The march continued, and we moved towards the largest city within the region. This is where we will meet with the king and set up a base until our supply lines are secured. While tactics win battles, victory is meaningless if your troops starve to death. It takes a lot more to fight a war than just soldiers and a general.
The march was awful, the rain muddied the roads, and 12 thousand marching men turned the muddy roads into an unwalkable mush. Still, we marched forward, feet sucked into a muddy abyss we marched forward.
Lucanus was in the back of the formation with the princess, ready to heal her in case she got sick or injured on the march. I walk alongside Domitius, Ozias is further ahead, and a woman is by his side like usual. It is never the same woman talking to him as the day before.
The sound of feet ripping through mud, the sound of metal clanking against metal, metal against wood. It all permeates through my ears. The light of the sun rarely escaping through the clouds, the beautiful tree line through the fog, the occasional body on the side of the road, I absorb the sights before me. Perhaps it’s all just a distraction.
“You look awful Cassius. What happened to you?” Domitius tells me.
“Nothing, I’m fine.”
“Yeah, sure looks like it to me.”
“What’s up with you? You look happier than normal.”
Despite being a 30-something-year-old grizzled veteran who rarely shows emotions, he looked surprisingly upbeat. I decided to ask why.
“My son is with the king's army, it’ll be my first time seeing him since we were put into separate armies.”
“You are letting your son fight in a war?”
“I ordered him to. There is no greater wish for an old soldier than to see his son serve with as much loyalty as he has. You will understand when you are a father someday. A warrior son is a good son.”
I will never understand. In my eyes, this guy is just a shit father, when Cassius was alive… I wanted to keep him as far away from fighting as possible. Fuck this conversation is messing with me. While fighting my thoughts he speaks up again,
“Anyway, get some sleep and get that look off your face. You look like a dead man walking.”
“You’re right, I’m too weak-minded.”
“If you can tell then all the better, just get over that before the next fight. I don’t want an emotionally disturbed kid watching my back.”
If I tear myself up every time a civilian dies then I’ll never be in good enough condition to get my revenge. No, it doesn’t matter what condition I am in, as long as I push through the pain and keep getting stronger someday I will achieve my goal. What happens to me in the end isn’t worth considering. I long accepted that I may die. All I need is to stay in good enough shape until that happens.
While we were not expecting any more attacks for a while, we remained on edge. Even when there should be no immediate danger, at war you are in a place where you could be legally killed at any time.
The very nature of war is the systemic tearing apart of human rights and protections in the name of furthering some goal. In a civilized country, killing another human is wrong and this is not questioned. But killing people in the name of war is perfectly ok. We assign the status of ‘war’ to situations where we need to kill people with a clear conscience.
The statuses of war, peace, and civilization are all human constructs. We assign these labels whenever convenient, but the act of killing itself creates the same outcome regardless. Someone ends up dead. There is no real difference between killing in peace and killing in war, only different perceptions of the murder.
I have no need to feel guilty for the people I kill. Neither the universe nor society has come to an objective conclusion about the act of murder. If there is no objective reason that murder is wrong, or that I should not kill, then I shall do so when it is convenient.
That’s right, you don’t have to feel guilty Cassius.
With a deep breath, I keep walking.
After 2 weeks of this muddy drudge, we arrive at the largest town in the region named Ostia. The small villages before gave me some sense of this, but being in a bigger city really drove home the point. This culture was extremely similar to the culture of the Aeneas kingdom. I asked Ozias about this,
“All the territory we have captured so far belonged to the kingdom before the last war. This territory is recaptured, not entirely new. That being said, our kingdom and the republic won't be too different culturally. We were once part of the same country a long time ago. The Aeneas republic broke off from the Republic of Amidonia over disputes in the senate and slowly moved towards monarchy, that is how our country was born.”
“So we just killed our own people?”
“They stopped being our people when they accepted the Amidonians as their leaders. If they were truly people of the kingdom, they should have resisted to the bitter end.”
“You know that is unreasonable, people prioritize survival and I don’t think there's anything wrong with that.”
