In the blink of an eye, April arrived in the 588th year of the Holy Light Calendar, and more than a year had passed since the Battle of Beringana. For the winners and losers of this battle, a lot has changed on both sides in more than a year. It had a very important and far-reaching impact on the future situation and the colonial war that took place on the Nubisian continent.
For example, the defeated Kingdom of Hicks not only refused entry to the kingdom's envoy from the Kingdom of Overas who came with the intention of armistice and peace negotiations, but also stated that it would reorganize ten standing legions to carry out this colonial war to the end. At the same time, they hired the combined fleets of the Kingdom of Nasseri and the Principality of Karnas, as well as two so-called volunteer mercenary corps composed of retired veterans from these two countries, and successfully defended the colonial county of Vibato, which has an excellent military port. .. ...
On the side of the victor, the Kingdom of Ovelas, the domestic situation was somewhat chaotic because the old king Sterling X was bedridden due to a long illness. In order to effectively control the Rangers, a powerful royal guard, and prevent General Michelchi from having too much prestige in the Rangers, causing the Rangers to only obey his orders. The Sterling royal family selected many soldiers from their royal relatives to serve in the Ranger Corps in order to effectively control this royal guard force.
Just like General Vansnik, the head of the Army's Logistics Department who came to the post after the entire Beringana Campaign, he came from a branch of the Stirling royal family. It is said that his grandfather was a cousin of Stirling VIII, who had his own territory and a hereditary earldom.
However, after Sterling IX restored the kingdom and had a war with those territorial nobles, the royal earl stood opposite Sterling IX because of his territory. As a result, the defeated territory was confiscated. Because of his surname and royal blood relationship, he was lucky enough to save his life, but his hereditary earl title was lost and he was reduced to an honorary viscount. Relying on the honorary Viscount's annuity of more than two hundred gold crowns each year and the royal family's subsidy of more than one hundred gold crowns, they managed to maintain a decent livelihood for an established aristocratic family.
When Sterling X ascended the throne, General Vansnik's grandfather passed away and the honorary viscount disappeared. Although his father was canonized as an honorary baron by the royal family, the title annuity was reduced by half. This had a great impact on the life of General Vansnik's family. It costs a lot of money to maintain a decent life for an established aristocratic family, and his mediocre and talented father's several investment failures made the aristocratic family even worse. ... ...
General Vansnik has known since childhood that when the next king ascends the throne and his father dies, he has no hope of receiving a title from the royal family. Although they both belong to the Sterling royal family, the family ties become thinner as time goes by. The blood relationship cannot last as long as three generations. His future must depend on his own efforts. Therefore, General Vansnik signed up for the Royal Youth Military Academy when he was young. With hard work and diligence, serving in the army after graduation was smooth sailing.
In fact, General Vansnik was not a brave man. Because he was afraid of death, he chose to major in logistics management so that he would not have to go to the front line to fight when the war came. As a professional logistics technical officer, he is still very qualified. At the same time, because his surname is Sterling, he took advantage of promotions and promotions. It only took him twenty-one years to become a military officer. A colonel officer in charge of logistics. It is worth noting that he has been serving in the logistics department of the Kingdom's War Department and has never been on the battlefield.
This time serving in the Ranger Corps was the most important turning point in General Vansnik's life. First, his military rank was promoted again, from colonel to major general. At the age of forty-eight, he finally passed the most difficult military promotion hurdle for the kingdom's logistics and technical officers. Secondly, this means that he is once again included in the royal family's attention list, and may even be recognized as a member of the royal family again and regain his title.
In fact, when General Vansnik received the order to serve in the Ranger Corps, it was the beginning of the Battle of Beringana. The five standing legions of the Hicks Kingdom marched towards the Cromwell Territory with great fanfare. The Rangers easily gave up their capital, Wickham Castle, and moved into the Beringana Territory. The situation looked very tense. critical.
So as expected, General Vansnik fell seriously ill, suffering from vomiting and diarrhea, and could not even stand up straight. No matter what pharmacist he hired, there was nothing he could do about his condition. Facing his friends and military colleagues who were visiting him, the gray-faced General Vansnik lay weakly on the hospital bed, saying sadly that he was really unlucky and should not have gotten sick at this time. He hoped to go to the Overseas Territory of the Kingdom on the mainland of Nubisia, and fight with the fighting Rangers against the invading enemies, and live and die together. However, he did not expect that this serious illness would hinder his schedule...
But as soon as the news of the victory at Beringana came and was confirmed, General Vansnik jumped up from his bed and immediately packed up and rushed to the continent of Nubisia. He plausibly stated to his relatives and friends who were seeing him off that he missed the fruits of victory due to his serious illness. Now that the war has just ended, a total of 300,000 enemies have been captured. One can imagine how busy the logistics affairs are. He must not fail to perform his duties just because he is sick. This is when his hero comes into use.
