It took months for the royal army to reach the south.
The southern nobles had been preparing by starting to train their peasant armies; it wasn't like the southern nobles liked to fight; they hated fights but wanted to be able to defend themselves.
An army of 2,000,000 people consumes massive amounts of food; along with the army, Elizabeth sent a royal decree that ordered nobles in the south to provide food.
The House of Blue Bloods can repeal any decree the king passes, but that is only possible if they know of its existence.
The southern nobles would surely complain, but it takes at least two weeks for the fastest horses to travel from Marquis Ball's territory to the capital, and in the capital, Elizabeth can delay things.
Even if the House of Blue Bloods repeals the decree, it would, in total, take a month for the news of the repeal to be transmitted to the South.
If the southern nobles refused to provide food, that would be an open rebellion and give Elizabeth an excuse to mobilize the entire country to crush the south completely.
Of course, that would not be her only option; now, as a vampire, she can do things humans cannot.
She would use their rebellion to show her personal power while catching all nobles by herself.
…
Marquis Ball's garrison was not big enough to accommodate millions of troops.
The commander of the royal army was General Michael Northland, but in terms of seniority, James outranked him. Practically, Michael was the highest-ranking officer, while the final say was still with James.
Now much more daring, James ordered 100,000 troops to march toward Baron Woodcastle. Many nobles in the south disrespected the royal inspectors, but no one but him dared to beat them and imprison them.
Martin Ball tried to stop him, but James no longer cared about the marquis.
His actions gave much more freedom in the south; the king gave him total authority, and if any of the nobles here wanted to go and complain to the House of Blue Bloods, there was a delay of one month, which is more than enough to give him near-total freedom of action.
…
Baron Woodcastle was no match and was arrested after a small fight.
James was astonished that he even dared to resist at all.
The city fell quickly and was taken over by the royal army. James promptly changed its name to Royal Camp 1; It would be used as a base for a part of the royal army.
But, seeing the situation of the people living in the north of the city, he was troubled. The people there had gotten used to eating human flesh and were quite dangerous to keep around.
He wasn't as kind as Elizabeth; he ordered all adults who ate human flesh to be executed and ordered the news to be spread throughout the South.
He wants to make an example out of them.
As for the children, he was truly clueless about what to do with them. For now, he kept them in a camp and started giving them good food, leaving this problem for the future.
Baron Woodcastle's arrest worried all nobles in the South; they began to have meetings and accelerated their training of peasant armies.
James ordered them to stop training their peasant armies and used his authority granted by Elizabeth, ordering all the nobles to send troops.
Nobles could be ordered to send troops to help the king if she needed them to defend the country; it could be challenged in the House of Blue Bloods, but that wouldn't help southern nobles in time.
For the southern nobles, it was a step too far; they called up their armies and quickly assembled an army of 1,000,000 elite forces along with a 6,000,000 peasant army.
The southern nobles had far more standing armies if one combined their total numbers, but 1,000,000 was the limit that could be called in a short span of a few days.
James quickly his army and marched.
The nobles in the south have entrenched power; with them in charge, nothing can be done.
From the beginning, James wanted to provoke them into a conflict. It would cost the lives of many innocents, including many peasants.
But innocents and peasants are already dying from hunger, and even those who are not dead are living lives that are worse than death, like being forced to eat human flesh.
James wholeheartedly thinks it's worth sacrificing a few million if future generations can live better.
If the current system continues, the future generation will continue to have terrible lives; in his opinion, the total sum of casualties would be far less if they fought one big battle than if they allowed the southern nobles to continue their abuses.
As a result of his thoughts, he didn't hold back at all; he ordered his troops to attack the assembled noble army.
The southern nobles were showing their forces to scare James off, so they were completely caught off guard. The royal troops managed to defeat the far bigger army of southern nobles with a surprise attack.
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The main reason was they were caught by surprise, and the second reason was the horribly low morale of the peasant army, which practically ran away before even fighting.
The total casualty was 100,000 for the royal side and 200,000 elite troops for the nobles.
The 6,000,000 peasant army didn't fight, but still, many died in the process of running.
The nobles' ‘elite’ army retreated when they noticed the present meat shield and ran away.
The nobles in the South had not fought anyone for hundreds of years; their combat powers were not as big as they looked. Even their 'elite' army was mostly city police forces and guards, which never experienced battles.
The royal troops, on the other hand, were well-trained. The royals are the richest in the world; they can afford to keep a dedicated army, train them with the best instructors, and feed them with the best food.
Not counting anything else, the equipment quality was far better for royal forces.
The elite forces of nobles had iron armor and swords, but they were nowhere near as well-kept as the royal forces' equipment.
The battle happened near Marquis Ball’s territory, and with the noble army near them losing, Martin Ball had no choice but to run away while frantically writing letter after letter to his father in the capital.
James conquered the entire territory of Marquis Ball; his first act was conscripting men for war and all women for other areas, like hospitals.
Using women for wars in medieval times was a waste of potential, as most women were generally physically weaker and would generally die quickly when fighting men on the battlefield.
Their best use is filling jobs like nurses, cooks, etc. This way, men who usually work in those areas can be sent to fight.
Overall, far more women survive the war for this reason.
It is not fair for men to be sent to be killed only because they were born male. But James understood that in battles, nothing is fair.
