EBE Chapter 1372 Fight? Retreat?
Chapter 1372 Fight? Retreat?
To put it simply, it was breached...
At this moment, inside the fortress, Shahar was in a sorry state.
His confidence, which he had regained, was ruthlessly crushed again within days...
He was wearing a tattered and stained imperial robe, his hair was disheveled, his eyes were sunken and bloodshot, and he stared intently at the ground as if he wanted to burn it through.
A series of crushing defeats: the collapse of Ust Fortress and Don River Fortress, the mysterious disappearance of the "Divine Messenger" at Eagle's Sorrow Gorge, the complete fall of the capital, and the final sixty Divine Messengers being slaughtered like vegetables by the enemy's mechs...
This series of heavy blows completely shattered his arrogance and confidence as Tsar, leaving only deep-seated fear and resentment.
He looked as if his spine had been ripped out, and he had rolled around in hell several times before crawling out, looking disheveled, weak, and on the verge of collapse.
If there had been no hope from the start, that would have been fine. His initial intention was to deliver a crushing blow to Xiao Ce's Federation...
However, they didn't even set foot on an inch of Turkic territory; instead, they were utterly slaughtered...
"Useless...all of them are useless..." he muttered nervously, his voice hoarse like sandpaper scraping!
"Sixty... a full eighty divine messengers... just like that, gone... gone... the most tragic thing is that no one even knows how they were gone..." He suddenly raised his head, his gaze sweeping like a venomous snake over the dozen or so cabinet ministers and high-ranking generals standing in front of him, their faces ashen and their voices trembling with fear.
"say something!"
Shahar suddenly erupted, grabbing a cold metal water glass and slamming it to the ground with a piercing noise. "Are you all dumbfounded?! What do we do now?! Tell me! What should we do now?! Retreat? Where can we retreat to?! Behind us is a fucking abyss and an icy sea!"
His roar echoed between the stone walls, carrying the madness of a trapped beast.
After a brief silence, the elderly cabinet minister, Prince Igor, spoke.
This was the old minister who had once advised Shahar in the capital against suppressing the people.
His face was ashen, and he took a trembling step forward, his voice filled with a resigned sorrow as he said, "Your Majesty... things have come to this, and we... have no choice but to face reality."
"The Federation's allied forces... they came prepared, advancing step by step. Even... even the Divine Envoy... could not withstand their mechs... We mortals, with our flesh and blood, are trapped in this isolated city, and I fear... I fear we have little chance of victory."
He swallowed hard, avoiding Shahar's eyes. "Perhaps...perhaps we could consider...negotiating peace? At least...preserving a sliver of life for the Slavs..."
"Peace talks?!"
Shahar jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, pointing at Igor's nose, his spittle almost hitting the other's face!
"Bullshit! To negotiate peace with that treacherous villain Xiao Ce and that butcher Han Da?! Are you asking me to grovel before the murderers of my son?! Do they deserve it?! I would rather be torn to pieces than surrender!"
He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving, and a blush seemed to flash across his pale face.
The Shahar before them looked like he could cough up blood at any moment...
At this moment, a stout minister in charge of logistics wiped the cold sweat from his brow and cautiously said to Shahar, "Your Majesty... Your Majesty, please calm your anger. Prince Igor is also... also worried about the affairs of state."
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty believes that negotiating peace might... might be too much... but this place is certainly no longer a place to linger. The allied forces, riding the wave of their great victory, are at the height of their power, and they also possess that mysterious weapon lurking in the shadows... To stubbornly defend the Eternal Winter Fortress would likely... would only increase casualties, ultimately leading to mutual destruction..."
"We don't even know how our sixty powerful divine envoys died..."
He secretly observed Shahar's expression and, seeing that although he was angry, he did not seem to lash out immediately, he mustered his courage and continued speaking.
"Your Majesty, we...we still have 300,000 elite troops under the command of Grand Duke Andrei! This is the last and most loyal spark of our Slavic people!"
"Why not...why not abandon the fortress immediately, take all the money, food and supplies we can carry, and retreat to the far north, to the frigid lands, or even...even cross the sea to take temporary refuge."
