Petyr never dreamed that one day he would be reunited with his old friend in this manner.
...
Months ago in Slaver's Bay, the Queen ignored advice and insisted on using dragons against the Volantis fleet blocking the bay. Braving a hail of arrows and stones, the process was tumultuous, but fortunately, the outcome was safe. The enemy had prepared some means to deal with dragons, but they completely underestimated that Daenerys would suddenly master dragonriding and return as a queen, and launch an attack without rest on the very day of her return. Under the invisible pressure of the immense size of the three dragons and the assistance of dragonflame, Meereen's remaining navy and the Unsullied sallied forth simultaneously by sea and land, crushing the second wave of slave owner armies besieging the city.
Half of the Volantenes' proud, massive fleet was sunk by dragons and Ironborn warships with fire and ramming, while the other half was captured by the Meereen navy almost intact, with only a small portion escaping in the chaos. These nearly two hundred ocean-going ships of varying tonnage and the captured sailors on board immediately solved a problem Daenerys Targaryen had been facing. Adding the small Ironborn fleet, Meereen now had enough ships to transport her entire army back to Westeros.
After liberating the enslaved sailors on the Volantis ships and taking them into her service, Daenerys pressed her advantage. The victorious New Ghis forced the neighboring New Ghis and Qarth to pay war reparations and sign armistice agreements through armed deterrence. Relying on large sums of spoils to purchase vast quantities of food supplies and military equipment, she rode a dragon to scare away several khals who had come upon hearing the news, preparing to get involved, and in the final days, she once again stabilized the internal situation. With both military and political preparations complete, she finally took the Unsullied and the trained Free Folk army and embarked on the long-overdue path to counterattack Westeros.
Although the Dragonstone fleet was well trained, it was small in number. Under the overwhelming attack of the Meereen warships and the three dragons, it quickly collapsed and was annihilated. After more than ten years of wandering abroad, Daenerys Targaryen, born of the storm, finally returned to her birthplace, her starting point.
But appearing before them even faster than the enemy's counterattack and the swarming supporters was a character who surprised everyone, Littlefinger's colleague from King Robert's court, the two-dynasty Master of Intelligence who had disappeared after Stannis ascended the Iron Throne and been missing from public view for over a dozen months, the notorious Master of Whisperers, Varys.
It was hard to sincerely welcome this eunuch, who was powdered, rouged, and perfumed. But after presenting evidence of his long-term secret protection and support for Daenerys and her brother, and generously offering a significant gift like the Crownlands Military Deployment Map, Varys, who had joined halfway, was allowed to stay on Dragonstone. After the Unsullied army, landing on the Crab Claw Peninsula, easily won consecutive victories with his accurate intelligence support, and after scouts confirmed the news that King's Landing was equipped with a large number of anti-air ballistae, this latecomer gradually gained trust and even mingled into the Queen's council.
And this, naturally, made Petyr grind his teeth in frustration, yet he was helpless.
...
On this day, the military council for the counterattack on Westeros was held again in the spacious, somewhat eerie great hall of Dragonstone.
With a small Iron Fleet, half of the Volantis navy, and three dragons, Daenerys held absolute naval supremacy in Blackwater Bay, firmly trapping Stannis's other half of the royal fleet within King's Landing harbor, sheltered under the protection of shore defenses, catapults, arrows, and ballistae. On land, after completely taking the Crab Claw Peninsula, the army composed of Unsullied and Free Folk had pointed its spearhead toward the major Crownlands city, Duskendale.
There was basically no disagreement among the Queen's council members that the land army, centered around the Unsullied, was nearly invincible on the Crownlands battlefield. Regarding the direction of the war, everyone also basically agreed. After taking Duskendale, attack Rosby, then advance downstream along the Blackwater River, and finally rendezvous with the navy below the capital of the Seven Kingdoms, surrounding King's Landing.
But regarding the subsequent details, Petyr and Varys put forward completely opposite opinions.
