The body of the city-state of Braavos, or rather, the "place of origin" of the Braavosi Republic, the city of Braavos, is enclosed on all sides by a ring of wall-like mountains. The area "within the walls" is further divided and pieced together by an inner sea and hundreds of islands of various sizes, ultimately forming this world-famous water city.
Because of its special structure, it also has a very poetic name, the "City of a Thousand Isles."
The ring of islands not only blocked the direct connection between Braavos's inner sea and the open ocean, leaving the city's waters almost completely free of waves and surges, but also complemented the city-state's other wall, a powerful and well-trained fleet. Together, they formed two barriers of "stone and wood," ensuring that since the founding of the city-state, the people of Braavos had never tasted the horror of being swept away by the tides or invaded by foreign enemies.
When winter finally passed, Westeros across the Narrow Sea was still trapped in a seemingly endless civil war, and the other eight great city-states were noisily forming the Anti-Dragon Queen Alliance... While it seemed the whole world was drowning in bloodshed and conflict, the City of a Thousand Isles, frozen solid, quietly began to thaw. Proud and cheerful Braavosi stepped out of their homes, orderly switching their daily transport from sleds and their own legs back to small boats, enjoying the salty sea breeze on their faces once more and preparing to welcome the new summer.
Amid such peace and ease, the people of Braavos witnessed a spectacle today, one unseen since the founding of the city-state.
The City Watch mobilized in full force, riding countless boats of every size, fully armed and filled with murderous intent, rushing from all directions toward the south of the Isle of the Gods and surrounding the Isle of Many Faces, where the House of Black and White stood. Under the banner of "the Faceless Men threatening the security of the city-state," they announced their intention to expel them all from Braavos!
---
No matter how unbelievable many people found it, the fact was this: the forces of the Braavosi city-state actually had an operational plan to "suppress the House of Black and White."
As the City of a Thousand Isles, most famous buildings in the main city of Braavos enjoyed the privilege of occupying an entire island, and the House of Black and White was naturally one of them. In this plan, which even its designers had never expected would truly be put to use, the City Watch only needed to guard the sole bridge connecting the Isle of Many Faces to the outside world, then send boats carrying giant nets to block the waters around and beneath the island, and everyone within the House of Black and White would become turtles in a jar, unable to escape even if they grew wings.
The Faceless Men might disguise themselves in all kinds of appearances and try to slip through? No problem. As long as they maintained the firm resolve to kill a thousand by mistake rather than let one go, everyone on the island would be shackled as a suspected Faceless Man and sent to the cells of the Iron Bank Special Affairs Department for strict detention, then interrogated and identified by more professional personnel.
What if this group of the most terrifying assassins in the known world resisted? It did not matter. No matter how sharp their daggers or deadly their poisons, could they truly contend with fully armed regular troops on the battlefield? Spears and short swords, strong bows and crossbows, iron armor and steel shields... the well-trained city-state guards were enough to make any rebellious force swallow pot after pot until they were full.
As for whether the followers of the Many-Faced God might use some extraordinary means, it was indeed necessary to guard against that, but one also had to understand this: although the "Special Affairs Department" was far less famous than the Faceless Men, as the most frequently used among Braavos's countless white gloves, and backed by the city-state's defense budget, the strange individuals and skilled people it had gathered and recruited were far more numerous than the priests and Faceless Men in the House of Black and White. Not to mention the Temple of the Moonsingers. These extraordinary individuals, who had also been active since the age of Valyria, would absolutely not stand by and watch the Faceless Men ruin the Braavos they had built with their own hands.
---
The trigger condition originally envisioned for this plan had been "the House of Black and White falls out of control and openly rebels," and its predetermined goal had also been "to eliminate all Faceless Men within Braavos." Yet now, it was being rashly used to expel the cult of the Many-Faced God...
Countless soldiers and agents, gripping their weapons, faithfully carried out their orders, yet could not help murmuring inwardly: if they truly fell out with this group of gods of killing and expelled them from the city-state, then if they later returned in secret, nursing hatred and going on a killing spree in the city, how would the higher-ups respond?
However, the tense and heavy atmosphere of suppression only tightened for a moment before completely dissipating with the report from the first warriors to enter the temple: the vast House of Black and White was already empty. The Faceless Men and all the priests of the Many-Faced God had taken advantage of the afternoon, while the House of Keyholders was nervously planning its anti-Dragon Queen scheme, to complete a grand and triumphant transfer by both water and land, without being detected or provoking hostility from the city-state guards, dispersing and blending themselves among all the people of Braavos. The experts and strange individuals of the Special Affairs Department might have ways to identify whether a captured person was a disguised Faceless Man, but they absolutely could not find a single drop of water hidden in the vast sea.
