Empress Dowager Shevkyevza had somewhat overestimated her own influence, as well as the power of the so-called holy war. Not many political entities answered her call; only a handful of scattered rabble and small organizations did.
Yet in the desert, they could not possibly swell into a vast ocean, much less drive the Austrian Empire out of Canaan.
In fact, these religiously fanatical holy warriors could not even break through the outermost defensive barriers. A single Austrian regiment could beat them until they questioned their very existence.
In the end, this group predictably resorted to dirty tricks, choosing to hide among bands of pilgrims and wait for chances to launch surprise attacks.
But this time, aside from causing large numbers of pilgrims to be mistakenly killed, they gained little. In the eyes of the Austrian army, those pilgrims were every bit as suspicious as they were.
As for the pilgrims being killed, no one particularly cared. After all, being murdered or plundered was commonplace for such people.
Yet the pilgrims were not fools. They quickly discovered the problem and began refusing to travel alongside people of unknown origin.
Naturally, the Austrian army would show no mercy to pilgrims who still insisted on taking armed strangers of unknown origin with them.
Franz was not naïve enough to believe he could obtain Canaan without bloodshed. As for exactly how much enemy blood had to be spilled, he did not particularly care.
As for Empress Dowager Shevkyevza, the mastermind behind it all, Franz did not carry out a thorough reckoning. He merely demanded that she admit her mistakes and compensate the Austrian soldiers and the people of Canaan for their losses.
Empress Dowager Shevkyevza felt that the conditions proposed by the Austrian Empire were nothing but humiliation, and she wanted to refuse.
However,