Black Iron’s Glory

Claude was quite curious what kind of plan Mayor Robert came up with to enrage all who were summoned, especially Welikro’s father, Kubrik, to the point of lashing out on the spot and threatening to make a report. What kind of hatred could spur such an action?

The people called to join the meeting to form the garrison were mostly returned veterans. Even though Whitestag was small, there were around 50 of them and they would definitely be involved with forming the garrison. Mayor Robert’s plan required at least an agreement from two-thirds of the group to be passed as per the kingdom’s laws.

Stellin IX had traveled the continent before his ascension to the throne and when he returned, he was made ombudsman by his father, Stellin VIII, and put in charge of reorganizing the kingdom’s garrison forces. During that assignment, he realized that many garrison forces were manned by those from the villainy who didn’t have the slightest ability to fight and often threatened the local folk and merchants. Most of the garrison forces were actually extensions of the nobles’ and officials’ greedy claws. Though they were officially considered part of the kingdom’s military, they were no different from being the nobles’ private armies.

Stellin IX had no choice but to start his journey on a bloody path to reorganize those garrison forces. He tried the villains on grounds of their crimes and won great repute among the people while gathering the shared hate of countless nobles and local officials. That was one of the reasons almost all the nobles and officials opposed him during the kingdom’s civil war.

However, Stellin IX managed to obtain victory despite all the odds. When he ascended to the throne, he set up really detailed laws concerning local garrison forces to make sure that there was no way they could be exploited by the local officials. At least, they would be capable enough to fight and stop local unrest instead of being its source.

The kingdom’s military was divided into three parts. First, there was the field force, which were stationed at the strategic locations across the kingdom. This branch of the military was the most wide-reaching and even accepted villains among their ranks. They would even forcefully conscript peasants without permanent work locally and people who lazed around into their ranks. If villains wanted to join, they wouldn’t be refused entry. Instead, there were strict rules of discipline that bound them. Only after a short training period could they be used as passable cannon fodder.

The second branch was the keepers. Usually, each prefecture had a keeper tribe that numbered around 800 to 900 men, which was subdivided into four companies of roughly 200 men. Most of the members of the keepers were ex-field force members and retired veterans.

Usually, a soldier had to serve in the military for 15 years to gain dignitarian status. Most people usually served in the field force for up to eight years before being transferred to the local constabularies to serve out the rest of their term before gaining enough dignity. The keepers were the second line of defense for the kingdom and they were in charge of all local policing work as well as served as reserve forces for the frontlines in times of need.

The third branch of the military were the garrison forces. They weren’t that prevalent across the kingdom and the largest of them was only as big as a clan. They were stationed at the strategic choke points of the kingdom and given charge of maintaining security during wartime, ensuring the safety of transport routes and guarding supplies that were being transported. From time to time, they would be moved to the frontlines to take care of prisoners of war.

Given that the local garrison forces weren’t formed and sustained with the kingdom’s funding and relied instead on the local administration, the kingdom set strict regulations on them to prevent the garrison forces from being used as a private force by those in power. One of the many regulations was that the force could only include retired veterans and peasants with a clean record. All villains were forbidden from joining, and sometimes, the family members of someone with a criminal record couldn’t join either.

Welikro’s father finished cursing Mayor Robert and drank a large bowl of blackwheat ale before he revealed the plans the baron had.

The prefectural capital had ordered Whitestag to form a clan of garrison soldiers with 224 men. The kingdom used a four-four system for their military hierarchy, that is, four garrison tents would form a band, and four bands made up a clan. The prefectural capital would send them some military supplies, but most of the funding had to be gathered by the town itself.

As forming the garrison force required the town hall to evaluate the members that would join it, the prefectural capital would transfer more than ten military officers from the keeperage to join the garrison clan as training instructors and commanding officers. That still left the middle of the hierarchy to be filled by the retired veterans of the town.

Baron Robert summoned the retired veterans in town to a meeting on his authority as mayor. He straightforwardly said that given the tight financial situation the town hall was facing, there was no way they would be able to fulfill those orders, meaning they only had two solutions. The first was expropriation, where they would collect a set amount of money from each household or each townsfolk to fund the garrison clan. The second option was to fund the garrison clan through donations by the rich and willing in town to complete the assignment.

Given that all the retired veterans were dignitarians, they were considered to be among the rich. They weren’t opposed to the baron’s suggestion for a donation drive. Apart from some elderly and disabled, at least half among them could serve as a commanding officer in the unit and that would help their status rise quite a bit. Even though the monthly allowance for joining the garrison was meager at best, they were more than willing to be a part of it.

