Family Entanglements

Victor did find several suitable pre-arranged battlefields, but this time Victor's target was not these places. His target was two independent noble families bordering each other.

The independent nobles of the duchy have existed for nearly two hundred years, but there are only about 200 families. They are divided into many factions. While there are underworld schemes within the Ducal House, there are also many conflicts of interest among the nobles.

The independent nobles of the duchy can be divided into the east, south, west, north and central regions according to their geographical location, into the original faction and the new faction according to their historical lineage, and into the loyalist faction and the disloyal faction according to their relationship with the Ducal House. There are many factions, and they are intertwined with each other.

Most of the Yuan Cong faction members are not loyalists; they are all brothers who started from the same place. The Silver Maple Family is the most powerful, and everyone respects you as the eldest brother. They share hardships, but you enjoy all the blessings alone.

Therefore, many of the original faction have opinions about the Silver Maple Ducal House, especially the three Count. Even though the Honeysuckle family is now close to Grand Duke Mora, it is only for a short time.

However, there were indeed many Yuan Cong nobles who had intermarried with the Silver Maple Ducal House for generations and received a lot of benefits from the Silver Maple Ducal House. They could all be considered loyalists.

The "rising stars" generally refer to nobles who emerged after the founding of the country, who made military achievements and were ennobled as nobles by successive Grand Duke Silver Maple. Logically speaking, there should be quite a few loyalists as well.

However, the Northern Frontier nobles were all latecomers. Because of the precedent set by the first Grand Duke Silver Maple, the Grand Duke Silver Maple were very wary of the great nobles of the Three Counties of the Northern Frontier. This further led to the fact that the Northern Frontier nobles made the most contributions but received the fewest rewards, making most of the Northern Frontier nobles disloyal.

The Golden Sunflower Family is a typical late-rising noble family, and since they did not originate from the Northlands, they should be considered a loyal noble family.

However, the Old Baron Wembley chose the wrong side, and Victor gained the support of Count Colt, expanding his territory in the Northlands and achieving a promotion in noble rank, thus becoming a disloyal figure.

Now, due to the conflict between the duchy and the Northlands, Hua Li has become a completely disloyal faction.

As for the three original neighbors of the Golden Sunflower Family, they were all latecomers like the Golden Sunflower Family, but they rose to power at different times, and the relationship between the parties was not very good, especially the original Baron of Green Oak Ridge who had already passed away.

The specific reason is that the Golden Sunflower Family's original enclave was not developed smoothly after they acquired it. In addition to the poor land transportation, there was another very important reason.

This enclave, once the fiefdom of the Golden Sunflower Family, was just an ordinary wasteland, the only special thing being that it was inhabited by many savages.

These savages are not referring to uncivilized people who eat raw meat and drink blood, but rather to people who have no lord and do not pay taxes to the duchy.

The existence of these savages is also related to the duchy's special territorial policy, as there are large areas of wasteland within the duchy.

Even if these wastelands are abandoned, independent nobles are not allowed to expand or develop them on their own. However, occasionally, Freemen or escaped slaves will enter the wastelands between these territories to reclaim the land.

Therefore, the duchy referred to these people as savages. Although independent nobles were not allowed to cultivate the land, killing and capturing these savages for slavery was permitted under the duchy's laws.

Early independent nobles enjoyed acquiring wealth by hunting these savages, but as the wastelands within the duchy gradually disappeared, such hunting activities decreased.

When Victor's grandfather was granted that enclave for his military achievements, there were already many such savages in that enclave, and they even formed settlements.

The Baron of Green Oak Ridge at the time regarded these wildling settlements near his territory as his own wealth, and even secretly sent armed men to plunder them, thus sustainably exploiting them to the point of depletion.

As a result, the Golden Sunflower Family acquired the land, which made the Green Oak Ridge family feel that their interests had been harmed, and they have been trying to cause trouble for the Golden Sunflower Family ever since.

Later, the Golden Sunflower Territory launched several campaigns against this enclave, destroying most of the savage settlements, but many of the savages who escaped became bandits.

With the assistance of previous lords of Green Oak Territory, they have been interfering with the Golden Sunflower Family's land reclamation efforts, causing slow progress.

Everyone knows that Baron Green Oak is behind this sabotage, but there's nothing they can do about it. The conflict between the two territories has always been intense, but the duchy strictly forbids battles between independent nobles, so they can only keep sabotaging each other in this lukewarm manner.

By the time Victor was born, they had barely managed to establish two farms, which were just enough to break even.

Then, the Old Baron Wembley consulted Victor and exchanged the enclave with Alex.

The Green Oak Family also completely withdrew from the duchy due to their defeat in the Civil War, the death of Baron Thorne, and the removal of their title.

The feud between the two families also vanished.

However, the relationship between Golden Sunflower Territory and its two neighboring families was not good either, although the conflict did not escalate to the same extent as that between the Green Oak Family.

The Perilla Family and the Red Ginseng Family were also relatively new noble families, rising to prominence later than the Golden Sunflower Family. Their development was not as smooth as that of the Golden Sunflower Family, and their strength was naturally far inferior to that of the Golden Sunflower Family. The combined size of the two families was only barely on par with that of the Golden Sunflower Family.

If we take into account the economic development of the Golden Sunflower Family after Victor became involved in territory affairs, the two families are far inferior.

Therefore, due to this disparity in strength, the two families have always been somewhat hostile towards the Golden Sunflower Territory. Victor once tried to cooperate with the two families in the form of commercial cooperation to develop specialty products, but both barons refused, believing that Victor had ulterior motives.

Since the 5th, and especially yesterday, Victor discovered that the private armies of these two territories had begun to assemble. However, the private armies of these two territories were not large in number and were not well trained, so their assembly efficiency was not very high.

Both sides had roughly the same number of troops, which had increased in the past two years due to the Civil War, reaching a scale of seven or eight hundred men. This included a considerable number of Serf Soldiers, with each side having only two or three hundred soldiers.

It should be noted that the border defense pressure on inland nobles is not great, and maintaining an army is very expensive. Most independent nobles do not support too many soldiers in order to reduce their financial burden.

Both families had a population of around 300, and supporting 300 full-time soldiers was already quite costly. These soldiers, along with a certain number of Serf Soldiers, could be considered to have a certain fighting capacity.

This mixed-style force was common in noble private armies; it was rare to find a combat force like Victor's, which consisted entirely of full-time combat soldiers and Auxiliary Troops.

Victor focused his attention on these two territories because his scouts had confirmed the unusual troop movements there.

Victor planned to strike first, without waiting for them to gather with the other nobles before taking action.

Even if the forces of these two factions were combined, it wouldn't be difficult for Victor to deal with them with his three detachments.