The Hannover Revolution
Only days earlier, the Imperial Palace in Byron had been a storm of shouting voices and clashing opinions. Now, it was as silent and cold as a tomb.
And with good reason. Taking advantage of the unrest, the court had plotted to purge Adelheid, only for the fractured rebels to suddenly reunite. In a scramble, the Crown Prince had pulled the besieging forces to deal with them, but what was supposed to be a fabricated charge of treason had become reality: Adelheid had raised the banner of open rebellion, and the hastily assembled subjugation force had been utterly annihilated.
Of the ten thousand imperial troops sent to quell them, two thousand were dead or captured, and the remaining eight thousand had fled and scattered in every direction. In an unprecedented disaster, the vast provisions stockpiled to starve Adelheid into submission had fallen straight into the hands of her army instead.
To make matters worse, the newly risen rebels produced an edict bearing the late Emperor's seal alongside Adelheid's name. Across the west, they proclaimed far and wide that she was the true, legitimate sovereign of the Empire, and the proclamation spread like wildfire with every passing day.
When an obscure imperial prince had been the figurehead of the initial revolt, his dubious standing in the line of succession had drawn little reaction from the common folk or regional lords. But now that the leader had become Adelheid—a living war hero, the pillar of the imperial military, and the late Emperor's own daughter—their attitude underwent an unmistakable shift. Everyone began keeping their heads down.
Unlike the previous rebellion, which had been nothing more than an irritating nuisance, this had escalated far beyond a mere civil disturbance. It was a direct, mortal threat to the Crown Prince's legitimacy. Every man present in the hall knew it, which was precisely why they held their tongues, terrified of provoking him when his temper sat on a hair trigger.
Yet despite his simmering fury, the Crown Prince was in a state of sheer panic. With every passing hour, Adelheid drew closer.
"Give me... Whew... Give me a plan. Anything!"
Throwing a tantrum here would solve nothing.
Paranoid though he was, the Crown Prince was no fool. He swallowed his rage as best he could, and only then did the courtiers dare open their mouths, their voices trickling forth like water through a cracked dam.
"Your Highness, now that Imperial Princess Adelheid—no, the traitor Adelheid—has committed open treason, Your Highness has no other choice. Leaving aside only the bare minimum of troops to hold the active fronts, we must conscript every available soldier to crush the rebels."
"Your Highness, as a precaution, why not request troops from our tributary vassal states as well?"
"That must never happen, Your Highness! If we rely on vassal states for internal imperial affairs, they will inevitably look down upon the Empire. We must overcome this crisis using only our own might, demonstrating to all the unshakeable strength of its new sovereign!"
Though heated debate raged over the specifics, they were all in accord on one fundamental point: an army had to be mustered to stop the new rebel force coalescing around Adelheid.
Sensing the court's consensus, the Crown Prince's expression softened slightly.
Yes. I am the legitimate sovereign. They all support me. Even if trying to purge Adelheid proved to be a miscalculation, a single mistake does not strip me of my rightful authority.
"First, I shall order levies upon the ducal houses and adjacent domains. Furthermore, I shall issue a call to arms to lords across the land, offering lavish rewards to any who take up arms for the Imperial House."
Having taken the first steps to quench the immediate fire, the Crown Prince brought up an almost unbelievable report he had received from the routed commanders.
"I am told Adelheid had reinforcements. Though their numbers were few, soldiers of Remus reportedly ambushed our rear."
The hall erupted into a murmur of shock at the mention of Remus.
Remus was the enemy state currently waging war against the Empire in the southeast—the exact opposite side of the continent from the western territories where Adelheid had revolted.
The Fron Empire was hardly small. How on earth could men fighting on the eastern front suddenly pop up deep inside imperial territory—and in the far west, no less?
The Crown Prince had been just as bewildered as Adelheid and Rudolf had been. Unlike them, however, he held a crucial piece of intelligence.
"I recall hearing that some fifteen days ago, a peace delegation from the Kingdom of Remus crossed our borders bearing gifts to negotiate an end to the war."
He had paid it little mind at the time, consumed as he was by the Emperor's demise and the outbreak of rebellion. But it had struck him as odd that those envoys—who should have arrived long ago—had never appeared, nor had there been any sightings of them.
"Are you telling me those wretched bastards caught wind of Hannover on their way here, abruptly changed course, and threw in their lot with Adelheid?"
To come seeking peace, only to join a rebellion in another country?
It sounded utterly absurd, yet no other explanation made sense.
"Contemptible dogs. I knew they held the Empire lightly, but having grown a little stronger, they now fear nothing under heaven."
The Iron Kingdom of Remus.
A mere century ago, it was a realm so diminutive it could barely be called a kingdom at all. Though its lands were reasonably fertile, royal authority had been weak, and its military and technological capabilities so abysmal that it lived in fear not only of the Empire, but even of the Empire's vassal states. It had been an insignificant nonentity.
Then, sheer fortune smiled upon the Remus royal line.
Producing the legendary **Martial Sovereign**, Mu-Jon—a peerless warrior who humbled the Empire's greatest masters and reigned supreme as the strongest of his era—the royal house waged war upon the surrounding domains and neighboring nations that had once bullied them, conquering them one by one.
Having multiplied its territory and population several times over, the Kingdom of Remus grew into a formidable state. Yet as if that conquest were merely the groundwork, the royal family spearheaded a sweeping revolution from the top down.
Forging a mighty realm anchored in absolute meritocracy, Remus dismantled the parasitic nobility and completely overhauled its hollow, ceremonial institutions. It transformed into a land where status was not inherited by birth, but earned solely through merit and ability.
