Chapter 877 [0874] Darius's Advantage
In the eyes of many people, the current Noxian Grand Commander Darius can be regarded as the "spiritual successor" of the former Grand Commander Swain.
The two seem to be half-brothers, holding many similar political ideas. In a sense, they are simply cut from the same mold.
There is no big problem with this statement, because Darius and Swain are both adherents of the Noxian spirit. They both believe that the greatness of Noxus lies in the fact that this country never divides people by natural origin, and they both believe that "secular power makes people kneel, but Noxus will make people stand up."
It is precisely because of this cognition that in order to maintain this spirit, they are willing to do anything even if it means starting a war. In the eyes of many people, they belong to the ranks of "warmongers".
But in the face of the issue of war itself, Swain and Darius are actually quite different.
Swain is closer to the thinking of a politician. For him, war is a means and tool to solve problems. The victory or failure of the war itself does not completely mean whether the goal is achieved or not. War is an extension of politics.
As for Darius, who was born in a military background, although he also worked hard to improve his political level after becoming the commander-in-chief, once the matter came down to the war itself, he would still instinctively regard winning the war as his first goal.
Just like this cooperation with the Freljord people.
If it was Swain, excluding the possibility that he might have thought of a more brilliant plan, just saying that if he chose the same plan as Darius and was willing to cooperate with the Freljord people to a limited extent, his choice would be different from Darius.
Even if he sent troops to the Rakstak Plain, he would first calculate the cost of his action.
He would carefully put the lives of 100,000 miners on the scale of his heart, weigh them carefully, and then use this weighing result as a parameter to carefully arrange the next action.
In contrast, Darius's military style made him put victory first after he made up his mind to join the war.
This is the biggest difference brought about by the different backgrounds of the two.
Although Swain's choices are often more rational overall, it is undeniable that if we focus on the war itself, Darius's choice will undoubtedly bring Noxus a victory.
Just like now.
Although Noxus, which has not yet completely recovered its territory, is in a horrifying financial crisis at this time, with a deficit in the country, he still provides the best military supplies and cold-proof equipment to the war group heading north to Freljord.
This level of armaments would be a desperate move in Swain's time, but for Darius it can only be regarded as "a serious expedition".
Such a large-scale armament is definitely an extremely heavy burden for Noxus's already not very affluent economy, but Darius does not take it seriously.
In fact, he is actually thinking of "more debts, no worries". Darius, who thinks of a soldier, is much more direct and sharp in his methods than Swain.
Interestingly, Swain acted moderately in the past, largely because of the constraints of the old nobles and the Black Rose. However, after the Battle of Tobysia and the actual treason of the Black Rose, the first thing that Darius led to the New Noxus was to conduct internal liquidation, even if it meant that the Noxus Empire would be torn apart.
Without the internal constraints of the Black Rose, Noxus really completed a certain degree of internal cleansing. Although the soldiers who followed Darius's actions seemed to have some trends of new military nobles, it is undeniable that at least they were very good at fighting.
Therefore, under this situation, Darius's simplicity and brutality became the best solution.
The Black Rose was finished, and those organizations and individuals who had not dealt with the Black Rose in the past had a much better impression of the New Noxus. Taking this as an opportunity, Darius recruited a lot of mages and formed a brand new mage corps.
Although this mage corps looks like a group of noisy wild mages who are not proficient in war magic and joint spellcasting, when Darius dispersed them and assigned them to various warbands and combat units at all levels, they miraculously showed abilities and levels that were completely different from those of the mages in the past.
They are no longer glass cannons gathered together, but auxiliary and output in small battlefields.
This change has led to the military reform of Noxus. While rebuilding the relationship between the mage corps and the warband, this military reform has also done something that Swain has always hoped for but never achieved in the past.
Unify the promotion paths for warriors and mages.
In the current Noxian warband, mages are also members of the warband. Their promotion does not take a separate channel, but like ordinary soldiers, they will not be listed separately, but will be promoted together with the soldiers according to their merits.
Although the work efficiency of mages is far better than that of soldiers and their promotion speed is often as fast as a rocket, this system still brings together mages and warriors, making the Noxian people more united and making the overall system seem fairer.
If Karya were here, he might say "absolute fairness is unfair", but at least now, when the Noxus Empire has just collapsed and the Noxians are confused, these measures have given the Noxians a clear direction and a motivation to work hard.
Noxus now does not have as many vampires as it once did (this is a metaphor, but also in the literal sense). Under this open and absolute fairness, the people who had gradually lost trust in Noxus were finally encouraged to unite again and began to act according to the will of the commander-in-chief.
This war machine that was almost falling apart, like an old car, finally roared again after a lot of knocking and beating.
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Due to the defection of Black Rose, the intelligence department of New Noxus is now completely newly built. Although they have worked very hard, the news of Noxus's large-scale armaments has not been completely blocked and quickly spread.
For a while, many areas were in panic.
After the Black Forest Federation returned to the embrace of Noxus and the Ironthorn Kingdom played itself to death, the three regions separated from the Noxus Empire, the Second Silver Republic, the Kingdom of Rocklund and the Overwatch Alliance, quickly raised their vigilance.
Although due to the unreliability of the New Noxus Intelligence Department, along with the news of the arms, the news of their purchase of cold-resistant supplies was also leaked, and it seemed that the target of New Noxus was in the north, but in this delicate situation, no one dared to be sure that New Noxus would not have the possibility of making a feint to the east and attacking the west.
