CH 261

Although it was called a peace conference, it was actually a meeting to discuss the division of the Kingdom of Polsky. At those words, the two representatives of the Kingdom of Ploiss looked at each other.

“First of all, I would like you to tell us about the areas currently occupied by the Kingdom of Ploiss. That will be the basis for future negotiations,” Nikolai said.

““…………””

Prime Minister Dietrich and Margrave Carruthers look at each other but do not speak. They can see why. It’s important military information. They probably thought that it wouldn’t be inconvenient for the two involved parties, the Kingdoms of Ploiss and Polsky, to communicate with each other, but it would be a problem for the unrelated Principality of Moscove and Aust to know about such important intel.

“Please be assured,” Nikolai said. “We are fair and impartial in this peace conference. You may think that important military secrets are definitely involved, but it will be an important basis for holding these diplomatic discussions, so please speak honestly.”

At those words, Margrave Carruthers points to the map spread out in the middle of the conference room. Flora would call it a useless map with low accuracy, but in this world, it’s a map as elaborate as a national secret.

“Glaudens, Ostelode, Alrenstein… continue along the road, from Instelburg and Tirsit to just before Rieger and beyond the peninsula,” Albert said.

“””………… Huh?”””

The range shown by Margrave Carruthers was vast, no, it was too vast. Nikolai knew they have somewhat occupied the kingdom through his intelligence network. The Polsky representative Krzesimir and Aust representative Wenzel also understood that the Kingdom of Ploiss was invading through their own means. But the range just shown is too broad.

No one understands. It’s an unbelievable size in the area occupied in less than a month. Although they may exaggerate their military achievements to some extent, they have to say that this is probably too much.

“Hah… haha!” Wenzel laughed. “You certainly tell good jokes, Margrave Carruthers,” he continued mockingly. “It would take years to take down such a major city. So how many years had the Kingdom of Ploiss and the Kingdom of Polsky been fighting??”

No matter how you cut it, it is too vast a number of battle results. Even a child would not believe such nonsense. Even if it was natural for them to lie to their advantage at the peace conference, they intended to warn them that this was too greedy.

“If you think it’s a lie, you should go to the sites themselves now,” Albert replied calmly. “All the towns have the flags of our country flying. Of course, the battle ended when Lord Jakup, the messenger who proposed this peace conference, arrived and we agreed to our current ceasefire. If you don’t believe me even though I’m telling you proper information, there’s no point in the discussion, to begin with. Either go out there yourselves or send a messenger to confirm it in your place.”

“””…………”””

This time, everyone outside the Kingdom of Ploiss looked at each other. Even if he gets some results, even if he says something too ridiculous, it will soon be revealed that it was a lie later. There’s no way a smart prime minister or a hero who was a savior of his country wouldn’t know that. So they can only assume that he is telling the truth.

Besides, they didn’t know that they had invaded the north, but the range of the invasion to the south matches the information that Nikolai and Krzesimir had. Since the northern region is far away, accurate information has not yet reached them, so it is highly probable that the story just now is true.

“I see… we’ll find out in a few days if that claim is true. Then let’s discuss it as if it were true,” Nikolai said, calming down.

Wenzel still looked unconvinced. Certainly, the speed of the invasion was surprising, but there was nothing to worry about. They would even say it’s a good sign. After all, if the Kingdom of Ploiss’s share increases, it’s fine to ride on their gains and increase the share of their country accordingly. There is no loss for the Principality of Moscove.

“First of all… that’s right… what territories occupied by Ploiss during this war will be ceded from Polsky and given to Ploiss?” Nikolai said.

It’s the first proposal to convince Ploiss to play along. Acquiring such a vast territory would be a boon for the Kingdom of Ploiss. But it wasn’t as easy as Nikolai thought.

“Haah… I don’t know what you’re misunderstanding about this, Lord Nikolai…” Prime Minister Dietrich suddenly cut in.

What is this about a misunderstanding?

“What do you mean?” Nikolai said.

