After sending off Moriad's armoured fleet and transport fleet, Claude inspected Port Patkara with King Avitelli I, who had just arrived, and spent three days surveying the surrounding terrain.
In the end, Claude signed a lease agreement with Avitelli I on behalf of the region. Port Patkara would be leased from Bleyotte for 50 years at a rate of 100 thousand crowns a year, with a 10% increase every ten years.
Even though he wasn't interested in Shiks' territory, Claude believed that the region shouldn't just leave like that. Instead, they should maintain military pressure and economic influence over the region.
That was why the American Empire's approach in his previous life was worth learning from. The existence of a military base was enough to make the people of the region respect the empire's rights and not dare to ignore its authority.
Renting was much more cost-effective than forcefully occupying it. After all, forcefully occupying a port and turning it into an enclave for the region wasn't a good idea.
In the Faslan World, it was popular to have the biggest fist and the loudest voice. This was the model that made sense, with the main goal of occupying land.
However, such an approach would leave a lot of problems in the future.
For example, the occupied country's desire for revenge in reclaiming their lost land. Any disputes in the future would drag the region into it and they wouldn't be able to extricate themselves easily.
The dispute over the ownership of the occupied territory was one thing, but the resistance of the people would also be a huge headache for the region. Who knew how much money they would have to spend on that bottomless pit?
Increasing their military might to protect the enclave, suppress the resistance of the people, and at the same time, give them preferential treatment and make them accept the rule of the region's military. The cost of all that would become an astronomical figure in the future and would eventually overwhelm the region's revenue and expenditure.
Just think about the so-called glory of the Empire of the Sun Never Sets in his previous life and it was obvious how much of a failure such a method of occupation would be.
Except for India and Hong Kong, which could bring a certain amount of economic income to the Empire, the rest of the colonies, which were the source of resources and the distribution of goods, all had a wave of national independence. In the end, the Empire collapsed and retreated to the British Isles. They could only rely on yachts to make up the numbers for the Centennial Naval Celebration …
On the other hand, the American Empire's military base lease perfectly avoided the colonial trap. In fact, there was not much difference between the two. Some places were regarded as protectors by the local people, which was completely different from being treated as colonial rulers.
So, when Claude requested to rent Port Patkara as a military base, Avitelli I was pleasantly surprised. He was so happy that he offered to rent it for one penny a year.
Avitelli I considered the region to be a reliable ally. He knew very well that the region had no intention of occupying Shiks, so he was willing to hand over Shiks' territory to the vassal states.
The Kingdom of Bleyotte only had 14 mountainous prefectures to begin with, but it had taken back three prefectures in the Manori Plains and four prefectures in the east. It could now be considered an upper-middle kingdom on Freia.
Now that Claude had asked to rent Port Patkara, Avitelli I saw it as helping him solidify his rule over his newly conquered territory.
With the region's troops stationed there and using Port Patkara as a military base, he didn't have to worry about the safety of the three prefectures in the Manori Plains.
Even if Shiks were unified again in the future, they wouldn't be able to ask Bleyotte to return the three prefectures during the lease period.
If it was possible, Avitelli I didn't even want to charge the rent.
Port Patkara's annual tax revenue was less than fifty thousand crowns, yet the territory was offering a hundred thousand crowns a year for rent, as well as a tenth of the rental fee every ten years. It was simply too generous of them.
Although the Bleyot Kingdom had lost their authority over Port Patcara during this fifty year lease, it wasn't a sale. It was only a lease, so the rights to the port city still belonged to the Bleyot Kingdom.
Therefore, the grateful Avitelli I leased the entire area within a 50-mile radius of Port Patcara, including the entrance to the mountain pass in the Manori Plains, to the overseas autonomous region military and signed the Port Patcara Lease Agreement.
Claude directly handed over the fifty-year rental fee of 5.6 million crowns to Bleyotte, much to Avitelli I's excitement. He hugged Claude tightly with tears streaming down his face and called him Bleyotte's most sincere friend.
After renting Port Patkara, Claude would be able to move the families of the hundreds of thousands of Shiksan homecoming folk who had nothing to do in the royal capital to Saint Cyprian. During the two to three months they would be transported to the region, they would be able to earn some money from the remodeling of the port. That would be far better than having them sleep and eat all day in the royal capital.
Port Patkara would become a commercial port city in the south of Freia. It would connect with the northern bay of the Great Plains of Canas to form a golden trade route.