Among the Second Silver Republic, the Kingdom of Rocklund and the Overwatch Alliance, the Overwatch Alliance was the most nervous.
The Overwatch Alliance was an alliance composed of trading cities on the coast of the Overwatch Sea, such as Besilico, Fendor, Krexer, Ironwater City and Chuxido. Originally, this was supposed to be a region loyal to the Immortal Fortress. When Swain and Darkwill fought before, they had stood on Swain's side.
However, the reason they supported Swain here was not because they believed in the Noxian spirit as much as Swain, but because Swain carried out a large-scale purge at that time.
The local big merchants and local tyrants were physically destroyed by Swain, and the remaining small merchants, craftsmen, various citizens and self-employed farmers could not fight against the Immortal Fortress like the local tyrants before.
Although Swain imposed high taxes on them after crushing the previous head force that hindered them, their lives were better than before, so these people were very supportive of New Noxus at the beginning.
So, with these supporters as the base, Swain pulled up a strong team to fight with Darkwill until he marched into the Immortal Fortress.
Everything seemed to be moving in a good direction until the collapse of the Noxus Empire.
The second and third children of those small merchants and craftsmen went to the Immortal Fortress with Swain with enthusiasm and hope, but they failed to return home in glory despite the earnest expectations of their families, and most of them were buried in Tobysia.
When the news of Tobysia's failure came, almost every family in these areas that once belonged to Swain's base was crying.
Of course, if it was just sacrifice, it would not be enough for them to choose to leave Noxus.
What was really fatal was the endless tax increase afterwards.
In order to clean up the termites inside the Immortal Bastion, after the failure of the Battle of Tobysia, Darius had to maintain a large-scale army, and the expenses of maintaining these armies were pressed on these cities.
At that time, the scale of maritime trade in Runeland was increasing year by year. Demacia's northern trade opened up the Ionian route, and then the Demacia royal family also established the Shurima trade route. At this time when everyone was going to sea, the southeastern coastal port cities of Noxus, which originally wanted to take advantage of the situation, were broken by the sudden increase in taxes.
The profits that seemed to be okay were completely taken away by the Immortal Bastion. They watched helplessly as they missed the largest opportunity and watched Vazouan and Bilgewater completely divide the routes and income of the Sea of Watch.
The small merchants, craftsmen and farmers who had supported Swain, after contributing their own two or three sons, were squeezed out of most of their profits and most of their food. In this case, even if they were once loyal, they would inevitably become traitors.
So, when the trend of the disintegration of the Noxus Empire blew, these small merchants, craftsmen and farmers who had contributed huge support to Swain angrily united together and announced their separation from Noxus.
"It is not the Overwatch League that betrayed Noxus, it is Noxus that betrayed the Overwatch League!"
This is the slogan they shouted.
Because the physical destruction that Swain presided over here was too thorough, even in this case, no reliable leader with enough reputation was born in the local area, so the organization of the entire Overwatch League was quite loose. At most, each city formed a citizen government to conduct self-government, and then each city sat together to discuss the internal exemption of tariffs.
Military?
You can't expect these people to have the spare energy to form an army. Compared to forming an army, the locals actually prefer to hire an army, and then form an alliance with the neighboring Rocklund Kingdom to protect themselves and support each other.
Then, the news came that the Black Forest Federation surrendered and the Iron Thorn Kingdom was finished.
This not only means that the new Noxus has no scruples in the north, but also declares that the plan of "mutual support" to try to make Noxus retreat or unable to withdraw will not work at all.
Well, if they are willing to read more history and look at the process of Noxus' rise, they will find that in front of the unified Noxus, the scattered forces will be swallowed up by Noxus unless they are supported by a rival force.
The only lesson humans have learned from history is that humans can't learn any lessons from history.
With the news that Noxus has begun large-scale armaments, the Overwatch Alliance is a bit confused. When they contacted the Kingdom of Rocklund again, they found that the other party had begun to read and not reply. The messengers sent were all delayed in Rocklund, and none of them brought back any useful information.
It seems that the Kingdom of Rocklund has made up its mind to rely on the Valzhu Mountains to defend itself - after all, in history, this place was conquered by Noxus mainly because of traitors. As long as the Noxians are still flesh and blood, it is difficult for them to directly cross the Valzhu Mountains and attack the Rocklund Plains.
Rocklund can defend itself behind closed doors, but the Overwatch Alliance cannot!
Seeing the situation getting worse, the shortcomings of citizen self-governance were also exposed - due to the lack of reliable decision-makers and talkers, the Citizens' Assembly soon fell into endless quarrels, and some people even pessimistically believed that after the Noxian army arrived, the Citizens' Assembly might not come up with any effective plans.
In the end, many cities in the Overwatch Alliance did not come up with any effective plans.
But it is precisely because of the special nature of the Citizens' Assembly that they have a lot of ideas that are beneficial and cost-free.
Among these messy, unconventional, and low-cost plans, there is one called "ask Demacia for help."
Although previous diplomatic actions have proved that Demacia is not interested in Noxus' expansion, it is still necessary to try to save the situation.
So, the envoys of the Overwatch League set out from Ironwater City with all the true and false news they collected, heading west along the Valoran Strait to Demacia.
A month later, Lux, who was already selecting a site for the new city, received an exaggerated warning from the Overwatch League.
The computer motherboard was repaired.
The pins of the CPU slot were crooked, and the manufacturer corrected the pins, and everything was fine!