Chapter 27
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Chapter 27: The Change at Brandenburg Gate
It was chaos.
Dead bodies were everywhere, different types of armor and weapons scattered on the ground. The patterned cloaks, the badges, and the red, white, and blue ribbons indicated the chaotic origins of these deceased individuals.
Leader One squatted down, picked up a Hohenzollern family crest, and carefully examined it under the torchlight after wiping off the dirt and blood stains.
"This is not Prince Wilhelm’s crest. Let’s go inside and find out. Catherine, please take care of my second brother."
This is Charlottenburg Palace in the northwest suburbs of Berlin, once another palace of Frederick the Great and the queen in the outskirts of Berlin. Now it is Prince Wilhelm’s residence and the central battlefield of the chaos in Berlin.
The identities of the deceased on the ground were complex, including the private soldiers of the current king, Prince Wilhelm’s guards, a group of gangsters, two factions of the National Guard, and the second cavalry regiment of Berlin.
General Comoerl of the Berlin Guard Command and the General Staff Department had also arrived. When Leader One asked him about the situation, he couldn’t provide any clear answers.
"I didn’t order any troops to mobilize. The second cavalry regiment acted on their own, but it’s unclear whom they came to assist. The regiment leader is also dead. That’s the current situation, but specifics depend on the circumstances," General Comoerl said.
It seems like the loyalists of the king and Prince Wilhelm clashed, with opportunists and troublemakers joining in along the way.
These details are not important. As long as Prince Wilhelm is dead, everything will be settled, and Leader One will smoothly become the prince regent.
Before the uprising, for more than twenty years, Leader One never showed any desire for the throne, and there was no precedent for a royal coup. With Leader One’s low position in the line of succession, people thought he wouldn’t be able to take action even if he had ideas.
On the contrary, Prince Wilhelm, as the second son of the late king, had always been in constant conflict with his elder brother. The tensions between King Py and Wilhelm were well-known, and Prince Wilhelm had legitimate reasons to claim the throne…
When Leader One led his troops to attack Sanssouci Palace, the current king just thought that his younger brother had been influenced by the second brother, and suspected him of being the mastermind behind the coup. So he sent out many carrier pigeons to instruct the Berlin troops to kill his second brother, Wilhelm.
Prince Wilhelm, realizing that the king was going to harm him, rose up without hesitation. Wilhelm didn’t care about his younger brother at all.
It’s hard to say what happened next. People joining the battlefield from all sides had hidden agendas, and the situation escalated into a big brawl in front of Prince Wilhelm’s palace.
The early stages of the uprising went smoothly, but later on, chaos ensued, causing a headache for everyone involved. After all, this was the first armed conflict within the royal family in Prussian history, and nobody had experience dealing with such a situation.
It’s now ten minutes to ten at night, and the streets of Berlin city center are crowded with people. The large amount of torches illuminated the night, as everyone waited for the outcome of the unrest, and rioters took advantage of the chaos.
At ten o’clock, Catherine emerged from Charlottenburg Palace with the search team.
"Your Highness! Your second brother, Crown Prince of Prussia, the wise and brave Prince Wilhelm, has been brutally murdered by rioters and died in the basement. Please accept my condolences." Catherine’s half-body armor was soaked in fresh blood.
Leader One sadly wiped away non-existent tears.
"Where is my second sister-in-law?" Leader One suddenly remembered that mean woman who resembled Empress Dowager Cixi.
Catherine hesitated, "Oh… Your Highness, please wait a moment, I will go check on Queen Wilhelm’s condition."
After a while, when Catherine came back, even her once-clean armor was now stained with fresh blood.
"Queen Wilhelm was also murdered by the rioters, she died tragically at the mill, may Your Highness mourn her."
Leader One felt relieved now, he climbed on a wooden railing at the palace entrance, trying to balance himself, and spoke out with a loud voice.
The former Crown Prince Wilhelm incited a rebellion to seize power, even the King was unfortunately gravely injured, now the King has gone to Hohenzollern Castle to recuperate, the traitor Wilhelm is dead.
By the ancestral law, the position of the Crown Prince will automatically pass to the former third Prince Mark to inherit, if the King tragically dies from his injuries, Prince Mark will ascend to the throne.
However, even though the King is seriously injured, his life is secure, he just cannot handle state affairs.