Gorden who had intended to personally supervise the results, arrived by boat in the waters near the Isle of the Gods. From afar, he watched soldiers enter and leave the black-and-white gates of the House of Black and White again and again, finding nothing after repeated searches. His solemn expression was filled with a foreboding sense of worry.
...
The split between the House of Black and White and Braavos, and the decision of this last neutral city-state to finally go to war against Daenerys, these two pieces of news quickly spread throughout the known world through various channels. Coincidentally, and somewhat interestingly, a few days later, at almost the same time, in Westeros thousands of miles across the Narrow Sea, a certain Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, whom the House of Keyholders under Gorden Gallonier's guidance had already identified as a major enemy, also encountered a similar failure of brute force against cunning, and fell into the same predicament.
Aegor led the main force of the central route of the western expedition, more than thirty thousand strong, westward along the Rose Road. The advance was exactly as expected, crushing everything before it and proceeding with astonishing smoothness. Within two weeks of leaving King's Landing, they had crossed Bitterbridge and pushed into the heart of the Reach, even advancing slightly faster than originally estimated... But the problem lay in that slight difference. The speed came from the fact that they had faced fewer battles and less resistance than expected, but this absence was not the kind where armor was cast aside and morale collapsed. It was the kind born of orderly retreat and the voluntary abandonment of futile attrition.
And this was precisely the situation he feared most.
The Reach lords were no fools. It was impossible for them to confront the western expeditionary army, armed with firearms, head-on in open battle from the very beginning. Aegor had understood this from the start. He had judged that the first half of this western campaign would be a tedious process of siege after siege, city after city, and as for sieges... apart from incredible natural strongholds like Casterly Rock or the Eyrie, no fortress standing on the plains of this era could withstand the power of firearms. Therefore, it could be boldly assumed that the western expeditionary army would win every siege battle.
As for how to deal with the enemy after victory, he had already made his plans, roughly divided into three categories.
Category One: Those to Be Retained.
Those who had friendship or business dealings with the Night's Watch or Night's Watch Industry, who had donated supplies to the army, or who had family members serving on the Wall.
Those who had responded to the "Declaration of Conquest" he issued in Daenerys's name at the Twins, who did not rebel but instead submitted voluntarily and changed their banners.
Those who, although they had briefly stood in the enemy camp, were able to recognize the situation in time and surrender decisively before the arrival of the vanguard of the royal army, causing no casualties or delays to the western expeditionary army.
Those who met one or more of the above conditions... and had never offended Aegor, and whom he found "pleasing to the eye."
These kinds of nobles, he would treat with courtesy, "inviting" their entire families to visit King's Landing, just as he had declared before the war. Their property and lands would be preserved as much as possible under reasonable conditions, making them into positive examples of how [feudal lords of the old era could also adapt to the new era], and reducing the suspicion and resistance of other nobles.
This was "Grace."
Category Two: Those to Be Eliminated.
Aegor wanted to seize positions and shares of the cake at the game-of-thrones table for the military merit faction that followed him and the ministers who had followed Daenerys's dragon, but vested interests would never gracefully leave the table of their own accord. There was no other way. The only option was to kick them off.
And the method of "kicking them off" that would leave the fewest future troubles was naturally to cut the grass and remove the roots, physical elimination.
Slaughtering unarmed prisoners or surrendered soldiers was certainly something despised by the world. Therefore, if one wanted to eliminate part of the noble class, the best time and place was naturally during the struggle itself, on the battlefield.
Anyone stubborn enough to resist, dragging the fighting into the stage of siege warfare and forcing the Gift Army to deploy gunpowder weapons on a large scale to break the city... then sorry, he was simply looking for someone to bleed, and if not you, then who? Once the city was breached, any signal of surrender would be ignored. Aegor would order the Unsullied to enter the city first to clear the way after climbing the walls or blasting open the gates. These reliable killing machines would execute the orders he had secretly given them. After entering the city, the owner of the castle would "resist to the end rather than surrender, and in the end be reluctantly killed by the Unsullied," while his guards, family, and servants would also "either loyally set the castle ablaze and immolate themselves or take poison one after another." In short, they would "follow" the head of the family to the underworld in one way or another.
