The March

We had this country in our sights for a long time.
When I finally gave the order to march on the world I and the entire war cabinet wanted to march on this country first.
This disease ridden shithole of a country.
We even followed protocol and sent a messenger ahead to declare war and that we would start hostilities immediately, but no one had ever heard of us and took the messenger for an idiot and laughed him off.
Maybe it was thanks to their idiocy and their impressive lack of understanding of their own place in the world that made them simply toss the messenger out rather than execute him.

Our army met him after 2 days at march, poor thing must have ridden hard for the last couple of days.
I gave the order to let him enter the planning carriage to give his report so we did not have to stop the march.
He explained how he had been summoned for an audience after being made to wait for a week in what was the total opposite of luxurious accommodation.
A damp, leaking house that did nothing to shelter from the wind at night and you could smell the stables in the night.
Being provided with what could only be described as leftovers from the king's supper.
When he was actually summoned they lent him some clothes which were rather kind of them as he had not been allowed to wash himself for the entire week but once he was presented in front of the king the entire court instead laughed at him for wearing such an ancient outfit during an audience.

I was honestly impressed over the lengths they went through just to mark their own superiority over their own lower classes but also everyone from any other country and the messenger was as well, it had been such a shockingly impressive show of total disregard that he forgot to even be offended.

Lulup growled out a *pathetic creatures* while staring out towards their capital.
We planned a route that would not make us pass by any other cities on our march toward the capital, only smaller towns and villages, both were treated harshly by the royal court, burdened with so high taxes they worked themselves to death.
Of course we already knew this and of course we were prepared to... alleviate their worries with foodstuffs, staff, physicians and cooking equipment.
Hearts and minds are important after all and we even left guards and personnel in the places we passed to make it known to all that they were already being integrated.

The day after we paused to oversee the construction of another communications base that would serve as both a fort and regional office between the villages we had passed so far when I was told that the forward scouts had returned with news of even greater misery than what we had witnessed so far.

I rode out with a group instead of going by carriage.
What we saw when we arrived made me wonder if there had been an invasion force passing through.
Villagers sat in shadows, malnourished and beaten.
What struck us as odd was that it was only the elderly and children.
After I ordered an interrogation I rode through the small town, looking at the inhabitants and wondering how this could have happened this close to the capital.
Later just as we saw the relief corp arrive on the horizon and prepared to leave did the interrogation team arrive, they had been told that the closer you were to the capital the worse the communities have it, the young men are all conscripted into the military, the young women are taken away with the excuse of working as maids and servants but what they had to serve was an open secret at this time.
As all the young were taken away as soon as they reached a mature age the ones who got left behind had to work themselves close to death to be able to afford the tax that the capital demanded so no one could afford to leave and move further away.

It was a system broken at its core.
I could only guess that the royal and noble class had acted as this for a very long time and that the rapid expansion of the country those years ago had been achieved by the citizenry trying to get as far away from them as possible.

"Is that your grandchild?" I asked an old couple trying to hide a young child behind them while staring at us.
"Aye but she's too young to be of any value, please find it in your hearts not to take her away" they started to plead and beg.
How anything living could be conditioned into this kind of mentality made me sick.

"I won't take anyone from you. Rejoice for you will no longer have to pay taxes to the nobles of this land and you will not be forced to send the young away anymore for you are now part of my country".
I held out a hand and someone handed me a flag on a pole and I jabbed it into the ground.
"Now go over there, they are serving food and are offering to have wounds and illnesses checked by physicians".
Someone shouted out a loud "Bow down!" as I spurred on my horse to start the ride back to the main camp and it seemed a number of people who had started to make their way towards the field kitchen had heard my throwaway comment but they seemed to be able to walk over shattered glass for even a fraction of my few words to be true.
As I rode the 20 minutes through the little town I did not see a single person or child not bowing.
If it was fear or hope only the future would show.