That's it, the New Year of the Hereford family was spent in Magdeburg, a place that can be called a turning point in history. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Here, the Hereford family counted the spoils of war and returned the arms, weapons and equipment, and personnel to the Swabian family "generously".

Anyway, the Hereford family themselves don't need it - those mercenary-born guys are useless. The vast majority of the soldiers who came from ordinary people were traditional sects, and they all had families in southern Moravia. Until the Hereford family had not reached Moravia, they would never have served the Hereford family.

That's how it is on the personnel side. In terms of weapons and equipment, in the eyes of the Hereford family, who were completely equipped with Napoleonic guns, the captured artillery was all rotten and outdated, and could not be used. In the eyes of the Hereford family, who have improved their smelting technology and even metal alloy technology, the materials of those guns are also rubbish. Even if you melt down the copper ore and mint it into coins, you will never be able to make up for your losses. The cost of melting these metals and recasting them is actually higher than the cost of recasting the same number of guns.

In such a situation, these artillery pieces are a shame to be discarded.

The same is true for muskets and spears, armor and uniforms.

Old arquebuses, and outdated extra-long guns, were of no value. And those flintlock pistols were still somewhat useful - the problem was that after the Hereford family adopted the standard parts and assembly line work system, the influx of these weapons that were not interchangeable with their own tools, calibers, and parts, and were not on the right road, not only did not increase the combat effectiveness of the Hereford family's army, but would bring an additional and unnecessary burden to logistics.

Thinking about it this way, these muskets and super long guns, munitions and so on are naturally useless.

That's it, William just thought about it a little, and returned all these trophies, which seemed to be valuable and valuable, to the Swabian family. It was convenient for them to rearm as quickly as possible, so that they could make some trouble for the enemies of House Hereford, the Britons.

And for William, the really useful trophies are these: supplies, money and food. The Swabian army of 100,000 carried a large amount of baggage. And then there's the huge amount of money for the mercenaries to pay their salaries. These things are the real extraneous things that can increase the power of the Hereford family. And of course, these things cannot be returned to the Swabian family for no reason.

Of course, of course, the grain and grass and baggage can be negotiated - you can buy it. Anyway, as the world's largest grain producer, the Hereford family can not only meet its own needs but also export a large amount of foreign exchange to earn foreign exchange. Coupled with the current situation, in fact, all this grain and grass was sold to the Swabian family in the end.

Today's Swabian family, although on the surface, still maintains the identity of a human world power. But in reality it is already an empty shelf.

The vast majority of his army were mercenaries, and the elite Praetorian Guard was either crushed or crushed. It will take more time to regroup. The Swabian family itself was bankrupt, and now all the military expenses to support the army were obtained from the bankers of the Lombards in the south.

In addition to the previous loan, the two parties are also negotiating another loan...... It's just that, because of the defeat of the Swabian family and the "glorious record" of the Hereford family, the Lombard bankers were quite suspicious of continuing to lend to the Swabian family. Therefore, I am afraid that the terms of this loan will not be too favorable.

In addition to borrowing from the Lombard bankers, the Swabian family had another option: to take out a loan from Hereford Integrate.

After taking control of the huge real economy and developing light and heavy industries, it is only natural that the Hereford family began to meddle in the financial industry. For the sake of confidentiality...... Well, or maybe it's a cover-up. All in all, this time William did not use only the name of the Hereford family, but built the Polotsk National Bank in the name of Polotsk. Responsible for minting coins and collecting deposit reserves. In addition, there are two Bolotsk Commercial Bank and Polotsk Investment Bank.

With the Hereford family having sufficient financial reserves, William can easily take out tens of millions of imperial funds to give relief to the Swabian family, and the interest required is lower and there are no strings attached. This made the Swabians more acceptable.

With the support of the Lombards and William and the Hereford family, the emperor began the third round of military expansion. This time, the target of the expansion is no longer just mercenaries. More for ordinary people - of course, more criminals, hooligans, vagrants.

