Year 605, 3rd month, Claude received two pieces of good news and one bad news.
The good news was that the two Shiksan standing corps stationed at the entrance of Manori Plains, Dakhli and Fakelin, had laid down their weapons and surrendered Port Corona, Port Patkara and Manori Plains. That meant that the eight southern prefectures of Shiks were now firmly under the control of the region.
The eight southern coastal prefectures were occupied by the Thundercrash Division and the allied forces of the Breyot Kingdom. This meant that the five port towns were now open to the shipping fleets of the Autonomous Region.
The families of the eight Shiksan repatriation folk gathered in the royal capital now had a safe passage to the ports. They would be able to board the shipping fleets and head to Northbay before being transported to Nubissia to become official immigrants of the region.
According to the agreement between the region and Bleyotte, the three prefectures of Port Corona, Port Patkara and Manori Plains were land that Shiks had forcibly taken from Bleyotte more than three decades ago. They would be returned to Bleyotte after they were reclaimed.
Claude chose Port Patkara as the port for the families of the Shiksan repatriation folk to board their ships because it was safer there.
King Avitelli I of Bleyotte had been a great help in convincing Dakhli and Fakelin to lay down their weapons and submit to the region.
Dakhli was a local corps formed in the three prefectures of Manori Plains to begin with. Most of its soldiers were locals and their fathers still remembered that they were Bleyotteans.
That was why the envoys sent by Avitelli I managed to get in touch with them smoothly. In the end, Avitelli I took the risk to go there personally and convinced most of the soldiers to return to their homeland.
Fakelin, on the other hand, couldn't do much on their own. After Dakhli returned to Bleyotte, they were all alone.
Thundercrash and Bleyotte's three mountain corps wiped out the 350,000-strong army of Bluss and Buckler, as well as the fact that they were left with only a standing corps of around 60,000 soldiers.
In addition, the two Army Commanders were on good terms. Under the persuasion and introduction of the Army Commander of the D 'ahly Army, they went with the flow and put down their weapons to protect the lives of the entire army …
The second piece of good news came from General Eiblont, who was stationed at the royal capital. After three and a half months of investigation, Storm and the four Shiksan folk captured a total of 270,000 so-called hostile resistors and suspected rebels in the royal capital and the royal capital.
In the process, more than 41,000 resisters were shot or stabbed to death on the spot because of their weapons and hostile resistance.
On the other hand, Stormwind and Shiksan lost close to six thousand men in the operation.
The end of the investigation meant that Saint Cyprian City and the Royal Capital area were indeed under the control of the autonomous military zone, and order in the area and the city had been restored.
Perhaps there were still resistance groups in the dark.
But at least on the surface, they would no longer attack the occupiers with guns in broad daylight.
The Stormwind and Shiksan folk no longer had to worry about their lives in the taverns near the camp.
On the surface, the good news was that the autonomous military zone had full control of the situation in Saint Cyprian and the Royal Capital area. But the good news was that in the process of investigating and capturing the resistors, the total value of their loot was close to 30 million crowns.
As expected of the hegemon of Northland, the wealth of Shiks' citizens far exceeded Claude's imagination.
The wealth they had obtained from Saint Cyprian and the royal capital, as well as the Shiksan royal treasury, was enough to fulfill the 50,000,000 crowns they had hoped for before they sent out their troops.
General Eiblont even thought that they should just let go of Saint Cyprian City and the Royal Capital region and then retreat …
Of course, it was all nonsense. While looting from Shiks was part of the reason for attacking Shiks, it wasn't the main reason.
The biggest problem at the moment was to transport the families and relatives of the eight Shiksan folk back to the region. The local administration would then be in charge of giving the families land or something to assimilate into the region.
Before the war, the autonomous region's estimation was that if the number of relatives of a returning soldier was five to six, then the overseas autonomous region would receive more than three million new immigrants.
But now, it seemed that the number would far exceed the initial estimate, because the five to six hundred thousand family members of the soldiers gathered in Saint Cyprian were less than forty thousand family members and relatives of the returning soldiers. The number of relatives of almost every soldier who gathered here was more than double the initial estimate.
The Shiksan expeditionary force soldiers were originally the lowest class of peasants and serfs. Even if they won the war, they would still be peasants and serfs when they returned home. Their status wouldn't change at all.
But now that Shiks had lost the colonial war, the soldiers were taken as captives and forced to work in the region.
Now that the region agreed to let them bring their families over, it was the best chance for them to change their social status.
