There are usually two ways to eliminate opposition parties: one is the preferences of the magistrates, choose bloody and cruel ways to eliminate political enemies from the magistrate. This kind of practice is not in line with the current mainstream of gentleman politics in Europe, and Desai is not willing to do it, or in other words, there is no need to do it at the moment; the other is to play with power tricks and erase their political life with legal or moral civilized means. Former Police Minister Fouche, the Prussian ambassador to France, Duke Brunswick Jr., is such a victim.

But in the Iberis Peninsula, Desai prefers to use the best scheme to persuade or coerce respected opponents to join their own camps. This is the highest level of mature politicians. Starting from the earliest safe villages, to Gruna, Barcelona, ​​and now Zaragoza.

The Marquis of Fernando is one of them.

In 1809, with the fall of Zaragoza, Father Busto died in the town hall square, General Parafos was placed under house arrest in Madrid, and the Military Commission led by Countess Breta chose to compromise with the French. The Marquis of Fernando had actually become the supreme leader of the anti-French resistance in the Aragon region.

When the Desays Brigade set sail in Madrid, the Marquis of Fernando successfully escaped from the French surveillance and fled from Zaragoza to Seville (the base of the Spanish Rebel Army, the location of the temporary Supreme Parliament, and later moved to Cadiz). At this time, the Seville government was in an internal strife. Conservative aristocrats ignored the fact that most of the land fell, and refused to make concessions in abolishing the feudal lordship, restricting religious interference in the secular world, and strengthening the freedom of press and publishing.

The party was the same and the politically-purpose conservatives also attacked the liberal advocate Colonel Fernando, accusing the marquis of military mistakes as one of the causes of the fall of Zaragoza. Without the strong protests of the liberals and the intervention of British ministers, the special court organized by the conservatives almost threw the patriots in Aragon into prison and were humiliated.

Two months later, with the active mediation of the British minister, the various factions finally reached a compromise. During this period, the Interim Government of Seville also restored the honor of Marquis Fernando, promoted his military rank to general, recognized his leadership in the Aragon region, and sent him back to Zaragoza to serve as the supreme commander of the anti-French resistance faction in the region.

After September 1809, the Aragonese guerrillas, which received strong assistance from the Seville government and Britain, united again. Under the command of General Fernando, various guerrillas gave up the siege of large and medium-sized cities occupied by the French army, and were active in the mountainous countryside, specifically ambushing the French supply and transportation convoys, which caused headaches for the French governor of the Aragonese and Marshal Ney.

However, the good times did not last long. A sudden famine made the warring sides no longer regard each other as the biggest threat. Marshal Ney consciously reduced his defense line and left the vast rural and small and medium-sized towns that were not transport hubs to the rebels. While recovering most of the lost land and hundreds of thousands of people, General Fernando and his leading guerrillas also carried huge burdens that they could not overcome.

Taking advantage of factors such as inconvenience in the transportation and supply difficulties, the Spanish Rebel Central Government, which had migrated to Cadiz, refused to help the Aragon victims in the deep inland areas. When the famine further aggravated and spread throughout the Aragon area, causing serious consequences of corpses everywhere, General Fernando, who was unable to provide disaster relief, gradually lost the hearts of the people and the army.

At this time, Desai's army had completed effective control of the entire Catalonia, and the Duke of Hruna began to move to the Aragon area. The spies from the Military Intelligence Bureau and the representatives of bribing refugees were dispatched one after another, and then lobbied the Marquis of Fernando and the commanders of various guerrillas, hoping that they would turn to the future New Government of Catalonia.

Marquis Fernando flatly refused this righteously and resolutely safeguarded the unity of the Spanish Kingdom, but his many subordinates could not resist the bewitching of the spies from the Military Intelligence Bureau, especially the persuasion of fellow villagers and friends in tears. After the "Humanitarian Shield" operation, the guerrillas in the North Aragon area took the initiative to surrender to the troops from Catalonia.

After successfully taking over the Northern Aragon regime, the Desai Division stopped on the north bank of the Ebro River and did not occupy southern Aragon. In addition to the comprehensive factors such as politics, economy and law, there is another reason, that is, the guerrillas in the Southern Aragon region are more loyal to the Marquis of Fernando. Desai did not want to follow the French commanders in various places and devote most of their troops and energy to encircle and suppress the guerrillas.

During this period, Colonel Shener suggested to Duke Hruna that the Military Intelligence Agency had locked the hiding position of Marquis Fernando and could send agents to directly eliminate the Aragonian resistance military leader at any time, but Desai did not agree, and that was his own arrangement.

Under the careful planning of Desay and the careful organization of Lieutenant Raymond Jacques, the foolish Baroness of Davia and the talented Duke of Brunswick, the two of them jointly conspired to assassinate Duke Hruna, which not only became an absurd political farce, but also pushed the innocent Marquis of Fernando to the top of the peak.

In the European political atmosphere in the 19th century, no matter what the reason was, any assassination of the superiors, especially the high aristocrats, was once exposed to the public, which was a crime that was criticized by thousands of people. In the past, the admirable General Fernando became a bloody man and could not be synonymous with the criminals. Even the Parliament of Cadiz, which had an hostile stance with France, issued an announcement to the public under the motion of the conservative aristocrats: Announcement that the Marquis of Fernando's murder of the Duke of France was illegal, which was not in line with the consistent gentleman tradition of European aristocrats, nor did it represent the Central Government of Cadiz, who was loyal to King Pedinan.