With real power in hand and sharp tools available, there were many ways to carry out the details. In short, the final result would be this: the sieges of two or three noble houses and three or five castles would become great tragedies like the "Burning of Harrenhal," leaving no living thing behind, or the "Field of Fire," with blood spilled for a hundred miles and the Seven Kingdoms left in shock.
This was "Might."
Category Three: Those to Be Exiled.
Reforming King's Landing was to turn it into a large gilded cage, and resorting to killing was to control the number of noble powers... When arranging the three armies for the western campaign, he had deliberately placed the forces from the North and the Riverlands on the flanking routes instead of keeping them close at hand and advancing together. Besides concerns over reliability, the biggest reason was to divert these powerful nobles, who had a say in affairs and harbored prejudice against him, so that he could conduct matters without interference or restraint.
But whether it was preferential treatment or slaughter, both grace and might were only means, not ends. Aegor could neither keep all the Reach nobles in King's Landing, because the royal treasury could not afford it, nor could he truly kill them all like a mad dog, because he also had to consider the feelings and thoughts of his own lords and nobles. Killing too many would also cause the social structure to change too quickly and bring instability. Therefore... after killing one batch and taking in another, the Reach would ultimately gather all its strength for a final decisive counterattack. The descendants of Garth Greenhand who took part in that battle, no matter how much he stressed that no survivors should be left on the battlefield, could never be completely wiped out. And after they lost the decisive battle, gave up all resistance, and surrendered unconditionally, he was even less likely to go to their lands one by one and wipe out their families. So how was he to deal with such a great number of nobles, who could not be killed and dared not be kept?
The conclusion Aegor reached after much thought was: exile.
Not exile across the Narrow Sea, because if they happened to have a stroke of luck there, with support from strange foreign powers, then if they returned, it would become a great problem.
Instead, strip them of their lands and noble status, leave them with nothing but chains and shackles, and send them north, beyond the Wall, even farther north than the Gift and the Wall, to the lands north of the North. Let the "new people of the Gift," those who chose to return home after winning the war against the Others, educate and re-educate these men who had chosen the wrong side. This would not only fill out the population of the northernmost part of the kingdom, but also, through the combined effects of deprivation of wealth, geographical isolation, and social severance, completely extinguish any possibility of these people making a comeback. It would ensure that for at least the rest of their lives, they could only open up frozen lands in the far North, defend against the cold god, and plant and dig potatoes.
...
Wars between nobles rarely went to such extremes, and the reason was nothing more than the saying: "Leave a thread of possibility when dealing with others, so you can meet again with grace later."
Aegor ruthlessly broke this unwritten rule because he was not a member of the noble class. He knew that if he and Daenerys were defeated, there would be no way out, and by the principle of reciprocity, he naturally had no intention of granting the enemy such comfort. Breaking through the limits of his identity as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch to support Daenerys, presenting her with the "King's Landing" plan that was almost a scheme to cut off bloodlines, building King's Landing into a luxurious birdcage in preparation for placing the Reach nobles under house arrest... these actions, one after another, were all aimed at offending the noble class, especially the Reach faction, to the point of death.
And what was the worst thing about offending people?
It was this: earning hatred, yet not stripping away the other side's ability to resist.
Cut the grass without removing the roots, and it would grow again with the spring breeze. Since their favorability was already at negative one hundred anyway, there was no need to worry about owing too many debts. Better to go all the way and do things thoroughly. Perhaps then, like Aegon the Conqueror, a new era could be carved out!
...
Although the plans in his mind had been carefully laid, the Reach lords did not give him the chance to put them into practice.
Aegor marched out from King's Landing, cutting through the Reach like a blade all the way into its heartland. He personally commanded the capture of nearly ten castles, large and small, but the legitimate nobles above the rank of knight who were actually captured could be counted on one hand. Most of those left behind were merely servants and stewards ordered by their lords to guard the homes, and some were little more than gatekeepers. When the royal army approached the city, they readily opened the gates and surrendered, offering up empty strongholds from which valuables, grain, and equipment had already been removed.
Though the power of gunpowder and dragons was unstoppable, they were facing a group of cunning old foxes. The Reach lords had wisely chosen to avoid the enemy's sharp edge, even willing to abandon their homes, retreating westward to gather their strength and prepare for a great counterattack!
(To be continued.)