So I failed to catch the plot, why were him being killed a reasonable way to get the intel out? Is he betting it all on them giving his body to the spy for ferrying his corpse "home", with written intel planted on his body to be forwarded (and thus also betting it all on them not searching his body because of the hostage-ploy, as otherwise it fails
and implicates the spy)?
Or was this just a hail-mary where he tried to make sure the spy wasn't endangered (either cause of friendship, or cause having a merchant to leverage in the country is valuable even if it by necessity means said merchant can't send reports or the like), with no hidden plots that could be found and ruin it?
@22ryu Perhaps he invented guns, with that cliche it makes some amount of sense (Maybe not the trenches, but the bunkers and wire). As for the trenches, it might simply be their answer against cavalry (an alternative would be wooden pikes) that doubles as a way to move troops in a way that is not easily visible. Hell, with either magic or chemistry or alchemy, he might have ways to fill taken-over trenches with mustard-gas substitute.