flstandardbreds Chapter 687 Not a good chess player, nor a good chess piece
Chapter 687 Not a good chess player, nor a good chess piece
"Good heavens, my old man actually does this kind of thing."
John, far away in Helmingen, held a letter in his hand. The letter was sent from his own father in Wyndam. John sat on a hard wooden chair in his study, his elbows resting on the desk piled with documents, his eyes scanning each line of the letter.
The contents of the letter were not complicated, but every word revealed his father's scheming.
My father made it very clear in his letter that he had dealt with Griffith, who had recently gained fame in the Kingdom of Midland.
According to him, Griffith maintained just the right amount of humility throughout, but having seen through the pretenses of all sorts of ambitious people, he could not hide the burning passion deep in Griffith's eyes.
It was an extreme thirst for power, an ambition that even the throne could not satisfy, like a spark in the dark night that could easily ignite a wildfire.
So in his letter, his father wrote that he intended to give Griffith some support.
Griffith is ambitious and capable, and his Band of the Hawk is a formidable force. If such a person were to join Wyndam, he would inevitably be drawn into the complex factional struggles within the court.
The old king of Midland's health was deteriorating day by day, and the court and the people had long been divided into several factions. Griffiths' entry with the Band of the Hawk was like pouring a ladle of water into a boiling pot of oil, which would only make the situation more chaotic.
Father's plan was simple: Griffiths would first establish himself in the court, and then, when the old king breathed his last, this ambitious young man would surely eliminate his political enemies, plunging the central government of Windam into unprecedented chaos.
Chaos was exactly what Count Hohenzollern wanted.
The next step in the letter was for John to take advantage of the chaos in Wyndam and order the Blackwatch mercenaries stationed inside and outside the city to openly maintain order throughout the city under the guise of the previously signed defense contract.
Once Blackwatch has taken control of the streets and alleys of Wyndam, Old Man will unite with the neutral centrist ministers and declare that Griffith has launched a rebellion with the intention of usurping the throne.
Then, the Blackwatch mercenaries can rightfully take action and uproot Griffith and his Band of the Hawk forces, eliminating them completely.
Getting rid of Griffith, the troublemaker, wasn't enough. The old man also wanted to unite with his ministers to enthrone the old king's long-neglected daughter as the new queen after the chaos subsided.
The queen was young, had no power base, and no strong maternal relatives to support her. Putting her on the throne would be tantamount to putting the government of Midland firmly in the hands of the Hohenzollern family.
This was only half of the plan. The old man also instructed John to send troops across the border into the Kingdom of Midland under the pretext of protecting Heldran’s expatriates in Midland while Wyndam was in chaos.
This army doesn't need to be large, but it must be elite. With the cooperation of the local Blackwatch mercenaries, it must quickly seize strategic locations and transportation hubs, and open up a road from Helmingen to Windam.
Once this road is opened, it will be like planting a sharp knife in the heart of Midland, allowing for both offensive and defensive maneuvers.
At this point, coupled with the Southwest Governor-General position that John already controlled, he essentially held both the northern and southern territories of Midland in his hands.
These two territories are fertile and densely populated, and are the lifeblood of the Kingdom of Midland.
As long as the interests of the local nobles are protected and they are given some benefits, such as tax reductions or granting them official positions in the court, those nobles who seek profit and avoid harm will naturally not voice any opposition.
In this way, controlling the entire Kingdom of Midland is simply a matter of course.
At the end of the letter, the old man mentioned an even grander idea: if Karl could successfully marry the princess of the Yoda royal family and inherit the throne of the Yoda emperor in the future, then John would essentially unite the three kingdoms of Heldran, Midland, and Yoda.
By then, he will become the most powerful monarch on this continent, with a vast territory under his command, and no one can stop his military might.
John couldn't help but chuckle softly when he saw this. He closed the letter and placed it on the table, his mind racing with calculations.
If he hadn't carried the memories of his past life and didn't understand the truth behind Griffith's so-called "ambition," he probably would have been truly moved by his father's grand plan and might even have followed the instructions in the letter without hesitation.
After all, such an opportunity is rare, and no ambitious person would easily let it slip by.
But John knew Griffith too well.
This man was indeed a master of warfare, and his Eagle Legion was a formidable force, invincible on the battlefield and making outstanding contributions to the Kingdom of Midland.
