“Many military scriptures fail to mention it, but winning over the hearts of the people is a crucial step in war, lest you were planning to subjugate everyone by violence to begin with. A little hint of kindness often goes a long way, and saves up both resources and lives in the long run. Many are just too short-sighted to understand its worth.” - Liang Shi-Zu, famed strategist from the Huan Confederation.

“Enter,” said Chairwoman Estelle curtly from the desk she was working on. Even while on a military campaign, work seemed to find her no matter what she did, which was one reason she had a larger tent than most in the army. It was not out of a desire for comfort or luxury, but out of practical reasons entirely, unlike most people.

After all, she needed one large enough to house the frequent meetings as her commanders looked up to her for approval and room to store all the paperwork that a campaign apparently entails.

The figure that entered the tent was a familiar one to her. Albrecht Duncan was one of Levain’s seniormost military officials, and one of the highest commanders amongst the militia. He was a former imperial commander, who had retired by the time the civil war broke out, only to take up arms once more when the people of the former capital rose up in rebellion.

Sometimes Estelle felt rather uncomfortable to have a man who was easily old enough to have been her grandfather address her as a superior, but it was what the old soldier insisted.

“Ah, Commander Duncan. I presume you brought news of our progress?” asked Estelle warmly as the old soldier saluted her with military precision. Despite Estelle’s lack of military ranking, she was considered the leader of Levain at the moment, and older commanders amongst the militia insisted on saluting her as if she was their highest commander.

“I have, Chairwoman,” replied the grizzled old man with a nod. Despite his advanced age – almost in his eighties – the old soldier still kept himself fit and healthy, to a level that would have made even much younger people jealous. “Most of the people in Savoy have agreed to relocate to our territories and are making their preparations. The people in Estinuz are more divided on the issue. Roughly half wants to take us up on our offer, while the other half doesn’t wish to leave their lands.”

“That is not outside our estimations,” noted Estelle with a sigh. She had expected that not everyone would be amenable to the idea of migrating to a different place, even with the way she asked her soldiers to especially treat the people nicely. Some people have a stubborn loyalty to the place they had been born and raised in, so the fact that most people from Savoy agreed to migrate was honestly a bigger surprise.

“Have our men help them out with rooting out the remnants of the loyalists,” ordered Estelle after some thought. The people in Estinuz had risen up against their lord and had been fighting against the lord’s loyal soldiers when the Levain Militia arrived and turned the tables in one fell swoop. Many of those who fought for their freedoms were the ones who wanted to remain in their homeland.

The Lord himself had been on the run with remnants of his loyalists, so the militia offered their help to the local rebels to root him out. In many ways, their relationship at the moment was more of a cooperative one.

In contrast, The people in Savoy had been downtrodden by their Lord to the point that they didn’t dare raise their heads against him. Only after said Lord was slain in battle – not a hard fight, as most of the Lord’s conscripted troops broke formation and fled shortly after the battle was joined – with his head paraded through the region did they dare raise their heads.

Given the horrible state of the land – a result of decades of mismanagement and corruption – few of the locals refused the opportunity to move to greener pastures. Levain had plenty of habitable land, but the civil war had taken a toll on their populace, so they lacked the people to make use of those lands. It was the main reason they went to grab some from their ailing southern neighbor.

So far, the Militia had faced practically no resistance from the two member-states of the Southern Coalition closest to them. Those further west posed no threat, as they were likely far too busy trying to stem the deluge of Caromans that flooded their way, as Estelle received reports of consecutive victories from the Caroman military already.

As for the core regions of the Southern Coalition further south, all intelligence they received indicated that the First Lords of the Coalition had gathered tens of thousands of soldiers in their respective main cities and hunkered down like a turtle. They likely feared the consequences of engaging the Levain-Caroma joint force in a field battle and losing, as it would leave their core regions open to predation by the attackers.

It was fortunate that the Rodin mountain range also cut the Southern Coalition off from the Podovniy March to its east, otherwise the March might have been tempted to intervene directly. As it was, due to the terrain, they had no way to do that unless they crossed lands that belonged to Levain or Sevras-Galastine first.

In the meantime, Estelle had her people act not as conquerors, but as friends and liberators to the commoners of Savoy and Estinuz. Her militiamen kept the order in the region, helped distribute food – they carried extras for this exact purpose – to those who were starving, and even set up field kitchens where they distributed free soup, porridge, and stew to the poor.

All those moves won them quite a bit of acclaim from the locals, which helped her main objective of luring in more people to live in Levain’s territory. Rather than force the people to move, Estelle always felt that it was wiser to make them wish to move on their own.