Through the sea transportation between the two continents, the products from the south and east of the continent, as well as the specialties from Nubissia, could be easily imagined how prosperous the sea trade would be in the future and how much profit it would bring.
So, the rented Port Patkara would have to be remodeled and expanded. According to the plans of the region, the entire port would have to be torn down and rebuilt. Now that they had the manpower, they could start building the infrastructure.
It was a win-win situation. The region would gain a commercial port city where troops could be stationed and the families would be able to earn some money before migrating to the region.
Claude stayed in Port Patkara for close to a month to sort out the details of the reconstruction. Seeing that the families of the soldiers had arrived, he handed the rest of the work to General Siegfeldt Mo Vincent, the head of the region's logistics department.
Sigeffet was only a lieutenant-colonel when he became the logistics chief of Thundercrash. He didn't think he'd become a major-general in the kingdom.
As a logistics officer, he knew how difficult it was to be promoted to general. But after following Claude for so many years, he easily passed the hurdle.
After returning to St Cyprian, Claude immersed himself in military affairs again. He discussed the battle summary report sent by Beechlin with General Eiblont. In the end, Eiblont was very envious of Beechlin being able to return to the self-governing region. He also discussed the progress of the war with Claude about the Pamigal Republic on the west coast fighting against the allied forces of the three southern colonial countries.
Claude wasn't too worried about whether Birkin would take his advice and delay the battle.
While Birkin didn't look outstanding, he was a smart man. After reading Claude's letter, he knew what he had to do.
The three colonial powers, Moroshik, Lesnia and Vasiliko, were only putting on a show of strength. In fact, they didn't have the strength to back it up.
The autonomous military zone wanted to delay the war, and the allied forces of the three countries could only be at the mercy of General Birkin.
Before Claude handed over the execution of Operation Wildfire to Birkin, he had already taught the three colonial powers a lesson by wiping out the expeditionary forces they sent to the west coast.
Claude had thought that such a loss would make the three colonial powers stop for a while and swallow the loss.
He didn't think that right after he left, the three colonial powers would send expeditionary forces to reclaim their colonies.
But it seemed that the three southern colonial powers had done their best. If they failed again, they wouldn't be able to touch the west coast of Nubissia anymore.
According to Beechlin's report, the expeditionary army consisted of a total of eight legions. The Kingdom of Moloshik and the Kingdom of Lesnia each sent three legions, while the Principality of Vasilko sent two legions, totaling nearly 400,000 troops.
Claude wanted to laugh when he saw the total number of soldiers in the report. A traditional standing corps had around sixty thousand men. Eight corps would have around four hundred and eighty to five hundred thousand men at the very least.
However, the problem was that the allied forces of the three southern colonial countries only had 400,000 soldiers despite using eight legions. It was obvious that they could not gather enough soldiers or recruit new ones, so they had no choice but to leave the legions in a state of disarray ….
The difference between the three nations and Shiks was that the Shiksan colonies on Nubissia were only occupied by the nobles for mining purposes. That was why they went deeper and deeper into the mountainous regions until they lost all the coastal territories. That was because the colonists found gold and silver mines of various sizes in the mountainous regions.
So, even if they didn't occupy any territory along the coast, decades of mining in the inland colonies still brought Shiks an endless supply of gold and silver, accumulating an unfathomable amount of wealth.
Majid III suffered heavy losses at the hands of the region's military, but he was able to grit his teeth and refuse to admit defeat until the region destroyed him.
That was the problem. Although the Kingdom of Morohek, the Kingdom of Lesnia, and the Principality of Vassilico had occupied colonies on the west coast, they were all located in the coastal plain, which was poor in mineral resources. They could only rely on farming, breeding, fishing, and hunting to collect rare animals and plants.
The real reason the nobles and merchants supported the colonization policy was because they wanted to make use of the scissors in trade between the two countries to reap profits from the colonies.
Compared to the gold and silver that Shiks brought back from the inland colonies, a hundred years' worth of profit couldn't even compare to a decade's worth of profit. That was why the three countries had to put in a lot of effort to organize a second expedition to reclaim their colonies.
If those 400,000 soldiers were to be wiped out again, the three countries would have to bid farewell to their colonization policy.
The fact that the Dominion was acting as the commander of the pamigar army, the lusman light cavalry and the volunteer corps were sent to support the natives of the three colonies in their quest for independence didn't cause much of a ripple in Claude's heart. Everything was going according to plan.
