A terrible prediction (possible spoiler)

At some point, the harchong church or nobility will learn it is believed that these rebellions were likely started by enlisted members of the army of God returning home for their families. So in retaliation they will gather the families of the soldiers as leverage or to punish them.

This will force the rest of the army of God into action, they might have been content to stay away, but with them actively going after their kin, they will march on their homeland.

while I won't say you are wrong, many of the soldiers there are there because of abuse to kin while they were off fighting the "heretics".

expanding that to every solider who "joined" the MHoG would be insane, and yes an all too likely step for the nobles to take.

Dauntless wrote:while I won't say you are wrong, many of the soldiers there are there because of abuse to kin while they were off fighting the "heretics".

expanding that to every solider who "joined" the MHoG would be insane, and yes an all too likely step for the nobles to take.

Sadly, you are probably correct. That might be the step that gets Seijins, and the EoC, to openly intervene.

well from the latest snippet it looks like Rainbow Waters will be intervening at least somewhat.

which make it inevitable that the nobles and terror troops who can't win a honest fight will start picking on family of the Host's Soldiers.

Does harchong actually got the records of which serfs and slaves were press ganged into the army? They would have a complete record of every officer, but to those in power the enlisted men were just so many warm bodies. I think the most they did was ensure not too many men were taken from each region.

The order to go after enlisted families, will it be sent by the church or nobility is the question? If the church does it, it will potentially be the death knell for the church in harchong. It was bad enough that it supported and aided the nobility in keeping the crushed under heel, but to go after the families who were forced to fight for them, it will make them glee fully tear it down.

While rainbow waters and his officers were banished, I wonder if they still have allies and contacts in harchong. Due to this rebellion, they could send some messages to aid in smuggling out the families of the enlisted.

valid point about them not nesscialy having complete detials for all the enlisted but they'll probably know which village they took them from and that will be probably close enough.

they will just grab a random family/2 from that village, apply some nastiness from book of Scheluer and then move onto the next village and repeat.

Hostages are only good so long as they are alive and that the person against whom they are being held believes that they will continue to live so long as he remains pliant. That all goes through the window if neither stipulation applies. And at this point, if the Harchongese can somehow find the families of all 2 million common soldiers to retaliate against, if they start killing and torturing them publicly to maintain compliance, they will likely achieve the exact opposite. Harchong has been a powder keg for some time, as has been apparent in the the last 3 books, with many slave/serf rebellions in their past and a lot of bad blood between the serfs and the nobility and the church. What's different now is that the serfs are now led by experienced veterans who capable of pulling off effective attacks against the main force that has usually suppressed all previous attempts at rebellion. So if they go after the families of the Mighty Host's common soldiers, the only thing they will achieve is to force Duchairn and Rainbow Waters to intervene outright because they will be unable to stop those soldiers from doing so anyways (indeed, the soldiers in charge of this insurrection are already motivated by similar outrages). Only now these soldiers would no longer be hampered by concern for their families - just like Earl Thirsk was during ATSOT.

SYED wrote:Does harchong actually got the records of which serfs and slaves were press ganged into the army? They would have a complete record of every officer, but to those in power the enlisted men were just so many warm bodies. I think the most they did was ensure not too many men were taken from each region.

The order to go after enlisted families, will it be sent by the church or nobility is the question? If the church does it, it will potentially be the death knell for the church in harchong. It was bad enough that it supported and aided the nobility in keeping the crushed under heel, but to go after the families who were forced to fight for them, it will make them glee fully tear it down.

While rainbow waters and his officers were banished, I wonder if they still have allies and contacts in harchong. Due to this rebellion, they could send some messages to aid in smuggling out the families of the enlisted.

The Grand Vicar wanted to demand Harchong allow serf/peasant families to join the Mighty Host, but didn't because he thought it'd splinter Harchong from CoGA. I can't see him wanting to make the demand if he thought the capacity outright didn't exist. And if it didn't exist, Maigwair would certainly have pointed it out how stupid it would be to create a second schismatic church over something that couldn't be done in the first place.

Also, Harchong's bureaucracy has been repeatedly demonstrated to be corrupt. That isn't, however, the same thing as incompetent. I'm sure those records exist, if only because they anticipated those serfs/peasants were going to be returned to their estates (before the MH went through five or six commanders, Rainbow Waters got the job, and turned those serfs and peasants into a modern army).

Kael Posavatz wrote:The Grand Vicar wanted to demand Harchong allow serf/peasant families to join the Mighty Host, but didn't because he thought it'd splinter Harchong from CoGA. I can't see him wanting to make the demand if he thought the capacity outright didn't exist. And if it didn't exist, Maigwair would certainly have pointed it out how stupid it would be to create a second schismatic church over something that couldn't be done in the first place.

Also, Harchong's bureaucracy has been repeatedly demonstrated to be corrupt. That isn't, however, the same thing as incompetent. I'm sure those records exist, if only because they anticipated those serfs/peasants were going to be returned to their estates (before the MH went through five or six commanders, Rainbow Waters got the job, and turned those serfs and peasants into a modern army).

Actually, no.

The serfs and peasants were supposed to DIE- charging in before their betters as human shields. No Harchongese aristo wanted the serfs back under ANY circumstances, because any that did survive would probably use whatever skills they did learn (if only the skill of teamwork) against them.

The whole issue was that Rainbow Waters gave them the ability to survive combat in the first place.

shayvaan wrote:

Kael Posavatz wrote:The Grand Vicar wanted to demand Harchong allow serf/peasant families to join the Mighty Host, but didn't because he thought it'd splinter Harchong from CoGA. I can't see him wanting to make the demand if he thought the capacity outright didn't exist. And if it didn't exist, Maigwair would certainly have pointed it out how stupid it would be to create a second schismatic church over something that couldn't be done in the first place.

Also, Harchong's bureaucracy has been repeatedly demonstrated to be corrupt. That isn't, however, the same thing as incompetent. I'm sure those records exist, if only because they anticipated those serfs/peasants were going to be returned to their estates (before the MH went through five or six commanders, Rainbow Waters got the job, and turned those serfs and peasants into a modern army).

Actually, no.

The serfs and peasants were supposed to DIE- charging in before their betters as human shields. No Harchongese aristo wanted the serfs back under ANY circumstances, because any that did survive would probably use whatever skills they did learn (if only the skill of teamwork) against them.

The whole issue was that Rainbow Waters gave them the ability to survive combat in the first place.

In which case, the landowners would likely expect to be compensated for the loss of servile labor.

It was common practice to compensate European landowners when serfs were emancipated. I'd expect the same to have held true when they were pressed into military as well, though I haven't much on such circumstances.