Chapter 39: Owning a City

On the twelfth day after the victory of the Kampnavia defense battle, we received a special guest—an envoy from the Royal Capital, the loyal and trustworthy servant of His Majesty the glorious and great King Miguela of Delanmaya, the chief clerk of the inner court, His Excellency Marquis Tusakre de Laval. What he brought us was the commendation and recognition of His Majesty the King.

After nearly half a year of attacks by the Winston Army, Delanmaya had lost almost a quarter of its fertile territory. His Majesty the King’s brave warriors had proven no match for the enemy, and not once had they delivered the sweet fruit of victory before His Majesty’s throne. This had greatly damaged the dignity of the esteemed His Majesty. At such a time, any victory—even a small city defense battle that had little effect on the overall situation—was extremely urgent and necessary. Grandly commending the commander who had won a long-awaited victory was not only to boost morale and stabilize the army, but even more so to save a bit of face for our esteemed His Majesty the King.

Mr. de Laval received a grand welcome from us. Fred politely and appropriately expressed his welcome and respect to this important minister of the inner court. His elegant appearance and impeccable manners won the favor of the noble guest. As an official serving closely by the king’s side, our guest had probably prepared himself to face a group of rude and ignorant minor noble officers from the provinces. But when he saw Fred’s etiquette, which would not have been out of place even at a formal court occasion, he did not hide his surprise and delight.

When the family lineage of “Viscount Frederick Ka Guderian” came up, Fred, well-prepared, cleverly connected his surname to a branch relative of a collateral kinsman of a high noble clan that had died out more than two hundred years ago. According to Fred, the previous heir of this unfortunate clan—whose female descendants were not abundant and whose male descendants were even rarer and often died young—was an old man in his seventies living abroad. In the three years before his death, the old man had searched through every family record and finally found the only male who could inherit this title: the only son of the older female cousin of the older male cousin of the niece of the younger male cousin of the nephew of his aunt, a son who had been separated and lost for many years during the chaos of war—that son was Fred himself. When someone notified Fred of his inheritance of this noble title, even he himself had no idea he had such a proud and distinguished family background. Of course, this clan was not very famous, and especially had no surviving thriving relatives, but the reputation of some of its members was just enough for Mr. de Laval to have heard of the surname, and for this grand family tree to earn the trust of our knowledgeable guest. Indeed, this family tree was absurdly large—even if all the officials in every nation who specialized in managing noble household registries were gathered together to sort through the records, it would take them quite a while.

In fact, I felt this meticulous and perfect family tree was completely unnecessary. Our guest did not suspect at all the origin of Fred’s “Viscount” title, nor did he question the fault of Fred having lost his noble credentials during the war. Or rather, maybe he did have doubts, but this victory had to be credited to a young, brave noble officer as a hero to attract the people’s attention. His Majesty the King had chosen Fred, so Fred had to be a true noble.

Mr. de Laval read to us His Majesty the King’s commendation order: to confer the title of Count upon Viscount Frederick Ka Guderian; besides recognizing his right to the revenues of Kampnavia City, to grant him the lands belonging to the town of Kale in northern Delanmaya (of course, this land was currently occupied by the Winston); and to bestow upon him a Crown Knight Medal and the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. The officers and soldiers at every level under him each received their own promotions and rewards.

After an elaborate, grand, and completely unnecessary ceremony, Fred truly became the legal owner of Kampnavia City.

After the commendation order was proclaimed, we held a banquet to entertain our noble guest. During the feast, Mr. de Laval and the merchants and nobles who had originally fled the war and were now gradually returning home repeatedly raised their glasses to toast Fred in congratulations. Fred also responded to everyone’s blessings with reserved politeness. But in his eyes, I saw a trace of hesitation and loneliness.

After the banquet ended, Mr. de Laval, still not satisfied, latched onto Fred with an enthusiasm that was almost unbearable. In some ways, Fred might be a rare genius, but in other ways, his lack of worldly wisdom was truly amusing. Watching clueless Fred barely staying awake and nodding off, I had to overstep my authority. While touring the lord’s mansion, I gave our guest a fine walking cane inlaid with an exquisite ivory handle and pure gold decorative patterns—an item of great collectible value—and repeatedly told him that this was a small “gift of friendship” from “Count Frederick Ka Guderian” to His Excellency the Marquis. Only then, just before midnight, did we manage to send this “honest, respectable, noble,” clingy visitor out the door.