Prince Mark became the new heir to the throne, but he didn’t receive proper education and wasn’t knowledgeable about running the country or military affairs. He couldn’t act as prince regent, so the parliament needed to carefully choose someone else to assist the king.
The center of Berlin city was in chaos, so the Prussian Royal Guards quickly went to restore order. They gathered the people in front of Brandenburg Gate, and I will go there later to give a speech.
Leader One ordered a division of the Royal Guards to leave, leaving only his Magic Energy Knight personal guard, Hans’s militia, and the Magic Energy Knights of the Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment on site.
"Take off your armor and find bodies that fit your size to wear," Leader One told them.
The members of the Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment looked at each other, some worried, some frightened, but they still took off the armor under the captain’s orders.
Removing and putting on full-body plate armor from the late medieval period was difficult, but the armor made with 19th-century technology had many bolt structures. They helped each other with wrenches, quickly taking off the armor and putting it on the dead bodies.
Leader One wanted to fulfill his first promise by giving land in Western Poland to them with each person getting a thousand hectares. The Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment had 112 people, and Leader One’s personal guard had 12 people, which added up to a sizable amount of land.
However, it didn’t matter much as Western Poland had vast uninhabited land. Although the land was fertile and the climate was suitable, without basic infrastructure like water channels, it could only be used for grazing. It couldn’t be turned into farms or estates, so once it was divided, that was it.
Next, Leader One needed to fulfill his second promise by giving the members of the Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment a new identity.
The 112 Magic Energy Knights from the Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment, who usually rampage through the streets, are infamous and feared by the people. The citizens wish they could eat them alive, but they always appear in full body armor, concealing their true appearance.
Now, if you put armor on a group of dead people and claim they are from the Cavalry Regiment, no one can prove otherwise.
"You will have new armor and weapons made, and from now on, you will exist under the name of Teutonic Knights, under the command of the General Staff Department. You will transition from being part of the Royal Guard to becoming a unit under the Prussian Regular Army. You won’t need to harm the people anymore, go to the battlefield and fight the enemy."
The original members of the Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment were happy to receive a thousand hectares of poor land in the Poland region. Despite the poor quality of the land, having land allowed them to ascend to the rank of Junker, shedding their dirty past to become a proud and brave unit of the Prussian Regular Army.
The military was delighted as well, they had long envied the power of the Magic Energy Knight legion. The 112 Magic Energy Knights were a significant force, formerly the king’s private soldiers, now handed over to the military by Leader One, which was great.
Leader One certainly didn’t trust these people, they had no loyalty. He used land and honor to make them switch sides. In the future, they would betray again for more land and honor. So, let them go, they could no longer be part of the Royal Guard.
Late that night, past ten o’clock, Leader One arrived at the Brandenburg Gate, where over forty thousand citizens had gathered.
Suddenly, gunfire erupted, Hans’s militia squad fired in unison, not at the civilians, but at the armored corpses.
Leader One gave Catherine a nod, signaling her to speak.
"Why must we execute the Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment? Because they suppressed the revolution, harmed the people, and were guilty beyond measure!"
"Just imagine, if you were living uncomfortably, wanting to voice your opinions, and as you left the city and were about to eat bread and walk around, suddenly! You were slaughtered by the Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment!"
"Therefore, Prince Redel had all these wicked culprits executed, and there was no more Prussian Guard Heavy Cavalry Regiment."
"Prince Redel has arrived! Berlin is now peaceful!"
"Prince Redel has arrived! The sky is now clear!"
At the crowded streets in front of the Brandenburg Gate, there was a deafening cheer erupting. Their beloved Prince Benevolence came to rescue everyone. Under the influence of an unknown individual, tens of thousands of people flooded towards the Berlin Parliament, strongly demanding Prince Redel to become the prince regent.
The Berlin Parliament, along with the Prussian Parliament, yielded to the people’s will, and immediately announced Prince Redel as the regent, to govern the country during the king’s illness.
The entire coup ended within a day, with many details undisclosed and not recorded in history. Even future scholars were unaware of the true mastermind behind the coup. Prince Wilhelm’s rebels were the majority, while a few scholars believed it was Prince Redel’s usurpation.
The most striking part of the coup was the speech at the Brandenburg Gate, and thus historians named this event: the Change of Brandenburg Gate.