There was a long war before.

The so-called history is a history of wars, and there have been countless battles in the past, from small and unknown commotions to large battles that will go down in history. The sum of these countless battles is the so-called "long war".

For the subjects of the Empire, especially the so-called "new vassals" who had been converted from nationals of the old Charlemagne Kingdom to fourth-class citizens of the Empire, the "long war" represented a past that could not be looked back on, symbolizing turmoil, restlessness, fanaticism, poverty, humiliation, death that fell from heaven at all times, and hunger that seemed to have no end in sight. After going from one failure to another, from despair to deeper despair, people have lost their enthusiasm for political movements. Now everyone just wants to live a good life and be a law-abiding citizen of the empire in peace and stability.

In the days of Charlemagne, it was undoubtedly a shameful act of treason to dare to express such thoughts, and patriots would come to the door to smash and loot, and the gendarmes would invite the whole family to tea. When the empire was first established, there would also be militaristic teenagers and rebellious youths who couldn't turn their brains to splash paint on their doors, smash windows, and so on. By the time the powerful departments took effective action, almost overnight, all voices hostile to the empire had disappeared, and everyone seemed to have become a loyal and patriotic fourth-class citizen.

And then the history that most of the Fourth Citizens of the Empire wanted to avoid is now being studied and examined again by loyal citizens of the Empire.

The Municipal Library in the district of Lydste was converted from the old Kingdom Army Building, and the bronze statue of the crown prince with a prancing horse and whip at the main entrance was removed after the war, and the bronze statue was recovered and melted down to form a large bell, and on the old pedestal was placed a statue of the muse in charge of history, and the bronze medal at the muse's feet was inlaid with a gilded laurel wreath, and in the center of the wreath was the emperor's famous words: "Correct history is worth a hundred divisions".

After the Imperial Defense took over the building, they immediately sealed all the archival documents, and then a large number of civilians who arrived from Alfheim spent three full months to screen and classify the various archives, and finally all the documents were archived and sorted out, and all of them were packed and sent to the Imperial Archives in the imperial capital of Alfheim, the largest archive in the world, which is ten stories high, except for the top two floors are administrative offices, and the bottom is full of databases. The core of the underground archive is located 60 meters underground, which can withstand direct bombardment by nuclear bombs.

After that, for a full year, the building was requisitioned to serve as the "Joint Garrison Command", and the voices of quarrels could be heard every day during the days when the headquarters of the three armies stationed in Rüdes were encamped there. It was not until two years ago, when the dust settled on the division of the administrative blocks of Lüders (in order not to divide the army building into three, the empire paid for the property rights of the building), and the armies of the three countries formally signed an agreement to divide and occupy the territory, abolished the joint garrison command, and everyone went back to their homes, that the constant disputes and insults around the day and night came to an end. Later, in the spirit of waste utilization, the building was converted into a municipal library and opened to all citizens. As the only public facility in the Lüdes Special Administrative Region and the entire empire that is open to all citizens, there are no such things as "equal but segregated" signs, dotted lines that distinguish ethnic groups, and only X and other citizens. As long as you don't bother others, basically no one cares how many citizens you are, whether you are in the corresponding area, and use the corresponding channels and equipment.

"This is the wartime Al Fheim Primary School. ”

Marseille pointed to a color photograph and tapped his finger at a few first-class citizen schoolchildren who were writing with their heads down.

"When the war began, all the primary and secondary schools in Alfheim practiced dictation every afternoon, and the radio would broadcast the front-line battles in a slow, three-word speech at a time, and the students would meticulously write down what they heard. This image may come in the form of a quiz question and a multiple-choice question, and if it is a multiple-choice question, it is likely to make a trap question, so be sure to pay attention to the details of the question description and whether there is the word 'wartime' in the options. There is also this one, which is the playground of the middle school in Alfheim, with a world map hanging under the national flag, and the small flag on the map conveys the good news of the victorious advance of the Wehrmacht in real time......"

