Conquer for them

The prime minister and chancellor both looked at me with confused looks when they heard this.

The way that they looked at me was as if they were waiting for me to explain what I meant by this, but I didn't say anything as I continued working things out in my mind.

Even if I had the idea, I had to think it through first before proposing it or else it would certainly be rejected by the two of them.

Only after I had finished organizing my thoughts did I turn to them to say, "What if we conquer the Antwerp Kingdom and give it to the Nergiante Dukedom? We'll make them a proper kingdom so they can be a proper ally of ours."

Both the prime minister and chancellor revealed surprised looks after hearing this before knitting their brows again.

Neither of them denied this suggestion and looked like they were considering it, but eventually they shook their heads with sighs as if they couldn't think of a way to approve of this.