without the king's permission, outsiders weren't allowed to enter the camp.
In the end, Borkal went to the ministry of the army and spent three days to submit his request for an audience with Stellin XI. At the same time, he was given a place to set up camp. It was an empty plot of land near a park near the ministry of the army. There were a few rows of wooden lodgings built there. It used to be a temporary camp and was now used by the families of many officers of the army.
The lodgings were free, but food and fodder had to be provided by the royal army. The ministry of the army wouldn't reimburse them.
After settling down, Borkal went to visit various places to probe the opinions of Stellin XI and the other high-ranking figures of the kingdom about the war zone. He also failed to achieve any of his goals in trying to find out what Stellin XI and the other high-ranking figures of the kingdom had to say about the colonial war with Shiks.
Be it Stellin XI or the other influential figures of the kingdom, they seemed to have forgotten that the kingdom still had an overseas colony that was in the midst of a war with Shiks.
Whenever Colonel Borkal visited them, they would always happily accept his gifts. But when it came to the war between the colonies and the colonies, they would only express sympathy and encouragement in spirit. In reality, they wouldn't provide any support or help at all.
In the end, it was someone who knew the kingdom's internal affairs who spoke the truth. Given the kingdom's current situation, it was impossible for them to send aid to the colonies even if they wanted to.
The most excessive one was Stellin XI. When Borkal met him, he first reprimanded the war theatre's gifts for being too shabby and worthless. Then, he questioned why the colonies hadn't paid any taxes or tribute to the royal capital for the past few years. Did they think they couldn't do anything to them just because they were separated by Oceania?
Once the wise king tidied up his empire, he would reorganize the kingdom's fleet and personally lead the troops to teach the colonies a lesson.
Borkal was cursed at for no reason at all. He hurriedly explained that the colonies were still in the middle of a war with Shiks. Only then did the wise king realize he didn't know the truth.
He didn't know about the war in the colonies and only found out after asking the ministers around him did he know that Borkal was telling the truth.
However, Stellin XI didn't apologize for that. Instead, he rudely told Borkal that he didn't care if the colonies were fighting a colonial war with Shiks or not. The taxes and tribute they didn't pay to the royal treasury in the past few years had to be made up for and doubled the fine. With that, he turned around and left impatiently. As he left, he asked the steward how the preparations for the ball were going.
With that, the king's audience came to an end. In the following days, Borkal became a frequent visitor to the ministry of the army. He visited all the influential figures who had a say in front of Stellin XI, but none of them could help him.
Stellin X was busy organizing all sorts of banquets and parties and didn't have the time to deal with an envoy from the colonies.
It was then that Borkal realized that the ministry of the army was no longer the powerful organization it had been during Stellin X's reign. Instead, it had become a mere rubber stamp.
The most they could do was send documents to the local forces in the prefectures to relay the king's orders. They didn't even have the funds to maintain their operations. A lieutenant colonel who was on good terms with Borkal said that he hadn't received his salary for half a year and was only staying there to get free lunch for his family.
Of the kingdom's three major corps, the royal guard was under the direct control of Stellin XI. Reddragon was under the king's father-in-law, Duke Siegfeld.
Gryphon didn't back down either. They elected their own corps commander, the hereditary marquis, Jarius Ho Hadro, to be their commander.
The trump card corps of the three kingdoms now had the tendency of becoming warlords. All the military expenses were directly allocated to the corps from the kingdom's Ministry of Finance instead of the kingdom's Ministry of Army, which would then audit and inspect the military budget of each corps.
Even the collection and trading of firearms and other military supplies were left to the logistics departments of the three corps.
The ministry of the army had lost its authority and couldn't even get approval for the funds needed to maintain the kingdom's operations.
It was said that during the civil war, most of the officers in the ministry of the army supported Prince Hansbach as the new ruler of the kingdom.
There were only a few who supported Prince Wedrick and they couldn't even maintain the day-to-day operations of the ministry of the army.
Because of that, Prince Wedrick hated the ministry of the army to the core. After defeating Hansbach, he even wanted to abolish the ministry of the army, but was stopped by his father-in-law.
After all, the other kingdoms had their own ministries of the army and Aueras had to establish a name for itself. Otherwise, it would become a joke to the other kingdoms.
The ministry of the army was the one Stellin XI disliked the most. Its only role was to forward documents and stamp them.
After staying in the royal capital for more than a month without accomplishing anything, Colonel Borkal could only give up. After getting an official reply from the ministry of the army, he returned to the three southwestern prefectures to search for his family and relatives.
Due to the kindness of his entourage, he gave out a few donations and ended up being chased by a large group of refugees.
When he reached Whitestag, Borkal realized that the ten or so warships from Storm had been summoned to guard the seas around Ibnister Plains. Stellin XI was afraid that someone would come ashore like Hansbach and attack the royal capital.
He wasn't willing to flee again, especially now that he was officially the new king of the kingdom.
Without a ship, Borkal had no choice but to look for an ocean-going ship himself while the number of refugees increased.
In the end, Borkal had no choice but to go to his father and convince him to sell the family's business to someone else. He used all his wealth to hire ocean-going ships and buy food at a high price. Only then did he bring his family and 60,000 refugees back to the colonies.