“True, all I wanted to do was explain what a general thinks about this killing. I personally don’t really care about this nationalist stuff, but from an administrative standpoint we did nothing wrong.”
“If you don’t care about the kingdom then why are you fighting for it?”
“Money.”
Well, that is really all the reason I could expect from him. When you are strong and emotionless then fighting and killing people would just be a job. I don’t know why he would choose a job like this when he is not only ridiculously strong but very smart too. Maybe he just needs a lot of money.
“Cassius, I want you to come with the princess and me when we meet with the king. As the second strongest soldier in our army, you should meet the king.” He continued.
Well, I can’t argue with being the second strongest as long as Ozias is here. Meeting the king is not something I’m looking forward to. I will just go along and keep my mouth shut I guess. As long as I don’t draw any attention to myself I will be fine.
All the high-value estates and homes were seized within the city, I got one of the nicer ones. My family is not the most influential, in fact, it is less influential than many of the people who got poorer houses than mine, but being recognized by Ozias comes with influence.
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Something I realized after overhearing conversations between nobles I don’t know is that Ozias appeared out of nowhere 3-4 years ago and became extremely influential out of pure skill. That being said, there was little known about him beforehand, it’s as if he suddenly appeared.
After sleeping at the home I was set up in I met up with the princess and waited for Ozias. I had no plans to talk with someone as high profile as her, but she started the conversation with me.
“You are Cassius correct? I have heard a lot about you.”
She seemed to be in her late teens to early twenties, I couldn’t tell. She had fair skin, white hair, and white eyes, she had a small frame and was short. She was attractive and all, but I prefer girls with larger assets. She was also plagued with the exhaustion of traveling far in this terrain. She had a horse prepared for her, but she was obviously a delicate person, a horse carrying won't do too much to help with the extreme weather she dealt with.
In my past life, I probably would have been even worse off than she is. I can at least somewhat understand what she is dealing with. I had times when I was forced to exercise after doing nothing for months. After thinking for a second I return to the conversation.
“Yeah, I’m Cassius.”
“How are you this morning?”
“Fine.”
“We haven’t really spoken much, have we? I heard a lot about you before meeting you, but I never expected you to be so young and small.”
“I didn’t expect a princess to be so weak either.”
“You are correct, I never wished to come on campaign. It was my father who ordered this for me. That being said, I am taking my duties seriously, can you say the same for yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“You focus only on training and self-interested activities while doing the bare minimum for the army as a whole. Do you think of anyone aside from yourself? Are you truly serving the army to the best of your abilities?”
“I have no interest in serving the army. Mine and Ozias’ goals align, that is all there is to it. Don’t assume that everyone is some patriot.”
“You really call yourself a noble?”
“I never asked to be a noble.”
“Yet you reap all the benefits. To complain about a position while taking all the rewards of being there is truly hypocritical.”
“The benefits were forced onto me as well, I have no desire for anything other than my goals. I would sleep in the woods with just bread to eat if that was my position.”
“I don’t like people like you.”
“I’ve heard that plenty of times before.”
“But, you are a great asset to the kingdom. If there is anything you need from me please tell.”
Despite being physically weak she is speaking to me without fear and doesn’t let physical exhaustion get in the way of her mental processes. I don’t know if she is of any use in combat, but I can see that she’ll be of some use on the campaign.
Ozias arrived while we were speaking and started walking with us. The headquarters was the home of the most prominent aristocrat in the area. The largest room of the house was hollowed out to allow for maps to be put up and documents scattered across tables added.
When we arrived the king and all the other prominent ministers were present. The three of us quickly bowed to the king. It kinda pissed me off to be lowering my head, but I have to do this in order to avoid standing out.
Ozias and the princess quickly took seats at the table, I stood behind Ozias. The men looked at me with suspicion. I guess it’s probably because I’m the only kid here, plus I’m armed. Things calmed down a little when I was introduced, but some looked a little more weary upon hearing the introduction,
“This is Cassius Scipio, son of Marcus Scipio. He has proven himself to be the most formidable of my subordinates. I brought him here to introduce the king to a talent, as well as hear his judgment on issues. He is not only strong but competent as well.”
