"Send someone to the mayor's mansion. Order him to come and hand over the tokens that represent the control of the internal affairs and the military forces. Also, notify all the nobles and asked them to give me 500 of their private soldiers each; they need to come up with the funding and the weapons. These soldiers will be placed in a battalion and would help us in the defense." Fei felt like the city lacked soldiers and gave a few orders that old Aryang suggested beforehand.
"Huh... what if the nobles don't agree?" Shevchenko hesitated a little. After all, the private soldiers were the nobles' properties, and Fei's order would be equivalent of forced expropriation.
"If they don't agree, they can die!" Fei laughed.
Shevchenko smelled something terrifying in the atmosphere.
He felt like the king wanted to see the nobles rebel; he felt like that would give the Legion Commander a reason to kill these corrupt nobles. After thinking back to what happened to that messenger of the mayor, Shevchenko felt like he understood this Legion Commander a little better, and he felt sorry for those corrupt nobles for a second.
"Looks like their corruption and their lack of caring for the civilians have really made the Legion Commander mad," he thought.
"Also, we need to get the help from the civilians as well. Although we don't need them to participate in the battle yet, we need to select the civilians who are young and fit and train them. If the situation gets worse, even these civilians might have to get on the defense wall and fight against the invaders."
When Fei said that, he suddenly recalled an idiom on earth – "turn the entire nation into soldiers."
The Jax Empire was using a lot of its strength to attack Zenit! Just their herald troops had 60,000 soldiers, and the number would be unthinkable if the entire invading force of Jax arrives here.
Even though Zenit had the support of the St. Germain Empire, it didn't have enough soldiers to fight against Spartax, Eindhoven, and Jax. From the look of it, it seemed like the Military Headquarter of Zenit was only planning to send the newly formed [Wolf Teeth Legion] that had less than 50,000 soldiers to the Jax Battle Zone; it felt like there weren't more reinforcements. As a result, in order to defend against the invaders of Jax, all the civilians in the city had to help in the war.
After thinking, Fei decided to listen to his strategist old Aryang's recommendation. He knew that to stabilize the current situation, he had to borrow ideas from the "Great Party" in his previous life. There were way more civilians than nobles; to unite all civilians and motivate them, he had to break these nobles and distribute their wealth. In fact, breaking these nobles and giving power to the civilians who were mostly poor was the only way that potentially could provide hope to the grim situation.
Shevchenko listened to the order and instructed various subordinates on what to do.
"Eh? Andrew, do you have something to say?" Fei asked. After everything was done, Shevchenko still didn't leave; it looked like he was hesitating about something.
"Sir, your injury..."
Fei was a little surprised, but he soon realized what Shevchenko meant.
When he was inside the enemies' formations, he was sneak attacked by their head commander, and that arrow went through his left shoulder. He was the only person who could beat that arrogant prince; if he was severely injured, the strategy and planning around the defense might need to be changed.
"Haha, don't worry! I'm fully recovered!" Fei replied as he even moved his arms and stretched his shoulders.
As he said that, he suddenly remembered that he robbed a nice-looking bow from the enemies; he recalled that the prince said it was a treasure of the Royal Family of Jax.
He took out that strong bow that looked like a flying eagle from his storage ring.
It was a great bow.
The bowstring itself had a glare to it; a magic energy surged on it. When Fei placed his finger on the bowstring, it felt tough; he was only able to pull and fully open the bow after using more than 50% of his physical strength. Then, a suction force appeared on the bowstring and pulled some energy from Fei's arm into it. Right after that happened, a transparent arrow gradually appeared on the bow.
Fei remembered that Prince Fairenton of Jax shot out a red arrow, but the color and the feel of the arrow was different now; it seemed like this bow would form different kinds of arrows based on the user's energy.
Whoosh!
Fei released the bowstring and shot the arrow. That arrow almost disappeared into the sky in an instant.
"Nice bow! The speed of the arrow is just too fast! It is great at sneak attacking! No wonder I didn't dodge that strike. Although the power of the arrow isn't that explosive, it could kill Moon-Class Elites if their vital spots got struck."
