Re: Steel and Gunpowder

"...how exactly do we convince them?" Elise asked. She clutched her abacus tightly to her chest. "You are talking about intentionally baiting a sovereign state into committing an act of war, If this fails, we will be surrounded by enemies on all four sides." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"I don’t plan on failing." Konrad replied flatly. "Look here. The Duchy of Savoy."

Elise leaned over the table, "Savoy? But they are the safest border we have. Duke Charles has kept his men inside his own lines. They haven’t joined the Swabian Diet’s screaming, and they haven’t sent a single mercenary to aid the Teutonic knights in the north."

"Thus, they are the perfect target," Konrad stated, tapping the circled region. "A border that is quiet is a border that is complacent. They think they are entirely safe from the religious wars tearing the Empire apart... but more importantly, the Savoyards control vital mountain passes, deep timber forests, and unplucked iron veins. They sit on resources they barely even know how to mine."

Isolde adjusted her posture on the bed. She looked highly amused by the entire conversation. "A quiet neighbor doesn’t mean a stupid neighbor, the Diet will still hang you for it."

"Which brings us back to the casus belli," Konrad said, "We need them to attack us first. Or, at the very least, we need the Emperor’s council to firmly believe they attacked us first."

"How?" Elise asked, genuinely baffled. "Are you going to send a polite letter asking them to please rob our merchants?"

After hearing such words, Konrad let out a humorless breath. "No. We are going to leak a secret route. Isolde, this falls entirely under your domain."

Isolde’s eyes sharpened instantly, "You want me to use the spy network to feed them a poisoned apple?"

"I want your best whisperers in the taverns near the Savoy border. I want them talking loudly about a delayed shipment of Fugger silver and newly forged wheellock muskets.

The story will be simple: the Viscount of Swabia is so utterly terrified of his brother’s northern crusade that he has pulled all his veteran guards away from the southern roads." Konrad confirmed.

"...If they take the bait, they are going to ambush the convoy. You are going to willingly hand over a fortune in Fugger silver and our finest weapons just to start a war? The financial loss will be astronomical. It will ruin our quarterly ledgers." Elise whispered.

"We are not sending them a fortune." Konrad corrected her, "I am not a complete idiot. The crates will be filled to the brim with worthless river rocks and rusted scrap iron.

We will put a very thin layer of real silver florins on the top of the lead crates, just in case their scouts manage to peek inside before the ambush."

"It is a brilliant trap, My Lord," the spymaster pointed out logically. "But there is a gaping hole in your theory. When you march your army into Savoy claiming their border lords stole a massive fortune in silver, the Duke of Savoy will deny it. He will say his men found nothing but rocks."

"Of course he will," Konrad agreed easily. "Thieves always deny the theft..."

"But the Diet will demand proof," Isolde pressed. "There has to be undisputed eyewitnesses to the robbery. If your own gunners stand before the magistrates and swear the Savoyards stole a fortune, the Diet will laugh them out of the hall.

Everyone knows your men are fanatically loyal... they will lie for you."

Elise nodded vigorously, "She is entirely right, we need neutral, third-party eyewitnesses. Men of good standing."

"I have already factored that into the equation," Konrad stated calmly, leaning his hands flat against the desk. "The convoy will not be guarded solely by my men. In fact, my guards will be explicitly ordered to fire a single volley into the air and then flee the moment the Savoyards attack."

"Flee?" Elise gasped. "Leaving the wagons undefended?"

"Leaving the clerks undefended..." Konrad corrected her, "We will hire independent Hanseatic merchants and low-level Fugger clerks to travel with the convoy. Men who care only about their own ledgers and their own skin. We will pay them well to travel with our ’silver’."

"When the Savoyard knights ambush the wagons," Konrad continued, "our guards will run, leaving the neutral clerks to be robbed at sword point. Those clerks genuinely believe the crates are full of silver."

"...when they survive the ambush, they will run straight to the regional magistrates in terror, screaming to the high heavens that the Savoy border lords robbed a Fugger shipment."

Even so, Konrad’s expression hardened once more. He looked back down at the map, his fingers tracing the borders of the Savoyard lands.

"All of this plotting, the fake silver, the fleeing guards, the traumatized clerks... it is a perfectly engineered legal trap," Konrad muttered, "But it is useless if the prize isn’t worth the cost of the gunpowder required to take it."

He turned away from the map and looked at Isolde. "Before we leak a single word of this route, I need your spies inside Savoy by the end of the week. I need to know what their economy looks like right now."

"I want to know if their lands are worth bleeding for." Konrad said flatly. "If Savoy is just a poor land filled with starving goat herders, then conquering it is a financial liability."

"I understand." Isolde replied, "I will send three of my best shadow-walkers across the southwestern border tomorrow night."

"Make sure they are not caught," Konrad warned her, "If the Duke of Savoy catches Swabian spies assessing his economic output right before a mysterious convoy arrives on his borders, the entire trap falls apart."

"My spies do not get caught, Lord Konrad," Isolde smiled proudly. "They will bring you the ledgers of Savoy before the month is out."

"Good." Konrad said.

Thus, the Viscount of Swabia stood alone in the dim candlelight, staring down at the map of the Holy Roman Empire.

But as he stared at the southwestern border, a sudden thought wormed its way into the back of his mind... a small irritating variable he hadn’t yet solved.