On the surface, he’s smiling, but deep down, he doesn’t believe Dietrich has the right to claim Nikolai is misunderstanding anything. However, those who bring their true feelings to the fore at the negotiating table are third-rate or lower. As a successful politician and diplomat, he will never show such an attitude.

“This time, the ‘occupied territories’ of Ploiss were all territory belonging to it from the start,” Dietrich said. “It was only unfairly occupied by the Kingdom of Polsky for many years. They were not ceded. It would be a problem if you said that it was ceded or returned. Such things are not included in war compensation.”

“Kuh…” Krzesimir’s face distorted.

From the point of view of Polsky, there is no room for objection.

“I see… so let’s do this. The Kingdom of Ploiss’s share will be Bromburg and Tolun. What do you think?” Nikolai offers.

The towns of Bromburg and Tolun are both on the Wakesell River. If you go south from Glaudens by land, you will find Tolun, but the Wakesell River swells greatly to the west on the way and does not go straight south. The city of Bromburg lies on the swollen west side.

Both are important cities in the Wakesell River Basin and it is very meaningful to offer them here. Above all, the Wakesell River continues southeast of Tolun, and Waalzaw, the royal capital of the Kingdom of Polsky, exists along the river.

Controlling the Wakesel River is equivalent to controlling the water transportation of the Kingdom of Polsky, and it will be possible to invade the royal capital Waalzaw by waterway. This was to threaten Polsky with destruction moving forward.

“Fuh~… you don’t seem to understand that, either, do you…?” Dietrich said. “Tolun was originally a city pioneered by the Kingdom of Ploiss, wasn’t it? It’s only natural to return what was stolen. In the first place, even if you don’t intervene for something like that, we’ll take back all the stolen territory with our hands in the not-too-distant future.”

“””…………”””

Even Nikolai was silent at that. They are only taking back the territory that was originally stolen from them, so even if you say the thieves will return it, there will not be any compensation for their losing control. That’s just right. And the Kingdom of Ploiss has no need to hold back when it comes to negotiating the extent to which it will be returned.

As Dietrich said, the Kingdom of Ploiss probably intends to regain all of its former territories. And they’ve already shown that they can actually do it. Even if Nikolai wasn’t patronizing them and asked him to mediate negotiations in a place like this, they can just march on and take it back on their own.

Considering that if it was a normal war, they would have to fight for many more years after this, it would be understandable if they negotiated here and returned it with reparations. But that doesn’t work in the current Kingdom of Ploiss. This Ploiss had invaded and recaptured such a large swathe of territory in less than a month, everyone seemed to think without a diplomatic end to the war, Polsky would eventually be destroyed.

And above all, the problem is that the Kingdom of Ploiss will restore all its former territories. The port city of Rebal on the opposite side of the peninsula beyond Windou has now been taken over by Moscove from Polsky, but originally Rebal was also an eastern colony developed by Ploiss.

Furthermore, Moscove was also aiming for Rieger Bay, but even now, Ploiss is already close to Rieger. If they were thinking of getting Rieger in this partitioning negotiation, perhaps Ploiss will demand Moscove return Rieger in turn.

“Ah~… then that’s fine. The Kingdom of Ploiss should be able to obtain this much,” Wenzel said.

While Nikolai was wondering what was going on, Wenzel roughly indicated the range of the map. The indicated range is considerable. However, he did not extend the area closer to the Principality of Moscove in the north. He offered a compromise that would allow the north to be content with the current ceasefire scope in exchange for concessions on the south side.

“And instead, I’ll start from here… this is all… how about this?”

And Wenzel arbitrarily claims the share of the Principality of Aust. He pointed out the southern part bordering the Kingdom of Polsky.

“So… the Principality of Moscove is roughly like this. Is this okay?” Wenzel said.

Finally, the eastern border will be a large share of Moscove. Wenzel’s plan was to divide the territory from the northern coastline to a considerable part of the interior by the Kingdom of Ploiss, to the south by the Principality of Aust, and to the east by the Principality of Moskov. If the plan goes according to their goals, the Kingdom of Polsky will lose more than one-third of the land at once.

“Ah, umm…, this is just as expected…” said Krzesimir, the representative of the Kingdom of Polsky.

