War it is

Jacob saw this an opportunity to enter the meeting hall, as his father had declared a notion , a notion which will bring a huge calamity to the kingdom if it is not properly handled.

Jacob entered the room without any noise , only the King and the ministers facing him noticed his entry , all others were wrapping their heads what the King had said.

The King asked for every Ministers to vote regarding the decision he had taken against the other countries .

The Ministers knew their King very well, he would only answer their questions after they had given an answer in the first round of voting.

It was a test held by the King to know about the efficiency of the ministers and the intent of the ministers.

Before the second round of voting the King will explain his decision ,and explain all the drawbacks too.

Then he will continue on to the second round of voting which will be when the final decision will be made.

The voting started ,and only three of the ministers raised their hands to support war, while the others didn't agree to war.

The King gave a small smile, seeing that his ministers were not supporting his idea, because it was what a rational man would do when seeing the state of his country.

The King wanted to open his mouth to say something , but Jacob interrupted.

"Excuse me ,Can I join the discussion?",asked Jacob with a wry smile. Most of the ministers had a scorn in their face while seeing the disrespectful second prince interrupting an important meeting regarding the future of the Kingdom.

But the King was glad to see his son ,and he was happy to see him willing to help the Kingdom , after all these years he was seeing him come out of his room often ,and also working hard regarding improving the condition of his Kingdom.

He also deliberately rejected the idea of his son to make him understand the full intent of the trouble it could cause.

The King gave him permission ,and asked him to sit on one of the empty chairs.

Jacob complied and sat quietly eagerly waiting for what his dad was going to say because he wanted to know why his idea was rejected.

Politics was something that Jacob was not familiar with, he never knew how crooked men with power can act when not given what they wanted.

He never had practical ideas of running a country from the front as well as from the shadows.

Politics was a subject he was not entirely interested in ,and also had not learnt much about in the past , but he wanted to learn about it so that he could help his dad ,and his brother make the right decisions.

The King saw that his son was seated ,and started to explain about the possible dangers which can affect them ,and the way to the prosperity of the Kingdom.

"As we have stopped trade with the other two Kingdoms using their spies as a pretense , the Kingdoms would be in high alert.

They will be making plans to start a war as soon as they can, if we open up our gates ,and allow vendors to come in , they can act as Trojans to start a war or problems inside ,and also learn about our new guest ,and our source of water.

Right now our Kingdom is the most vulnerable , but according to the treaty they have to conduct a negotiation before they attack us.

But we must also be prepared for a worst case scenario, because they can also attack us without honouring the treaty, like they sent spies into our Kingdom.

If we call for a negotiation meeting by honouring the treaty quickly ,then war can be stopped for a period of maximum one month, but if we wait then God alone knows what will happen.

We must prepare for war within this one month ,as the result of the negotiations will surely result in war, as both the Kingdoms want our resources.

They will be in cahoots when the negotiations take place ,and will surely join hands against us ,taking advantage of the treaty by saying that we were the one to first stop the trade.

We took care of all the vendors and people who had connections with the other Kingdoms.

But I am sure there are still people who can contact the other Kingdoms and cause us trouble by saying out our improvements ,and new found resources.

If we search for them ,then it would be like searching for a needle in the haystack, and it is nearly impossible with the little time we have on our hands.

I trust our soldiers completely , all of them were trained from a young age ,and every defects among them were given rest so as to improve their quality and integrity.

They would not betray us for money or power , so it is better if we disclose the information to them ,and prepare them for war.

We must make sure that the war takes place in our own turf , so that we can maximise the use of our army, I am sure the other Kingdoms will consider us weak ,and underestimate us. We must use it to our advantage.

If it is on our own turf ,then both the armies combined will not be able to take us down.

I think I have a good plan for making the negotiations favourable for us.

Previously we were not able to conduct a large scale war like this because of the limited resources, but now as we have stopped trading ,and we also have a water body , we have enough resources to last us for three months including wartime resources.

Even though we lack in other resources , I think I can assure that our Kingdom's warriors are on par with the warriors of the Central Kingdom.

What we lack in quantity we have more in quality ,I am sure of that because I have personally trained the soldiers in swordsmanship ,and combat.

After the coming of Mr.Carl the teacher I chose for teaching my sons as you know ,also has taught the soldiers with high aptitude for magic in magic.

I am sure that in war if we surrender ourselves then they will make the lives of our people living hell ,they would slave them and work them to their bones to extract liquid black ,as they only want our Kingdom for that.

I am sure with proper tactics we can win the war, If we can win the war then along with the other Kingdom's resources we can establish our Kingdom's name ,and strength along the other Kingdoms ,and also make an alliance with the Central Kingdom."

The King paused for a minute looked at everyone's faces ,and asked,

"Does any of you have any questions??"

They all gulped down because they couldn't find any flaw in the plan and the ideology which the King told them, None of them raised their hands even Jacob didn't have any doubts , he understood why his plan was flawed ,it had holes the size of a hill ,if his father had listened to his plans the entire Kingdom would have been doomed.

The King called for the second votings,

"All in favour of war",

Everyone's hands went up

"Then it is settled ,war it is , Meeting adjourned".