Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 269 - 67: Two Military Advisors

Chapter 269: Chapter 67: Two Military Advisors

When Eleanor found Aske, he was watching Medea and Thira play international chess.

"Not right?" Medea wondered, "How could I, who can read minds, be checkmated by you?"

"Chess relies on brainpower, not mind reading," Thira said, playing with a chess piece. "Even if you can predict my next few moves, you don’t know how to play in a way that affects the overall game dozens of steps later."

"Are you saying my brainpower is inferior to yours?" Medea scoffed.

"I didn’t say that," Thira calmly replied. "But Medea, do you rely too heavily on your ability? Thinking is the most precious asset of humanity."

"Squad Leader!" Eleanor ran up to Aske, recounted her father’s concerns, and then asked,

"So what do you think? Could the Wolf Family be colluding with the Hussite sect within the Duchy?"

"I don’t know about that," Aske said.

"You don’t know something?" Eleanor was shocked.

"Why don’t you ask someone with a good head on their shoulders?" Aske suggested. "Like Medea and Thira in our team."

The two girls were cleaning up the chessboard and the pieces when Thira, hearing this, said,

"That depends on your definition of ’collusion.’"

"Um," Eleanor hesitated.

"If mere private contact counts as ’collusion,’" Thira began, "then there definitely is. The Hussites primarily originate from the native inhabitants of Bohemia, Bavaria, and Carinthia in Scolap. With the current hostile climate, the Wolf Family would surely attempt to reach these Hussites, hoping they could initiate a rebellion to bog down and wear out the Weisbach Family’s power."

"However, if ’planning a rebellion’ is required for it to count as ’collusion,’ it’s not so certain. Since the Church Court executed their leader Huss, the Hussites have rapidly expanded among the lower classes. Yet their biggest issue is the lack of a prestigious supreme leader like Huss to consolidate the currently scattered Hussite forces."

"An organization that isn’t fully unified is like a loosened fist, lacking enough destructive power. In this scenario, even if the Wolf Family wants to incite the Hussites within the Duchy, they probably lack the channels to directly contact them. More likely, they are just secretly buying off some minor leaders. Without enough accumulated strength, initiating a rebellion is fundamentally impossible."

"Let me add something," Medea said with a smile after Thira finished her analysis. "I believe that the Wolf Family hasn’t reached any agreement with the Hussites at all."

"The reason is simple. Within half a month of our arrival here, the Hussites launched several attacks in the streets, even boldly attacking you and the Squad Leader."

"This certainly drew your family’s close attention, yet it contradicts the very concept of ’rebellion.’ As Thira said, for the Hussites to rise up, they must first consolidate their numerous internal forces."

"If they had finished their consolidation and conspired with the Wolf Family to start a rebellion, they should not have initiated street attacks before the rebellion, as that would only alarm the enemy and make you all highly cautious."

"Medea, do you think these attacks..." Thira slightly furrowed her brows and asked, "were premeditated, or did they occur spontaneously? Did you sense any malice?"

"Of course it was premeditated," Medea sneered. "Wasn’t it just last week that you, Aske, were targeted by a Hussite extremist?"

"Later, I went to the Guards’ prison and used mind reading on several captured Hussites," he said. "I discovered that they had indeed been instigated by some internal leader to take to the streets and launch the attack."

"That is to say," Thira mused, "someone behind the scenes is deliberately muddying the waters."

"Trying to alert the Weisbach family," Medea added. "And with the Wolf Family’s ’coincidental’ arrival, it’s clear they aim to make your father, Eleanor, suspect that the Wolf Family has colluded with the Hussites."

"If the Duke of Bavaria continues to misunderstand this way," Thira said, "he will inevitably choose to purge the Hussites within the city before formally declaring war on the Wolf Family, to prevent any trouble in his backyard during the war."

"In other words," she quickly concluded, "by leveraging the official pressure to exterminate, you are forcing the initially disunited Hussites within the Duchy to band together. They may originally not trust each other or have the courage to rebel, but the extensive official purges have forced them to set aside their differences and unite."

"In this process, as the pressure to purge increases, radicalism within the Hussites will also rise. Even if there isn’t a premeditated rebellion planned, sporadic internal conflicts could erupt across the country, leaving you overwhelmed and unable to cope effectively."

Following their line of thinking, Eleanor suddenly grasped the complex implications behind these events.

That is to say, if they really followed her older brother Ludwig’s approach, it would inflame tensions among the domestic Hussites. If the people behind the scenes were indeed the Wolf Family, they would definitely fuel the flames, ultimately aiming to force a collective rebellion to prematurely deplete the Weisbach family’s resources.

No wonder her father asked him to reconsider; did her father also realize this?

"So what should we do in response?" Eleanor asked, troubled.

"Loosen up externally, tighten internally, lure the snake out of the hole," Thira said.

"Exploit neighboring territories to divert the disaster," Medea said.

"What does that mean? Explain a bit more," Eleanor asked, puzzled.

"Don’t search openly, interrogate the prisoners secretly, find the mastermind behind the scenes, and capture or execute them directly," Thira explained.

"Send people to the neighboring Bohemia to incite conflicts between the Hussites and the officials," Medea said. "Bohemia is a stronghold for the Hussites, and if a severe upheaval breaks out there, and the Hussites believe they have a chance to win the internal conflict, they will definitely redirect some of their forces from the neighboring country—thus alleviating the pressure on Bavaria."

This strategy seemed rather ruthless... Eleanor was somewhat speechless. She was uncertain if her father, with his temperament, would adopt such a vicious strategy, but she very much did not want to relay this to her father.

Aske, listening to the entire discussion, gained a deeper understanding of the two girls:

Both Thira and Medea were sharp-minded and quick-witted. However, there were subtle differences between them. Thira was accustomed to approaching from a broader perspective, seeking victory with integrity, whereas Medea paid more attention to the details and favored gaining an advantage through unexpected and, sometimes, unscrupulous means.

If it came to forming a battle team, Thira would be a good choice as squad leader to set strategic directions, while Medea, as the deputy, could design specific tactics—a rather fitting arrangement.