A man will fall in love with a woman only if he does not consider her true qualities, and replaces the actual reality of the heart with a very different, mostly imaginary reality.

– Otto Weininger (Austrian philosopher)

Bai Feng had just dealt with the rectification of the five Eastern Legions, and before he had time to test Slim and Paresi, Adrien brought the latest information from the Bronjansson Province and found Bai Feng, who was preparing to test Slim and Paresi.

Originally, the main forces were concentrated in the provinces of Brojansson and Toulon, but as the army of White Peak regained the two fallen provinces, they successfully incorporated the provinces of Lyon and Grenoble into their sphere of influence.

The large number of refugees in the provinces of Lyon and Grenoble must rely on the Sofia Chamber of Commerce, which provides them with food free of charge, if they want to survive.

With the Sophia Chamber of Commerce as the medium of development, Luowang will naturally not miss such a good opportunity to grow; coupled with the fact that Luowang already has a certain intelligence base in these two provinces, the development speed of Luowang even exceeds the expansion speed of Sophia Chamber of Commerce.

Although the development of the nets in the provinces of Lyon and Grenoble is rapid, Adrien, as the leader of the nets, was still left by Bai Feng in the rapidly changing province of Bromjansson, so that Bai Feng, who is far away, can always control the situation in the province of Bromjansson.

The information that the Marquis of Bedouin wanted to be an enemy of Bai Feng had long been placed in front of Bai Feng's desk, and even the absolute secrecy of the Marquis of Bedouin's division into two major factions had not been concealed from the all-pervasive nets.

Earl Hamilton, who firmly supported the Marquis of Bedouin, and Count Abraham, who disagreed, became the focus of Bai Feng's attention, especially the highly prestigious Earl Abraham, whose choice made Bai Feng see the possibility of implementing a divisive plan.

It's just that the discordant plan that Bai Feng intends to implement is still in the draft stage, and the information that Count Abraham wants to secretly join him was sent to the border of Mengdan Province by Adrien, who did not dare to delay, and handed it over to him.

This information, which details the conversation between Wenk and Count Abraham, includes not only the daily performance of Count Abraham and Knight Woodlaw, but also the views and attitudes of Moritz, Heinrich, Hess, Shalah and others on this matter.

The alliance between Count Abraham's seclusion and Woodlow and other knightly representatives had no practical value in Bai Feng's eyes, and no one could guarantee that this must not have been a game deliberately set up by the Marquis Bedouin to deal with Bai Feng.

Just as Count Abraham proposed, he can disguise his attitude of actively admitting his mistakes in order to obtain the forgiveness of the Marquis of Bedouin, and then help Bai Feng obtain information about the Marquis of Bedouin's forces as a way to realize his own value.

In the same way, he can also disguise himself as a voluntary defector to gain the trust of his own forces, and then help the Marquis of Bedouin obtain information about his own forces as capital to achieve the resurgence of the Abrahamic family.

This kind of spy in the spy lurking method is undoubtedly a very familiar bridge for Bai Feng, who has watched countless spy war dramas, so he will not easily believe Count Abraham's surrender and the information he sent back, let alone relax his vigilance.

In contrast to Bai Feng's caution, Moritz, Heinrich, Hess, and Shahlah, who had regrouped in the county town of Brojansson, approved of Count Abraham's surrender, and each attached a letter expressing his opinion.

In response to this situation, Bai Feng first sent a letter back to Moritz and others, asking them to maintain secret contact with Count Abraham, and if necessary, to help Count Abraham and his followers without attracting the attention of the Marquis of Bedouin.

After that, Bai Feng replied to Wenke, who didn't trust Count Abraham very much, and asked him to steadily improve the combat effectiveness of the city defense army, and at the same time, adopt some covert infiltration methods as much as possible to gradually annex the escort troops controlled by Count Abraham.

As for Adrien, his mission is to monitor Count Abraham more closely than ever before, to ensure that Count Abraham is not a spy of the Marquis of Bedouin, and if the slightest clue is revealed, Adrion has the power to eliminate Count Abraham at any time.

After spending nearly three days temporarily dealing with the unexpected surrender of Earl Abraham, Bai Feng, who had no time to wait, had to directly appoint Slim and Paresi as the commanders of the city defense forces of the two provinces to assist Cunningham in rebuilding the city defense forces of the two provinces.

