Chapter 621: The Darr Kingdom’s Situation – Part 2

"Damn those Rockwells!" Minster of Justice Fasse cursed, "We always knew they were wealthy, but this is simply absurd! Dodging a problem that should have crippled their nation by simply dumping money on it? It’s beyond frustrating!"

In a rare show of unity, everyone in the council chamber nodded.

After the explosion which rocked their enemy’s south-west border, the Darr Kingdom’s Royal Council had anticipated that their western neighbour would see at least a 20% decline in national strength as it dealt with a massive loss of territory and a huge wave of displaced civilians.

The direst possible scenario that the Darr Kingdom’s strategists had contemplated was that the Rockwell Kingdom fell into complete chaos for the next 5 years as a quarter-million or more refugees filled its towns and cities with beggars and vagabonds, while the countryside became inundated with bandits and thieves desperate to survive by any means.

Although most of the Darr Kingdom’s Royal Council doubted things would get that bad, the Rockwell Kingdom becoming distracted, disorganized, and significantly less capable of defending itself was practically guaranteed.

This was of particular interest to the Noble Faction, which was currently pushing hard for a new war of conquest to be launched.

After it was confirmed that the Rockwell Kingdom had been forced to abandon nearly half of its South-West Province, the heads of the Noble Faction lobbied hard to accelerate the military buildup, even if it meant giving up the element of surprise they had thus far maintained.

The Darr Kingdom nobles figured that if they rushed, they would be fully prepared to begin a full-scale invasion with the aim to seize the Balfour March and its surrounding territories within 1 year.

That timing would also coincide with what everyone believed would be the most chaotic period in the Rockwell Kingdom.

Even many of the Royalist Faction thought this would be a good opportunity, so while they may not have supported the Noble Faction in their calls for war, they became much less vocal in their opposition.

One of the sole voices of dissent during this period was the Crown Princess.

Make no mistake, Talia Darr, just like her father and the monarchs who came before them, also dreamed of expanding the Darr Kingdom and making it more powerful.

If war happened to be the best option to do that, Talia wouldn’t have any qualms about fighting; however, in the Crown Princess’ opinion, at least currently, that wasn’t the case.

While she agreed that the explosion to the south of the Rockwell Kingdom would likely weaken their enemy significantly and create an opportunity for them to act, Talia wasn’t convinced it would be sufficient for the Darr Kingdom to succeed unless things went spectacularly well for them.

Why was that?

Because, similar to the Rockwell Kingdom, the Darr Kingdom had numerous internal issues it was currently dealing with, some of which would make going to war particularly dangerous.

Chief among these issues was the widening divide between the Royalist and Noble Factions. There had always been tension between the two sides, dating back to the founding of the kingdom itself, but things had never been worse than they were right now.

There were a number of reasons one could point to in order to explain why tension between the Royalist and the Nobles was so high, but if Talia was forced to pick one as the primary cause, she would undoubtedly say it was the most recent drought.

15 years ago, an unusually small amount of rainfall occurred across much of the Darr Kingdom, leading to low yields for both essential foodstuffs and the all-important sugar crop.

Now, a single bad year of drought wasn’t enough to break a kingdom as old and established as the Darr Kingdom, but by the time the third year of the drought rolled around, serious cracks in the nation’s foundation were beginning to appear.

When the drought finally ended 2 years after that, the damage which had been done was severe.

As one would expect, the poor and the weak suffered the most, with no small number of villages across the kingdom disappearing entirely after every single peasant living in them starved to death.

The rich and the powerful obviously faired far better, but that didn’t mean they were doing well; at least, every major house’s treasury was significantly emptier than it had been 5 years prior.

The nobles may not have sympathized with the hungry commoners, but most of them understood that too many peasants dying would damage their own long-term interests, so the bare minimum of support was generally offered in the form of relief grain.

This grain originally came from private holdings, the nation’s emergency stockpiles, or even military storehouses, but when all those ran dry about 3 years into the drought, the Darr Kingdom found itself relying more and more heavily on imports.

Funnily enough, it was actually during this time that the Darr Kingdom’s relations with the Rockwell Kingdom eased the most in the past 100 or so years.

The Rockwell Kingdom had always been a huge exporter of agricultural products, while the Darr Kingdom has always been a net importer. That said, given the hostile attitudes the two nations had towards one another, it was only natural that strict trade restrictions had always been in place between them

The most obvious example of this was the Rockwell Kingdom’s hard limit of 10 million Gold worth of sugar imports, and the Darr Kingdom’s quota restrictions on grain imports.

During a famine, though, rules about how to acquire food always became much more flexible.

Now the only question was how to go about securing access to this abundant source of grain.

Black market purchases and smuggling certainly accounted for a significant amount of cross-border commerce, but illegal methods could only supply a small portion of the needs of an entire nation.

Soon, it became apparent there were only two options.

The Noble Faction advocated for war, their thinking being that it was better to permanently solve this problem by annexing part of the Rockwell Kingdom rather than embarrassing themselves by begging their enemy for help.

The Royalists argued that in the nation’s weakened condition, trying to attack the Rockwell Kingdom would be foolhardy and that signing a more relaxed temporary trade deal was the more practical option.