In battles, being fair and unfair doesn't matter; winning is all that matters.
James knew how cruel it was for him to send people to die against their will forcefully, but he had no choice. He needed cannon fodder.
Without a peasant army, his 1,900,000 royal forces would quickly be exhausted, and he would die here. He doesn't care about his own life; he is willing to die any moment if it makes the world peaceful.
But, if he lost, the southern nobles would continue abusing their people for many years.
He must end them now to clean this area from its horrible rulers.
Many resisted conscription, but the royal forces just grabbed men out of the streets, brought them to the training ground, gave them a sword, and basically imprisoned them in barracks.
Any protest was responded to by brutal suppression.
James basically held the families of the men hostage, using those as a pressure point to prevent their escape from battle.
He integrated peasant armies into the royal forces and gave all commander positions to royal forces, another measure to prevent the peasants from running.
In a short few weeks, he expanded his army to 10 million.
The nobles' army was ready once more.
They assembled an army of 1,300,000 elite troops and 20,000,000 peasants.
The nobles had more time, so they employed tactics such as keeping families as hostages.
The usual tactics, such as propagandizing the population about defending the nation and country, etc., would not work for these poor peasants, as most hated their masters. Those tactics mostly worked only if something was worth protecting; the poor peasants had nothing to eat! It was so bad it couldn't get any worse.
As a result, the only way to force the peasants to fight was to force them to use negative emotions, such as fear of losing their families.
The nobles employed the usual tactics, such as labeling James as a demon and the royal army as a group of bandits.
They didn't label themselves as good, as practically no one believed in it, but it didn't matter; as long as the people thought of them as the lesser of two evils, that was good enough.
James was aggressive; he would be strangled to death if he remained passive and only defended.
He brought out his army and attacked Count Sands, Count Ball's neighbor.
Count Sands resisted but fell quickly. James took over the territory and conscripted people again.
The food problem was also relieved, as the count left behind all his supplies when he ran.
For some reason, he didn't burn the supplies before running; maybe he thought the noble army would come to save him, so he didn’t burn his own castle down.
Using the same brutal methods, James quickly took in another 500,000 soldiers.
The noble army wanted to attack him head-on, but James avoided them and moved with his army to the south, attacking Count Ball.
Count Ball was from the same family as Marquis Ball.
James's army was faster than the nobles' army, so anytime nobles wanted to attack him, he used his advantage of speed and avoided them, attacking another noble.
This tactic allowed him to use enemy supplies to feed his army and use the enemy’s population to replenish his casualties.
The nobles saw this but were troubled. They cannot split their army.
Their only choice was more conscription.
As James attacked nobles around, the nobles conscripted more peasants and, after a reorganization, split their army into three, each having 1,000,000 elites and 14,000,000 peasant soldiers.
It was a total of 45,000,000 soldiers!
They placed their troops in three directions, restricting James' moves; now, if he attacked anyone, the noble army could reach in time to save the enemy, and the other two armies would surround him.
His quick attack-and-run method would no longer work.
Then, a letter came. It was from the House of Blue Bloods, informing James that it passed a resolution ordering him to stop and retreat.
The letter was a month old. At the time it was sent, James was only starting his attacks.
He cannot stop now, so he tore the letter. He would later claim he never received the letter.
Everywhere around is chaotic, so it's not strange if a few mailmen die. He ordered the royal mailmen to be killed and destroyed evidence of him receiving the letter.
The letter aside, James is in trouble. The nobles have an advantage in every direction. They have more supplies and soldiers, and any prolonged battle also favors them.
James split his army into two. In the first army, he placed 1,500,000 Royal troops and 10,000,000 peasants. In the second, he placed 200,000 royal troops and 8,000,000 peasants.
The first army would attack the land of Count Woodcastle, and the second one would delay the second and third armies to prevent an encirclement.
The second army is a sacrificial lamb, only there to delay time.
James moved fast, aggressively fought the nobles' first army, and took over the land of Count Woodcastle.
James's second army managed to delay the nobles' second and third armies for three days, enough for James's main army to move away.
The first army of nobles was destroyed; it lost 300,000 elite soldiers and 1,000,000 peasants; their commander died, and the army scattered.
James' second army was also destroyed nearly entirely.
As James wanted to repeat his usual tactics of conscripting soldiers, he received a letter from Elizabeth. In the letter, she ordered him to stop immediately.
Reading her tone, James felt her rage even from the letter. He was surprised; he didn’t know what wrong he did.
…
Elizabeth read the last letter sent by James.
Throwing the letter aside, her brows were twitching.
"What is James doing? Is he crazy?" she was dumbfounded whenever she read his letters.
A civil war would cause too many deaths!
A man beside her looked with confusion. "Why are you raging again?"
He is Alex IV, son of Alex III. He woke up a while ago and has been a guest of Elizabeth's for a few weeks.
"Alex, I got to solve this one myself!" Elizabeth nearly begged for Alex IV to go away.
She has wanted to go to the south for weeks, but Alex IV, as a powerful guest, couldn't be neglected.
"What? I'm your guest! You want to leave me to fend for myself?" He asked while frowning.
"Let's go together!" she said while sighing.
"I like the scene here!" He looked out the window while smiling.
Elizabeth felt her head exploding.