Cunningham, who had completed the handover with Aetius and the other five legions, confidently embarked on a journey back to the county town of Lyon with 5,000 soldiers of the Eastern Legion, accompanied by Paresi and Slim, who still couldn't believe the reality.

That night, when White Peak issued their official appointment, the shocked Paresi and Slim were stunned on the spot, and it was only after Cunningham reminded them that they excitedly swore allegiance to White Peak, who had reused them.

After this incident, Cunningham, Paresi, and Slim, who belonged to the core of the Wind Thieves Group, truly became Bai Feng's vassals and followers, and the mark of Prince William that they originally wore on their bodies was directly replaced by Bai Feng.

In addition to Auchinleck, who was the first to swear allegiance to Bai Feng, and the generals of the Wind Thieves Regiment led by Montgomery, only three people were still struggling to hold on to the Wind Legion at this time; among them, Mountbatten, who was the head of the Wind Legion Division, was also the cousin of Prince William.

Aside from the five Eastern Legions and the Wind Legion, as well as the four provincial city defense armies, the 7,000 soldiers who were missing from the full strength of the six standing legions were reported to Duke Gna by Bai Feng in the name of battle damage; half a month later, Duke Gerna sent 7,000 recruits of good quality.

The six standing legions that have been restored to full strength only need one or two months of fusion training to reach their original combat power level; anyway, the generals who are the commanders of the standing legions are all brave and good generals, and Bai Feng doesn't need to worry about these things at all.

In sharp contrast to the standing army, Luculus's personal guards and Lister's death battalion were in sharp contrast; the personal guards corps, which was about to expand by 5,000 troops, encountered two major problems: insufficient weapons and equipment and low quality of soldiers in the process of expanding the army.

The former problem can be easily solved by Bai Feng, and the weapons and equipment produced by the armor shop in the city of Rome every month can meet the needs of the expansion of the pro-soldier guards;

With the exception of the newly recovered provinces of Lyon and Grenoble, the provinces of Brojansson and Toulon were nominally recovered by the Empire, and Charlemagne himself appointed two marquis of the imperial capital as governors of the two provinces.

Both the ambitious Marquis of Bedouin and the Marquis of Montauban were the supreme governors of their respective provinces, and without their consent, Bai Feng could not go to their provinces to recruit soldiers.

Needless to say, the relationship between Bai Feng and the Marquis of Bedouin is self-explanatory, and it is impossible for Bai Feng to go to the province of Brojansson to recruit soldiers; although the Marquis of Montauban is a member of the faction of Prince Pross, Bai Feng has not had a good relationship with Prince Pros recently, so it is naturally not suitable to find him.

More importantly, the relatively good soldiers in the provinces of Brojansson and Toulon had already been recruited by Bai Feng once, and if they were recruited again, it would be impossible to recruit qualified soldiers who met the standards, and it would be a waste of time and energy.

It is true that the newly recovered provinces of Lyon and Grenoble outnumbered the provinces of Brojansson and Toulon in terms of total population and young population;

If the Pro-Guards continue to recruit soldiers on such a large scale, the young and strong populations of the provinces of Lyon and Grenoble will decline to a very dangerous level, which will be extremely detrimental to the reconstruction and development of the two provinces.

In desperation, Bai Feng had no choice but to strictly order Luculus to formulate strict recruitment criteria and select the best of the young and strong people in the two provinces; as a result, the two huge provinces only provided 1,500 qualified soldiers for the pro-soldier guards.

The remaining 3,500 soldiers, Bai Feng, who really had no good way, got a piece of the pie from the best recruits of the Imperial Military Department through the Duke of Rundstead and Duke Kleist, who remained in the province of Nice, and got the shortage of soldiers he wanted.

After obtaining 5,000 highly qualified recruits, Luculus directly divided the recruits equally among the five directly subordinate wings below, so that the size of each of the five wings under the pro-guard guard was expanded from 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers.

It was not easy to solve the difficult problems encountered in the process of expanding the pro-soldier guards, and the problem of lax military discipline in the death battalion was again placed in front of Bai Feng; in the death battalion, where the number of troops had increased sharply, the abolition of military discipline had become a real big problem.

