Having heard this, Snow White left the prince—who wouldn’t wake up no matter how long she waited—in the care of the mermaid, and she left the forest, along with the seven dwarves. The first place they went was a steep and craggy mountain. There lived a cunning military tactician who had given up worldly ways and become a hermit. Normally he refused to associate with anyone unless he or she visited him three times, but Snow White ordered the dwarves to capture him, and she appointed him her chief of staff. The tactician gave a pained smile; said, “Sure, why not”; and swore loyalty to Snow White.
Once Snow White’s procession, now nine people strong, had descended the mountain, they began to gather volunteer soldiers at the towns and villages the imperial army had not yet reached. It was far from the number needed to defeat the empire’s military forces, but Snow White still raised an anti-imperial flag and set her eye upon the castle. Her followers defeated imperial ambush forces one by one, winning a series of victories in various locations, whereupon she recaptured the castle, pursued and eliminated the retreating imperial forces, then continued her reversal of the invasion and toppled the empire, making it a part of her own domain. What a surprise.
But that was not the end. Snow White, the seven dwarves, and the tactician all assembled a great army and swept across the land, and through a variety of strategies and intrigues, they united the continent. The age of warring states came to an end, and peace reigned.