...

Lazagoza, Monastery of St. Joseph

More than a year after the war, the monastery was still full of holes and ruins. To this day, there is still a chaotic mixture of broken soil, bricks and corpse fragments.

Standing behind a blown wall, Fernando seemed to return to the battle filled with smoke. Countless soldiers shouted and fought, and how their waving bayonets brutally stabbed the enemy, which seemed even more violent than wild beasts. The guards of Zaragoza kept firing from the monastery house, watching the French being injured by bayonets and bullets, and fell in batches beside the rubble they were determined to capture. Whether it was the Zaragoza people as patriots or the French people as invaders, both sides showed both their brave fighting spirit and the cruelty of the Avengers.

Marquis Fernando, who is 54 years old, has a white hair that is better than before. Although he maintains a tough military style and always stands straight, he looks worried and helpless. When he stretches out a touch of a pane that was blown up by French artillery shells, the old soldier suddenly thought that if he had followed Father Busto's heroic death in the Town Hall Square in February last year, he would not have been burdened with the current burden.

Today, Fernando no longer dares to walk on the streets of Zaragoza. He can only sneak into the deserted monastery ruins in the late night. That was the hero of the past that had become the object of despises of refugees. In the political propaganda of the Catalans, the Marquis of Aragon participated in the assassination of the Duke of Hruna, a noble gentleman who gave the Zaragoza disaster victims the right to survive.

In revenge, the military police of the Desai Division have officially issued a notice: today's dusk, after 6 o'clock on May 13, the north-south passage of the Ebro River will be completely blocked. From tomorrow on, workers from Zaragoza will no longer be able to go to the French camp to obtain bread and food unless the Zaragoza Autonomous Government handed over the culprit for assassination of the Duke of Khruna.

Without work, there is no food; without food, there is no way to support yourself and the young and old in the family. The tens of thousands of Aragonese refugees who had just settled down became restless again, but their anger was no longer the French, but the supreme leader of the Aragonese guerrillas, General Fernando, and the provisional autonomous government of Zaragoza, who sheltered the latter.

Starting from the evening, thousands of workers and their families gathered around the Zaragoza City Hall. Everyone waved their tools and shouted various slogans collectively, asking the interim mayor Countess Breta and the city hall officials to immediately arrest the damn guerrilla rebel leader and hand it over to the French military police. No one hoped that his identity would be reduced from a French laborer to an Aragon refugee and return to the tragic days of being hungry again.

The earth-shaking shouts in the city hall officialdom were clearly heard by the exiles even from seven or eight blocks. General Fernando sighed helplessly. He could not blame his ignorant compatriots, because no one could resist it in the face of hunger. He wanted to scold the shameless Andrew Desay, framed, but this was meaningless, and no one was willing to listen to his too pale defense.

The highest level of political lies is not to be impeccable, but to create a status quo that everyone is willing to believe. From the beginning, Fernando did not even have a chance to distinguish. The Celtics parliament abandoned him, and his compatriots no longer trusted him, and even their comrades who knew the truth remained silent about it. In the face of madness, the price of reason is often too high and too great.

As long as the old soldier and his comrades walked out of the bunker and showed up in public, they would be torn to pieces by the angry crowd and finally combined and sent to the French barracks in exchange for a chance to work.

Outside the Monastery of St. Joseph, three sounds of knocking on the stone slabs were heard, which was the soldiers waiting outside the country sending a safety signal. After a burst of footsteps, Countess Breta, holding a rattan vegetable basket, appeared in front of Fernando.

The Countess, who was once full of anger, held a rifle in his hand, ambushed behind the barricade he built to attack the invaders, is now almost surrendered to the rule of the Duke of France. The Countess, who had been entangled in cumbersome government affairs for a long time, looked pale and haggard, but had a handsome face. The passage of time has not taken away the noble lady's beauty.

"Marquis, at this time, you should not come to Zaragoza again!" Countess Breta said lightly. She spread the vegetable basket in her hand, took out the bread and jerky inside, and placed a bottle of wine on the stone platform, and continued: "My servant has also prepared some food for your soldiers, but not much. After eating, please leave quickly. French spies and irritable refugees are everywhere, and there are signs that want you to be warned everywhere on both sides of the street!"

"Where to go? Zaragoza is my hometown, and my compatriots are here!" Fernando smiled bitterly. Because of the severe lack of food, in addition to the more than 100 guards who always loyal to the old Marquis, the guerrillas in southern Aragon were almost completely disbanded, or wandered around to Madrid, Valencia, or southern Spain.

"But your fellow countrymen are now going to send you to the French!"

"Where are you? Countess!"

"I have no idea!"

"How to lift the French lockdown tomorrow?"

"I will continue to communicate with the liaison officer!"

"Is this useful? You also know what Andrew Desai thinks, and it's nothing more than asking me to surrender voluntarily so that there will be no hidden dangers in the Aragon area during his expedition to Portugal!"

“Will you choose to surrender?”

"I have no idea!"

...
Chapter completed!