OR1-EP4: Prelude to the Millennium (1)

On May 6, 1998 of the A.T.B. Calendar of the Britannian Empire, a group of magnate nobles led by Grand Duke Louis, the uncle of Emperor Charles III, openly launched a rebellion in the capital city of Pendragon in an attempt to seize the throne, historically known as the Incident of the Bloody Coat of Arms. The rebels quickly attacked the palace after the battle began, with the goal of quickly killing Emperor Charles. However, when Emperor Charles was rescued from the palace, the rebels' plot had been declared completely bankrupt, and their defeat was only a matter of time.

Surrounded by a group of officers, Charles walked slowly towards his commanders who were waiting to be mobilized. Bismarck Waldstein was the first to step forward, placing his right hand flat on his chest in salute, and said in a tone of immense trepidation:

"I am too late to save your ..."

"It is not your responsibility." The real Emperor Charles was not as tough and unsympathetic as the image he presented in his various speeches, and could not be embraced by force and might alone. One by one, he shook hands with the royalist officers who remained loyal to the Emperor, and then asked Bismarck for an update on the war. So far, the rebels and the royalists had invested more than 200,000 troops in Pendragon, and both sides were fighting in all corners of the city, with many dead and wounded, but many nobles who declared their support for the Emperor remained unarmed. This behavior not only made Bismarck feel dissatisfied, but also clearly angered the Emperor.

McNeil and Wang Shuang stood awkwardly behind the Emperor, fidgeting. There was more suspicion on them than the rebels, and it was a known fact that foreign powers were trying to take advantage of the civil unrest in the Britannian Empire to profit from it, and no one would believe that their decision to assist the royalists carried no speculative coloring to their actions. Emperor Charles had not taken the initiative to bring up this matter, however that did not mean that the loyalist nobles would not lift them up as a target - the so-called loyalists stood by and watched while the foreigners became the ones who took credit for it instead, then these nobles would surely choose to ask the two of them and the forces behind them for their crimes, even if it was just to cover up their own incompetence.

"They are even more troubling than those rebels in the rebellion." The Emperor looked at the building that was billowing smoke, "If they blatantly rebelled, we could just count them in the category of enemies; as a result, when they claimed that they would defend the imperial power, we blithely put their forces under our own name and used that as a basis to formulate countermeasures against the traitors... ...This act of neutrality is no different from treachery."

"Do we need to liquidate them now?" Bismarck asked cautiously.

"No need, let them enjoy their victory for now." The Emperor instructed Bismarck on the next course of action before remembering that two other uninvited foreigners were following him.

Emperor Charles was in his mid-forties that year, and his long, curly hair was beginning to gray, and McNeil guessed that in a decade or so the Emperor would be a gray-headed grandfather like Governor-general Herzog. McNeil had seen many great men in high positions, each of them of a different size, and those who were shorter always wished to use a non-existent majesty to reverse the outside world's impression of themselves. The nature of mankind may be to worship the strong, and tall as a basketball player like Emperor Charles naturally have the full strength to say this kind of words. If Emperor Charles was a short man not yet as tall as McNeil, his argument would not even be able to convince himself.

"You are from the EU and Nanting Protectorate respectively ... You may have made a wrong decision." Emperor Charles still maintained his unruffled demeanor, "Your respective homelands will surely wish to capitalize on the civil strife in our Britannia, and there is nothing they would like to see more than a strong man in control of Britannia - a cowardly and incompetent Emperor is more in line with their needs. Then, I want to hear your reasons."

Without waiting for McNeil to speak, Wang Shuang was the first to speak, "Your Imperial Majesty must be joking. The Britannian Empire and our Nanting Protectorate have been allies for a long time."

"Is that so?" The Emperor looked at him with a smirk, "However, you, the Protectorate, and the Chinese Imperial Court are of the same language and race, so perhaps both of you will shake hands and make peace one day."

"Your Imperial Majesty, the Britannian Empire and the EU are also of the same language and race." McNeil corrected from the side, "However, but anyone with a little bit of common sense wouldn't think that Britannia and the EU are friends. The relationship between the Chinese Federation and the Southern Court Protectorate is roughly similar, both sides are nominally suzerain and vassal, but in reality, they are mortal enemies. Besides, countries talk about interests between them, and other factors are ultimately just excuses used to explain to outsiders."

