Chapter 647 — The Conversation
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 5
The king's banner had fallen, but that was only the beginning. Building a new order would not be easy; before everything could settle, there were countless matters that needed to be handled—and for Gao Yang, the only good news was that the resistance he faced had already collapsed for a variety of reasons. Ansor had undergone a thorough purge in this disaster. What he faced was a ruin awaiting construction, and nothing more than a ruin awaiting construction.
And he had also gained the support of two Guardian Dukes, as well as the support of the remnant families of the royal capital—at least their open support.
The fighting in the southern and eastern regions of Saint Sunil had not yet fully ended. The mechanical units and field fortifications had carved those areas into vast numbers of death-zone lines; the crystal-cluster monsters that wandered over from the Spirit Plains fell into ashes along those blockade lines as if walking into a pulverizer.
The fleet docked along the Gorgon River had completed its fire-support mission. Apart from the Pioneer and several small gunboats remaining near Saint Sunil on standby, the other two main battleships had by now led the rest of the fleet in withdrawal; they would return to the Gorgon River channel and continue their blockade mission there, to prevent any stragglers among the crystal-cluster monsters from entering the western plains.
Those armored cargo ships had departed as well, but they were not gone for good—over the coming period they would maintain the transport line between Saint Sunil and the southern plains, ensuring the supply of goods to the royal capital.
After the great battle, Saint Sunil was short of supplies, especially of all kinds of medical materials. If the supply of necessities to the royal capital could not be restored in time, the mystic capital might well collapse into self-destruction after its victory—history had taught this lesson more than once.
After entering the city, Gao Yang's first order was to open the granaries of Silver Castle and distribute grain throughout the city. At the same time he dispatched a large number of couriers to read out proclamations reassuring the people in every corner of the city, and sent the White Knights onto the streets to heal the citizens' illnesses free of charge, so as to set the public mind at ease—he did not rush to seal off and confiscate the estates of the nobles who had already lost power, because that would have caused unnecessary panic and high-handedness, but he replaced every city guard at the first opportunity and stationed soldiers in all districts.
In the course of this, Amber also promptly mobilized the Military Intelligence Bureau operatives within the city. These agents, who had taken root in the mystic capital long ago, moved in secret, dug out a large number of petty scoundrels hoping to profit from the chaos, and kept supplying the military with intelligence on the grassroots of the city, allowing the officers responsible for maintaining order to bring the situation swiftly under control.
Thanks to these highly effective measures, the atmosphere in Saint Sunil was brought to an initial calm within a short time. The residents' tension remained, but at least normal daily order was maintained, and the city's functions were preliminarily restored—after all, the administrative organs of a traditional city in this era did not possess much complexity, and the Cecil Legion's well-practiced "wartime military administration" procedures were more than enough to restore order to the mystic capital.