Chapter 943: War and Peace (III.)
Andrea walked into the temple of Tiamat and prayed to the Mother of Dragons in her private confessional chamber as usual. When she finished her prayers and prepared to return to www.biquge.info the barracks, Yakov, Racine, and Jabella finally made a decision to restart the peace talks and contact Tamara to prepare for the Great Migration.
Over the next few days, Andrea traveled in and around Dragon City, and after countless arguments and even quarrels, she finally signed a "peace agreement" with the Kitland-Kolas coalition on behalf of the "Dragon's Eye", and although the so-called peace was paid a heavy price, it was at least a little better than "surrender".
Under the mediation of Tamara, and perhaps thanks to the covert game of forces such as Beacon Mountain, Parnia, and the Marquis of Canaan, the Beowulf couple and the Kolas father and son agreed in principle to the withdrawal of the Dragons forces to the Twilight Valley on the basis of the Tartarus fleet, provided that the "Dragon's Eye" met certain conditions:
First of all, it was required that the retreat must be supervised by a coalition commissioner, and that it should be limited to carrying personal weapons and equipment and limited personal belongings on the road.
Secondly, it must be handed over to Dragon City in its entirety, and during the week-long relocation, all buildings, facilities, locks, and assets such as mines, woodlands, farms, docks, and pastures around Dragon City must be registered, and many of them will be handed over to the coalition headquarters for custody.
This clause made the Green Dragon General Jia Beila the most annoyed, she has always adhered to the principle that what she can't get is better to destroy than let others take possession, and planned to bury a large number of alchemy powder kegs in Dragon City on the eve of Naluo's departure, and then arrange for her cronies to set fire to the city, but hated Roland's cunning like a ghost, especially emphasizing that no kind of destruction should be carried out in the city, coupled with Andrea and Tamara's stern warnings, forcing her to give up the idea of setting fire to the city.
The third provision is more complex and deals with "war reparations". The coalition initially asked the "Dragon's Eye" to pay 40 million gold coins as compensation for the defeat, but Andrea admitted that she couldn't come up with so much cash, and the two sides finally negotiated for 24 million after many negotiations, half of which was paid with magic crystals.
The Beowulf couple took 10 million from this huge indemnity, mainly to repay the loan owed when rebuilding Kitland, in addition to paying the pensions of the soldiers killed and wounded in the war, and the remaining 14 million was used as the military expenses of the Kolas Corps for this trip north, in fact, only one-third of the military expenses were paid, and the remaining 10 million were deposited into the special accounts opened by Roland in his personal name in the Yanbo Chamber of Commerce and Beacon Hill, which were planned to be used as reserves for the creation of the "Central Bank of the Far East" in the future.
The "Dragon's Eye" has dominated the Northland for more than half a century, and it has really looted a lot of money, but the family has a big business and a lot of expenses, even if the Dragon King's treasury is clean, it can't make up 24 million cash, not to mention that it costs money to rebuild his home in the Twilight Valley, so most of this war reparations are provided by Tamara in the name of the Twilight Fund.
The last clause of the contract, which was also signed by Roland, was simple at first glance, requiring the "Dragon's Eyes" to respect the freedom of all residents of Dragon City and its surrounding territories, and allowing people to choose to stay in the area or move to the Twilight Dales. As to where the boundaries of "legality" are, there will be a supplementary agreement specifying this in the appendix to the contract. Generally speaking, it is impossible for the Dragonblood Clan to claim to be "nobles" and wantonly enslave other ethnic groups in the Northland as before, but they will not be deliberately suppressed and exploited to live their duty.
Andrea eventually accepted this clause and took on the mission of persuading the Dragonvein civilians to stay. On the second day of the contract, she summoned all the dragon veins in the city to the large square in front of the temple gate, and gave a public speech, first apologizing to the people for the defeat in the war, and then asking everyone to make the best choice for themselves according to their own will.
Andreya's prestige in the Dragon Pulse Clan is extremely high, and most people do not think that she is responsible for the defeat, but generally blame the Half-Dragon Clan for the current predicament: those who usually pride themselves on being noble are obviously not as heroic as they themselves boast, and since no Half-Dragon General has so far stood up to blame himself for the defeat in the war, why should Andreya, who performed the most outstanding in the war and saved the Half-Dragon Legion from total annihilation, bear this black cauldron? The square was full of people, and they all hugged Andrea.
Seeing this, Andrea was both relieved and sad, and finally had to give orders to her people with her usual majestic gesture.
"Stand on the left for the devout Tiamat, and stand on the right for those who are not firm enough in their faith, or simply have no clear faith!"
The commotion in the square immediately subsided, and the people looked at each other, not understanding the purpose of Andrea's move, and no one dared to move their feet to make a rash decision until they had figured out the general's thoughts.
Andrea sighed and lowered her posture to persuade everyone: "The choices you make next will determine the happiness of the rest of your life - and even your children and grandchildren, and I hope that everyone will make an honest choice, please don't let me down." As she spoke, two divine rays of brilliance appeared on her body in a row, her eyes blessed with "seeing through lies", and the "Domain of Honesty" opened under her feet.
When people saw this scene, they became even more nervous, especially those who occasionally went to the temple of Tiamat with the flow on weekdays, but did not really revere the Mother of Dragons, and did not dare to make a choice against their will in the "Domain of Honesty".
The stalemate did not last long, after all, the dragon vein people who worshipped Tiamat were the majority, some people went to the left, more people followed, and in the blink of an eye, many people gathered in the square on the left, and many remained in place, and none went to the right.
Zoya first wanted to blend in with the crowd and slip to the left, but as soon as she took a step, the "Honest Domain" made the aura beneath her feet turn bright red and blind. The people were surprised to find that Andrea's right-hand man turned out to be a hypocrite, while those who remained in the middle were overjoyed: since even Zoya was a hypocrite, it was understandable that these ordinary people were not religious enough for Tiamat.
Zoya hesitated for a moment, and tried to pretend to be casual to the left, but was stopped by Andrea's glare, shrunk her neck, and reluctantly moved to the right with small steps.
Anton remained in place, looking overwhelmed by Andrea's forced gaze, and was finally pulled by Zoya and forcibly dragged him to the right.