He glanced at Nikolai wordlessly and asked him to do something about it, but Nikolai put his hand on his chin for a moment and nodded, “Hmm…”.

“I understand. Let’s settle things,” Nikolai said. “So, the Kingdom of Polsky will hand over customs right from the Hulk Sea to Ploiss in exchange for reparations. What do you think? Wouldn’t Ploiss be satisfied with this?”

“WHA-?!” Krzesimir gasped, looking at Nikolai with surprise.

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But Nikolai doesn’t seem to care at all.

Nikolai’s words mean he’s not trying to be greedy anymore. It’s true that Ploiss is the victorious nation, but this peace conference has Moscove and Aust in it, too. In addition to the occupied territories, they will additionally have to return the inland territories they robbed from Ploiss before.

Then there are tariff rights instead of cash compensation. The Kingdom of Ploiss gains the right to decide and collect tariffs against the Kingdom of Polsky, which loses most of the coastal area of the Hulk Sea. The money won’t be paid immediately, but it will come in as tax revenue in the future, and it will be enough to freely impose customs duties on the Kingdom of Polsky’s Hulk Sea trade.

It also included a threat that if Ploiss wanted to be more greedy, Ploiss would go to war with Moscove, Aust, and Polsky at the same time.

“Hmm… well, this is fine,” Dietrich said. “I don’t particularly care about the people that are free-riding,” he said, smiling at Nikolai.

It was a smile that mocked those who, in the confusion of the Kingdom of Ploiss defeating the Kingdom of Polsky, intervened while claiming to be an intermediary and then proceeded to become hyenas ripping pieces out of it while it was beaten.

“I am grateful to Prime Minister Dietrich for his wise decision,” Nikolai said. “Now, for the signing and ratification…”

In this way, the Kingdom of Ploiss obtained the fewest territories but the most important points on the coast, the Principality of Aust with the most population, and the Principality of Moscove with the vastest territories from Polsky.

When the four nations ratified the Treaty on the Partition of Polsky, some nobles in the Polsky Parliament strongly opposed it, but the parliament that should have been based on unanimity approved the ratification on the spot with a majority vote, instead.

Also, the Polsky nobles who opposed the ratification of the treaty were never seen again in the Kingdom of Polsky after that. However, there are believable rumors that a large number of prisoners dressed in the national costume of the Kingdom of Polsky have been sent to the penal colony of Sybirua, a frigid land of ice at the eastern end of Moscove.

“Ha~… I’m so exhausted…” Diterich said, his expression blank and his posture slack.

Albert, sitting across from him as they travel back from Waalzaw, speaks without breaking his expression. “I can’t understand why the methods of Moscove and Aust were recognized, but…”

The Principality of Moscove and the Principality of Aust intervened in the war between the Kingdom of Ploiss and the Kingdom of Polsky under the guise of intermediaries, and even though they were not even fighting, they grabbed the territory from under their noses. They are cowardly people who have seized territory by deceptive means. Albert, a warrior, could not forgive that.

“Indeed, but… then Kingdom of Polsky, the Principality of Moscove, and the Principality of Aust, are you going to deal with all three countries at the same time?”

“If we did that, the Kingdom of Ploiss will perish.”

“That’s right. The answer was decided when they came out to mediate,” Dietrich said.

It will be difficult just to continue the war with the Kingdom of Polsky. The currently occupied territory is the limit of the invasion, and at least with the current force, it is impossible to advance any further. Even so, it would be a suicidal act to deal with both the Moscove and Aust Principalities at the same time.

And if such a big war were to unfold in the east, the Kingdom of Frasia in the west would definitely jump into the fray. At this moment, war will be declared and the western border will be invaded. The Kingdom of Ploiss will be attacked from all directions at the same time and disappear from the map. You just have to avoid it.

“Well, we got what we could get, so you want to take it easy here, don’t you?” Dietrich said.

“I agree……” Albert said.

He will probably be busy from now on. He won’t be able to return to his territory either. It was Dietrich who said it was time to take it slow and easy, but Albert could never do it slowly. However, without saying that, the two of them were riding the carriage in silence.