Fei was a little surprised.
He didn't expect that something he robbed from the enemies for fun was actually this good; this bow was better than all the magic bows he got in Diablo World.
Shevchenko was obviously shocked by the power of the bow as well; if two warriors were within 100 meters from each other and one warrior was two star-levels below the other warrior, the weaker warrior could still have a chance of winning if he or she had this bow. As a result, he took a few steps back subconsciously.
After some thinking, he asked, "Sir, there is a question I'm not sure if I should ask."
"What? Just ask."
"You could have killed the head commander of Jax today, why didn't you do it?"
Fei placed the bow back into his storage space and lightly shook his head, "That prince of Jax is an Eight-Star Warrior. Since he has this strength when he is this young, he must be a significant figure; he isn't like an ordinary prince. If I killed someone like this, the troops of Jax would siege the city frantically non-stop to avenge for him; Dual-Flags City would be in real danger if that happened."
After he said that, he walked out of the central tent. He looked at the soldiers who were busy in the camp as well as the sun in the sky and sighed, "What we need to do now is to drag this war on. We need to be like a nail that holds the forces of Jax in this desert; we need to buy time for the other two Battle Zones... therefore, we can't really trigger Jax too much. If that Emperor Fuji of Jax really gets mad and is going to attack us with the full strength of Jax, we can't defend against them even if we have 10 Dual-Flags Cities."
"I got it." Shevchenko's eyes lit up as he nodded, "Dual-Flags City and [Wolf Teeth Legion] are walking on a string above a cliff; we have to control the tempo and the balance. That way, we won't get wiped out, and we can buy more time."
Fei nodded and said, "That is right."
He suddenly changed his tone and added, "I can kill that prince easily if I want to. It doesn't matter if I kill him or not. From what happened today, I can tell that he is arrogant and conceited, and it seems like he is more interested in personal cultivation than commanding troops. It isn't a bad option leaving such an emotional and arrogant head commander to the soldiers of Jax."
"Such a great idea!" Shevchenko wasn't flattering Fei; he really felt that way.
Fei smiled and waved his hand; he told this brigade commander to get busy.
Currently, most of the issues were dealt by Shevchenko and Cech. Fei was used to being a hands-off leader, and the generals and strategists around him were much busier than him.
However, what Shevchenko said made Fei think.
"Yeah, how come I'm becoming more calculative after I came to Azeroth Continent? For some issues, I don't even need to think, and I will have an answer to most of the issues... Could it be that one of the three Miraculous Skills – [Learn] is changing me as a person slowly? Or could it be that I'm just growing faster after I experienced two worlds?"
As the king took a deep breath and wanted to think about these questions, a bunch of noises sounded.
"Fu*k off! Tell your commander to come out and see me!"
"Who am I? You nasty bug! You aren't qualified to know! Tell your idiotic commander to come out and see me if he still wants to live! I have the order from the No.1 commander of Dual-Flags City! If he is late, he will be executed!"
"Hahaha! A bunch of pigs! Tell you the truth, your idiotic commander dared to kill the mayor's messenger, and he has made the mayor mad! He will be killed eventually!"
Fei frowned as he walked to the gate of the camp.
"What is going on?" Fei asked.
There were a few young men in fancy and noble suits who were pointing fingers, and they were guarded by about 30 fully armored guards. In front of them, the soldiers of the herald brigade were angry but didn't dare to speak up. Fei already understood the situation by just looking at it.
"Sir, these people said that they are high-level nobles in the city, and they have the mayor's order and are here to see you..." the soldiers saw Fei and got excited. Although they only spent a little bit of time with this Legion Commander, they knew about his protective personality. They felt safe after seeing his presence, and they told him everything.
Fei nodded.
He knew what was going on, and he was pleased by the fact that his soldiers didn't exaggerate the situation because of their anger.
He took a good look at these young men.
These young men who were dressed nicely were in their 20s, and they were all pale and weak; it was obvious that the comfortable and obscene lifestyles had taken away a lot of their vitality. However, despite their weak appearances, the arrogance and the feeling of superiority could be sensed on them a mile away.