It only took General Vansnik a month and a half to arrive at the Ranger Corps station and take over the post of logistics director. On the first day he took office, he ordered that the luxury goods enjoyed by the senior officers of the five standing legions of the Kingdom of Hicks contained in the four four-wheeled freight carriages that Claude handed over to the legion headquarters were sealed and prepared to be handed over to Sri Lanka. The Trin royal family to show his loyalty and filial piety to the royal family...
Even General Michelich did not expect that the newly appointed logistics director would take such an unusual approach. He tactfully reminded General Vansnik that he had left the luxury goods loaded in these four large carriages to the new logistics director, hoping that General Vansnik could use this opportunity to communicate with the officers of the Ranger Corps. Let's get acquainted and have a good relationship. He handed over all these luxury goods as spoils of war to the royal family, which easily offended the officers in the legion because he violated the traditional hidden rules of distribution of spoils of war...
But General Michelich soon found out that General Vansnik's ranger regiment was the royal guard of Stirling. Everything captured on the battlefield should belong to the royal family. The assigned practices can reflect the Rangers' loyalty to the royal family and the royal family's favor and care for the Rangers.
Because of what General Michelich said about the traditional unspoken rules of distribution of spoils, General Vansnik accused him of being disrespectful to the Stirling royal family. He wondered whether General Michelich took credit for winning the battle. Too big to take the Sterling royal family seriously...
Immediately afterwards, General Vansnik pushed all troublesome issues such as the expansion of the Ranger Corps, recruitment of new soldiers, and equipment replacement to Colonel Skerry, deputy director of the Corps' Logistics Department, and others. He concentrated on searching for all the trophies captured by the Rangers after the victory of the Battle of Beringana, and soon found a fortune worth more than half a million gold in the confessions of the captured logistics officers of the Hicks Kingdom. Clues about the huge military expenditures given by the Kingdom of Cronxikes to the five standing legions. Now that he had found a treasure, Lima started to trouble the 131st Ranger Regiment and its leader Claude who had captured Wickham Castle, where the military funds were stored...
But what General Vansnik didn't expect was that the colonel leader Claude was a thorn. He and the officers and soldiers of the 131st Ranger Regiment showed General Vansnik what it means to be a proud soldier. They didn't take General Vansnik as the logistics manager seriously at all. Instead of privately seeking to see him and giving him gifts or money to say good things, they kept shouting that he was wronged and accused General Vansnik of doing it for selfish reasons and promotion and wealth. The interests of the officers and soldiers of the Cavalry Corps were ignored.
Not only did that Claude not cooperate with the investigation, he also generously announced the itinerary of all the officers and soldiers of the regiment after the capture of Wickham Castle as evidence. It proves that because the occupation period was too short, in order to complete the task of burning down the material warehouse, they inadvertently missed the huge military expenditure stored in the ammunition, firearms and ordnance warehouse area of the Hicks Kingdom. As a result, the huge amount of money was lost after the explosion of those ammunition warehouses. Military spending disappeared. This was their unintentional mistake. It was not General Vansnik's turn to come and get to the bottom of it. After all, the military expenditure was not the property of the kingdom.
As a result, General Vansnik seemed very passive. He wronged the soldiers of his own army who had made great achievements because of the enemy's military expenses. As a result, his reputation in the Ranger Army continued to decline, to the point where no one wanted to deal with him. But General Vansnik still clung to Claude for two reasons. An officer in charge of logistics in the Hicks Kingdom confessed that the military expenses stored in the material warehouse were all gold, silver and copper coins, not paper products such as gold dollar rolls. Even fires and explosions should leave traces and cannot disappear. not see.
The second reason is that he dislikes Claude very much, and he also knows that Claude is General Michelchi's favorite general. He could make a big deal out of the missing military expenditures. As the most suspected target of hiding military expenditures, Claude could easily be suspended from his position as commander of the 131st Ranger Regiment and undergo investigation from above.
This not only freed up vacancies for the senior officers sent by the Stirling royal family, but also correspondingly reduced General Michelich's influence in the legion. At the very least, the 131st Ranger Regiment will no longer listen to General Michelich's instructions. General Vansnik believes that the higher-ups will see what he does and will like his performance...
However, what General Vansnik didn't expect was that Claude was so impatient by him that he actually led the 131st Ranger Regiment to dig out the military expenses in the ruins of Wickham Castle. At first, he just thought it was a joke. It's not like he didn't send people to look for it, but the material warehouse that was said to store military funds turned into a big pit due to the big explosion. Those people dug around the big pit, but they didn't find the fake stuff. The money box full of gold, silver and copper coins can only be returned in dismay.