"Oh, then, please let this gentleman from the enemy country to explain your motives."

Seeing that Emperor Charles' attention had been diverted to McNeil, Wang Shuang breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly avoided the tall man in the military coat. He felt an indescribable sense of oppression from Emperor Charles, a man who was born to plunder and rule, and his entire existence was being based on this. The military officer of the South Court of Protectorate somewhat doubted his judgment; perhaps Charles would bring about not the next era of peace with mutual checks and balances, but would drag the world into a new Warring States. However, no one could predict the consequences of every step they took, and neither could Wang Shuang. Right now, at least in terms of the current position of the Nanting Protectorate, he believed that he had made the right decision.

"In my opinion, there are at least three benefits." McNeil was fearless and spoke eloquently, "One, the Britannian Empire occupies an important position in the global market controlled by the EU, the stability of your country is vital to us, and if the Britannian Empire falls into a full-blown civil war or falls apart, the EU's economy will be severely impacted, and the global economic crisis will be unstoppable; two, if the Britannian Empire continues to decline, then the pressure your country exerts on the Chinese Federation in the Pacific direction will be close to zero, and the Chinese will be able to gather millions of troops to threaten our borders in Siberia and Central Asia ..."

The Emperor interrupted his argument with a wave of his hand.

"This is in keeping with your modus operandi: all about maintaining balance. However, have you considered the possibility that in the process the newly rising powers will completely shatter the old order?"

"That's exactly the third benefit I'm talking about." McNeil smiled, "It's been a long time since the EU has been put to a real test, and more than half a century of peace has made the citizens forget what bitter struggles their forefathers went through to achieve the freedom they have today. What happened in South Africa shows that citizens take their freedoms for granted, wasting their energy on meaningless issues and forcing society to deal with insignificant issues as a primary conflict. If pressure from the outside world can prompt them to wake up, it will be worth all the cost."

Charles' eyes widened in surprise; he couldn't believe that McNeil had come up with such a conclusion that was ostensibly only bad for EU. In fact, no matter what kind of ambition Charles himself had, the Britannian Empire alone, with its current strength, was not qualified to challenge either the EU or the Federation.

"Where were you born?"

"England or Scotland, I'm not quite sure." McNeil shrugged, "I'm an orphan."

"So, you're half-British." Charles seemed to think of something interesting, "Would you be interested in serving the Britannian Empire? Don't be too busy to excuse yourself yet, you know very well yourself that Britannians are second-class citizens in the EU."

McNeil scratched his head and smiled:

"Sorry, forgive me for refusing - I, for one, am uneducated and can't stand the red tape of your country."

However, McNeil took the opportunity to make another request to Emperor Charles, which was for the Britannian Empire to stop its infiltration and sabotage activities in South Africa. Emperor Charles replied that the Britannian Empire would need a few years to recuperate after the end of this civil unrest, and that it would not be able to achieve much even if it continued its foreign espionage and counter-insurgency activities. In this way, it looked like the Emperor had agreed to stop all work in South Africa, only that McNeil didn't know if the guys who were actually specifically responsible for carrying out those missions would comply with the order.

McNeil and Wang Shuang left the battlefield under the escort of Britannia's soldiers. Halfway there, they saw a group of citizens rushing into a mansion with guns in their hands and couldn't help but feel curious. The guards standing outside said that they were nobles who had defected to the rebels, and the emperor had ordered that all the family properties of nobles who participated in the rebellion would be confiscated. These citizens probably wanted to grab a little more property before the royalists blockaded the place.

"Come on, let's go take a look."

The two had just walked into the courtyard when they heard gunshots, so it turned out to be someone who had divided the spoils unequally and thus had a gunfight. Citizens who were still checking other properties in the yard didn't expect this kind of accident to happen, dozens of people rushed to the house next to it in a swarm, only to see a young man collapsed in the corridor, the upper half of his clothes completely stained with blood, judging by the condition of the injuries, probably it's hopeless.

