Almost like this, at the same time that the Hereford family was cultivating their internal skills and building on a large scale, the war within the empire continued in full swing. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info everything is just like William thought, and it is developing in a direction that is beneficial to the emperor.

Franconia returned to His Majesty the Emperor in the shortest possible time, and the old King Henry intervened, imprisoned Prince Henry, revoked his inheritance, and threw himself into a well-guarded tower, which differed from the princess in those stories in two ways, first, Prince Henry was a man. Second, there will never be any hero or anything like that to save him at the end of the story.

If there were no accidents, then Prince Henry would have spent the rest of his life in this tower.

That's it.

After hearing about this, William was very pleased with the old King Henry—yes, unfortunately the thing was also called Henry. Henry is a good name, and everyone likes to use it. It's like William's previous kingdom of France, where there were sixteen kings named Louis.

The old King Henry's means were brilliant. Also very lewd and cunning. He first pretended that his days were running out and put Prince Henry in charge of the whole country. Then he indulged Prince Henry to join the coalition against Kalman IV. After the defeat of the coalition forces, he dealt with Prince Henry decisively. Then he put all the guilt and responsibility on the head of Prince Henry, and pretended to be innocent like a small flower, and threw himself back into the arms of the empire.

It was precisely because of his insidiousness and cunning that although Kalman IV was very dissatisfied with his old brother-in-law, there was no reason to attack him. Old King Henry also knew each other very well and gave whatever he wanted. The Kingdom of Franconia tightened its belts and cobbled together another 10,000 troops to join the Emperor's army. At the same time, almost all of the country's savings were given to Kalman IV as military expenses. He also turned a blind eye to the looting of Kalman IV in the territory of the Kingdom of Franconia......

In this way, Franconia, by virtue of insidious cunning and obedience, finally escaped a catastrophe, and did not become a plate of scattered sand like the kingdom of Lotyria next door, and finally sank into the scum of the stream, to be slaughtered or something.

With the money and troops looted from Franconia, the Imperial Army regained its strength. At the same time, the troops of the Duchy of Bern also entered the territory of Franconia to join the emperor. This meant that the emperor had added another 5,000 to his army to fight.

These troops, together with those who had been screened out after the surrender, not only recovered, but grew to nearly 80,000 troops.

An army of 80,000 is by no means comparable to the defeat of less than 20,000 remnants of Lotternia. Even with a weapon as big as the ironclad train, General John Churchill could not guarantee that he would be able to hold Lotternia.

Military disadvantage is one thing, and people's disadvantage is another.

As the most thoroughly ravaged state by the Emperor's army in the last imperial civil war, Lotternia's hatred of Kalman IV was second to none, but at the same time, his fear of the Emperor was unparalleled.

When they heard of the defeat of their army, the Loteranian panicked. Legions of Lotternesian nobles scrambled to the south, and the Emperor's army reported the news, desperately framing their colleagues while desperately trying to get themselves out.

In a sense, the Loteranians thought that the Britons had cheated themselves - they had provoked Kalman IV, but they were unable to defeat the terrible emperor. Seeing that the emperor was about to come with a large army, the dissatisfaction of the Loteranians with the Britons also grew to the extreme.

General John Churchill, who was stationed south of Lotternia, did not dare to stay in this place any longer. He didn't know how many Loteranian people had secretly contacted the Emperor, or how many Loteranian wanted to sell him for a good price.

Although Lotteria was still nominally part of the Protestant League, General John Churchill felt as if he were marching through the fields of Loterania. The people around him cast an incomparably indifferent, implicit angry gaze. He believed that if he had not been accompanied by a battalion of infantry, the peasants and townspeople would have rushed over and tore him to pieces.

In any case, southern Lotyrnia could not stay any longer. General John Churchill made a quick decision and withdrew to the northern part of Lotternia, which had been under the control of the Briton Kingdom, in the shortest possible time, and then stopped at Frankfurt, a large city in the north of Loterania, and began to set up defenses.

And so it was, the emperor's army easily and effortlessly occupied all of Loterania.

At this point, the situation in the entire empire seems to have become clear.

