Volume 9: Outbreak Chapter 3: The Situation (Arnas Rebellion)

The last big event was the rebellion of the Armnas Empire.

This rebellion, which erupted at the beginning of the Blue Moon (March) of the Year 342 of the Fourth Age, was marked by the sudden murder of Emperor Erinus by Rasfir of the Prince of the Arnas Empire, splitting the entire Arnas Empire into two distinct factions in less than a month.

The rebels, led by the new Emperor Rasfir Arnas, occupied eight of the Empire's thirteen provinces, and most of the minor and minor nobles swore allegiance to Emperor Rasfir in the name of honoring the new Emperor, expelling the great nobles who had long been unpleasant to them, and seizing control of the provinces, in the hope of becoming the new ruling class of the Empire.

André Arnas, the First Prince, who was supported by the Holy See of Light and Dalaran, claimed that Rasfir had long been turned into a puppet by the Black Dragon, and that all the forces that cooperated with Rasfir were rebels. With the support of the great nobles, led by Marshal Boval, Prince André re-established the Imperial Diet in the province of Rema, officially announcing the beginning of the counterinsurgency.

This vigorous counterinsurgency war that swept the entire Arnas Empire also officially kicked off.

In the early days of the war, the rebels had the absolute upper hand. With the imperial capital of Avias as the center, the rebels occupied eight provinces and launched an attack on the remaining five provinces, for a time, the rebellion in various parts of the empire was surging, and the counterinsurgency army led by Prince Andrei could only barely control the situation in those large and medium-sized cities in the five provinces, as for more villages and towns, they were completely powerless to protect and could only be left to fend for themselves under the impact of the rebels.

But the rebels also have a fatal weakness, that is, they do not have the support and recognition of other human kingdoms. After the Holy See of Light and Dalaran publicly identified the Black Dragon Princess Onexia as the mastermind behind all this rebellion, the rebels lost their legitimacy legally. All teleportation arrays connecting other kingdoms were cut off at the first time, and the border began to be blocked, the import of materials was cut off, and the flow of people was restricted. This left the rebels relying on the territories they controlled to provide the supplies and manpower needed for the war.

On the contrary, although the strength in the hands of Prince Andrei is weak, but it has the support of the entire human race, although most of the human kingdoms are not willing to provide military support for this civil war in the Arnas Empire, but there is no restriction in terms of materials, and a large number of weapons and equipment and living materials are imported into the territory controlled by Prince Andrei through the teleportation array every day, which quickly calms down the panic of the imperial people in these provinces.

At the same time, Prince Andrei, who held the four elite legions, ordered the nobles led by Boward to stabilize the situation in their provinces and repel the attacks of the rebels, and at the same time began to recruit civilians into the army and conduct training to further expand the number of troops in his hands.

But until May 342, the situation throughout the empire was still dominated by the rebels.

On May 22, 342, after initially pacifying the situation in the provinces of Gular and Via, the former Imperial Marshal Berval gathered a total of 500,000 counterinsurgency troops, including the three elite legions of Gale Wings, Astum, and Shumero, and sent an attack on the fortress of Morente on the border of the province of Themesius in the western part of the empire, known as the Battle of Morrient.

But the rebels had already prepared for this, and the new emperor Rasfil gathered the elite in his hands-for-tat, with the elite legion of Michael's hand as the core, and arranged a full 200,000 soldiers in the fortress of Morente, relying on the fortress for defensive operations.

The battle lasted nineteen days, and although it ended in the victory of the counterinsurgency army, the rebels successfully thwarted Field Marshal Bowval's strategic attempt to quickly advance to the imperial capital of Avias, and the battered counterinsurgency army had to rest and use the fortress of Morente as a support point to confront the rebels across the Mott River across the border with Themesus.

The defeat of this battle had a serious impact on the old aristocratic faction led by Prince Andrei, Marshal Berval took the blame and resigned, and the big nobles who had previously expressed their support for Prince Andrei also began to doubt whether the counterinsurgency could be successful, and more importantly, many small and medium-sized nobles who still remained neutral saw the fact that the old aristocratic faction was strong and strong in this battle, and many people began to secretly contact the new emperor, so as not to lose the counterinsurgency, the new emperor took the throne, and their own interests were damaged.

