The Glory of the Seven Gods of Ice and Fire

Chapter 129 The unprecedented prosperity of the West

Five years have passed unknowingly since the war on the Iron Islands, and time has also unknowingly reached the year 294 of the Conquest Calendar.

For the people of Westeros, the past five years have been an unprecedented super prosperous era. Construction continues everywhere, a large amount of wealth has been invested in society, and countless opportunities have been brought to people. More importantly, in 289, With the Iron Throne's tax reduction policy, hunger seems to have left the world in the past few years, and the Iron Throne's road projects have also brought mobility between various places to a higher level. The flow of goods and people has further promoted prosperity. Many young people who could only stay in the village their whole life were able to enter a world they had never seen before.

From the Great Wall to the Desert of Dorne, the people of Westeros are more or less immersed in this prosperity. No matter whether they are nobles or commoners, no one calls Robert Baratheon a usurper or calls him a usurper anymore. At that time, people were all "His Majesty the Great King", and countless people hoped that His Majesty Robert would live a long life. It seemed that as long as Robert was still there, this prosperity could continue.

The plays and poems about King Robert's Eastern conquests are now the most popular. Countless boys yearn for the king's achievements, and countless girls hope to sleep with the king. Therefore, the cultural undertakings of Westeros also present a unique This kind of unprecedented prosperity has reached an unprecedented level after Hugo Tolet, the commander of Andas, took out a large amount of cheap paper and set up publishing houses in various major cities in King's Landing and Westeros. It was so popular that various publications were quickly spread across the major cities in Westeros, but the most popular among them were still the legendary chronicles who participated in the Eastern Expedition.

Moreover, due to the wealth of the nobles and the rich, they also invested a lot of wealth into the cultural and art industry, which brought this prosperity to a higher level. However, in the cultural industry, the biggest financial owner is actually a person in many cases. An existence that has been ignored by people - the Church of the Seven Gods.

After acquiring a large number of territories and dioceses in the East, the Church of the Seven Gods' wealth increased. The "Fat Man" Archbishop invested the money in culture and religion. Now, countless artists want to meet the Archbishop and obtain the Archbishop's title. funding.

Westeros is in an unprecedented prosperous age. This is not only a prosperous age for the nobles and the rich, but also a prosperous age for the poor. The Iron Throne's tax reduction policy has relieved the biggest burden on the people. As a result, a group of new rich people have Rising in this context, they understand where their wealth comes from, and therefore have extremely strong loyalty to the Baratheon dynasty.

Therefore, when Robert announced that he had created a prosperous age that even King Renren and all the Targaryen kings could not match, he received widespread support from the entire Westeros. Countless people regarded King Robert as They don't recognize anyone except His Majesty Robert. In some places, Robert was even canonized by living people, and people worshiped him as a saint.

Under such a prosperous scene, King's Landing, the capital of Westeros, has also undergone drastic changes. As the location of the Iron Throne, it has undoubtedly enjoyed the most war benefits. The Iron Throne has used countless resources here. Make it the true city of kings in Robert's mind.

At the same time, this giant fountain is also the center of King's Landing's new waterway system after adjustments. The Iron Throne widened and repaired the original waterway system, and built a large number of toilets, allowing King's Landing to finally get rid of its reputation as a cesspool.

First of all, a large number of people in King's Landing were moved out, and all the flea holes all over King's Landing were eradicated. They were replaced by three-story apartment buildings modeled on the citizens' houses of the Free Trade City, with some modifications in line with Westeros style. The people of Westeros called them "island towers", and this name soon replaced their official name and became popular among the people.

Closer to the Red Castle are the villas and residences of wealthy citizens and nobles. This area has not undergone much renovation because there is no need.

Moreover, King's Landing has two more landmark buildings. One is the Colosseum, which was transformed from the Targaryen Dragon Lair. Today's Iron Throne is very dissatisfied with this big garbage left by the Targaryen dynasty, but it is limited by funds. The problem cannot be solved, but now that we have money, we have to start working.

