Civil War – Marquis de Lafayette (1)
“Aaaah!”
The eerie sound of the blade falling from the guillotine rings in my ears like an auditory hallucination.
“Huh, huh, huh, huh…”
I felt a sensation of air passing through my neck, which I shouldn’t have felt in the first place.
I put my trembling hand to my neck.
…It’s stuck properly.
The last thing I saw with my own eyes: a body hung on a guillotine remains in my mind.
my body
My body, which had lost its head,
stood up almost reflexively.
Where am I?
my room.
my room?
It’s not that filthy, horrible dungeon.
This is clearly my room in the marquis’ residence.
As I walked away unknowingly, I was reflected in the mirror on one side of the room with my neck still intact.
“What is this?”
My reflection in the mirror looked like I was only in my late teens.
–
The maid came to wake me up, was surprised to see me already up, and brought me some washing water.
Instead of being locked in prison, smelling the cold chill and mold, I washed my face with clean water in a warm room.
Is this a dream?
It is an extremely strange feeling that my memories of being trapped in a dungeon while fighting on the battlefield without even having time to change my clothes and my memories of being a boy when a maid would always help me change clothes are mixed together.
Is this the last vision I see of myself with my head cut off?
I repeat the daily life I lived in the mansion more than 10 years ago.
I just washed up, got dressed, and headed to the restaurant when I heard that the meal was ready.
The restaurant prepared luxurious meals that were unimaginable in battlefields and prisons.
Well-cooked chicken and warm vegetable soup with soft white bread.
I remembered the taste of the hard bread that only commoners ate the last time I ate it.
When I couldn’t eat it because I couldn’t believe it was real, the butler cautiously called me.
“Little Marquis?”
Marquis So, yes. It was called like this.
“Is there anything that makes you uncomfortable…”
The butler who asked that question seemed to be watching me to see if I was not touching the meal because I was uncomfortable.
“Nothing.”
And only then did I notice the maid standing at the corner of the wall to serve my meal.
A young girl who resembled the woman who brought me the last loaf of bread.
If it was about 10 years ago, it probably would have looked like this.
“What is your name?”
“Je…I’m Jessie. “Marquis de Minor.”
The girl answered in surprise, as if she had never imagined being asked such a question.
-Your Excellency the noble Marquis. “Is there a name you know among the people of the territory you protected and protected so proudly?”
The laughter and jeers of the crowd surrounding the guillotine sounded like auditory hallucinations.
proposal. In the past, I clearly engraved a name that I would not have even bothered to know.
Then he picked up some white bread.
Feeling that the soft texture was unfamiliar, I slowly soaked it in the soup and put it in my mouth.
The soft and warm taste slowly spreads in your mouth.
Only then did I realize that this was reality.
“Marquis Soso?”
I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.
“…I’m back.”
–
The Kingdom of Franzia, the country of knights, is engulfed in chaos.
Normally, the heir to the kingdom should be the eldest son, but the previous king, who was called the King of Knights for his bravery and fiery temper, did not like the first prince, who was extremely aristocratic and political.
On the other hand, the second prince was a knight who excelled in martial arts, and earned the favor of the previous king by personally contributing to the war against the Germanian Empire.
Naturally, the former king wanted to appoint the second prince as crown prince, but the first prince, who took advantage of his aptitude, kept the former king and the second prince in check by borrowing the power of nobles who disliked the warlike king.
In this way, the 1st prince faction centered on the noble faction and the 2nd prince faction centered on the royal faction kept each other in check, and while the succession structure was in confusion, a situation occurred where the previous king unexpectedly died suddenly.
The 1st and 2nd princes naturally insisted that they should inherit the throne, and the conflict between the factions soon escalated into civil war.
The civil war that started like this continues for three years and is burning the entire Kingdom of Francia.
–
“Are you sure you’re okay, Marquis So?”
Baron Robert de Dumont, a pot-bellied man who looked about my father’s age, asked while wiping away sweat with a handkerchief.
Summer is hard for fat people….
“What do you mean?”
“Even so, there are not many troops left in the Marquis’ territory, so turning away precious cavalry…”
My father, the Marquis Hubert de Lafayette, is the core of the First Prince faction and is leading the army in the vicinity of Lumière, the capital of the kingdom, and is engaged in a civil war.
Why did the Marquis, who was given the title of ‘Blue Knight’ as the strongest knight in the Kingdom of Francia, give it to the aristocratic and political first prince rather than the second prince, who was supported by the knights?
Because when my father first became a knight, we were not marquises.
As a knight, my father displayed overwhelming martial arts skills and received the title of ‘Blue Knight’ and the title of marquis.
However, the emerging high-ranking nobles were naturally checked by the existing nobles, and the Marquis de Lafayette was a family that was virtually alienated from the central political world.
After the civil war broke out and most knights and warlords followed the second prince, the first prince became desperate and recruited the marquis by promising various benefits.
So, while the Marquis is fighting a civil war with the main army of the Marquis’ territory in the north and helping the 1st Prince, I am managing the Marquis’ territory in the south, which is quite far away from the northern part of the main battlefield.
And I ordered the Marquis to take away most of the knights and heavily armed cavalry and reconnoitre the border of the territory with the remaining light cavalry.
“Anyway, the cavalry remaining in the territory is at the level of light cavalry. Moreover, if we, who are protected by the walls in the center of the territory, are attacked right away, the cavalry on patrol will naturally find us first.”
“That’s true, but…”
The Baron continued to wipe his sweat with his handkerchief while looking at me with a somewhat strange look.
Normally, I wasn’t this active during this time.
