Chapter 423: Different Kinds of War
Lucas’ proposal was so outside of everyone’s expectations that, for a moment, no one knew how to respond.
Even Celestina and Allina, who had somewhat gotten used to Lucas’ radical ideas over the last half-year or so, were temporarily stunned; however, it didn’t take long for the women to recover with Allina taking the initiative to ask, "What do you mean, exactly, Lucas? Surely you don’t mean the Raging River Legion should charge across the Misty Bridge and start burning fields and sacking villages."
Allina Crest had worked together with Lucas to plan and execute several enormous operations, so she was completely confident that the young boy knew it simply wasn’t possible for the Rockwell Kingdom to rapidly and secretly mobilized a large-scale invasion of another country.
Since that was the case, Lucas must have meant something other than acting militarily when he suggested they ’go on the offensive’.
"Of course not," Lucas chuckled, shaking his head, "If a single rapid strike was all it would take to cripple the enemy nation, then sure, that might be an option, but there’s no way that’s possible in this situation."
"Then, what do you mean, Lucas? If we’re not fighting the enemy directly, how are we supposed to attack them?" Timothy, as a representative of all the confused individuals in the room, spoke up at that moment.
"There are many kinds of war, and not all of them are fought on the battlefield," Lucas replied to the young man, "Economic, diplomatic, and information wars are constantly waged between nations even when they’re not actively engaged in hostilities. What I’m suggesting is that we use these alternative forms of warfare to impede the Darr Kingdom’s efforts and, if possible, deter them from continuing their plans entirely."
"Lucas’ suggestion has merit," Pauline Balfour spoke up in support of the young boy’s idea, "The enemy’s biggest advantage right now is that they’ve been actively preparing for this conflict much longer than we have. We have our own baseline readiness, but if we only focus on bolstering our military strength right now, it’s doubtful we’ll be able to overtake the Darr Kingdom’s lead before they take action."
"It’s as Great Elder Pauline says," Lucas nodded, "The Rockwell and Darr Kingdoms are roughly equal in terms of military strength, but with a couple years lead on us now, trying to play catchup from our side probably won’t be enough. We need to slow the Darr Kingdom’s progress down, and the only way to do that is to undermine their efforts somehow."
"But... how do we do that?" Eris asked, clearly still confused about what her Senior Brother was proposing, and she wasn’t alone.
Many of the others in the room actually agreed with Lucas’ thinking, but how exactly they were supposed to go about damaging the Darr Kingdom without also tipping the enemy off or pushing them into attacking ahead of time escaped them at the moment.
Lucas, however, came prepared.
Celestina had informed him about hostilities possibly breaking out with their neighbours to the east some time ago, and ever since then, her First Disciple had constantly been contemplating this matter. As a result, he had come up with a rather bold, clever, and completely crazy idea that he felt might just give the Rockwell Kingdom the edge they needed.
"We need to call for an international conference, one that gathers leaders and envoys from all the kingdoms in the South-Central Region," Lucas stated, once again drawing confused looks from everyone in the room.
Pauline wanted to ask a question, but her mother simply raised her hand signaling for her to wait.
This wasn’t Celestina’s first rodeo with Lucas, and she had learned that if you gave the boy enough time, he would eventually spill everything in his head.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, Celestina was still on the fence about, but in this situation, she felt it would be both a positive, and highly amusing, so she was willing to let Lucas continue.
Unaware of his Master’s rather demeaning thoughts about him, Lucas continued with his explanation, "The stated purpose for this conference will be about increasing trade between our nations to foster peace and mutual prosperity, and in order to ensure that the other kingdoms know we’re taking this matter very seriously, we’ll announce in advance that we’ll be dropping all trade barriers both on imports and exports of agricultural products. We can probably also offer large discounts on grain to those who agree to attend in good faith."
Gasps of shock rang out as this seemed like a very radical proposal.
Agriculture wasn’t a particularly big money-making industry in the South-East Province; in fact, the Balfour March was a net importer of food, so Lucas’ suggestion wouldn’t cause too many problems for the family and its subjects, but the same couldn’t be said about several of the other provinces in the kingdom.
Grain, vegetable, and even meat exports were massive sources of revenue for many nobles, merchants, and landowners in the Rockwell Kingdom. Some of those exports went to other nations, so freer access to foreign markets would likely be welcome, but the majority of grain, fruits, vegetables, and especially meat was consumed domestically.
If foreign imports were suddenly allowed to pour into the country unimpeded, the central regions of the kingdom likely wouldn’t see much difference, but the border areas would surely be flooded with cheap foreign food. This, in turn, would hurt the pockets of many of the Rockwell Kingdom’s richest and most powerful forces.
Getting such a proposal past the Royal Council, with so many vested interests lobbying against it, seemed all but impossible.
And even if they could somehow ram such a proposal through, what would be the point? How was allowing cheap foreign food into the Rockwell Kingdom’s markets supposed to help them damage the Darr Kingdom?
As most people in the room were searching for the right words to politely reject Lucas’ idea, an unexpected voice called out in full support of it, "Hahaha! Brilliant! They’ll never suspect a thing!"
Turning to the source of this outburst, everyone was shocked to discover it actually came from Christopher Lock, the Balfour Family Elder in charge of land development and agriculture.
If there was anyone in this meeting who should have been opposed to Lucas’ proposal, it was definitely Elder Lock.
As the man responsible for overseeing and promoting all things related to farming, fishing, hunting, and foraging in the Balfour March, it was literally written into Christopher’s job description that he was to protect the agriculture industry from outside threats.
If that wasn’t enough, Elder Lock was also one of the biggest private landowners in the province, employing thousands of workers on his massive farms that spanned dozens of square kilometres of fertile land!
Which begged the question, why was this skinny middle-aged man, who was normally so quiet and reserved, suddenly looking like he was about to get up and dance with joy?