Yes, Madam Prime Minister

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That night, Ronan had no dreams.

That night, Dinia had a very short dream. She dreamt of her award ceremony when she was nineteen. This time, standing on the stage, she saw eighteen-year-old Ronan in the crowd.

Chapter 252 Ministry of the Interior, forcing you to rebel, has resulted in murder.

Two weeks later, the Ministry of the Interior, under the Governor-General's Office, was officially established.

The other departments of the Governor's Office had no objection to this matter; even if they did, it wouldn't matter. This was a colony, and Dinah was the highest-ranking official. Moreover, Dinah had assured them that this was a temporary department that would be abolished in two years.

Even if she hadn't said that, no one would have dared to object. After all, Dinia hadn't been in charge for almost half a year, and the first thing she did after taking over was to object to her. Did she have a death wish?

Subsequently, Ronan became the Minister of the Interior in the Governor's Office. There was no deputy minister, but only three directors: Faith, director of the Local Affairs Bureau; Elena, director of the Security Bureau; and Alice, director of the Oversight Bureau.

Two weeks later, the Ministry of the Interior was fully staffed.

We found a lot of young immigrants, all of whom are very energetic young people, even more energetic than some social organizations.

Several of Faith's key men were people seeking redemption. Why were they seeking redemption? Because they were either former professional pirates or former slave traders, and they were all very good at building relationships with people.

Elena's core members are active gang members who have followed her all the way, and they are veterans when it comes to handling security issues.

Alice's men were slightly better off; they were horse traders and wine merchants—or you could call them bandits and robbers, of course. After all, in the New World, how could they survive without doing some side jobs? These people already had intelligence networks; it would be a real waste if they weren't intelligence agents.

The Ministry of the Interior can't be said to be entirely evil, after all, Ronan's moral bottom line is flexible; he can be a good person, can't he?

Another week passed, and Zhou Luonan received the news that Louis was preparing to leave with his troops, just as he had hoped.

Ronan could only say that he hadn't been a teacher for nothing; the two kids were quite capable.

The situation was actually better than Ronan had anticipated. Ronan had only expected that O and Chip would be able to roam and survive within Louis's territory, but in reality, O and Chip's 1,200 remaining soldiers were rampaging through his territory, and the more they were suppressed, the more they grew. They started with a thousand or so men, and now they had become two thousand.

This wasn't what infuriated Louis the most, because most of the two thousand men were not very combat-effective, just spearmen. What truly angered him was the report from officials within his territory that his money was being spent like water.

Louis could hardly believe it.

The think tank told Louis that the reason was simple: with him gone, the officials and local sheriffs he appointed were free. They didn't have the guts to fight bandits, but they had plenty of guts to use the pretext of bandit suppression to make money.

Ideally, this bandit group should be eradicated until they retire.

Louis was furious when he heard this and immediately decided to take back the thousand elite soldiers he had brought, kill a few bastards first, and then personally take charge of the overall operation to wipe out the bandits.

After two days of reorganization, Louis and his advisors returned to their territory with a thousand elite soldiers.

No sooner had he left than Ronan and his men caught up with him.

“Your Excellency, our Ministry of the Interior has an obligation to eliminate insecurity in the colonies, and we hope to work alongside you.”

Ronan pleaded.

“No need.” Louis refused outright. This whole mess was Ronan’s doing; why would Ronan want to go to his territory out of kindness?

The rejection was expected by Ronan. "Then we can only fulfill our responsibilities ourselves. After all, the people pay taxes to support us, and we can't just take the money and do nothing."

Louis refused, but he went anyway, and went with a legitimate reason.

At that moment, a middle-aged man with thinning curly hair next to Louis gave him a wink.

Louis understood, looking annoyed. He spurred his horse forward a step, turning his back to Ronan, and said, "Follow me if you want."

Nighttime, temporary camp.

Inside Louis's tent, he and his three advisors gathered to discuss matters concerning Ronan.

"Tell me, what exactly does he want to do?" Louis got straight to the point.