The fact that I, the heir, was in charge of a fief during a civil war in the Kingdom of Francia, a country of knights, did not mean that I was trusted, but rather that the Marquis did not trust me enough to let me go to the battlefield with him and make a contribution.
So, from the perspective of the Baron, who had been assisting me and taking charge of the administration of the territory while the Marquis was participating in the civil war with the territory army, it would seem as if he had changed overnight.
“Don’t worry too much. “This is just a measure to prepare for an emergency.”
“I believe that the Marquis So has everything in mind.”
You have to say that with a face full of disbelief…
“I will make sure that Baron Ye will not be disappointed.”
“Keuhum khum. What a disappointment. If you do that, I’ll just leave. “Marquis de Minor.”
I let the Baron go and slowly closed my eyes.
About a month has passed since I woke up as an 18-year-old with memories of being guillotined at the age of 28.
When I first opened my eyes, I was confused as to whether I had had a terrible dream, but now I completely accepted that this was reality.
Above all, not only did the minor encounters and incidents that I remember occur exactly as they happened, but I also already knew the news coming from the North, the main battlefield of the civil war.
At this point, it can’t be a coincidence.
I was probably killed by the revolutionary army and returned to the past.
Neither the reason nor the principle are known.
However, I still vividly remember the bitterness of not wanting to die like that in front of the guillotine and the earnestness of wanting one more chance.
And if that’s the case, you’ll have to take on a different fate this time.
I opened my eyes again and saw the Marquis’ order from the North.
The Marquis, who is leading the main army of the Marquis in the north, naturally continues to demand the procurement of enormous military funds.
The old me answered that even if I didn’t do that, I couldn’t collect war taxes from a territory devastated by constant looting.
Then the Marquis ordered to send military funds, either by collecting war taxes or plundering the territories of the two nearby princes.
But I know right away that a revolution will break out. Since I know how the first prince dies, I naturally have no intention of using that method.
However, there is no way the Marquis would be convinced of that.
The Marquis believes that all his devotion will be rewarded if the first prince becomes king, so he is betting everything on this civil war.
However, that devotion was not repaid, and his father, the Marquis, died in vain.
I, who later became a marquis, fought against the revolutionary army in my last life, but the nobles of the Kingdom of Francia, the strongest knights on the continent, were cruelly defeated by the revolutionary army.
This is because there was a genius general in the revolutionary army that no one had dared to imagine.
Raphael Balian.
The general actively utilized gunpowder weapons, which were rarely used due to the use of magic knights and wizards, and inflicted consecutive defeats on the kingdom’s army with genius tactics that no one could stop.
I was lucky enough to get another chance.
Nevertheless, honestly, I cannot believe that we will be able to win against Raphael Balian and crush the revolution itself.
Because cities had bought autonomy from kings and nobles during the long civil war, it was difficult to contact the influential figures of the cities, the key figures of the revolutionary army.
No, before that. It is obvious that this rotten kingdom will collapse more cruelly even if there is no revolution.
-Kill it!
-Death to the corrupt nobles!
Nevertheless, when I close my eyes, I occasionally hear auditory hallucinations filled with the madness and ridicule of the crowds that fill the city.
I saw what madness and debauchery the revolution brought to Francia. In the republic that arose after the kingdom was overthrown, the number of people executed by guillotine was not inferior to those who died in the civil war.
The revolution takes place in the fifth year of the civil war, or two years later.
Therefore, I must procure military funds as ordered by the Marquis, but I must avoid excessively exploiting the citizens or becoming infamous for plunder during these two years.
Only then can he join hands with the revolutionary army as an uncorrupted nobleman and friend of the common people. We must allow the moderate faction, not the radical faction of the revolutionary army, to take power within them.
Only then can we prevent the madness of the runaway revolutionary army from staining my people and Francia with blood.
In this life, I will not stand by and watch as me and everything I have protected are so worthlessly denied.
At that time, a deep voice was heard along with a knock.
“Little Marquis.”
“Please come in sir.”
The door opened and a large man in armor came in and showed respect.
Even though he’s the same age as me, he’s a head taller than me.
“The knight-errant Gaston meets Pierre de Lafayette, de Marquis.”
The Marquis has eliminated all knights, and excluding me, this person is the only knight left in the Marquis’ territory.
At the same time, he is a man who makes me feel very complex and nuanced emotions.
Although he was the one who made the Marquis distrust me, he was a commoner and remained loyal to me until the end, even when the defeat of the kingdom’s army became clear.
I looked at him for a moment, then shook off my complicated feelings and asked.
“What’s going on?”
“This is a report from the cavalry that went out on a reconnaissance under the orders of the Marquis. It is said that an army of about 100 men, including knights, from the direction of the County of Mirbeau entered the Marquis’ territory.”
“It’s looting.”
“yes. “It seems like that.”
I don’t have time to sit back and think.
A sigh came out of my mouth.
“Call the cavalry. “Let’s leave right away.”
“Only the cavalrymen?”
“okay.”
Sir Gaston asked curiously, but the reconnaissance team had just returned after discovering the enemy and had just reported. By the time they gather all the territory’s troops and rush to arrive, the village will already be in ruins.
In order to prevent the moderate faction of the revolutionary army from being pushed out by the radical faction, they must maintain at least enough power to support them. To do so, they cannot allow their territory to be robbed.
As he was putting on his breastplate with that thought in mind, Sir Gaston had a look of surprise on his blunt face.
“Is Marquis So going out too?”
“okay.”
I answered simply and grabbed my sword and bow.
The Marquis is scraping everything right now and there is no army, so what can I do?
I have no choice but to roll with my body.
“Those who came to rob the Marquis’s citizens without knowing the subject must pay a price.”
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