As a fortress city on the south bank of the Blackwater River, Triumph City's urban construction focuses on the shoals and coasts of the river mouth. The Iron Throne hopes that this can alleviate the river congestion problem caused by the expansion of trade in the Narrow Sea. However, its southern part is unusual and stretches along the river in a strip until it faces the end of King's Landing's southern wall.

The messy buildings along the Blackwater River have also been re-planned. Although they still don't look very good, they are at least tidy and no longer look like a piece of shit.

At first glance, these neat apartments are so beautiful and pleasing to the eye, and it is difficult for people to connect all this with the garbage dump.

A broad avenue has been opened up in the center of King's Landing leading directly to the Red Keep. This avenue is paved with marble transported from the valley. At the end of the avenue is the square in front of the Red Keep. In the center of the square is a tower made of Myr. A very large fountain designed by scholars. The theme of the fountain is King Robert's great expedition. His Majesty Robert stands in the center holding a war hammer, surrounded by Westeros nobles and knights, and countless slaves making gestures of gratitude to the king. .

However, the Dragon Cave is an extremely large building after all. All the Targaryen dragons were once imprisoned here. There are also a large number of extremely complex mechanisms and spaces under it, so the transformation is a big problem. The bachelor of the city and Myr The scholars debated for a long time, but Robert finally made the final decision and decided to build the Colosseum he had seen in the east. As for the complex mechanism underground in the Dragon's Cave, it was used to imprison the beasts and serve as a Colosseum mechanism.

However, as these island buildings account for the largest proportion of buildings in King's Landing, many are still under construction, making King's Landing like a large construction site.

Then, four towers were built on the twin city walls, facing King's Landing in pairs. The towers were located at the coast and inland ends of the twin city walls. Giant iron chains that had never been seen before in the entire kingdom were installed. As long as the giant machinery was used, Pulled down, they can burst out of the water to intercept ships - this was built by Robert to imitate Volantis' long bridge that sunk countless Westeros ships.

The walls of King's Landing have also been repaired, and the original damage has been repaired. At the same time, a fortress city echoing King's Landing was built on the south bank of the Blackwater River, named Triumph City.

Although the idea was found, even so, the transformation of this building almost burned the heads of many scholars, because after careful investigation, it was discovered that the Targaryen family also used a lot of lost Valyrian technology here. , but although there were many difficulties, the transformation was successful in the end, and then, His Majesty Robert named this place Dragon Tomb Colosseum.

Of course, Robert's fighting beast is definitely not the pure bloody fighting beast in Essos. That kind of thing is completely politically incorrect in Westeros. Here, it is a fighting beast. It does not fight people. At most, it is a human beast. Fighting - but those who perform this kind of fighting are absolute professionals.

Although Robert's Eastern Conquest liberated a large number of slaves, it also caused many people who relied on the original industry to live in poverty. Gladiators are such a group. Due to the large number of bloody human gladiators, the consumption of gladiators is very high. , as a result, as human gladiatorial combat was banned, a large number of gladiators became unemployed. In order to prevent these people from becoming unstable factors, the Iron Throne intentionally guided these people to come to Westeros to perform beast fighting. However, with this guidance, something happened that even the Iron Throne had not expected, that is, all the famous gladiators in the occupied territories of Westeros were running towards King's Landing - the reason was very simple, it turned out that these people relied on slaves Master, now that the slave owner is gone, if you want to maintain that superior life, you can only go to King Robert, who seems to love gladiators.

In addition to gladiatorial combat, the most popular group competitions in this Colosseum were group competitions. Robert also participated in them at first, but as everyone gave in to him, Robert also lost interest.

The other building is the King's Landing Hippodrome. During the siege of Volantis, Volantis held a grand racing competition on the Black Wall in order to show off the power of the Black Wall. Robert suddenly He was fascinated by it, so when he came back, he ordered Old Aylin to build a grand racing track.

This is the origin of the Duke Stephen Grand Prix. At first, people were not interested in it. It was not like fighting beasts. Everyone could still have an idea. Everyone really didn’t know what racing was, but as the competition became more intense, The racing competition unfolded in front of people's eyes, and countless people were attracted.