“First, let’s rule out the possibility that he’s secretly helping those bandits,” said the young man with a horse-like face and no beard. “Those people are just his pawns; they’re useless now.”

“His goal is to enter your territory, Earl,” the older, hook-nosed man continued, “which is why he’s been so eager to follow.”

“They probably want to force you to rebel,” said the middle-aged man with sparse curly hair. “The king doesn’t have much time left, and we need to eliminate unstable factors. This is a possibility we discussed from the beginning, and now it can only be said that it has been confirmed.”

Louis clenched his fists. "Then why did you let him come along?"

“Even if you object, he will still come,” said the beardless young man.

“Having him around allows us to take action,” the hook-nosed old man said.

“My idea is to kill the people following him first,” the middle-aged man said.

"Huh?" Louis was shocked. Killing Ronan's men was tantamount to rebellion.

The middle-aged man scratched his head. "Do you think this is some warm and welcoming royal capital? Don't be fooled by his smiling face; he's already laid everything bare. Let me put it this way: besides you, he might attack anyone here. The reason? He'll kill them and then make up another one. Similarly, when we kill their people, we'll kill them and then make up another one, making it seem like we're powerless and furious, only able to vent our anger by killing his subordinates, thus provoking him. Once he reaches your territory, we'll kill him then."

"Kill Ronan?" Louis exclaimed in shock. "Isn't this rebellion?"

“My lord, now that the king wants you to rebel, and the king has decided that you should rebel, you had better really rebel,” the hook-nosed old man said. “Kill him, and then enter the Belial colony. You will be safe for the time being. If you do it well, you may have a chance to return to the capital and inherit the throne.”

"But how do we kill him? He's very strong," Louis said with some worry.

At this moment, the middle-aged man with curly hair sighed, "We originally hired a group of people, but they lost contact. Fortunately, we made extra preparations. Don't worry, that female governor didn't come with us. A fifth-level mage, a fourth-level mage, plus our traps, that's enough to kill him."

Louis nodded, then a question arose in his mind, "What about my territory?"

The young strategist said, "This time, the purpose of suppressing the bandits is not to suppress them, but to transfer assets and confiscate their property. We will take away all the property of the officials in the territory, and they must return double what they took."

“Alright, we’ll do as you say,” Louis said, then left for another tent.

The three strategists looked at each other and couldn't help but shake their heads.

They could see that Louis was ultimately reluctant to give up his comfortable life. When he first came to the New World, he was unwilling, and after they explained the pros and cons to him, he reluctantly agreed. This time it was the same; deep down, he still wanted to be a comfortable lord and didn't want to suffer.

The three could only console themselves by saying that Louis was at least better than those nobles who wouldn't listen to advice at all.

Just then, an officer suddenly came over and reported something to the three of them. The old man with the hooked nose frowned, the young man laughed, and the middle-aged man with curly hair shook his head and sighed.

This incident involved Ronan's men using the pretext of "violence against a female civil servant" to kill 23 of them.

They had just decided to kill a few of Ronan's men when Ronan started killing them, killing more than twenty of them in one go.

Chapter 253 Conversation, Putting on Socks, Biting the Hook

On the other side, Ronan's camp.

Ronan looked at Faith and said, "Tell me what happened."

As Faith filed her toenails with a fine nail file, she said, “All I can say is that those twenty-three soldiers were not human. If they had given them a few copper coins, those women would have obeyed them obediently, but they didn’t give them any. Instead, they raped the women in front of their men and children. Not only that, some of those bastards even did it all at once.”

“They were laughing, and that laughter really disgusted me.” After saying that, Faith let out a long sigh and smiled. “Of course, it was mainly to carry out your orders, sir.”

Ronan leaned back in his chair. "I thought they would at most commit robbery, but I underestimated them."

Faith lifted her right foot, bent her knee, and placed it on the stool. While continuing to file her nails, she asked, "Aren't you worried at all? They're definitely going to come back to kill us. Oh no, I should say even if we don't kill their people, they'll plan to kill a few of ours."

“Oh, why do you say that?” Ronan asked.