"As long as Your Majesty is still here, as long as this army is still here, we have hope of making a comeback! As long as we live, there is hope, Your Majesty!"
"Escape?! Another escape?!"
An angry shout interrupted him. He said...
The speaker was a general with a scarred face and fierce eyes. He was General Kornev, who was in charge of the fortress's defense and a staunch advocate of war.
“Every time! Every time you fail, you think about running away!”
"Ustiya has been lost, and you all say you want to preserve your strength!"
"Don Fortress has been defeated, and now you say you want to preserve the flame!"
"Even the capital of the Slavic Empire...even the great capital has fallen because of the retreat of you cowards!"
"It is precisely because we lacked the determination to fight to the death and fight with our backs to the wall that we suffered repeated defeats, allowing the enemy to become so arrogant!"
Kornev took a step forward!
He knelt on one knee before Shahar, his voice strong and resonant, filled with an almost obsessive fervor as he pledged his loyalty: "Your Majesty! The Everwinter Fortress is our last line of defense!"
"The city walls are thick and strong, the terrain is treacherous, and it is easy to defend and difficult to attack! The grain stored in the city can last for half a year!"
"Though the soldiers are exhausted, the fire of revenge in their hearts is enough to burn everything!"
"Moreover, there are soldiers fleeing from the capital these days. We have a trump card, and we have the means to resist!"
"We cannot retreat any further! If we retreat any further, morale will completely collapse, and the backbone of the Slavs will truly be broken! I am willing to lead my soldiers to defend every inch of this land to the death!"
"Every step forward for East Asians must come at the cost of rivers of blood! Only by holding our ground to the death, with our blood and bones, can we prove to the enemy the indomitable spirit of the Slavs!"
"Perhaps...perhaps we can hold out until...the true reinforcements promised by the Divine Messenger arrive!"
His last words, spoken in a low voice, carried a faint glimmer of hope, and rekindled the faint expectation of mysterious power in Shahar's eyes.
"Hold on to the death?"
"retreat?"
"Peace?"
Shahar did not give an answer for a moment as he watched their argument.
The reason he didn't answer was simply because he didn't know either...
He was also very conflicted at this point, so he asked them to go and talk to them...
Minister Igor's aged voice carried a sharp edge, as if he had been driven to the brink of despair!
He took a sudden step forward, his cloudy eyes fixed on General Kornev, his hunched body now bursting with astonishing power:
"Fight? Kornev! You say fight?! Did we not resist?! We were simply no match for them! You..."
His voice echoed through the cold stone walls, carrying the bloody truth, striking at everyone who harbored any illusions.
"Open your eyes and see!"
Igor waved his trembling fingers, as if to burst the bubble Kornev was inflating: "Usty Fortress! That's a formidable pass we've built up over many years, supposedly able to hold out for a month! Even several months..."
"And what was the result? The Federation's artillery fire crushed our pride into dust in just a few hours! We couldn't even mount a proper counterattack! Our Crown Prince was captured in that battle, and his fate is now unknown!"
"Didn't we fight? Didn't we resist?"
He questioned excitedly, catching his breath, his voice even more indignant as he shouted, "Then we retreated to Don Fortress! We had a divine messenger! We did win a small victory, we thought we saw hope! And what happened?!"
"Looking back now, it was nothing but bait laid by the East Asians! A trap to lure us in! A crushing defeat! A complete and utter defeat! Many of the Divine Envoys perished... His Majesty the Tsar barely escaped..."
His gaze shifted to Shahar, then swept over the other ministers, filled with desperate questioning!
"Now, General Kornev, tell me, is the wall of this Everwinter Fortress higher than that of our great Slavic capital?"
"Are its fortifications stronger than those of a capital city that has been fortified for hundreds of years?! Are its defenders stronger than ours, which has assembled the nation's elite troops, along with 100,000 suicide soldiers and hundreds of thousands of 'volunteer' civilians to defend the city?! Look how long it took to capture our capital? Less than half a day..."
"During that time, sixty of our divine envoys were also silently eliminated by them? We don't even know how they killed them..."
"What does this mean? We've gone all out, and they're still hiding... This isn't war, this is slaughter! This is suicide!"
"Tell me, what makes your fortress so special?!"