McNeil greeted the other citizens to carry out the dead body, while the murderer was controlled at the scene. The murderer tried to escape, and was finally honest after being punched and kicked by Wang Shuang. According to the murderer's confession, he and the deceased had an altercation when they were fighting over a piece of sculpture, and he chose to kill to vent his anger in a fit of rage. The crowd was outraged after hearing the description and said they wanted to execute the guy on the spot. McNeil forcefully decides to wait for the police to arrive to deal with the situation - maybe there won't be any police here at all today, the whole of Pendragon is paralyzed.

"That's the face of these civilians." The soldier who had followed McNeil in moving the bodies said disgruntledly, "They turn into devils as soon as they get a little bit of so-called freedom."

"That was also forced out by you guys." McNeil sneered back, "If you want to say that they don't have manners, who made them disregard them and have to barely make a living all day? The nobles who ride over them, of course. When commoners are liberated from the rule of the nobles, any retaliation is justified because the nobles only treat them as slaves, and also only teach them what slaves should know, and do not teach them how to be a new-age person."

The young soldier was so frightened by McNeil's strange talk that he fled after throwing the body onto the street-perhaps going forward to report to his superiors. McNeil and Wang Shuang stayed where they were and handed the body over to the next batch of soldiers who passed by, towards whom they reported what had happened and asked them to take the murderer away.

The soldiers were confused. Since killing rebellious nobles was exonerated, killing civilians in the process was likewise no crime. After explaining their thoughts to McNeil, they plan to leave the area straight away. The rebels were still resisting, and the fighting in various parts of Pendragon had still not subsided.

"The nature is different." McNeil grabbed the murderer who was tied up by Wang Shuang, "He killed the rebel nobles in self-defense, to prevent others from harming him, and to swear allegiance to His Majesty the Emperor; however, there is no difference between him killing other civilians and robbing and murdering people. If you can't distinguish between these two behaviors, you are just giving others a legitimate excuse to kill."

The soldiers were so annoyed by McNeil's remarks that they finally decided to take the murderer away to await his release. Having solved the case at hand, McNeil intended to return to the embassy district when suddenly several bombers crossed the sky, followed by a deafening explosion in the distance. McNeil guessed that the royalists had retaken the airbase and begun bombing rebel-held areas, and the inevitable civilian casualties were unavoidable. Neither the royalists nor the rebels cared about civilian deaths, and Emperor Charles only used civilians as marginally useful pawns. It would be impossible to get him to put his foot down and treat the civilians as his true compatriots.

Wang Shuang took a few steps forward as he crept along the fence of the enclosure, twisting his head only to realize that McNeil was still standing in the same place.

"What's wrong?"

"I seem to have lost something." McNeil rummaged through all the pockets on his body, "Get out of here, I'll catch up later."

McNeil searched for a few minutes and couldn't think of what he'd lost, when the gunfire around him grew more intense and he had to flee the scene in a lumbering heap. Shortly afterward the rebels launched a counterattack toward the mansion, temporarily occupying the complex and executing all the civilians who had been stranded there. However, only half an hour later, the royalists launched a counter-attack and retook the building. Similar situations occurred throughout the city, with the rebels often massacring civilians and paramilitaries fighting alongside the royalists to deter their opponents, a tactic that often backfired. Emperor Charles was present on the battlefields to call upon the commoners to join in the crusade against the rebels, and those who were successful in the battle to destroy the rebels were rightfully entitled to titles of nobility. The Emperor believed that only the strong could occupy more resources, and nobles who could be killed by civilians had no business being human.

The priest who watched over the refugees in the basement of the EU embassy from afar never lowered the cross in his hand.

"Πάτερ ημών, ο εν τοις ουρανοίς, αγιασθήτω το όνομά σου ..."

TBC

Chapter Notes:

The Imperial Family of Britannia might just amount to the Charles family - he had hundreds of wives and hundreds of children, enough to make other branches of royalty lose the public eye.

Incident of the Bloody Coat of Arms is my translation of「血の紋章事件」. In fact, I need an official translation.