However, they were all flabbergasted when Baron Robert revealed the amount of money they required. It was far too large. That amount of money could be used to build a whole garrison tribe, let alone a clan. The mayor even said that the money was only to be used for its formation and they still required more to sustain the clan, so it was best for them to use expropriation instead. They would collect funds from the townsfolk twice a year to sustain the unit’s operation.

That was why the mayor made the decision to hand the expropriation work to the rest to finish. He would sign his name on the plan and hand it to the Council of Dignitaries. When it was passed, then they could go on with the plan.

However, none of them were idiots. Some veterans with better arithmetic ability instantly pointed out how ridiculous the amount demanded by the mayor was and believed that the mayor had pushed all responsibility of forming the garrison force to the retirees while he enjoyed its benefits. Given that there would be no oversight over the expropriated money, there was also no saying whether it would really be used on the force itself.

The mayor argued that it wasn’t his fault, since the treasurer of the town hall had also been arrested on grounds of threatening national security that morning. Given that the accounts were not properly managed, it was all chaos, so he could only estimate an amount of money he needed. Having more was better than not having enough after all.

After the chief secretary, treasurer, and constable were arrested, the Baron Robert alone called the shots. However, the retired veterans didn’t give him any face and refused to agree to the proposals no matter what. They had seen through the baron’s intent to earn a killing using the formation of the garrison clan as an excuse.

Given the unanimous objection, Baron Robert no longer insisted on his donation and expropriation proposals. He angrily said that even if they weren’t willing to help out with the garrison clan, someone else would. He then brought out another proposal.

The mayor said that the owner of the fish processing plant, Bidlir Blanche, was willing to donate to the cause and promised that he would take care of the unit’s sustenance on the condition that he be named one of the bandsmen of the unit and be given autonomy on the choice of members for his band.

If the proposal Baron Robert brought out before was a tidal wave, then this one was a complete tsunami. The veterans all expressed their anger and questioned what Baron Robert was planning. Kubrik even threatened to report the mayor for scheming during the meeting.

“Is he crazy? How would he dare to propose such a plan? He’s placing his life in the hands of Bidlir Blanche! If something happens, there’s no escape for him!” Kubrik really wondered whether the mayor had suffered a kick to the head by an arse to come up with such a plan.

Every person in Whitestag knew what kind of person Bidlir Blanche was. Publicly, he was the owner of a fish-processing plant and had more than 200 employees. But in fact, he was the boss of Blacksnake, the one in charge in the old street. All crimes in the slums had something to do with him. His nickname, Butcher Bill, didn’t come out of thin air. There were rumors that the number of innocents that died by his hand exceeded two digits at least.

Yet, nobody in Whitestag, no matter their social status, dared to mess with Bidlir Blanche, the self-proclaimed ruler of the slums. His reputation was simply too horrid. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with him. Only after Baron Robert became the mayor did Bidlir have a chance to attend the parties the mayor hosted.

Though Bidlir Blanche had always called himself a lawful citizen that paid his taxes and donated to charities, most people knew better than to associate with him. During the parties hosted by the baron, everyone would politely regard Bidlir before making an excuse to leave, inadvertently ostracizing him.

Only Baron Robert didn’t fear associating with that man. He wanted to bring him in the cahoots to give him power behind the scenes, but the mayor’s plan had to be delayed because of the suppression from the other three top dogs of the town.

Now that those three that opposed the mayor were arrested, Baron Robert believed that he could reign freely in town and wanted to rope in Bidlir with his garrison clan plan. Everyone knew that becoming a bandsman in the garrison would make Bidlir quite powerful in town.

Not a single veteran in the meeting was unaware of Bidlir’s background, and it was reasonable for Kubrik to suggest that Baron Robert was plotting treason. Firstly, Bidlir was merely a peasant and not a dignitarian, so he didn’t have any business being a bandsman.

Secondly, Bidlir also requested to be allowed to make his own picks for his band, so it was obvious that he was trying to recruit members of Blacksnake into it. That was in gross violation to the kingdom’s regulations. The villains in the slums would only obey Bidlir’s orders and that would allow the man to further consolidate his position.

Thirdly, Bidlir Blanche said that he would be in charge of sponsoring the garrison clan. It was common knowledge that apart from control over personnel, finance was the most important to the unit. Wouldn’t the whole clan be Bidlir’s private army in practice?

The meeting was called off on bad terms and no agreement was made. It was believed that Baron Robert’s mind would clear up after his catastrophic failure. There was no going around the retired veterans when it came to the garrison clan’s formation and if the mayor really dared to leave them out of it, then he was seeking his own death, especially during a time of martial law.