When it comes to political struggles, Griffiths was a complete novice and a total loser.
John leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and his mind drifted to Griffith's various actions in Wyndam from the original story.
Griffith's methods of dealing with political enemies were so simple and brutal that they were laughable.
Count Yuris opposed him. He didn't know how to use strategy to divide and win over others, nor did he know how to use the law to suppress and punish them. Instead, he sent Gus, who was 1.8 meters tall and wielded a two-handed sword that was far heavier than a normal person, to sneak into the other party's mansion in the middle of the night and kill him in the most direct way.
The Queen and Earl of Horth, along with some ministers, poisoned him. When Griffith found out, he simply set a huge fire, burning all of them to death.
Such methods are blatant and outrageous; anyone can see who's behind it.
Griffiths thought this would intimidate all his opponents, but he didn't realize that his actions would only make him a target of public criticism and make the old king even more wary of him.
John knew all too well that the reason King Midland delayed rewarding the Band of the Hawk after the Queen's funeral in the original story was because he understood that the Band of the Hawk was no longer of any use.
He initially valued Griffith's leadership in order to win the war against Yoda. Now that the war is over, the Band of the Hawk, a powerful armed force beyond his control, has become a sword hanging over the king's head.
Moreover, Griffith is so disobedient and acts so arrogantly. Keeping such a person around is a disaster. There is no choice but to get rid of him.
Thinking of this, John opened his eyes. His father's plan seemed perfect, but he had chosen the wrong piece.
Griffith was not a qualified strategist at all. His ambition was too blatant and his methods too clumsy. He could not possibly gain a foothold in the vortex of the court, let alone launch a coup and stir up trouble in Wyndam.
Using Griffith as a pawn is tantamount to playing with fire and getting burned; a slight misstep could lead to disaster.
John stood up, walked to his desk, picked up a pen and paper, and began to write back to his father. He told his father not to have any more contact with Griffiths, and not to think about supporting him.
This man has a terribly poor political sense, and his methods are even more childish and laughable; he is utterly incapable of achieving anything.
Supporting him would not only fail to disrupt Wyndam, but would also make the Hohenzollern family a target of public criticism, resulting in more harm than good.
After writing the letter, John carefully checked it to make sure he hadn't missed any important points before picking up the sealing wax and carefully sealing the envelope.
He raised his hand and pressed the bell on the table. Soon after, a messenger pushed open the door and walked in, kneeling on one knee and respectfully awaiting his instructions.
“Deliver this letter to Wyndam and hand it to my father, Count Hohenzollern, in person.”
John handed the letter to the messenger in a flat tone.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The messenger took the letter, got up, and quickly walked out, his footsteps soon disappearing at the end of the corridor.
John watched the direction the messenger had left and breathed a sigh of relief.
He turned around and walked back to his desk. With a slight buzzing sound, a pale blue screen suddenly appeared in front of him, displaying a detailed map that marked the territories of Helmingen and several surrounding kingdoms.
Checking the system map every day has become a habit for John.
He needs to keep abreast of developments at the border and be aware of any threats lurking in the shadows.
John's gaze moved slowly across the map, from the central province of Helmingen, across the southwestern governorate, and down to the border line bordering the Kingdom of Midland. Everything seemed calm; there were no large-scale troop movements.
Just as John was about to close the map, his gaze suddenly stopped.
In a remote area on the edge of Helmingen’s border, a group of small mannequins are moving rapidly from south to north toward the central province.
This discovery caused John to frown slightly. This area was a dense forest, and few people usually traveled this path, let alone a group of people in such a hurry.
John tapped the screen lightly with his finger, zooming in on the map.
As the map was zoomed in, the outlines of the group of character models became clearer and clearer.
They were a group of people wearing black cloaks, the hems of which covered their feet, making it appear as if they were gliding across the ground.
They moved at an extremely fast pace, their movements were perfectly synchronized, clearly indicating that they had undergone professional training.
But that wasn't what John was most concerned about.
What truly made his pupils shrink was that these people were all surrounded by a faint, slightly transparent white gas.
With the addition of the Warhammer mod, John's system map gained a special function: any item or creature related to the Netherworld would display fluctuations of Netherworld energy on the map, and would exude this gas.
In other words, these people wearing black cloaks are not ordinary people at all, and are very likely apostles.