“You don’t look happy, Fred.” Watching Mr. de Laval’s carriage disappear into the night, I quietly asked my friend.

“Yes, Jeff.” Fred relaxed the polite smile he had been keeping up all day and answered helplessly, “I’m conflicted.”

“What’s wrong? Isn’t everything going smoothly? You’ve become a real noble. This city, these soldiers—they’re all yours, truly yours. You’ve taken another step closer to your dream.”

“But I don’t want this. Jeff, I’m not a noble. I hate nobles. I hate those idiots who are born thinking they know everything when they don’t know anything at all. Yes, I want to help more people, but not this way. I don’t want to become one of the people I’ve hated since I was a child. I can pretend to be them, fool them, laugh at them, but I don’t want to become them.”

I understood. This was a complex psychological contradiction, just like what I was going through myself. I loved my tavern business and hated becoming a soldier who fought, but for now I had no choice.

“Fred,” I said, “you won’t become them. We all know that. You just can’t accept it emotionally right now. Remember your ideals. Remember your promise to Tommy. You want to become a great person and help all those who need help. If that’s the case, you don’t need to mind what methods you use to reach your goal.”

After hearing my words, Fred’s furrowed brow gradually relaxed. His black hair drifted in the evening breeze, becoming hazy and elegant, like a bright mist veiling his handsome face.

“You’re right, Jeff. I should have confidence in myself. I will be myself, not them.” He firmly put his arm around my shoulder. “No matter what others say I am, I am Fred Guderian, your friend. That’s all…”

Having obtained legal leadership, Fred quickly got the city’s operations back on track. Each of us took on corresponding responsibilities: Dakla and Riley set to work rebuilding the city’s defense system; Roll was in charge of maintaining order within the city, and his silence helped him do the job well—most citizens interpreted Roll’s reticence as coldness and severity rather than shyness; Red Flame developed an interest in this meaningless war and, defying racial tradition, insisted on staying by Fred’s side, becoming our guest cavalry captain—the King’s generosity had given us real cavalry—but his mount was still that strange mule. Red Flame had long since tossed aside the fact that his mount’s bloodline defied the laws of nature. Now, if anyone dared to say a bad word about his mule to his face, they’d better be prepared to have their head shaved bald with a fast blade. And that mule was quite impressive too. Aside from Carlson’s lame red horse, I really hadn’t seen any horse that could match his “thousand-mile mule.”

Rodrick assisted Carlson (he insisted we call him that) in training our soldiers. The impressive bearing those two showed in battle became the strongest motivation for the soldiers to participate in training. Carlson still insisted on his training methods for us, so every day, people entering and leaving the city could see large groups of sloppily dressed soldiers enthusiastically playing a terrifying game called “Cops and Robbers” along the city walls. The “cops” who failed to catch the “robbers” and the “robbers” who got caught all had to receive Carlson’s “special instruction”—for example, having a big caterpillar thrown into their collars, then being ordered not to take it out until they had run through the city and jumped into the river. Those half-dead, grumbling soldiers didn’t yet know how important this kind of training was on the battlefield—if they still had the chance to escape with their lives from Carlson’s hands and make it to the battlefield.

Poor Fred, besides having to handle daily administrative affairs and receive visitors, also had a rather unenviable identity—Miss Millia’s full-time patient. As Fred’s doctor, Miss Millia had the right to urge him to take his medicine and rest at any time. This cold and proud lady performed her duties with great dedication. She strictly controlled Fred’s medication, meal, and rest schedules, never deviating even once. What tortured Fred most was that no matter what occasion he was in, he had to take his medicine on time. Miss Millia would never give him any room to negotiate, and my wise, brave friend seemed to have no solution for this dutiful doctor. Just seven days ago, when Fred forgot to take his medicine while inspecting the soldiers’ training, Millia forced him to down a bottle of what we called “spicy salt tonic” in front of everyone, then left without any expression on her face. This tonic was very effective at replenishing blood and restoring physical strength, but it tasted both bitter and spicy. Usually, there were only two kinds of people who could take this medicine in large doses—the bravest people and people without tongues. When the soldiers learned that this miserable scene they had witnessed happened to their young leader regularly every day, they suddenly felt that their own harsh training was nothing more than a piece of cake. Of course, under Miss Millia’s careful care, Fred’s body recovered at a very fast pace. By the time Marquis de Laval left, he was already able to ride a horse.