Robert was even more enthusiastic about this. This feeling of driving a carriage and galloping wildly under the cheers of countless people, in his words, "It is no less than killing people on the battlefield." But he was happy, but the Kingsguard were not. The king couldn't persuade him, so he could only stand there in fear.

In addition, King's Landing also has two theaters, a park and a bank. This is the suggestion of Myr scholars. Now there are a large number of Myr scholars serving the king in the Iron Throne. These Myr people exerting influence every moment, this undoubtedly made the city extremely vigilant. The behavior of many lords accepting Myrian scholars made them panic even more, but now the Iron Throne is leaning towards the Myrian Academy.

The Myr Academy also played a huge role in the reconstruction of King's Landing. They brought a large number of engineering equipment and construction methods that were not disclosed in the Myr Mystery, which directly accelerated the construction of King's Landing many times.

As a monopoly organization, the Citadel has always been very decent, but this does not mean that they do not understand dark tricks. In fact, they use these tricks more ruthlessly than anyone else. However, the Myrs opposite are not weak either. So after a series of confrontations, the two sides found that those dark methods could not affect the other side at all, so in the end the struggle returned to their old profession, fighting on knowledge and ideas.

And now, the Academy has just discovered an opportunity, which is the "Orientalization" of Westeros.

Whether they are willing to admit it or not, the fact is that after seeing the superior life of slave owners and free trade city citizens in the East, the people of Westeros were inevitably affected, and many nobles used gorgeous clothes made of Eastern silk. , the style became more and more luxurious, and many nobles began to like to use elephants to travel, just like the pampered slave owners in the East.

But if that's all, forget it. It's not like this has never happened in history, but what happened next made the conservatives in Westeros unable to sit still.

Various cultures and customs related to the East, or to Valyria, have spread among the wealthy classes in Westeros. In the words of the defenders, "they are becoming more and more decadent." Robert's Racing The completion of the Arena and the Colosseum has aroused public opinion. The oriental labels on these two buildings are too heavy.

Coupled with Robert's large-scale establishment of a standing army and the introduction of Eastern scholars, public opinion in Westeros continued to be noisy.

The first to stand up and openly oppose were the religious orders of the Church of the Seven Gods. These defenders pointed out that everything coming from the east had polluted the "simple, pure hearts and traditions" of the people of Westeros. They also emphasized that these customs were closely related to the slave owners. relationship, and accused the Church of the Seven Gods, angrily accusing the Archbishop of malfeasance in his duties - the Church of the Seven Gods has played a huge role in promoting the spread of these Eastern "cultures". After all, the senior members of the church also like to have fun, and they invest in The behavior of cultural products has also been criticized as deviating from the virtues of the Seven Gods.

More importantly, this controversy also brought a group into the fold, and this group was the nobles who did not benefit from the Eastern Expedition.

Although the Eastern Expedition is an event involving the entire society of Westeros, in fact, there are still very few people who are getting rich and rising in class, not to mention that the three-year siege of Volantis and the plunder of the Ironborn have also destroyed the lives of many nobles. After the loot was collected, many people also chipped in a lot of money.

When Westeros was prosperous, these people naturally did not dare to say anything to the king, and they also benefited from the prosperity. However, these experiences also made most of these people extremely opposed to the East and everything it represented.

Moreover, Robert did bring about a prosperous era, but people who experienced prosperity would inevitably want more, and many wealthy civilians also joined this anti-Eastern wave.

With the addition of the Academy, it directly detonated the entire battle. The power of the Academy spread throughout Westeros. When they exerted their strength, it was extremely terrifying. Of course, if it were just a school city, it would definitely not be enough, but there are many people supporting them now.

The Myrs also responded quickly. They immediately wrote articles to counterattack. For a time, various books from both sides came and went, and pamphlets were flying all over Westeros. The discussion on Eastern "culture" directly turned into It has become the hottest thing in all of Westeros, and discussions on this matter can be seen everywhere in every city.

Of course, to our Majesty the King, all this is inexplicable.

(End of this chapter)