Blood Holy Scripture: True Ancestor Charlotte de Castel
Chapter 377: -130- The army sets out

Chapter 377: -130- The army sets out

Holy Calendar 1446, January 1st, Divine Birth Festival.

The ancient and prosperous Mireya Continent welcomed another New Year.

Under the illumination of the Holy Light, people of different nations and races gathered to celebrate the beginning of the New Year and the birth of the Divine Lord Haral.

However, for the residents of the Northern Land, this year’s Divine Birth Festival was destined to be anything but peaceful.

At the start of the New Year, while the majority of the continent’s regions were celebrating the festival, Charlotte de Castel, the Countess of Castel and Master of the Northern Land, personally led an army of twenty-five thousand northward, issuing a final ultimatum to the rebellious Legris Family.

Such a force of over twenty thousand was no small number in any duchy within the New Moon Kingdom.

Though the Castel Domain was technically a Count Territory, many nobles saw it as already surpassing the lowest standard for a duchy in terms of wealth and prosperity.

In the Yonette Empire, which was filled with many feudal states, such a mobilization of land would have surpassed that of many small duchies, and it was only in the powerfully dominated duchies of the New Moon Kingdom that it seemed less conspicuous.

But even so, as a major force second only to the twelve duchies of the New Moon Kingdom, every move of Castel attracted the attention of various powers and became a topic of conversation in the salons and banquets of the nobility.

Especially the leading character of this rebellion, Countess Charlotte, who had been in office for less than a year.

"The youngest Countess," "the jewel of Bold," "wealthy Charlotte," "the Saintess walking on earth"...

All kinds of titles and appellations made her the focus of the nobility’s attention and discussion.

Whether as the last descendant of the Castel family or because of the promise Charlotte made at a banquet in Bold to the Holy Royal Court, any one of these things made her a subject of conversation at the nobles’ banquets.

For a time, the gaze of every Lord in the New Moon Kingdom almost exclusively turned towards Castel, eager to see how this young and beautiful Countess would quell the rebellion within her domain.

In the eyes of many nobles, although an army of twenty thousand was powerful, the rebellion in Castel was also not simple...

Especially when combined with some unfavorable rumors about the Third Prince Philip from the Royal Capital not long ago, as well as the conveniently timed military edicts issued by His Majesty the King, some conspiracy theorists even believed that the Countess, whose stance tended to favor the Church, might have already been blacklisted by the New Moon Royal Family.

Of course, conspiracy theories are just that, and the Royal Family of New Moon had no reaction.

King Louis V of New Moon continued, as in previous years, to hold grand banquets in the royal court, inviting his vassals to join and celebrate the festival together.

However, the Third Prince Philip and his wife, Duchess Eleanor of Bold, who should have come from their domain to pay their respects to the King and attend the court banquet, were absent.

And also missing was the current Duke of Violet, Hubert de Buwat Linte.

While it’s true that each year, a few of the great nobles of the New Moon Kingdom would be absent from the court’s New Year banquet for various reasons, the absence of both Bold and Violet still led some Kingdom Nobles to speculate.

After all, one was the Lord of Count Castel’s territory and the other was Castel’s neighbor, with the Third Prince also being the Duke of Violet’s nephew.

Combining the rampant rebellion in Castel and the New Moon Royal Family’s ambiguous attitude, it was hard for some astute individuals not to speculate further.

But all of this had nothing to do with Charlotte anymore.

Such high-level banquets and intelligence were only within the grasp of the true elite of the Kingdom, and as long as Castel Domain remained a vassal of Bold, it could not enter the Kingdom’s true high society.

And naturally, such intelligence was beyond Castel’s reach.

Of course, Charlotte, who had already learned of the Third Prince’s conspiracies through other channels, didn’t need it.

During the feast where Louis V entertained his vassals, Charlotte had already led her troops through Tulip Count Domain, approaching the heart of the Legris Family’s rebel forces.

With the support of Count Gaston, the Castel Alliance Army traversing through Tulip Count Domain did not need to cross the Don River at all; the army could simply detour from the west and launch a direct attack on the rebels from that side.

The nobles accompanying her were astonished by the support of the Tulip stationed troops, after all... allowing twenty-five thousand soldiers to enter Tulip Count Domain was bound to involve considerable risk and pressure.

It was at this time that those nobles with doubts finally believed that Count Gaston, the commander-in-chief on the Tulip side, was truly intent on assisting Castel in quelling the rebellion.

And when Count Gaston led the main force of the stationed troops out of the fortress and joined the ranks of the allied forces, the confidence of the Castel nobles soared even more.

Unlike the Castel Alliance Army, which was mainly composed of nobility’s conscripted soldiers, many of whom lacked even armor and could at best be considered peasant soldiers, the Tulip Count Domain’s stationed troops were uniformly armored, and many were comparable to the Kingdom’s Regular Army in lamellar and plate mail.

Though they were few in number, totaling at most three thousand men, over half of the soldiers’ armors were engraved with intricate patterns.

Those were Enchanted Armors.

At least a thousand and five hundred of the Tulip stationed troops were Extraordinary Soldiers equipped with Enchanted Armor, sufficient to form a minimal Magic Energy Formation on the battlefield.

In other words, these one thousand five hundred men could be considered as fifteen thousand on the battlefield.

As for the remaining half of the soldiers, although they did not wear Enchanted Armor, they were also uniformly clad in lamellar armor, and... almost all were cavalry.

Elites—these were Bold’s elites!

Any Castel noble who had seen the Tulip stationed troops would have this thought. In comparison, the Castel Alliance Army seemed rather modest.

Only the private soldiers of the nobility and the one thousand five hundred standing troops directly under Castel control were presentable, with somewhat better equipment. Although there was not enough Enchanted Armor to form a formation, at least... their total number was greater than that of the troops from Tulip Count Domain.

However, there were far fewer cavalry.

Although the New Moon Kingdom was known for its Heavy Cavalry in Mireya, and the New Moon Royal Family even maintained an Elite Enchanted Heavy Cavalry Legion numbering over thirty thousand, the horse farms in the coastal Count Castel Domain were few and mostly located in the north.

Including the Noble Knights and cavalry of the directly administered domain, Charlotte’s own cavalry troops did not exceed three thousand, and the vast majority of the twenty-five thousand strong army were infantry.

But for just quelling a rebellion, this was more than sufficient.

It was a war at the Count Territory level, at most appearing like a minor duchy’s civil war due to Castel’s scale.

But a Count Territory is, after all, a Count Territory; control over Transcendent resources was limited. Perhaps there was great potential for future wars, but Castel, which had always prioritized its economy, had not really developed its military strength at this stage. Most of the Enchanted Armor in the territory were even spoils Charlotte had seized from the Castel mines, and in the eyes of higher-ranking lords, no matter how numerous, were merely chickens pecking at each other.

And after a week of marching, Charlotte finally saw the rebels stationed on the banks of the Don River.

"Count, our Scouts have engaged the rebel Rangers, but it seems the rebels have no intention of moving just yet. Shall we send out an envoy to issue a call for their surrender?" asked a noble who was accompanying her respectfully.

Charlotte pondered for a moment and nodded her head,

"Proceed."

Although she did not have much hope, it seemed that calling for surrender before engaging was also a tradition among the Mireya nobility.

Upon receiving the command, the nobles quickly arranged for an envoy, but it wasn’t long before the rebels sent the envoy back.

Or more accurately, they sent back the envoy’s severed head.