It's like how people in this era know about the military. People who have industries and jobs are considered indispensable to the composition of the country. Therefore, if you want to recruit soldiers, it is better not to recruit from these people who have serious jobs, but from the scum of society mentioned above.

In any case, these social dregs do not produce any food, goods and taxes for the country. It can just be used as waste, so that these guys can be soldiers and be pulled down when they die.

This situation existed not only in the Swabian army, but also in the armies of other countries. It's the same whether it's Visigothic, it's Asturias. On the contrary, countries like the Hereford family, which are specifically fond of recruiting peasants as soldiers, seem very different.

All in all, that's it. Army, national strength, finance, prestige. The Swabian family was like a castle in the air, and with the defeat in a vicious battle in Magdeburg, the whole family seemed to be crumbling.

If it weren't for the Hereford family reaching out and pulling him at the end, the Swabian family would have collapsed by now.

It's just that, even if it doesn't collapse, the situation of the Swabians is very bad now.

After the defeat at the Battle of Magdeburg, the Swabians had to abandon Jutland. The army on the peninsula was fortunate to run fast enough, otherwise, it would definitely be blocked by the Briton army. This part of the army was gathered back, which gave Kalman IV a little comfort. But the return of Archduke Christian of Jutland to the peninsula added another general to the Protestant League.

Jutland was tossed up by Kalman IV, and if Archduke Christian wanted to stabilize the situation, or even go further, he could only continue to cling to the thighs of the Britons. In this way, the Breton wing stabilized.

On the other side, with the news of the defeat of Kalman IV, the Franconian army, which was facing the main force of the Briton army on the Lotternian line, also quickly collapsed. The Salian family of Franconia, once again playing their wall-to-wall nature, surrendered to the Britons with little resistance.

For the excellent performance of the Sarien family, the Britons, the Hereford family and the Swabian family are all prepared. William had long heard from the Checas that they had broken ties with the Britons, and now that the situation had changed, it was not difficult to understand that the Franconian army had surrendered again and changed sides.

The Franconian army surrendered, and the entire Franconian kingdom once again fell into the arms of the Britons. Brought Lotteria back to the ground. In the process, Briton, the Franconians, and the local nobles of Lotyria all sent people to test the Duke of Bern's intentions.

It's just that the Bernese mountain people are much more reliable than the Franconians. Despite the change in the situation, the thousands of Bernese troops had no intention of surrendering or switching sides - but of course, they did not want to die for Kalmann IV of the Swabian family.

Sensing that something was wrong, they headed south as fast as they could, dropped all their artillery and most of their baggage, and ran back to the Bernese Mountains in one go, then blocked the checkpoint and closed themselves.

Seeing such a performance in the Bern region, the Britons thought for a moment that the cost of attacking Bern was too high and there was no benefit. Other than that, the Bernese army didn't seem to want to break out of the barren mountain terrain and kill people. In that case, it is better to leave them to fend for themselves in this wild land.

That's it. With the end of the Battle of Magdeburg. The situation between Protestants and traditional sects returned almost instantly to the beginning of the war.

The Protestant Confederation held large territories in Jutland, Frisia, Franconia, and Lotternia, the northwestern part of the empire - and if the Hereford family is included, the traditional denominations are enclosed in a semi-encircled posture by the Protestants.

Of course, although it looks like this in form, in reality it is completely different in terms of internal expression.

With the Emperor's harvest, the pretentious kings and grand dukes of the empire all vanished, and the surviving ones shrank their heads and threw their unrealistic fantasies into the Mariana Trench.

The entire Protestant Union, although there are still high-ranking nobles of the empire such as the Sarian family, the Archduke Christian, and even Lotternia are still in the process of electing a new king. But in reality, the entire Protestant Union has become a puppet with a stick in the Briton Kingdom. And the one who controls the huge territory that encompasses one-third of the Ostrogothic Empire and the population of millions is the commander-in-chief of the Briton continental faction, the executive director of the Briton Company, and William's old acquaintance Victoria.

It may not be long before she has the crown of the kingdom of Lotternia.