But this Claude made a discovery after half a month of digging at Wickham Castle. He was not busy around the big pit, but looking for the ashes and garbage in the ruins of the castle. He believed that the explosion of the ammunition warehouse was likely to blow up the gold, silver and copper coins used as military expenses to various parts of the castle. Using this idea to search, the results were as expected rich.
Now the other troops of the Rangers who were watching were jealous. The 131st Ranger Regiment could dig, why can't we dig? So under the leadership of the chief in charge, each headed to Wickham Castle, occupied a piece of land, and joined the lively excavation site. It seems that all the digging troops have made good gains, and the officers in charge all have smiles on their faces...
General Vansnik, who heard these rumors, rushed to Wickham Castle for an inspection. The result disappointed him. Claude and the 131st Ranger Regiment, who were against him, were cleared of the suspicion of secretly hiding this military trophy. .
They did not know the existence of this huge military expenditure of the Hicks Kingdom, and the gold, silver and copper coins of this military expenditure were indeed scattered throughout the castle due to the explosion as Claude expected, covered by silt-like ashes. . The pieces of gold, silver, and copper coins that they brought up due to the explosion and the deformed coins clearly showed the truth.
But what disappointed General Vansnik even more was that he found that he could not confiscate the gains of the various units of the Ranger Corps. Because these excavated gold, silver, and copper coins were no longer captured trophies, he had no power at all to order the army officers to turn over their harvests. And now the entire Wickham Castle has become a gold mining place with a wealth of nearly half a million gold crowns buried, but he can't get his own share of it...
Especially when General Vansnik discovered that a soldier had picked up a gold coin, which was a gold coin issued by the Hicks Kingdom, he saw the soldier stuff the gold coin into his trouser pocket. This scene made him feel extremely jealous and irritated, so he immediately rushed back to the legion and tried his best to get General Michelich to order that all the troops digging at Wickham Castle be transferred back to carry out the so-called military discipline rectification. . Then General Vansnik took all the logistics troops under the logistics department to the ruins of Wickham Castle, sealed off the entire area, and then ordered the soldiers to dig.
It took more than a month of hard work before General Vansnik found gold, silver and copper coins worth more than 10,000 gold crowns. This was only obtained by closely monitoring the digging soldiers. He had always wondered whether the soldiers below had hidden the coins they excavated, and almost went to the battle to search every soldier who excavated.
But the fact is that he personally searched the bodies of several soldiers who were suspected of hiding, but found nothing. This made him wonder whether these soldiers did not hide the coins they excavated on their bodies, but stored them somewhere and would come back to get them later...
Looking at the coins he found, General Vansnik felt extremely wronged. He only received the smallest share of the huge military expenditures of the Hicks Kingdom worth more than half a million gold crowns, and he had to distribute them to those who participated in the excavation. All the troops under his command. Otherwise, he will be accused by his subordinates of secretly using military force to do private work. This is a very serious crime in the military. Even if his surname is Sterling, he will be held accountable. Just send it down, and there won't be much left in his hand.
This was why General Vansnik went to the officers in charge of the various units that had excavated the ruins of Wickham Castle and asked for a share of their harvest. He felt that the reason why he gained little was that he came too late. Those troops found most of the military expenses during the excavation process, but what was left to him was the end.
But the officers in charge of those troops felt that General Vansnik was a bit too greedy. They had gained something from the Wickham ruins, but the total value was only more than 10,000 gold crowns. Of course, it is certain that the soldiers had something to hide. No matter how much they kept, it would not be too much. At most, it was estimated to be worth about one or two thousand gold crowns. If one unit can gain so much, then the total harvest of the seven or eight troops digging in the ruins of Wickham Castle will be more than 100,000. Perhaps the 131st Ranger Regiment, which was the first to dig, will gain even more. some.
The military expenditure of the Hicks Kingdom, worth a total of more than 500,000 gold crowns, only received about 100,000, and at most 200,000, and the remaining more than 300,000 were taken care of by you alone. Not only did he use his power to force everyone to return to the camp, but he led the team to dig there for more than a month. Now he came back and said that there was not much harvest, and asked everyone to hand over a share of the profits to you. Only a devil would believe your words. Claude suspected that he had concealed the truth and deliberately pretended to be poor in front of everyone. Everyone believed Claude's statement...
Just when General Vansnik was so angry that he had no excuse, and everyone in the Ranger Corps despised his character and believed that he had hidden hundreds of thousands of military expenses that he had unearthed, Claude received a call from General Michelchi. summoning order. The first words General Michelich said shocked Claude, because the general said, Claude, I am going to let you quit the Ranger Corps...