In the Name of Empress-Chapter 345 - 235: Do Not Become Marauders

The gunfire didn’t stop; it just shifted.

The soldiers who had decided to defect needed a gift to prove their sincerity.

Surt and his Personal Guard were the perfect gift.

Surt was already dead, and now it was his guard’s turn.

Although many soldiers in the Personal Guard didn’t lose their bottom line at critical moments and, out of conscience, chose to raise their guns by ten centimeters, giving the Jin Yuan Kingdom a chance, giving Alina a chance.

But this was precisely the cause of their death.

Having the qualification to take sides is a privilege beyond the reach of ordinary people.

They were Surt’s Personal Guard, already marked with a distinctive imprint; this little bit of goodwill wouldn’t change anything.

If Alina could control the situation, she might have spared them generously, but unfortunately, she couldn’t.

She knew these defectors needed an outlet for their emotions.

They even killed Surt, so naturally, there was no reason to spare his guard.

Most of these people were brought by Surt from his hometown, with extremely high loyalty.

Letting them live to avenge Surt? That wouldn’t be funny.

The gunfire rang out wildly.

The few in number Personal Guard put up the most heroic resistance. They were well-equipped, skilled in marksmanship, and well-organized, truly elite.

However, in the face of a huge numerical gap, all this was meaningless.

The gunfire gradually subsided.

The heroic resistance of the Personal Guard at least took twice as many ordinary soldiers with them.

Many Personal Guard members died with unclosed eyes.

They also wanted to defect, but no one gave them the chance.

Until their deaths, they couldn’t understand that this world is not just light and darkness. There is a wide gray area between black and white.

This mutual slaughter under a moving facade was exactly that gray area.

Coldly witnessing all this, Alina felt no ripple in her heart.

She raised her right hand and loudly announced to everyone, "People yearning for freedom, please follow me!"

Freedom is not in the history gene of the Jin Yuan people. They once had a long royal rule, which was the ideological resonance given to the Jin Yuan people after Mr. Carlo broke the shackles of royal power.

"Freedom?"

This beautiful word made the Jin Yuan people proudly hold their heads high over the past decades, and then suddenly disappeared over the past year.

Hearing this familiar word, the soldiers were silent for a moment, then erupted in earth-shattering cheers.

They put down their weapons and rushed to Alina’s Wanderer Legion, embracing each other.

Not long ago, they were still enemies.

But now they are intimately close brothers.

Surt and his Personal Guard’s bodies were trampled on chaotically by countless soldiers, unrecognizable.

Fortunately, they were already dead and wouldn’t feel pain.

Watching the astonishing scene that occurred on the plain, Lisa, standing shoulder to shoulder with Roland, sighed lightly:

"Roland, was this also part of your plan?"

Roland looked at Lisa’s complex eyes, smiling, and said, "First of all, I am now Rohifuo. Secondly, I am not a Prophet, so I can’t guarantee whether it will work."

"What if it fails?" Lisa couldn’t help but ask the question she always wanted to ask.

Before the action started, she didn’t want to be a Crow and refrained from asking, but now she couldn’t hold back.

"If it fails, run away. Otherwise, what, wait to die?" Roland calmly gave the standard answer.

He helped Alina because it was profitable. If she got killed, what good would it do? Of course, he would turn and run.

Lisa stared blankly at Roland, suddenly remembering his promise of living and dying together, her lips slightly curling, and the little worry from the start of the journey vanished.

Looking at Lisa’s pure smile, Roland just smiled back.

Lisa was still so pure, never changed.

This result, Alina surely knew about it.

He could help her because he had long surpassed the boundary of friendship; this was a risky investment with huge upfront costs.

Now it was time to collect the interest.

After the "moving" mass defection ceremony, Alina reorganized the army.

She boldly employed the officers of the Ives Port garrison to continue managing the army.

Although she knew very well that these people surrendered under duress and weren’t necessarily sincere in following her, it didn’t matter.

As long as she can keep winning, these opportunists’ disloyalty would disappear.

If she lost, nothing would need to be said.

Accepting over twenty thousand soldiers from the Ives Port garrison, plus the original Wanderer Army, Alina formed two army-level combat units and marched on Ives Port.

Though she wanted to head north immediately to march on West City, Roland firmly opposed it.

Roland’s reason was simple: recapturing West cannot be rushed, and Marco should be given ample opportunity to continue making more brutal moves under pressure.

If Marco doesn’t push the Jin Yuan people to the last resort, how could they possibly follow Alina with peace of mind?

If this reason was somewhat far-fetched, Roland’s other reason was very sufficient. Rebellion must have a stable base, or it would just be banditry.

The southern region of the Jin Yuan Kingdom was originally Mr. Carlo’s base when he started. As long as Alina raised the banner of freedom and republic that Mr. Carlo proposed back then, she could attract the disillusioned being oppressed by Marco to join.

Ives Port was close at hand, but by no means a pushover.

Although Surt took away more than twenty thousand soldiers, the remaining garrison still had more than seven thousand people.

Ives Port had strong city defenses, and a frontal assault was definitely out of the question.

However, the food reserves in Ives Port weren’t large, and it was very dependent on trade for daily necessities and medicines.

To make Ives Port surrender was simple: blockade it.

The Sussex Empire and the Jin Yuan Republic had not declared war, and on paper, at least, were friendly countries.

Directly involving the Fourth Fleet in combat would bring enormous diplomatic pressure, definitely not feasible.

Even if Roland didn’t care and made the Fourth Fleet fight, warships of this era could hardly cause substantial damage to fortified ports.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to siege; a blockade would suffice.

Under his orders, the Fourth Fleet assembled twelve nautical miles offshore of Ives Port and, under the guise of military exercises, blockaded the sea area.

When Ives Port officials sent protest, Bridges calmly responded.

"This is international waters. I can stay as long as I want."

The Ives Port officials were left speechless.

While Bridges’ statement was somewhat forceful, it wasn’t wrong. Beyond twelve nautical miles off the coast is international waters, where anyone can go.

The Fourth Fleet did not openly declare a blockade but merely prohibited ships from passing through the exercise area under the name of military exercises.

If any ships could dive into Ives Port, they naturally didn’t care.

Entering Ives Port from the sea was also possible, but only after the exercises ended.

As for when the exercises would end, that was a military secret and not disclosed.

Under Roland’s arrangement, the Fourth Fleet in effect blockaded Ives Port under the name of military exercises.

Ives Port had a large population, and while the food reserves might barely support for a while, daily necessities and industrial products needed trade to replenish. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The blockade might not be deadly, but it would certainly be painful.

Alina led the main force to surround Ives Port from the land and then sent people to the surrounding small towns to persuade them to surrender.

Hearing that Mr. Carlo’s daughter was leading the army back to defeat the terrifying Dictator Marco, the simple folk responded enthusiastically, joining Alina’s resistance army.

Alina selected soldiers from among them and formed a new army.

She had long remembered how Roland’s new army transformed into a combat-capable team, and now she was merely putting it into practice.

The resistance in Ives Port didn’t last long.

On the fifth day of the siege, good news came from Ives Port.

The mayor and the Port Authority’s director "died unexpectedly," and their deputies decided to heed the people’s call to open the city to Alina and surrender.