Igor's voice suddenly rose, filled with a tearful accusation: "Why is it that the capital, with everything it has, His Majesty the Tsar himself overseeing it, and under the protection of sixty divine messengers, couldn't even hold out for half a day! What makes you think that this isolated fortress in the north, with its difficult supply lines, can hold out?!"
"With your burning passion and vengeful fury?! Can that fury stop the Federation's steel torrent? Can it stop those terrifying mechs that can easily tear apart even divine messengers?!"
Kornev's face turned red and veins bulged on his forehead as he was confronted with a series of resounding and irrefutable questions.
He opened his mouth, wanting to retort: "The capital is because of His Majesty the Tsar...because of the common people..."
But he swallowed his words, because he knew that no matter the reason, it could not change the undeniable fact that the capital had fallen so quickly and the divine envoy legion had been annihilated.
He was stumped by Igor's stark reality!
He could only stubbornly express his defiance with even heavier breathing.
Igor stopped looking at Kornev and turned to Shahar on the throne. He knelt down with a thud, tears streaming down his face, and said, "Your Majesty! This old minister is not cowardly or afraid of battle!"
"It is not that we are advising Your Majesty to kneel before the enemy! It is not that we do not want to defend, but that we simply cannot defend it, Your Majesty! To stubbornly defend this place would only be a futile waste of our last precious seed!"
He pointed to the more desolate ice fields to the north and the faintly visible, frigid ocean!
"Your Majesty! What we need is time! Space! To preserve these 300,000 sparks! They are the last and most loyal warriors of the Slavs!"
"As long as Your Majesty is still here, as long as this army is still here, we have hope!"
"We will retreat to the harsh, northern lands, or even cross the sea to temporarily preserve our strength! We will wait for the opportune moment! We will wait for the arrival of the true, overwhelming reinforcements promised by the Divine Envoy! Only then will we rise again and avenge our blood debts to Xiao Ce and Han Da!"
"Your Majesty, live! Only by living can we have a chance to counterattack! If we perish in this doomed fortress, even if reinforcements arrive, who will they support? Will they go to restore a scorched earth that is nothing but graves?!"
"absurd!"
Kornev has finally found a breakthrough!
He roared, interrupting Igor, "Lord Igor! This is nothing but utter escapism! It's the ravings of a coward! Waiting for reinforcements?"
"When will we get there? When the East Asian Federation has completely absorbed our land and established a stable rule? When our people are barely surviving under the enemy's iron heel, forgetting their Tsar, forgetting that they are Slavic people?!"
He waved his arms excitedly, spitting as he spoke: "So what if reinforcements came then?!"
"That's not supporting the restoration of the nation! That's sending them to attack a country already firmly controlled by the enemy! What a price they'll have to pay!"
"Furthermore, who can guarantee that when Slavia is completely conquered and becomes a province of the East Asian Federation, those divine envoys from beyond the borders will still care about us?"
"Would anyone still dedicate resources to a country that has already disappeared?!"
"They'll probably just treat us like expendable pawns! We can only prove our indomitable spirit and that we're still fighting by the blood of those here, on Slavic soil!"
"Only when reinforcements arrive will we see their value, only then will they come! Hold on to the death! Only by holding on to the death can we hope for the future! Retreat means certain death!"
At this moment, Kornev spoke emotionally!
Upon hearing Kornev's words, Igor trembled with rage: "You're dragging everyone down with you! You're using the last bloodline of the entire Slavic people to gamble on some vague, uncertain value!"
Another civil official who supported the retreat couldn't help but interject: "Is it better to preserve the flame and wait for an opportunity, or to sit and wait to be surrounded and annihilated by the enemy? Is there even a choice?"
A young, patriotic officer shouted excitedly, "Opportunity? Will the enemy give you an opportunity? What's the difference between retreating to the frozen plains to freeze or starve to death and dying in battle? At least dying in battle is honorable!"
Igor's supporters retorted, "Glory? Is it glorious to let 300,000 elite soldiers die meaninglessly beneath the doomed city walls? Ask the soldiers if they would be willing!"
"A soldier's duty is to obey orders, defend the Tsar, and defend the Slavs!"
Kornev retorted sharply, refusing to budge an inch!