At this critical juncture, the civilian forces supporting the counterinsurgency army suddenly burst into a dazzling light. Among them, the covenant of angels, which is supported by the Holy See of Light, and led by Raphael, the Holy Maiden of Light, is the most surprising.

Tens of millions of civilians recaptured most of Aston Province and nearly seventy percent of the city in just one and a half months from April 17 to May 29. On 3 June, the Angel's Covenant gathered more than three million soldiers and launched an attack on Aston City, the capital of Aston Province, known as the Battle of Aston.

With nearly 180,000 soldiers and two heroic commanders in the city of Aston, the rebels felt that such a garrison was enough to repel the enemy in the face of a group of civilians who were not much stronger than the mobs.

But the outcome of the campaign was unexpected!

In just one week, the Angel's Covenant completely recovered Aston City, two rebel commanders were killed and one captured, and the 180,000 elite rebels gathered from all over Aston Province were wiped out, and on the fourth day after the battle, Aston Province was declared to be recovered!

This victory greatly boosted the momentum of the old aristocratic faction and provided strong support to Prince Andrei. From then on, the civil war in the empire began to enter a state of tug-of-war, and Prince Andrei finally wrested power from the hands of those great nobles and initially established his leadership position.

From early June to mid-August, under the influence of the Battle of Aston, uprisings mainly civilians broke out in the provinces controlled by the rebels, which dealt a powerful blow to the arrogance of the rebels and effectively delayed the rebels' plans to concentrate their forces, making it impossible for the rebels to obtain sufficient reinforcements from the provinces.

And at the end of August, a sudden outbreak of the plague uncovered the true face of the new emperor, Rasfir pushed the situation of the entire empire to the precipice, and also affected the decisions of all the nobles who remained neutral.

That is the great plague known as "Sawyer's Death"!

The plague spread from the imperial capital of Avias, and at the beginning of the rebellion, the new emperor Rasfil blocked the entire city of Avias, claiming to be in order to clear the old aristocratic faction in the capital that were still loyal to the old emperor, but in fact, at this time, Avia City had long become a dead domain, and more than 600,000 civilians in the imperial capital had become mindless undead under the influence of evil magic!

With the end of the Battle of Aston, the black dragon princess Onexia finally realized that those small and medium-sized nobles alone could not fight against the big nobles who had held the power of the empire for many years, so she continued to give birth to dragonmen, and also began to use various means to increase the weight in her hands, and one of the most important actions was to turn the Armnas Empire into a paradise for the undead!

She sent her subordinates to transport large quantities of grain contaminated by the power of death in the imperial capital to several provinces near the imperial capital, and secretly spread the undead plague developed by herself to these provinces, especially the province of Sawyer. The province of Soya is mainly based on industrial minerals, and most of its own grain needs need to be transported from other provinces, especially materials from the imperial capital.

Contaminated grain has entered the province of Sawyer, leaving nearly three million people in the province in the shadow of death. With the uprisings of the common people in various places, life and production were seriously affected, which further led to a decline in industrial and agricultural output.

By August 25th, the first case of undead incarnation occurred in a small town called Jeris in Soyer Province, and then, in just two hours, the entire town was completely turned into a human purgatory, and more than eighty percent of the 2,700 townspeople were converted into undead, and the entire town lost its breath of life.

Two days later, the wave of undead has spread to several major cities in the province of Soya, and the rebel leaders responsible for guarding these cities anxiously ask for help from the imperial capital Avias, but what they are waiting for is the dragonmen who have descended from the sky, and the cold order of the new emperor Rasfir to "fend for himself".

At this point, the situation in the entire province of Soya was completely out of control, and until August 30, all the villages, towns and cities in the province were occupied by the undead, and more than ninety percent of the population became undead, and the rest could only be trapped in a few hidden mountain mines, waiting for the fate of death to come.

At this point, the news could no longer be suppressed. As more and more undead spread from Sawa to several other provinces, and more cases of undead appeared, the rebel leaders everywhere finally realized what kind of existence they were loyal to the emperor. Coupled with the continuous propaganda of the Holy See of Light and Dalaran, the leaders of the rebel armies everywhere, who had been reluctant to believe it, finally made a decision.

From September 1 to September 7, the six provinces were declared liberated, and the rebel leaders and commanders of these provinces were taken into custody pending the screening and interrogation of the Holy See and the Imperial Council, while ordinary soldiers were simply screened and placed in the battle sequence.