Naturally, I wasn’t idle either. Fred, who knew how to assign people according to their abilities, appointed me as the logistics supply officer of Kampnavia City, responsible for managing the accumulation and dispatch of military supplies, and recalculating the quantity of materials we had on hand. I was quite happy to accept this job.

I originally thought I would only be dealing with some simple checking and receiving work, but after a systematic understanding of the situation, I couldn’t help but admire my predecessor’s astonishing achievements in material management—he had done a tremendous amount of surprisingly unnecessary work. In this rigid bureaucrat’s eyes, everything in the world seemed to be something that could be numbered and stored in the warehouse. Every spear and every helmet in the warehouse had a special code of up to six digits, and the coding tables alone filled seven wooden crates. This was proudly called a “database system” by my crazy predecessor, who claimed that this system could reduce errors to an all-time low during large-scale material distribution and fundamentally eliminate corruption—of course, this was all based on the premise that you had enough time to go through those ledgers that were heavy enough to crush an elephant. It was said that this official had a rule: every item must have the recipient’s handwritten signature when distributed, and when an item was lost or damaged, the original holder had to submit a detailed item loss report, which had to go through as many as six levels of approval from the warehouse keeper up to himself, and the earliest replacement would only be issued fifteen days later. This series of measures did greatly reduce the error rate in material management, but at the same time, it also played a significant role in lowering work efficiency and keeping idle people employed in logistics storage positions.

After a period of investigation, I sent about two-thirds of the logistics personnel back to combat units and abolished the material coding system—I didn’t have the self-abusing habit of carving a long string of numbers onto every arrow shaft and then checking every single one twice a year. Instead, we counted goods and stored them using the most ordinary methods. When distributing supplies, each company only needed its captain to sign and could take the items. Any mistakes would be the captain’s responsibility. To prevent people from lying about losses to fraudulently obtain military supplies, I made some minor adjustments to the soldiers’ allowance payment system: the price of equipment was added to the soldiers’ allowances, and random surprise inspections of soldiers’ equipment were conducted. If equipment was lost or abnormally damaged, it was immediately replenished and replaced, and the cost of replacement was deducted from the soldier’s allowance. I have to admit, these measures were not refined or thorough, but they were very effective for the lower-ranking soldiers who didn’t have much education. Besides, we were after all in a time of war; everything had to prioritize improving efficiency and ensuring the army’s combat effectiveness.

In fact, running a city was not more difficult than running a tavern. At least I didn’t have to worry about attracting customers. It was hard not to feel a little proud of my work achievements: under my unremitting efforts, Kampnavia’s military supply management had clearly improved. The old situation where soldiers wasted a whole day without eating or sleeping, waiting at the warehouse gate for supplies to be distributed and having to sign their names as souvenirs, was gone for good. And the soldiers had never been so interested in maintaining their equipment. After all, maintaining equipment meant saving their own allowances.

Another month passed. Kampnavia City gradually regained its former vitality. Merchants were once again active on the river trade routes, bringing bustling commerce to the small city, and our work had also gotten on the right track. The battle that had buried several thousand people beneath the city walls not long ago seemed to have faded from people’s memories. On the other side of the river, the Winston seemed to be temporarily satisfied with what they had gained in the war and no longer launched attacks toward the southern bank. Everything was so calm and natural, as if the war had already left us far behind.

Of course, the war was still there, but people could not live in endless fear and panic. In this interval between destruction and destruction, let the ordinary, helpless people feel this brief peace and tranquility.

And let those brave warriors destined to die on the battlefield feel how precious life is…