"Ha, testing me?" Faith laughed. "In the end, your following me here is playing your cards right in the open. Since you're playing your cards right in the open, what's the big deal about killing a few people?"

“Elena and Alice are here. They want to kill the people we just recruited. We’ll have to pay several times that number in return,” Ronan said.

Elena is a mob hunter, while Alice specializes in long-range sniping.

"You really don't need me to do anything? I'm quite good at dealing with small fry," Faith said.

She is indeed a master at reaping small fry. Ordinary people facing her might become puppets under her control in the blink of an eye. Of course, this kind of magic that quickly transforms people into puppets is the lowest level of magic that Faith uses. The transformed puppets will quickly collapse and self-destruct. Her magic that transforms people into puppets requires precise operation and consumes a lot of time and magic power.

“No need,” Ronan said. “If I kill too many of their people, it will make it seem like I’m deliberately causing trouble.”

"Weren't you deliberately trying to force him to rebel?" Faith asked with a surprised look, then looked enlightened. "I understand. You didn't want others to think you did it on purpose."

“A good woman gives a man room to demonstrate his wisdom,” Ronan said.

“Looks like I’m not a good woman.” With that, Faith put down her nail file and grabbed the rolled-up brown pantyhose from the side.

When Ronan saw that she was going to put on pantyhose, he got up and walked out of the tent.

"Why did you leave?" Faith suddenly asked.

Ronan, with his back to Faith, asked, "You treat everyone else like this too?"

“Of course not. I’m only interested in bad men who have been certified as good women, and I’ll try to portray them using scenes from certain banned books.” As she spoke, Faith spread her stockings open with both hands, put one foot in, and slipped the stockings on. Then she slowly slid the stockings up, and her feet, which were originally slender and beautiful with smooth and white insteps, were now encased in the rather thick, brown pantyhose, giving them a simple and conservative feel.

“Good woman, who?” Ronan asked.

“That is not the saintess,” Faith replied. After putting on one leg, she put on the pantyhose for the other leg as well, and then slowly pulled them up until the pantyhose reached her knees. Then she stood up, grabbed the tops of the pantyhose on each side, and pulled them up.

Ronan laughed; it seemed Faith was truly clinging to him now.

Soon, Faith had put on the pantyhose, though some areas were still a bit loose and wrinkled. She first sat down and straightened the toes, then smoothed out the wrinkles at the calves, and finally pulled up the crotch to tighten it.

Faith's figure is like a shrunken version of Dinia, with smaller breasts and less perky buttocks.

Finally, she pulled up and tightened the pantyhose, and that should have been the end of it. As if to deliberately tease Ronan, she deliberately ripped the pantyhose open, then loosened her fingers, letting the top of the pantyhose snap back to her waist with a soft, crisp snap.

When Ronan turned around, Faith had already put on her shoes. Underneath her long nun's habit, only a small section of her calves and ankles could be seen.

"Was that a scene from a banned book?" Ronan asked, referring to the way Fassla's pantyhose bounced back.

“Chapter 5 of 'The Berserker and the Battle Nun',” Faith replied.

Wait a minute, Ronan remembers it was called "The Wolf Warrior and the Nun"? How many versions of that damn book Elena wrote anyway?

“Let’s get back to the main topic,” Faith said. “This count will likely have other plans. After all, the people around him aren’t fools. I’m not particularly good at fighting, so your two women will have to be careful.”

“As long as you can protect yourself, that’s fine,” Ronan said. “You don’t need to worry about the other two.”

After saying that, Ronan left.

The next day, the conflict broke out. Ronan's side lost three of his recruits, while the other side lost eleven.

That evening, Louis received the report and was so angry that he shot and killed a fairly pretty white peasant woman he had captured from the manor. He looked at his two men and asked, "You, you two, what's going on?" He wanted to curse them as useless, but he held back because the two men were high-ranking mages.

He only had nine rank-one mages under his command. Apart from one strategist who was rank-three, the rest were rank-one or rank-two. But they were still big shots. The Kingdom of Fas had a population of 20 million, with tens of thousands of novice mages and only one or two thousand rank-one mages. Not only did he have to pay them enough, but he also had to keep them from feeling wronged, otherwise they would immediately switch sides.