Even though they were insignificant people, they knew how to think and grasp the opportunity.
When they found their families, they brought their friends and relatives with them. At most, they would call them cousins.
Some even married their wives and openly brought their wives' families with them. Just like that, their number of relatives grew exponentially.
The overseas autonomous region had encountered such a situation once before. Back then, in order to obtain free land from the immigrants, the soldiers of Thundercrash and Monolith Army had brought more than two million so-called relatives from the kingdom's mainland.
Back then, Thundercrash and Monolith only had about a hundred thousand people in total. Now, the eight Shiksan folk had about three hundred thousand.
The region also had more than two hundred thousand Shiksan captives. While they couldn't join the homecoming folk, they brought their comrades back with them and made up a list.
If that was the case, the number of people migrating to the region would double. That would be the biggest problem for the region. After all, the journey from Shiks to Whitestag to Port Cobicus was almost twice as long as the journey from Shiks to Whitestag.
Back then, the journey from Whitestag to Cobicus and back took about two months. The autonomous region had mobilized all of their transport ships and with the help of Stormrage, they were able to complete the huge transportation mission in a year and a half.
Now, the region had more than four hundred large sailing ships and an armoured fleet to escort them. They could transport four to five hundred thousand people at a time.
While it seemed like a huge increase in transport capacity, it also lengthened the voyage. Even if they made one trip every three months, they could only make four trips a year and could only transport two million people at most.
So, the increase in the number of Shiksan's relatives meant an increase in the number of immigrants to the region, but it also brought more problems.
The two corps of the region would have to stay in Shiks for a longer period of time and they would have to spend more money on the migrants, war expenditures and shipping capacity.
The bad news came from the allied nobles. It had been four months since Thundercrash and Tempest ambushed the Shiksan royal capital, Saint Cyprian.
The prefectures of Shiks had already reacted and gathered their youths to form local garrisons. Under the leadership of the local nobles and officials, they waged war against the invasion of Aueras and the region.
The allied nobles suffered quite a bit at the start of the new year. They obtained the right to occupy the ten western prefectures from Claude, which was basically the right to plunder. The territory belonged to the nobles and they could plunder as much as they wanted. The region wouldn't care.
The alliance army of almost a hundred thousand men and horses conquered the three counties in the west. They burned, killed, looted, and did whatever they wanted. It could be said that there was no evil that they would not commit …
News of the three prefectures' downfall spread and the other prefectures grew wary. They started forming garrisons to fend off the bandits and robbers.
After the allied army wiped out the three unlucky prefectures, they were met with firm resistance when they tried to invade the neighboring prefectures. After much difficulty, they managed to take one of the prefectures, only to find that the place was already fortified and filled with guerrilla units. The allied army suffered heavy casualties and had no choice but to send a messenger to Thundercrash, hoping that Claude would be able to lend them a hand.
Claude also wrote a reply to reject the nobles' request to help the allied army.
The allied army of a hundred thousand nobles was already a very powerful force. The problem was that the three western prefectures were filled to the brim with loot. Now that they were faced with a tough battle, they were afraid of death and hoped that Thundercrash would come and help them.
Let Thundercrash be the vanguard, and let them rob and make a fortune. Did they really think that the autonomous military district was something they could do to them …?
The resistance from the allied nobles was within Claude's expectations. The severity of the situation could be seen from the reports of the Shiksan homecoming folk searching for the families and relatives of the soldiers.
In the first three months, a battalion of Shiksan homecoming folk could infiltrate the various prefectures. Be it the lands of the nobles or the towns under the royal jurisdiction, their operations went smoothly and they progressed quite well.
The ones sent out were the Shiksan homecoming folk. They pretended to be Shiksan soldiers to search for the families of the expeditionary forces and even received the help and hospitality of the local authorities.
At first, the local officials and territorial nobles still hoped to get information about the current situation from them. Even if they had doubts about the expeditionary army soldiers' families being taken away, they were fooled by the soldiers of the Homecoming Division by saying that they were hostages and exchanging captives …
As time passed, the returning division troops who went to various counties to search for the families of the expeditionary army soldiers encountered more and more difficulties. Not only were they interrogated and questioned by local officials and territorial nobles, but they were also besieged by the local garrison forces.
Some well-informed nobles even sent their men to take the families of the expeditionary forces hostage. The homecoming folk had no choice but to give up on the idea of sending small squads into the prefectures to bring back the families.
