Happiness is when what you think, say, and do is consistent.

- Mahatma Gandhi (the founding father of modern India, India's greatest political leader, founder of Gandhiism)

The Khitan army that occupied the provinces of Alsace and Verdun had 500,000 Celestial Dragons in the south of Langer Province, 600,000 Celestial Dragons in Saint-Diere Province in the west, and 400,000 Celestial Dragons in Mulhouse and Langchamp Provinces in the east.

A mere 200,000 Khitan army, surrounded on three sides by a 1.5 million Heavenly Dragon army, this is a battle that is already doomed before it has even begun;

On the fourth day after Bai Feng sent a large number of cavalry to recover the province of Mulhouse, Wanyan Aguta, who personally felt the threat from three sides, led the 200,000 Khitan army under his command, and hurriedly withdrew to the northern steppe without even bringing a lot of plundered property.

With the annihilation of the remnants of the Eight Banners of Jianzhou and the withdrawal of the 200,000 Khitan cavalry, the northern war of the Tianlong Empire finally came to an end; this protracted war, on the surface, the Tianlong Empire won the final victory, but in fact the Tianlong Empire lost the war.

For the time being, regardless of how much manpower, material resources, and financial resources the Heavenly Dragon Empire consumed to repel the three grasslands that invaded the south, just the price that the empire needs to pay to rebuild the six northern provinces in the future is enough to make the huge empire not want to get rid of financial embarrassment within ten years.

The six northern provinces of the empire, which are almost in ruins, will not be able to contribute a single gold coin to the development of the empire for at least ten years, but will consume countless hard-won taxes of the empire, and this is only part of the imminent crisis of the empire's finances.

The large-scale expansion of the Imperial Military Department during the war and successive operations also brought huge financial pressure to the Imperial Finance Department; gold coins were needed to expand armaments for warfare, gold coins were needed to build weapons and equipment, gold coins were needed to raise grain and grass, and gold coins were needed to pay tribute to the soldiers who died in battle!

You must know that before the war, the empire was full of only thirty-six legions, including four royal legions and five standing legions stationed in the south, and at that time, the total number of standing legions actually stationed in the empire was only twenty-seven!

After the outbreak of the battle at Sunset Fortress, the Imperial Military Department first used the military reserves to form eight standing regiments, that is, the round of expansion when Bai Feng was appointed as the commander of the wing, and the first round of expansion of the Imperial Military Department in this year-and-a-half-long war.

Later, the steppe tribes in the north of the empire moved south, and the military department, which was seriously underarmed, had to bite the bullet and borrow money from the imperial finance department, and formed thirty-two standing regiments to reinforce the northern border of the empire, which was the second round of expansion of the imperial military department.

After the Sunset Fortress and the fall of the eastern provinces of the empire, the unprecedented military threat from the orc empire made it rare for the empire to unite the internal crushing, redundant institutions, and corrupt officials, and the elites of various departments of the empire worked together to support the expansion of the imperial military department.

The Imperial Military Department, which was supported by Charlemagne and the nobles of the imperial capital, carried out two rounds of large-scale military expansion, the first with the expansion of thirty-six standing legions, and the second with the expansion of thirty-four standing legions to deal with the increasingly fierce war.

After four rounds of expansion, the Imperial Military Department still has hundreds of thousands of reserve recruits for the front-line legions to be quickly replenished after the losses of the front-line legions, and the war has reached this point, and the number of standing legions in the profound Celestial Dragon Empire has reached a terrifying one hundred and forty-two!

A full one hundred and forty-two standing legions, this is only the result of four rounds of military expansion under the auspices of the Imperial Military Department, if you add the fifth royal legion, the Feather Forest Legion, and other special legions such as the Wind Legion, which is equivalent to the standing legion, the number of the Imperial army has exceeded three million!

The full strength of the 142 standing legions is 2,840,000 soldiers, the full strength of the five royal legions is 250,000 soldiers, and the full strength of the seven special legions is 140,000 soldiers, and the number of the regular army of the empire is a staggering 3,230,000 just by a rough calculation!

Among them, there were originally only six special legions, namely the Blue Bird Legion, the Dragon Slayer Legion, the Wind Legion, the Phantom Legion, the Lancer Legion, and the Cavalry Legion.

Of course, this is only the number of legions and soldiers included in the battle sequence of the Imperial Military Department, similar to the pro-guard and Eastern Legions under Bai Feng, the private armies of the five major families under the command of Duke Rundstead, etc., are not counted.

If the newly built elite city defense forces in the provinces, which are already no different from the regular army as the war progresses, are included, the total number of troops in the Tianlong Empire at this time must exceed four million, which is more than the total population of the Jianzhou Jurchens, Haixi Jurchens, and East China Sea Jurchens combined!

Feeding such a large army was absolutely unbearable for the empire, which urgently needed a large amount of money to rebuild the five eastern provinces and the six northern provinces after the war; according to Bai Feng's guess, at most a month or two after the end of the war, the large-scale disarmament of the imperial military headquarters would begin.

A large number of newly established standing regiments that have not gone to the battlefield will be withdrawn, countless recruits who have only received short-term training will be cut, and only the real elite who have experienced bloody battles on the battlefield can continue to stay in the imperial army and defend the frontier for the empire.

Facts have proved that the measures taken by the Imperial Military Headquarters after the war were exactly the same as Bai Feng had expected; as soon as the war in the northern frontier was over, the military headquarters disbanded 22 newly established standing regiments near the imperial capital on the spot, and at the same time 300,000 new military recruits were cut.

For these young men who were forced to join the army, it was a happy thing not to have to go to the battlefield to fight to the death with the steppe cavalry, not to mention that they still had military salaries to get.

Twenty-two new standing legions were disbanded on the spot, the biggest beneficiaries were those ordinary soldiers, and the biggest victims were the three princes of the empire, because among the disbanded legions, there were not a few legions belonging to the three princes of William, Harry, and Prolog.

While the number of Imperial Standing Legions dropped from one hundred and forty-two to one hundred and twenty, the number of Standing Legions under Prince William's command dropped from fourteen to nine, and the number of Standing Legions under Prince Pross dropped from six to four.

The number of standing armies under Prince Harry's command has dropped from four to three, but Prince Philip, who controls only two standing legions, has not suffered any losses in this round of disarmament of the military department.

Compared with the other three princes, Prince William, who suffered the heaviest losses, lost five standing legions at once, and this level of loss can be described as a broken bone; however, what made Prince William feel helpless was that the disbandment order was not under the army at all!

Thinking about it, the person in charge of the Imperial Military Department was the Duke of Cullen, the maternal grandfather of Prince William, how could Duke Cullen give such an order that was obviously unfavorable to Prince William? Undoubtedly, this was an order issued by Charlemagne himself to the Imperial Military Department.

At the same time as this order, Charlemagne ordered the governors of the provinces of the empire to strictly regulate the number of city defenses in each province, which meant that the governors of each province could no longer expand the city defenses without any scruples in any name.

The biggest victim of this order, on the surface, is the governor of all the provinces in the empire, but in fact it is Bai Feng, who has formed the largest number of city defense armies, and the most direct impact is that the 20,000 city defense army privately expanded by the Marquis of Besançon must be disbanded within a time limit!