"That blonde woman has a wide-range magic repulsion skill, but the one who really caused us casualties was the black-haired woman. She used a gun, and she killed eleven soldiers, including three mage musketeers," a high-ranking mage explained.

“Her? Go get her, forget it.” Louis had intended to say to arrest Alice, but then decided against it.

He liked Alice very much; her soft features, slender but slightly fleshy figure, and especially her slightly narrow, oriental-looking eyes. The thought of Ronan being able to enjoy such a woman made him furious.

This wasn't because Louis was anything special. In fact, if the nobles of this era had to choose between Elena and Alice, the vast majority would choose Alice, because Alice's subtle oriental charm was extremely captivating. On the contrary, Elena's tall and somewhat athletic figure wasn't very appealing.

Louis let out a long breath and calmed down. "Go and call them over."

Soon, the three strategists arrived at Louis's tent.

"Is everything planned out?" Louis asked.

“No problem,” the curly-haired middle-aged man replied. “Once we arrive in the territory, we’ll kill a few first, leave some unattended, and then go directly to the front lines and issue an investigation order. Those corrupt officials will definitely be eager to defect to Ronan.”

The old man continued, "If we're not mistaken, Ronan will definitely split his forces into two groups. One group will find a place to meet with the group of officials who intend to rebel, while the other group will be led by his two women to arrest the tax officials."

Finally, the young man added, "Both of these routes meant they never returned."

Louis nodded, then said, "Can we capture that black-haired girl named Alice alive?"

"That's fine," the middle-aged man agreed.

Chapter 254 Betrayal, Fishing, Surrender

The next day, Ronan and Louis reprimanded their respective men, then shook hands and made peace in public.

The matter was left unresolved.

Five days later, the group arrived at the core area of ​​Louis's territory. His territory was vast, but the number of native immigrants was small, so in reality, only one-third of the territory was directly under his control, which could be considered the core area. The other two-thirds were occupied by indigenous tribes, who were under the jurisdiction of appointed sheriffs. These sheriffs were like feudal lords, and the hundreds of musketeers under their command were their lifeline. With Louis, the "monarch," not present, they could not be expected to seriously suppress the bandits.

On the day of his arrival, Louis killed several officials and then immediately rushed to the front line of the anti-bandit campaign, claiming that he would personally micromanage and set up an encirclement to wipe out the bandits.

At the same time, Louis left an order to conduct a thorough investigation of all departments in the core area of ​​the Earl's estate.

On the night Louis left with his men, an official in charge of finances approached Ronan, expressing his desire to join the governor's office and provide evidence of Louis's tax evasion.

He was very sincere. Instead of saying that the evidence was hidden somewhere and asking Ronan to go with him to retrieve it, he directly took out some things.

They provided evidence, saying that he wasn't the only one who wanted to betray them, but others who also wanted to, and those people had other incriminating evidence. If Ronan was willing to accept it, they would be willing to testify against Louis together. But if Ronan didn't accept everyone's defection, he would never acknowledge what he had handed over.

Having physical evidence alone is not enough without witnesses.

“Mr. Benson, give me three days to think about it,” Ronan said to the official named Benson.

Benson anxiously twirled the gold and gemstone ring on his index finger. "One day at most. After one day, just pretend it never happened."

Louis killed several people right away, which startled them. Moreover, the crackdown had already begun. He and others who had been embezzling and had taken advantage of this bandit suppression to embezzle a large sum of money were now just trying to escape as soon as possible. The reason they sought out Ronan was that they thought they would be taken advantage of if they just ran to the governor's jurisdiction. It would be better to make a contribution first and try to save some of their property.

If Ronan didn't readily agree, they'd rather run away immediately; at least they could save their lives, right? They couldn't have money but no life to enjoy it.

“Okay, I’ll give you an answer tomorrow,” Ronan replied.

"Then I'll be going now," Benson said hurriedly.