What Claude needed to do now was to build up the newly rented Port Patkara and move Wang Jing's spoils of war, the soldiers' families and captives to the military base at Port Patkara.
After a few days of work, Claude received news that the prime minister, Marquis Blancarte, had come uninvited again.
This time, he was accompanied by a councilor of the region, Baron Connelt. Claude recalled that the councilor was a shareholder of the railway company and was in charge of surveying and designing railway lines in the kingdom.
So, did his visit with Blancarte mean that there were some changes to the railway construction in the kingdom?
Blancarte was granted an audience with Claude without a hitch. After the meeting, Blancarte bluntly stated the purpose of his visit.
The first was to increase the number of soldiers, the second was to build the railway and the third was to rent it.
He also gave Claude a pleasant surprise. His elder brother, Viscount Arbeit Sen Ferd, had come to Claude on his mother's orders, hoping to get some support from Claude to help with the construction of the family's territory.
First, the matter of the reinforcements. That was a request from Reddragon, so they had no choice but to ask for more.
Unlike how Thundercrash swept through the prefectures and took away the upper class officials, nobles, merchants, and the like before raiding their properties and looting their possessions, Reddragon's occupation method was the most orthodox and traditional. Those who submitted would prosper and those who disobeyed would perish. The Shiksans who submitted would govern the area while Reddragon would send troops to defend it.
Thanks to the new rifles and Reddragon's traditional combat prowess, the garrisons of the three central prefectures they were in charge of couldn't withstand Reddragon's assault. They either surrendered or were wiped out.
For the Red Dragon Army, the only drawback was that the new rifles used up a lot of bullets. After conquering the three prefectures, there were only about a million bullets left out of the five million bullets they had prepared …
Generally speaking, when Thundercrash swept through a prefecture, they would only get between a million to two million crowns from the upper-class families there.
On the other hand, the allied nobles were able to rake in a fortune worth five to six million crowns from the western prefectures they occupied. They were so vicious that they even sold the young and strong as slaves.
Reddragon, on the other hand, got around three million crowns from the prefectures they conquered. That was because the central prefectures were wealthier and the Shiksans who submitted to them helped the nobles by increasing taxes.
If Reddragon wanted to continue collecting taxes from the prefectures they conquered, they had to set up garrisons to intimidate the populace into not resisting the new conquerors.
Each of the three occupied central prefectures had about a dozen towns and cities.
If a city needed a battalion of soldiers, and a county capital needed a main force to guard it, then the 60,000 soldiers of the Red Dragon Army would find that they did not have any extra soldiers to move around.
That made Reddragon anxious. Conquering a prefecture would give them two to three million crowns in profit, so they immediately asked for reinforcements to replace them so they could continue attacking the other prefectures.
The second matter was the railway. The original plan was to build a railway in the kingdom like a circle that would connect all the prefectures in the plains to the royal capital. From there, a railway would be built to connect Nasry to the royal capital. There would then be two railway lines from the royal capital. One would go to Northbay, then Askilin through the Great Plains of Canas, then Rimodra and Sidins.
Another railway line led from the capital of Polivisia to the Siddings region, connecting with the railway line that bypassed the three regions ….
The plan was good, but they underestimated the cost of the railway. Back then, Blancarte believed that 22 million crowns would be enough to complete the construction of the railway.
In the end, after two years of surveying and construction, they found that the amount of money they had was only enough to build the railway line in the kingdom and the one from the royal capital to the royal capital.
As for the one that went around most of the eastern regions, it would cost at least 30 million crowns. So, the royal court turned its attention to the region. They believed that they had plenty of money from conquering Shiks.
That was why Blancarte came to persuade Claude to allow the region to invest all of Shiks' spoils in the construction of the railway line. That way, Shiks would be willing to split the profits equally with the region.
The third matter was the lease. The royal capital heard that the region had spent a huge sum of money to rent Port Patkara from Bleyotte. The total rent for 50 years was 5.6 million crowns and they had to pay it all in one go. It was nothing short of a crazy spendthrift.
So, the ministers of the royal court racked their brains and thought that they could do the same.
The Rimodra and Askilin regions were now entrusted to the Free Dominion's military. There were also seven or eight port cities in these two regions. They could follow Port Patkara's model and rent these port cities to the Free Dominion. That way, the rent alone would be equivalent to ten years of the kingdom's taxes …