“It is good to meet you young Cassius, I had a lot of respect for your father.” The sickly chained man spoke, diadem on his head. “I am called Slave King Cleon, I consider your father to be a good asset and an ally in building a better future.”
“That’s good to hear,” I spoke curtly, but he did not get offended. Rather he seemed to be relieved to hear me speak that way.
“Now then, this meeting has one main purpose: discuss the logistical capabilities of the military. We need to ensure that our men are fed, paid, and supplied. I would prefer to do this in a way that neither isolates the people I rule nor destroys my recently conquered territory.” Cleon speaks up. Responded quickly by a heavier man with glasses,
“The obvious answer is to trade directly with lords of regions. They will collect the necessary food, provide money, and accept slaves, jewelry, and other seized assets as compensation. This will also secure their loyalty and help gather more troops.”
In this plan, the local lords who are likely to trade for the spoils of war will act as an intermediary. Collecting supplies from their subject and in exchange they receive spoils from war that couldn’t be traded directly to the people. I don’t really like this plan of trading only with the local lords.
“What is it, Cassius? you appear to have some ideas.” The king looks at me, he is surprisingly perceptive.
“This plan relies on faith that the local lords will be good actors. This plan allows the local lords to seize supplies from the people without compensation. In fact, this is the most reasonable thing for them to do in the short term, despite it being disastrous in the long term.”
“The local lords are acting on behalf of the king, they have every right to seize assets as necessary. I can hardly see how acting on their God-given rights should be considered disastrous.” The previous minister speaks up.
“It is not the usage itself, but what they are doing with it. Seizing of assets will significantly harm the production of foodstuffs and other necessary supplies.”
“How so?” the king asks.
“After seizing goods the first time, farmers will recognize that their effort to produce as much as possible is pointless since there is no reward for it. When you take away property rights to this extent you disincentivize any production.
The lords will recognize this, and try to solve it by demanding a certain level of production by the end of the next season. This may work to some extent, but it will just make people leave farming as an industry and no new people will enter.
Best case scenario this process works just enough to get us through the war, but long-term food production will take a serious hit. Worst case scenario we could see a famine and revolt.”
Everybody takes a second to process this information. This shouldn’t be too revolutionary, as basic cause and effect were still noticed before the major economic thinkers. But property rights being necessary for economic growth is likely something that came out of nowhere.
“I agree with Cassius, but tell me boy how should we organize this?”
“Set up trading towns at the border, then establish a port to neighboring countries as soon as possible. Trade for currency, then offer that money for supplies. Offering loans of seeds and other farming subsidies may help create more of a surplus.”
“Can we fund this?” The king asked, looking at a tall thin man with an air of dignity. That man was the finance minister.
“Barely, I would have to oversee this in person, as well as take control of your personal treasury.”
“Now is as good of a time for spending as ever. We will enact this plan, that decision is final.”
Ah no good, I’m getting some nasty looks from some of the nobles. Come to think of it, they probably get a lot of their support from the local lords who would benefit from that plan. And I came into this meeting planning not to draw any attention to myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have come after all.
The king dismisses everyone except Ozias, the princess, and I. The conversation started slowly with greetings to his daughter and Ozias who he seemed close to. Then the eccentric man turned his eyes unto me.
“You are far more impressive than I imagined Cassius. You are your father's son after all. Anyway, my first assignment for you has been decided. You and some members of your unit will guard my daughter as she negotiates rules of war with the Republic.”
My next assignment already huh? Well, I needed something to kill time before the next battle. Rules of war seem out of place in this time period, but this could be caused by neighboring countries being aligned ideologically somewhat.
I suppose a guarding mission won't be too bad. After hearing all the details I head back to the house I was staying in and try to get some sleep. I fail, my nightmares keep getting worse, and I feel like someone is constantly watching me.