"King's Landing, including the Red Keep walls, is covered in anti-dragon ranged weapons. With Your Majesty's three dragons unable to freely join the battle, relying solely on the flesh and blood of the Unsullied, the Free Folk army, and the navy for a frontal assault against Stannis's almost flawless city defenses will inevitably incur heavy casualties," Varys strongly urged Daenerys to abandon the frontal assault on King's Landing. "Your Majesty's goal is not just to retake the Iron Throne. We will certainly have to face the Riverlands, the Vale, and the North in the future. If we rashly sacrifice too many of our elite core forces in the first battle, the road to unifying the Seven Kingdoms will be endless."
"Utterly absurd. Are we to just keep the large army idle outside King's Landing, allowing the Seven Kingdoms to slowly prepare for the Queen's return?"
Littlefinger opposed without hesitation. When he was on the council during House Baratheon, he was the Master of Coins, not only inferior to Varys in seniority but also with a simple task on the surface, to count copper coins, as Robert would say, so he rarely expressed opinions publicly. But now, he was Daenerys's Queen's Hand, an elder statesman and meritorious official who had assisted her from taking Meereen, helping her overcome numerous difficulties step by step to gain a foothold until today. If he allowed Varys, who had only appeared less than a month ago, to arbitrarily influence the Queen's thoughts, would he not be handing over influence and say?
He was not very skilled in military matters. Even if only to oppose Varys, he had to propose a different opinion. "Even if we took King's Landing without losing a single soldier, do we plan to unify Westeros with just the twenty thousand we brought from Meereen? Your Majesty, this is no longer the era when your ancestors conquered the Seven Kingdoms. By achieving a quick victory, swiftly taking a major victory, occupying the political and economic center of the Seven Kingdoms, and sitting on the Iron Throne, you will find supporters and adherents emerging like loaches from the sand, far more than you imagine."
"Your Majesty, Lord Petyr is right, this is no longer the era when your ancestors conquered the Seven Kingdoms. The Targaryen family ruled for over two hundred years relying on dragons. Everyone recognizes dragon equals legitimacy, but they also know how to deal with dragons. In this situation, the symbolic significance of dragons far outweighs their practical value. Riding a dragon into battle should always be a plan considered only under the most desperate circumstances," Varys said softly but with firm resolve. "The large army certainly should not remain idle outside King's Landing. We can surround King's Landing and continuously strike at the rebel parties who come to assist the King. Stannis has prepared to deal with dragons in King's Landing, but his vassals have not. Hastily arriving rebel armies lack dragon-hunting ballistae, and open field battles are the Unsullied's strength. As long as we fight outside the range of King's Landing's ballistae, we can achieve victory after victory with little effort. During this time, the large army outside King's Landing can calmly prepare siege engines. I will secure the support of the Reach and Dorne for Your Majesty, and even your nephew, Aegon Targaryen, will surely seize this opportunity to arrive with the Golden Company. When the large army is assembled, then we can besiege and take King's Landing with imposing might, summoning the Westerlands and the North to submit and surrender. Refusal will be rebellion, is that not more perfect?"
...
Damn it, Petyr was momentarily speechless. Varys said he could persuade the Reach and Dorne to come and support, which likely meant he really could. As for letting dragons into battle being the last option, that was an argument he himself had made earlier in Meereen. How could he oppose a view he himself agreed with?
The Eunuch held a full hand of cards, full of confidence, while Littlefinger, feeling his position threatened, was grim-faced, racking his brain for a counter-strategy. Missandei, who had been listening for a while, roughly understood the point of disagreement between the two powerful figures. The former believed they should calmly prepare and seek a decisive battle after joining forces with potential allies, while the latter believed they should swiftly assault King's Landing and attract supporters after occupying the capital of the Seven Kingdoms.
Having not dared to interrupt earlier, Missandei finally found an opportunity to speak softly. "Your Majesty, both lords' ideas have their merits, but why must we follow the normal channels of war? On a dark and stormy night, you could simply go there and burn the Red Keep, eliminate the fake King Stannis, would that not end the war at its root?"
(To be continued.)
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