Told that anyone who strove and proved their worth could rise to nobility, the commoners—both original citizens and the conquered populace alike—threw their passionate support behind the throne. Under standardized institutions built on ruthless efficiency and public welfare, Remus rapidly elevated its national power.
It industrialized, filling the royal treasury to bursting.
It protected its people with welfare systems, swelling the population.
And it reinvested that burgeoning wealth and manpower directly back into national development.
At the same time, forged into a disciplined, unified force under Mu-Jon's reign and eager to adopt cutting-edge military technologies, the army of Remus aggressively capitalized on every border dispute, waging war to expand its borders even further.
This virtuous cycle did not halt even with Mu-Jon's death some thirty years ago. In the span of a single century, a penniless weakling had clawed its way to the very threshold of the world's great powers.
"If not for our unending wars on every other front, we would have trampled those upstarts long ago...!"
Of course, even now, Remus lacked the sheer weight of Fron. But as fate would have it, the Empire was currently entangled in far too many conflicts.
On top of the war with Remus, there were the pirate raids from the southern island nations, the tense standoff against the Neapol Empire on the western border, and now this sudden rebellion. Stripping troops from one theater to end another would hand their other foes the perfect opportunity for a full-scale offensive. It was a complete checkmate.
Worse still, the clash with the Kingdom of Remus had been more of an unfortunate accident—neither side had genuinely intended to go to war—which made it all the more sickening for the Crown Prince that an accidental conflict was now fueling a domestic rebellion.
"I will not forget this day," he hissed through gritted teeth. "I will see those Remus mongrels... destroyed, down to the last man...!"
Vowing vengeance on all who defied him, the Crown Prince pushed aside his rage toward Remus for a moment and refocused on Adelheid.
"Your Highness," an officer ventured, "among the soldiers who fled along the detour to evade pursuit, some testified that they spotted a convoy packed with supply wagons, guarded by only a small detachment of imperial troops."
"...That was surely the tribute the Remus dogs brought," the Crown Prince muttered darkly. "Which has now fallen into Adelheid's hands."
"Even so, Your Highness, the Prince of Remus could not have intended to aid Adelheid's treason from the start. Even if they brought provisions, they are bound to be luxury goods or regional specialties of Remus. Valuable though they may be, to rebels starving for bread rather than gold, such wares are of little practical use."
"Precisely! Even if they attempted to sell them to buy provisions, obtaining enough food to feed an army of ten thousand on short notice is nearly impossible. Moreover, few merchants would dare trade with known traitors. The only food Adelheid can use immediately is what she plundered from our forces. And by all accounts, when those Remus scoundrels ambushed our rear, they set fire to the stores and burned a substantial portion of it. So long as we grant them no respite, they will soon be wracked by starvation once more."
Murmurs of approval rippled through the courtiers at the soldier's logical breakdown. It sounded like sound, rational counsel, reassuring them that they had no reason to cower simply because a famed war hero had raised the banner of revolt.
"Quite so," the Crown Prince agreed.
There was no obvious flaw in the reasoning, which allowed him to view the situation through slightly rose-tinted glasses.
The only trouble was that, as its meteoric rise beyond all common sense demonstrated, the Kingdom of Remus was hardly bound by stale, antiquated traditions like gifts sent to appease a great empire must be rare and precious luxuries.
In truth, though none of the imperial officials would dare pour cold water on their fragile glimmer of hope, our support alone could not have solved the supply crisis facing Adelheid's Revolutionary Army.
An army cannot fight on food alone. Only when soldiers have undergone rigorous training and hold sturdy weapons in their hands do they become a true fighting force.
Granted, her men were recruited regulars from the Empire's Central Army, meaning their training was already solid, and we were able to supply the rations.
However, early in the siege of Hannover, various circumstances had led to a loss of equipment. Their armaments were in a precarious state, leaving the Revolutionary Army with no margin to spare—and consumables like ammunition and medical supplies were scarcer still.
That was precisely why I had gone out of my way to sow chaos in the siege force's rear, where their surplus equipment was stockpiled.
If you set fire to the grain stores, the enemy will be so frantic trying to douse the flames and salvage what isn't burning that they won't have the hands or presence of mind to haul away heavy crates of weapons and armor.
Caught in that disarray while their front lines collapsed under Adelheid's charge, the besiegers had fled, abandoning every last scrap of their supplies. And as a result...
"Waaaaagh!"
"Long live the Imperial Princess!"
Far from looking like a desperate revolt sparked by framed treason, the Revolutionary Army found itself flush with abundant supplies, and every soldier was in high spirits.
"Are you going to let them carry on like that?"
I had no idea where they had scavenged it, but judging by the noise, they were even knocking back drinks, though keeping it to a modest buzz.
"They held out until yesterday trusting in me alone, only to be branded traitors for their loyalty. A little indulgence is necessary to keep their morale from flagging."
Listening to the soldiers chanting her praises outside the command tent, the princess offered a wry smile before gesturing toward the chair across from her desk.
"Ah, forgive me. My tongue slipped into informal speech without my realizing. Please, take a seat. Now that the uprising has truly begun, we have much to discuss."
"I am humbled that Your Highness would keep us in mind and care for us so," I replied smoothly.
"Hmph. Far too cold. Call me by my name."
"...Pardon?"
What kind of trap is this?
Looking at Adelheid, who was regarding me with an expectant, crescent-eyed smile as if urging me to say it, suspicion bloomed in my chest.
"How could I treat my greatest supporter and comrade-in-arms with distant formality? From this moment forth, address me by name. And I shall call you plainly by yours, with no titles attached... Romul."