Chapter 504: Chaos in Stormwind City
The defeat of the Stormwind coalition forces began.

This war caused Stormwind to suffer heavy losses, with more than 15,000 people killed, captured, or missing. Coupled with the retreat of the Draenei, the Alliance was seriously lacking in high-level combat power and was completely unable to stop the attack of the Kingdom of Lordaeron.

However, Quel’Thalas and the Kingdom of Lordaeron did not press forward step by step, but approached slowly. At the same time, Garithos began to recruit a large number of prisoners.

After the last undead disaster, Lordaeron has not had any rest and recuperation, and has had several real wars with Stormwind City, resulting in a serious population shortage.

Now they need a large population to fill all walks of life in Lordaeron.

Therefore, these captives will soon be sent to farms, mines, and workshops in various places. Gariss told them that as long as they worked for five years, they would be pardoned and become free people.

At the same time, Quel’Thalas notified Vanessa and asked her to be ready to join them in besieging Stormwind City.

Vanessa, who was developing rapidly in the western wilderness, had been looking forward to this day for a long time. Therefore, after receiving the news, she immediately began to intensify the training of the army.

At the same time, the defeat of the Stormwind Alliance army also made the entire Stormwind Kingdom precarious. Except for the areas around Stormwind City, other places have begun to become unstable.

In particular, Vanessa has been exporting revolution to other countries. More and more people have learned about what happened in the Western Wilderness, and many poor people at the bottom have begun to awaken.

Over the years, the nobles of Stormwind City have never stopped exploiting the surrounding poor. If it weren’t for the powerful military force controlled by these nobles, the entire kingdom would have collapsed long ago.

Even so, the situation remains turbulent everywhere.

This time Stormwind was defeated and the army retreated, and the Kingdom of Quel’Danas did not pursue them. Richard asked them to let the troops go back.

At that time, both Lor’themar and Kael’thas were very surprised. They both thought that they should take advantage of Stormwind’s defeat and attack directly to eliminate them in one fell swoop.

But Richard smiled and said, “Stormwind Kingdom is not at the end of its rope yet.”

“Once our army approaches, the nobles of Stormwind will definitely unite to survive. Moreover, they have allies, whether it is the dwarves or the night elves, who will rescue them.”

“What we will have to face then is the united Stormwind City.”

“Even if we can capture Stormwind City, how many people and resources will we lose?”

Although Quel’Danas prospered and its population grew rapidly after Richard’s blood transformation experiment, population was still in short supply for them.

The High Elf Kingdom must have at least one million High Elves to be considered stable. This was the conclusion reached by Kael’thas, Lor’themar, Sylvanas and others after discussion.

You know, those human kingdoms have a population of millions, and even more than 10 million in their heyday. Now they don’t want the elves to suffer any losses.

“But Godfather, if we let those troops go back, wouldn’t that strengthen Stormwind’s power?” Kael’thas said.

“Haha, Kael’thas, you still don’t understand humans!” Richard said with a smile: “The infighting among humans is even more intense than the wars between countries.”

“Reginald suffered a great defeat this time and suffered heavy losses. He will definitely be liquidated when he returns. But is Reginald just one person? Behind him are a large number of nobles who are dependent on him. They will definitely not be willing to be liquidated.”

“There will inevitably be a fight. If our army advances, both sides in Stormwind will see our army approaching and face life and death. They will have to temporarily reconcile and unite to face the outside world.”

“So we can’t just keep pressing on. We have to pretend that we’ve suffered heavy losses and are running low on supplies, so that the people in Stormwind can start fighting among themselves without any worries!”

“And Stormwind City is short of food now. Reginald brought back 30,000 troops at once. Do you think there is enough food in the city?” Richard sneered.

“It must not be enough!” Kael’thas’ eyes lit up, and then he said: “Even if we borrow food from the dwarves and the night elves, it won’t solve the problem in a short time.”

“Now the food is controlled by the nobles of Stormwind, while the army is in Reginald’s hands. There will definitely be a dispute between the two sides!”

Richard nodded slightly. Kael’thas was no longer a political rookie. Looking at the vigorous Kael’thas in front of him, Richard actually felt like his son had finally grown up.

“In addition to these, there is another reason. After this failure, the human nobles will definitely exploit the lower-class people.”

“You should be well aware of the extent to which the nobles have exploited the poor over the years. The poor have been deprived of almost everything they have. If they continue to be exploited like this, they will either die or rise up in rebellion.”