Until September 15th, the situation in the empire finally returned to calm again, and Onexia, who had exposed her true face, did not hesitate to abandon Rasfil, who had long been turned into a puppet, and stood in the foreground, including Sawyer, Sierra Leone and most of the Latrami provinces were directly controlled by the dragons sent by Onexia, and all the civilians living in these territories were turned into undead, while the rest of the provinces swore allegiance to Prince Andrei, and the noble lords everywhere began to gather soldiers on a large scale, Prepare to crusade against the undead and the black dragon princess Onexia in the territory of the Empire.

But the balance of power in the war has not changed because of the recovery of these provinces, and Onexia, with more than six million undead and thousands of dragonmen, poses a huge threat to the entire counterinsurgency army, and they do not need to worry about the loss of civilians, do not need to provide logistical support, and do not need to stick to a military point.

The war has entered its most brutal stage! This time, they are no longer facing a civil war for imperial power, but an existential battle for survival!

Although the strength of the counterinsurgency army was greatly enhanced, the war continued until the summer of 343, when the counterinsurgency army cleared all the enemies on the periphery of the imperial capital and besieged the undead in the imperial capital of Avias.

The last battle of this civil war, the Battle of Avias, started on June 6, 343, and the Imperial Counterinsurgency Army led by the Covenant of Angels launched a fierce attack on Avia City from four directions, and after three days and three nights of continuous fighting, it finally recovered the historic capital, but at this time, the city of Avia has long been turned into a dilapidated ruin under the ravages of the undead and dragonmen, and it takes a lot of resources to rebuild, but also a lot of manpower and time!

However, the upcoming camp war made it impossible for Prince Andrei to accomplish this purpose, and the three provinces that had been ravaged by the undead for more than half a year were no longer suitable for human habitation in a short period of time, and even needed to deploy troops to prevent the bones buried underground from awakening under the influence of the power of death. In desperation, the new emperor who officially succeeded to the throne not long ago issued an order to move the capital, moving the capital from Avia City to Rochester, the capital of the relatively intact Rhoda Inner Province, and temporarily abandoned the three provinces of Soya, Sierra Leone, and Ratrami.

And the culprit of all this, the black dragon princess Onexia, disappeared in the last moments of the war, and before the Battle of Avias began, the cunning mother dragon left the city of Avia and completely disappeared from human sight. This is one of the reasons why the counterinsurgency army was able to regain the city of Avias.

Only Yu Bin knows where this she-dragon has gone!

In fact, in the final moments of the war, when the counterinsurgency army was about to completely surround the city of Avias, Nefarian, the prince of the black dragon, who had fled from the Black Rock Mountain and recovered from his wounds, found Onexia, who was hiding in the city of Avias. The Black Dragon Prince tries to convince his "sister" to assist him in regaining control of the Black Dragon Legion, but Onexia, who has already experienced a betrayal, refuses Nefarian's request.

Unable to convince her, Nefarian had to attack Onexia with a few of his only men, trying to force her to produce dragon eggs by imprisoning her, and to create a new army of dragons for Nefarian. Unwilling to become a prisoner and slave, Onexia escaped after a fierce battle, and wanted to return to her lair on the Black Coast to recuperate, but unfortunately it had already been overrun by the Devouring Serpent, and a trap was laid to await the arrival of the black dragon princess.

In this way, after being captured by the Devouring Snake, Onexia was imprisoned in the underground mausoleum of Naxxramas, and Yu Bin sent a group of heroic-level subordinates led by Rassovios to take care of this special prisoner, and drove the black dragon princess to attack the human heroic spirits in the depths of the mausoleum, in this way, little by little, to eliminate the biggest hidden danger of Naxxramas.

On the one hand, the rebellion almost completely destroyed the industrial and agricultural production base of the Arnas Empire, especially the subsequent undead raging, which made this powerful empire decline to the level of the kingdom in one breath, which made the human race lose a strong leader, and at the same time, the human power was significantly weakened, unable to provide sufficient soldiers in the early stage of the camp war.

On the other hand, the rebellion also forced the Holy See of Light and Dalaran to devote a lot of energy to internal affairs, such as the scourge of the Lich that happened in the Kingdom of Virgil, and the undead that happened in the Armnas Empire. This allows humanity to fight with limited strength on the frontal battlefield of faction warfare.