“The Piata Empire, true to the name Empire, is a country governed under an imperial system. Originally, it was founded when the Piata Emperor subjugated the surrounding states. It grew by annexing neighboring countries.”
In the image, Amajio explained that while drinking the black tea brewed by the attendant Iris at his side.
“But the Third Piata Emperor, the current emperor, failed to defend the capital and went missing. Well, nine times out of ten, he was killed by those Prava Divine Kingdom cleric-soldiers. For what it’s worth, members of the Piata imperial house fled with influential nobles to the neighboring state of Belerforesti and were taken under protection there.”
“What a pain in the ass,” Amajio added.
“Most of the powerful nobles who had originally been handling politics went missing the moment the capital fell. Failed retreat, basically. Because of that, parts of the countries that had been annexed into the Piata Empire have started claiming to be the new emperor. Naturally, in terms of succession rights, the imperial family that escaped to Belerforesti has the strongest claim, but apparently they’re being attacked for running away. The argument is that the ones who stayed behind and raised armies on the spot are more fit to be emperor. There are at least three of those people that we’ve confirmed so far. If they’d at least managed to coordinate and throw their support behind one candidate, that person might have been able to become temporary emperor, or else hold real power as regent.”
In other words, internal fighting had begun. Apparently the fact that the front line was still being held, more or less, was only adding fuel to it.
“And then the troubled royals got pushed into setting up a government-in-exile in Belerforesti. Well, in terms of bloodline, they’re not wrong. But apparently there aren’t even any domestic forces willing to follow an emperor who ran away. At this rate, it’ll split into three or four countries, nice and orderly. Worst case, they start fighting each other and splinter even further.”
Even in the regions that had not fallen to the Prava Divine Kingdom, there had apparently originally been about six small states. The worst-case scenario was that those areas would simply declare independence again now that the emperor was gone.
Even so, if the Prava Divine Kingdom’s offensive had continued, they might still have united. But now that pressure had almost disappeared.
“Right now they’re getting relief supplies from the Kingdom of Lepuitari and several other countries. For the time being, they don’t have to worry about starving. Their territory’s been carved away, sure, but to put it bluntly, that was other people’s land. Rather than spend strength taking it back, they’ll prioritize consolidating their own base.”
Amajio’s view was that as time passed, the Piata Empire would continue to fracture and lose strength.
<Ringo> was apparently running simulations as well, but due to lack of information, the precision was poor.
For the moment, the most likely future was the one predicted by Amajio, who had spent more than a century in the world of politics.
“Next up is the Edea Beastin United Kingdom. Just like the name says, this country was formed by the merger of the Kingdom of Edea and the State of Beastin. Historically, it started as a union formed to counter the threat of the Piata Empire. The two royal houses were joined by marriage. An Edea prince and a Beastin princess. Since that was how the first generation began, the old Edea side technically has more influence, but it’s about the size of a rounding error.”
Incidentally, Edea was on the east side, and Beastin on the west.
“About seventy percent of the Beastin region got swallowed by the Prava Divine Kingdom. The royal capital hasn’t fallen, but it’s the front line now. The current king was wounded in the opening phase, though his life isn’t in danger, and he’s moved to the rear area. The one directing things in the royal capital is a great noble from Edea. The prince is still only five years old, so there’s no way they can leave him on the front line. Since the Edea region is still intact, the nobles in the royal capital are reluctant to launch an aggressive offensive. That’s leading to friction with the nobles from Beastin.”
The defense forces had retreated again and again, and were now garrisoned in the royal capital. Because of that, sixty percent of the soldiers stationed there were apparently from the Beastin region. Naturally, many commanders were calling for the recovery of their homeland.
“The Edea side is insisting on a thorough defensive war, and the Beastin side wants to retake its homeland. Their opinions are completely opposed. Even so, if the Prava Divine Kingdom were still pushing forward, they’d probably have united around defense.”
If time continued to pass like this, the balance of opinion seemed likely to tilt toward reclaiming territory. But advancing required supplies. And there was little reason to expect much funding from the Edea region, which was unenthusiastic about retaking lost land.
“They’ll have no choice but to depend on relief supplies from other countries. But those supplies are going to be delivered through the Edea region, so you can probably guess how that’ll go, right?”
By the time relief supplies reached the front line, a great deal of them would probably have been skimmed off.
In fact, they already seemed to be suffering heavy embezzlement.
It was enough for defense, but nowhere near enough for an invasion. And the Edea region, eyeing its cut of those relief supplies, argued for dragging things out.
“Well, that one looks like it’ll turn into a civil war sooner or later too. It wouldn’t be strange at all if the military staged a coup. We’ve actually confirmed movements of supplies that look a lot like that. That said, they don’t have enough room to pull it off right now, so it should be fine for a while.”
In other words, the longer the Prava Divine Kingdom remained stalled, the more likely they were to do something troublesome.
And if they launched a counterinvasion, there was a real possibility that the cleric-soldiers, unable to replenish their forces, would be pushed back.
“So we need to harden the current borders and make them give up on a counterinvasion and on recovering their territory. I’ve already got our top brass drawing up a plan for that. Modernize the army and, while we’re at it, carry out a coastal invasion under cover of training exercises. Wouldn’t the better plan be for the Kingdom of Lepuitari to seize the area around the current provisional border and turn it into colonies?”
They would pay the price in blood, wipe out the enemy, and set up a provisional government [N O V E L I G H T] to replace the shattered local governing system. The countries involved would complain in various ways, of course, but in the end, what mattered was force. The voice of a country that could not recover its own territory would weaken.
That said, doing so would direct hostility toward the Kingdom of Lepuitari.
“That would be ideal. We don’t directly share a border, so the odds of them starting a war with us are low. More importantly, we’re the ones sending material support. International sentiment would be complicated, sure, but in the end it would tilt our way. It’s a fact that we reached out a hand while bleeding ourselves. It just so happened that the result was becoming de facto colonies, that’s all. The reality doesn’t matter. As long as you’ve got grounds you can claim, the stronger side wins.”
As expected, the head of a country that had plundered every form of wealth with naval power really did speak differently.
“This is one of the scenarios proposed after discussion between <Ayame Zero> and Mr. Amajio. We will likely use this scenario as the basis for how we actually get the Kingdom of Lepuitari to move.”
“The young lady Aide-Envoy is going to present it at the royal council. Supply of military goods, transfer of manufacturing technology, and the amount of resource exports serving as compensation is rising steadily thanks to improved extraction technology. We’re in the middle of an unprecedented economic boom right now. Add a petition for the effective securing of territory on top of that, and yeah, it’ll get approved without any trouble.”
The finer details would still have to be worked out from here on, but this would probably settle the immediate response.
From <The Tree>’s side, it would support the Kingdom of Lepuitari’s invasion in material terms. In fact, considering the distance between each country’s military bases and the front lines, the Kingdom of Lepuitari was the closest one simply because it lay across the sea.
As long as the technology to cross the sea existed, there was nothing unreasonable about the Kingdom of Lepuitari directly dispatching troops in support. Whatever the reality behind it, it could contribute far more than the other countries that were unable to send troops at all.
“Hearing it laid out like this, I’m starting to feel like it might actually work!”
And with that shout, Commander-in-Chief Eve, who had been completely reduced to background presence throughout this meeting, brought the discussion to a close.