The Emperor's army had already made up four-fifths of the entire empire, and the once mighty coalition had lost two pillars. Both Loteraia and Franconia were brought under the control of the Empire. At present, the only thing that can barely support it is the Duchy of Jutland, which is half frightened to death, frightened three times a day, and has 20,000 troops in its hands but does not know what to do.

In fact, if it weren't for the fact that the emperor was offended too hard some time ago, even if he surrendered, there would be no good end, then Archduke Christian would probably have surrendered and knelt for Kalman IV.

The situation is back to pre-war times. The Emperor's de facto control has been restored to the level it was before this sectarian war. Even he could go one step further. Annexed the Grand Duchy of Jutland. If this situation can be used to drive out the Frisian Britons as well, then the empire will be completely unified.

The emperor is only one step away from his previous wrongs.

He was full of ambition and continued to lead his army north. The army was divided into two parts, and the detachment of about 20,000 men held the line of Loteraia to defend against the Britons, whose army had fallen to less than 20,000. Mainly those mercenaries and nobles from the region of Lotyrnia, who broke away from the army of the Britons.

The most recent force, which could support General John Churchill, was thousands of miles away and was currently being loaded in Normandy. By the time they landed in Frisia and then took the railway line to the front, it would have taken at least a week - a very fast speed, but General Churchill still felt very painful.

The other 60,000 troops were led by His Majesty the Emperor himself. Travel to Jutland...... Of course, in addition to Jutland, His Majesty the Emperor had another idea. That's the coercion of the Hereford family.

As William thought, when the emperor had the upper hand, he was not so easy to compromise. Although the Hereford family has occupied the entire Wende Kingdom, and has the support of a large number of knowledgeable people up and down the Wende Kingdom. However, Kalman IV was slow to take any attitude towards Otto's coronation as King of Wende.

His attitude was ambiguous, neither for nor against. It felt like he was going to drag on until he defeated the Grand Duchy of Jutland—

"The Emperor wants to force us to make a statement. William said to King Otto: "He doesn't want the Hereford family to expand too much, but he can't afford to devote enough energy to us in a short time." So, his tactics should be to threaten and push us.

Relying on the current strategic advantage, he forced us to join his camp. Then he would be able to deal with the Britons wholeheartedly. ”

"Then what is our choice?" asked King Otto.

"Our choice...... We can promise him. William smiled pleasantly, "If he wants our support, we'll support him - but we won't send a single soldier into the war anyway." We left the Emperor and the Britons to fight to the death.

As I had predicted, the Emperor would never be the opponent of the Britons in the event of an all-out war - as soon as the Emperor was defeated, we would quickly change sides and move westward as fast as possible, and we would have to annex northern Great Moravia, that is, Bohemia, before the Britons, and annex the small states of Brandenburg, Lüneburg and Magdeburg to the northeast of the empire. Annexation of the northeastern region of the central part of the empire. ”

"And what about the Swabians?" continued King Otto, "perhaps we can go south and annex Austria and Bavaria in southern Moravia, and then make an agreement with the Carpathians to bring this kingdom under our control?" ”

Speaking of this, King Otto's face was full of red light, and he looked quite excited.

“...... No. Wilhelm shook his head: "We cannot annex Austria and Bavaria, let alone the Carpathians - we must keep the Swabian family." We could even support the Swabians in controlling Franconia and Lotternia in exchange for our annexation of Bohemia and the small northeastern states of the central Empire. ”

"Why?" said King Otto, puzzled.

"Because we're not ready to face Britton head-on. William shook his head a little helplessly: "The Emperor has to face all the enemies, the Dark Elves, the Bretons and the Visigoths. The pressure on the emperor was enormous, and the emperor rarely died well. The situation of the Hereford family is very good at the moment, and if we continue to develop, then one day, we will have the strength to fight the Britons. But, believe me, my father, that's not now. ”

“...... I understand. As before, King Otto did not hesitate to admit William's plan. The Hereford family must continue to lie dormant, not to be on the front line against a strong enemy, not to serve as the emperor, and not to become the target of public criticism. Nor will they join this war between the old and new sects at this time...... That's it.