Ricardo was busy taking notes, his slow handwriting, sometimes inexplicable spelling mistakes, and his barely making do with Charlemagne's writing, and it was a disaster to replace it with Elven with terrible rigour. And everyone knows that the questions and answers of the Empire's various exam papers stipulate the use of Elvid, the only official language of the Empire. So when Ricardo took notes in Elvish, boredom and waiting became a procedure that Marseille had to go through.

In order to survive this time, Marseille threw himself out of the window, and the scenery full of greenery and birds and flowers soothed his mood a lot, but this did not last long, and an ugly building pierced Marseille's blue eyes like a thorn, and it has been deeply rooted in his heart.

That's a wall.

The wall is 5 meters high and is guarded by barbed wire, power grids, steel rails, anti-vehicle trenches, tower sentry posts, searchlights, and weapons systems such as snipers, tripping flares, and mines that are difficult for ordinary people to detect.

It looks like a prison or KZ (Konzentrationslager) facility, and it would not be out of place if such a wall were found around such a facility, but the problem is that the wall appeared in the city of Lüdders and divided the whole of Lüdders in three - just as Charlemagne's kingdom was divided into three by an iron curtain that was lowered after the war.

One might think that this is also a "masterpiece" of the Empire, but it is not.

The first to build the wall were the woolly bears of the United Rus' Duchy.

Already during the war, the three wartime allies – the Alfheim, the Kingdom of Albion, and the United Rus' Duchy – had agreed on the partition and occupation of Lüders and Charlemagne as a whole. However, at that time, except for a small number of high-ranking officials, no one could have imagined that the war would end up in a unilateral victory for the Empire, so much so that Lüders was deeply "embedded" in the occupied areas of the Empire. As a result, Albion and Rose's original wishful thinking of dividing Charlemagne into three major pieces with Lüders as the center fell through. The empire that played the leading role in the war against Charlemagne undoubtedly occupied the most territory, and Albion and Rose also got their share. Later, in order to fulfill the treaty signed during the war, highlighting the "goodwill and friendship" between the three countries, the empire did fulfill the agreement. Albion and Ross also gained their own enclave in the largest and richest city of the old Charlemagne. The famous political freak was created with the existence of three municipal governments, which were divided and occupied by the armies of the three countries, and the entire city was shared with telephone lines, sewers and transportation.

In the beginning, Lüdders's division existed only on a political and legal level, and the lives of ordinary citizens were not affected in the slightest. Fourth-class citizens under the Empire could go to work in the occupied territories of the Kingdom of Albion, exchange money for money in the black markets occupied by the United Principality of Rus' after work, go home with large bags in the evenings, or go to the occupied territories of Albion to read uncensored books and watch banned comedies. At that time, the citizens of Lüdes used this method to add some spice to their dull and oppressive life, and the division of the occupation line was nothing more than a dotted line painted with red paint in front of the road or building. Until a year ago, the occupation forces of the United Principality of Rus' launched Operation "Rose", which almost overnight tore Lüdes apart with a wall.

The principality's actions were neither whims, nor did they come up with a pat on the head after drinking too much vodka, but they were forced to build such a wall.

The area of occupation of the United Principality of Rus' was slightly smaller than that of Albion, and it was the smallest of the three occupation areas. The population size of the area under its control is also the smallest. It stands to reason that there are fewer people, and it is more convenient to manage. But from the moment the Principality occupied the zone was on the verge of spiraling out of control.

Throughout the war, the Wehrmacht was careful not to harm Lüdes, an "important asset that will sooner or later be occupied", and in the end Charlemagne's largest and wealthiest city was greeted by the occupying forces in one of its own countries. For the Principality, where the vast majority of its soldiers came from the countryside, the thrill of this beautiful city was unprecedented, with the beautiful architecture, the decent clothing of the people, the abundance of goods, the lights that could be expelled even at night—all of which stimulated their primitive instincts, the instincts of wild beasts.