On the way to suppress the bandits, he absorbed a large number of robbers' to defend the death battalion, and also incorporated some of the 'puppet army' units of the surrendered orcs into his own combat sequence; according to Lister's original concept, he was going to use these 'puppet troops' as cannon fodder for the death battalion.

He was caught off guard by the fact that the absence of war in a short period of time had led to the collusion between the despicable and shameless 'puppet army' in the death camp and the most vicious bandits, and they took the opportunity to patrol and attack a border village in the province of Lyon.

More than 300 men, young and old, were killed, and more than 400 women were raped and killed.

Lister didn't want his elite troops to participate in high-risk patrols, after all, this is the border between the provinces of Montaine and Lyon, and the orc army can appear at any time.

This extremely bad village slaughter incident was exposed by a hunter in the village who escaped the catastrophe because he went up the mountain to hunt, and took the initiative to find the military camp of the Yulin Legion.

With the double cooperation of the Yulin Regiment on the surface and the nets in the shadows, in just two days, the cause and effect of the incident of the slaughter of the village by the patrol unit of the Death Battalion were discovered, and all the soldiers of the Death Battalion who participated in the slaughter of the village were arrested by the officers and men of the Yulin Wing.

All 500 soldiers of the death battalion who caused the massacre of the village will be beheaded, and this is a decision that no one will have an opinion on, because soldiers are also human beings, and they kill the enemy on the battlefield for the purpose of defending their homes and the country, which is completely different from this kind of frenzied massacre.

Moreover, the targets of the soldiers' fight are often the soldiers of the enemy country, and the civilians have never been the objects that the soldiers' swords should be aimed at; the actions of this group of scum in the death battalion have not only touched the bottom line of Bai Feng, but also surpassed the bottom line of all imperial soldiers!

With Bai Feng's order, Lister, who personally went into battle, cut off the heads of his five hundred soldiers one after another; however, the matter has not ended at this point, and Bai Feng's other order has caused an uproar in the army.

After executing the 500 culprits, Bai Feng sent the 1st Division of the Yulin Regiment to surround the military camp of the Defending Battalion, and asked the officers and men of the 1st Division to carry out the harshest 'eleven killing' military law in the history of the Imperial Army against the 6,000 soldiers who gave up resistance to the Defending Battalion!

The so-called 'eleven killings' refers to the criminal law of gathering 6,000 soldiers of the death battalion and killing one person on the spot in a squad of 10 people.

In the course of the execution of the '11 killings' military law, some people continued to choose to resist the law enforcement of the officers and men of the 1st Division, but the result was that all the rebels and the unfortunate ones who were drawn out were all killed on the spot by the officers and men of the 1st Division.

It took two whole days for the punishment of the '11 killings' of the death battalion to be carried out; of the 6,000 soldiers of the battalion before the punishment, less than 4,500 soldiers remained after being punished, and more than 1,500 soldiers of the battalion died in this punishment.

Among them, although some soldiers were the first batch of death row prisoners to form the death camp, more of them were the 'puppet army' and robbers who had newly joined the death camp; they were greedy for life and afraid of death, and they could not help but struggle to the death under the oppression of death, but they did not know that resistance could only bring destruction.

Known as the butcher, Lister is not only the commander of the death camp, but also a loyal follower of Bai Feng, and when he wants to keep the death camp is rejected by Bai Feng, he resolutely resigns from Bai Feng as the leader of the death camp.

The generals who felt that Bai Feng's punishment of the death battalion was too heavy, but not only the commander of the death battalion, Lister, was the only one; even the corps commanders and division commanders of the other legions and divisions all spoke to Bai Feng one by one, hoping that Bai Feng could exempt the death battalion from the punishment of 'eleven kills'.

Bai Feng, who has always been willing to listen to the opinions of his subordinates, did not listen to anyone's advice this time, but let Hans, who would not question him, lead the army to enforce military law;

In Bai Feng's view, the last thing an army can do is to raise a butcher's knife against the common people of its own country and nation, which is a matter of principle.

For the purpose of killing a hundred people, Bai Feng stubbornly insisted on his decision, and refused Lister's resignation, ordering him to continue to serve as the commander of the death battalion;