Even Aueran's Crimson Dragon that entered Shiksan to sweep through the central prefectures reported that they met with strong resistance when they took over two prefectures.
However, Crimson Dragon was much stronger after being equipped with the new rifles and easily crushed the local garrison forces.
The only drawback was the excessive consumption of bullets. They had originally brought three million bullets with them, thinking that they could last until the end of the war, but they did not expect to use up a third of the bullets for the new rifles just to occupy two prefectures …
Blancarte sent a messenger eagle to Claude, requesting for the region to bear the cost of Reddragon's ammunition.
Claude rejected the unreasonable request and replied that he could buy the bullets with money.
Bloody hell, you've earned at least a million crowns from robbing a prefecture, yet you're asking me to pay for the bullets? How dare you even ask?
Claude had many things to worry about, the most important of which was the issue of reuniting with the families of the eight Shiksan repatriation folk as well as transportation.
Currently, just the eight southern prefectures and the overseas autonomous region's military region alone, the nobles' allied forces and the Red Dragon Legion had already occupied several prefectures, and there were close to 700,000 soldiers and their families gathered there. This had a huge impact on the autonomous region's supply of supplies.
Even though the resources they got from Shiks were still sufficient, the longer it took for the families to gather, the more resources they would have to spend.
So, Claude had to get the first batch of families to the region as soon as possible. Letting them return to their normal lives as immigrants was the top priority.
As for the reports from the Shiksan repatriation folk, Claude felt that it was better to wait for the time being.
The officers and soldiers of the Homecoming Division, who were eager to reunite with their families, wrote letters to the frontline command of the autonomous territory, taking the initiative to attack their home counties and rescue their families and relatives …
Claude instructed his adjutants to wait patiently for now. Once frontline command was done with the strategy, they would send troops to sweep through Shiks and save their families.
However, there were priorities and priorities. Which prefectures to attack first would depend on the situation. He just hoped that everyone would be patient.
Of course, if they were to attack those prefectures now, the families of the returning soldiers would soon become a burden for the frontline command and the occupying army. Before the ocean-going fleet returned, the more families there were, the heavier the burden would be. It would be better to let them stay in the prefectures for a few more months first …
Humans were always forced by reality and had no choice but to think about it.
Apart from the problem of the families, there was another problem that troubled all the high-ranking officers at frontline command, and that was the issue of captives.
So far, the two corps of the region had captured more than 500,000 captives. There were captives from the four defeated Shiksan corps, the local garrison forces that surrendered, as well as the resistance members, local officials and nobles that Stormwind and Shiksan had captured in the royal capital and Saint Cyprian.
Watching over so many captives had become a huge problem.
Killing them all would be the most thorough solution, but they couldn't bring themselves to do it.
Otherwise, if news of the massacre got out, the region would become the target of all the nations on Freia. Nobody would be able to bear that responsibility. Being condemned by the masses would only end in nothing. Nobody in the region would be willing to be the butcher.
Ship them back to the region for mining?
That wasn't a bad idea, but it required a clear head. If they had the ability to transport them, Claude wouldn't have to worry about the families gathering.
Currently, it took three months for the families to be shipped back to the region, so where would they find the capacity to transport the captives?
It was even more impossible to release all of them. The moment they were released, Shiks' resistance would grow even stronger. That would only create more trouble for frontline command.
However, keeping so many captives in one place would require a lot of manpower and resources from frontline command. Just watching over the captives would require a Shiksan folk.
Fortunately, these captives did not need to eat and wear warm clothes. It was enough to make some wooden sheds to shelter them from the wind and rain, and let the captives huddle together to keep warm …
Fortunately, Bleyotte's king, Avitelli I, was rather loyal. He decided to send 200,000 captives back to Manori Plains after the rainy season was over.
That was good news for the frontline command center. Claude personally negotiated with Avitelli I and persuaded him to agree to take the 300,000 captives with him.
Regardless of whether the three hundred thousand captives were sent back to the Bleyottean kingdom to farm, mine in the mountains, or build roads and bridges, it was better than having the captives raised by the frontline command. At the very least, he would be able to get rid of most of the troublesome ones, which was a good thing for Claude.
As for whether the captives lived or died in Bleyotte, that had nothing to do with the region.
After half a month of work, Claude remembered that there was still a Shiksan standing corps waiting for him to deal with.
He hurriedly summoned Borkal and had him gather all the intelligence on Facklin so that he could decide how to deal with the surrendered Shiksan corps.