Although the Principality's upper echelons disparaged the soldiers as "grey animals", to the soldiers and civilians of the enemy nation, the Principality soldiers were a pack of beasts that could wield weapons, speak human language, and spread violence and terror wherever they went. massacres, looting, arson, rape...... Cities conquered by the Duchy army will crumble little by little in a carnival of sin until they are completely destroyed, and then they will be given a Duchy-like name, and Duchy-style buildings will be erected, and a large number of Duchy residents will pour in. Everything that was gone is completely gone, as if it never existed.

But this time, although the "livestock" drooled excitedly, it was difficult to get their wish. Because this occupation is directly related to the face of the principality and the Tsar's "little father", anyone who dares to smear the Tsar's face will be punished with the severest punishment. If you don't want to be hanged yourself and your family exiled to permafrost to dig potatoes, be honest. Under the supervision of the gendarmes and the commanders, the Principality Army behaved very peacefully, almost making people think that these "gray cattle" were not inspired by the Mother Goddess.

However, neither the upper echelons of the principality nor the grassroots soldiers could have imagined that their tolerance and self-discipline would be exchanged for a massive loss of funds and talents in the occupied areas.

To be sure, the Duchy's forces performed better than any previous occupation, and they were determined to turn the occupied territory into a showcase to show Charlemagne and the people of the Principality the superiority and tolerance of the Principality. For this reason, they even abandoned the plan to pack up all the supplies in the occupied area and send them back to the country as Charlemagne's war reparations to the principality. However, even so, compared with the Empire's occupation and Albion's occupation area, the economic recovery of the Principality's occupied areas is still extremely slow.

There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is that the occupied area in Lüdes is far from the Duchy mainland and has no direct overland connections to the port cities occupied by the Duchy. The inherently high cost of transporting goods over long distances, coupled with the fact that any goods entering or leaving the empire would be subject to customs duties, kept prices high in the occupied territories. On the other hand, at the exchange rate at the time, the price of the same beer in the occupied areas of the principality was only one-third to one-quarter of that in the occupied areas of the Empire, and the citizens of the Empire could get a haircut for a few pinches, spend a little change and have fun all day, and buy a lot of goodies. For the inhabitants of the Empire and the Occupied Albion, the Principality's Occupied Territories were a shopper's paradise. But for the Principality, this was a serious economic damage and an intolerable economic aggression. Add to this the large number of highly educated Charlemagnes – scholars, teachers, professors, engineers, judges, skilled workers, doctors and others – who have fled because it is difficult to earn a living in the occupied areas of the Principality, where their standards of living have deteriorated. The Principality's hopes of turning the occupied territories into "shop windows" to demonstrate its "superiority" had failed, and all that could be done now was to evacuate or close the curtains of the shop windows and isolate them from the inside and outside. Since the principality is clinging to face (withdrawing from the occupied area is tantamount to admitting defeat, and even more so to admitting that the principality's policy has made a mistake), they choose the latter method - the use of force is too "violent", and the barbed wire is too "weak", then simply build a wall!

A year ago, on the morning of New Year's Day, the citizens of Lüdes, who had just finished celebrating the New Year, woke up to find a 40-kilometre-long barbed wire fence with a stinging snake belly spreading along the border of the occupied territories, and on the opposite side of the barbed wire, tens of thousands of soldiers of the Principality with loaded guns drove back the weeping citizens with the butts of their rifles. In areas of intense conflict, people who tried to force their way through the blockade were shot and killed. In the end, in the midst of crying and cursing, countless families, couples, and friends ushered in the tragedy of being close at hand but had to be separated, and Lüders also ushered in the most humiliating and sad days of the city since its founding.

By 12:47 p.m. on New Year's Day, the blockade system, which the Principality had dubbed "Against the Wall of Resistance (the name is simply black humor)", was initially completed, marking the beginning of the division of Lüders and the official start of the Cold War between the Principality and its former allies.

Looking at the ugly building that separates Lüddes on both a physical and spiritual level, Marseille sighs inaudibly, and once again turns his gaze back to his best friend who is about to finish his notes.

He didn't know that his fate was about to usher in a major turning point, and the person who changed his fate was under the wall that he was looking at at this moment.