“Vanessa is now running a thriving business in the Western Wasteland. What do you think they will choose?” Richard sneered, “The nobles will be afraid that the poor will follow Vanessa in an uprising, so they will definitely oppress them more severely.”

“Even if the King of Wa wants to reconcile and give the people a rest, he can’t do it. The nobles will never agree.”

“Then the Stormwind Kingdom will be in chaos. We don’t even need to attack. Stormwind will probably start fighting among itself!”

“When that time comes, we can lead the army to attack. We only need to bring some food and tell the civilians that we will redistribute their land and exempt them from all kinds of taxes, and then the people will welcome us!”

After hearing Richard’s words, everyone nodded, and finally decided unanimously to let go of the remnants of Stormwind City and let them retreat safely.

On the other hand, when Reginald was leading the army to retreat, he was always worried about being pursued, so he deliberately left behind a part of the army to serve as a blocking force, but he soon discovered that neither Lordaeron nor Quel’Danas pursued him.

While I was wondering, the deputy general next to me said, “Have they reached their limit and have no extra strength to pursue us?”

When Reginald heard this, he immediately felt that it made sense. You know, the North suffered heavy losses under the ravages of the Undead Scourge and has not recovered in all these years. There is a shortage of various resources, and now it must have no strength to pursue.

Thinking of this, Reginald felt regretful again. He should have been tougher at that time. If he could hold on for a while longer, the Northern Alliance would surely collapse. Then they would be able to win and would not become the lost dogs they are now.

If Richard knew what Reginald was thinking at this moment, he would probably laugh his head off.

But for Reginald, this was a life-saving straw. Even though he knew it was just a speculation, he still chose to believe it because he did not want to accept failure.

Soon, 30,000 defeated soldiers returned to Stormwind City, filling it up all of a sudden. At the beginning, Stormwind City was very nervous and actively prepared for war, while sending envoys to ask for help from the night elves and dwarves.

But after discovering that the Northern Alliance had not sent troops to them for a week, the nobles immediately became active.

After discovering that the Northern Alliance had no signs of moving south, these nobles immediately displayed their top-level infighting abilities. The first to attack was the Duke, Duke Lescova.

The Duke directly accused Reginald of underestimating the enemy and making a series of major mistakes, which caused unbearable losses to the Storm Kingdom and he must be punished.

The king wanted Reginald to be stripped of all his posts and imprisoned pending trial.

Reginald naturally refused to surrender, and the two sides argued fiercely in the meeting hall and almost came to a fight. At the same time, the other Duke of Bolvar was also implicated, and both sides were vying for his support.

King Varian is not a firm and decisive person, otherwise he would not be always influenced by the parliament below.

The entire Stormwind City was caught in internal strife just as Richard had expected, and at the same time, the 30,000 troops brought back by Reginald also began to split. This army originally consisted of the children of various nobles.

After this disastrous defeat, Reginald’s reputation plummeted and he was no longer able to lead the army. Those nobles who were unwilling to support Reginald naturally used their influence to disintegrate the army.

Soon the 30,000-strong army was broken into pieces. In name, the entire army still obeyed the orders of His Majesty the King, but in reality it had become a pile of loose sand.

After all, the king couldn’t afford to supply the army with all the food. The food shortage in Stormwind was getting worse, and many people at the bottom of society were almost cut off from food supply. Fortunately, His Majesty the King ordered the navy to go fishing every day to supply the people in the city.

King Varian can be said to be a good man, but he is not a good king.

The disputes among the nobles made the entire Stormwind City very chaotic. Both sides fought for power, but they soon discovered that the most important thing now was food. After all, 30,000 troops needed to eat.

So both sides began to fight for food. At the same time, in order to cope with the food shortage, Stormwind asked the night elves and dwarves for help. However, the dwarves were not good at farming, so there was not much food and they could only produce a part of it, and the night elves had even less.

You have to know that the night elves hardly grow any food. They have a small population and most of the time they eat fruits or hunt.

There was no way to supply Stormwind with enough food, and they could only supply them with some dried bananas.
However, some druids among the night elves said that they could help ripen some food to solve the urgent problem.

However, the food consumption of the druid’s spells to ripen the food is quite large, and there are only a few druids, so the food they ripen is just a drop in the bucket.

Stormwind City is now in the midst of a food crisis.

(End of this chapter)