Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 452: Riot
On the airship, Perfect was standing on the deck and looking into the distance.

The cold wind like a sharp blade blew across her cheek, making Perfect feel a pain like a needle prick.

But Perfect didn't care. She just stood on the deck at the bow, looking at the sea of ​​clouds in the distance.

At this time, the airship was sailing above the clouds. Under her feet was a sea of ​​clouds that looked like the sea, quiet and peaceful.

However, at this moment, Perfect knew clearly that it was raining heavily beneath the clouds, and the airship was rising above the clouds just to avoid the heavy rain.

This is similar to the situation she is facing now. Currently, whether it is the Empire or the North, the overall situation seems to be under her control, and everything seems to be very stable.

But beneath this calm, undercurrents had already begun to stir and the situation was turbulent.

This undercurrent is not just the problems caused by the heretical sects. Although these problems are the most difficult problems facing Perfectoct now, they are not the primary problems.

The nobles, the bourgeoisie, and other people who have been suppressed by her, and who are dissatisfied with her, are the primary problems that Perfecto needs to face now.

An empire that has been established for hundreds of years certainly cannot be without factions, and the division of factions cannot be simply divided into two groups: the nobility and the emerging bourgeoisie.

The imperial family, the royalist aristocracy, the royalist bourgeoisie, the conservative aristocracy, the reformist aristocracy, the radical aristocracy, the conservative emerging bourgeoisie, the reformist emerging bourgeoisie, the radical emerging bourgeoisie…

Different factions have different demands, as well as completely different interests and relationships.

Trying to control them, getting everyone to temporarily put aside their prejudices and focus their energy in one direction is enough to make even the best politicians feel bald.

Perfect is certainly not the kind of politician who can dance on three eggs. Her way of getting everyone to temporarily put aside their disputes is to suppress all contradictions and oppositions with an iron fist and force everyone together.

Because of the huge external threat of the end of the world, and the fact that Perfecto itself represents a political faction, her strong iron fist did temporarily suppress all discord in a short period of time, allowing the empire to concentrate most of its strength on dealing with the doomsday crisis.

But just like a spring will break if it is stretched too tight, the current situation of the empire cannot continue in the long run.

High-pressure rule can only be maintained for a while. They must be given an opportunity and channel to release the pressure, otherwise it will lead to irreversible consequences.

In fact, Perfect already knew that some people within the empire were colluding to oppose her iron-fisted policies.

This is actually easy to understand. When a leader can no longer meet the needs of the interest group he represents, he will immediately be abandoned by this group.

During the Second World War, Churchill, the former British Prime Minister, led Britain to resist the German invasion in times of crisis, and later joined forces with the Allies to defeat the Axis powers. Logically, his prestige in Britain should be unmatched.

Compare him with Soviet leader Stalin and American leader Roosevelt, who had the same status as him. Both of them had extremely stable positions.

But Churchill was the only one who lost his position as prime minister immediately after the end of World War II.

Even at that time, Churchill was attending the Potsdam Conference, which was being held by the heads of government of the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain. The conference was suspended for a few days to allow Churchill to return home to hear the results of the prime minister election.

Full of confidence, Churchill arranged to hold a small banquet at his home in London on the day the election results were announced to celebrate his upcoming election victory. Churchill also believed that he would definitely return to Potsdam as the leader of the new British government.

However, the next day, the prime minister who led Britain to victory in World War II lost his position as prime minister.

When Churchill learned of the failure, he sat there in a daze.

Churchill could not understand being driven out of office at the moment of final victory. He later quoted Plutarch, a Greek writer from the Roman Empire era, who said: "It is the mark of a great nation to be ungrateful to its great men."

But this was easy to understand for Perfect, because Churchill could no longer represent the interests of the British ruling class at that time.

Or it could be that Churchill lost his position as prime minister because he caused too much loss to the British ruling class in World War II.

And now, Perfect is actually facing a similar situation.

From being not favored and recognized in the beginning, to gradually leading the people to achieve success with great difficulty, he was betrayed for various reasons when he was about to achieve victory.

Perfect found himself in the same situation as the prime minister who had stepped down in disgrace.

But unlike Churchill, Perfect was clearly aware of the problems he was facing.

She did lead Victoria to a glimmer of hope in this doomsday disaster, but Perfect was also well aware that her methods would inevitably attract a lot of opposition and dissatisfaction.

Human beings are like this. When they need you, you are their savior, their hero and great man.

But when they don't need you, every word you say and every thing you do will become evidence for them to accuse you.

So it was normal for Perfectot that someone opposed him and tried to overthrow his rule.

It was so normal that Perfecto himself thought it was abnormal if no one objected.

You know, although she is now nominally only a member of the Imperial Council and has many titles, the title of Prime Minister of the Empire is not one of them. But no matter from which perspective, Perfect, who is in charge of all the work of the Empire in response to the doomsday disaster, can still be regarded as the most powerful person in the Empire who controls everything in the Empire.

During her time at Windsor Castle, she had an overview of almost all political affairs in Langton and the empire. Although not all matters, big or small, needed to be decided by her, it was obvious that she could decide everything.

This was something that both the Queen herself and the Parliament of Nobles and the Elected Parliament had to acknowledge.

Although Perfecto does not cling to power, she will not sit idly by and watch herself being overthrown.

This is the biggest difference between her and Churchill. She knew that someone was plotting to overthrow her, and she was also capable of dealing with it.

Perfect is a powerful lord and noble. She not only has the actual ruling power over the entire North, but also controls a powerful military force. If she is unhappy, it means that the entire North is unhappy.

For the current empire, no one can afford the cost of problems in the north, which is the foundation and key for the empire to continue to exist in the doomsday disaster.

If Perfectcott refuses to recognize the Empire now and returns to the North to close all channels to the Empire, leaving the Empire to die, then all those who oppose her in the Empire will be dealt with immediately, and then those opponents will come to Perfectcott to beg her to let them enter the North.

This is not a joke, but a fact.

After all, Perfect is the Lord of the North, and she has absolute rule over her territory.

The process of Perfectcott building the entire North from scratch in the past three years also ensured that she had sufficient control and dominance over the North. If she really wanted to, she could indeed cut off all channels from the Empire to the North.

Although doing so would be meaningless for Perfectot and would inevitably provoke resistance from the empire itself, she could indeed do such a thing.

Although the final result may be that the Empire organizes a huge army to attack the North, using force to pry open the blocked gates of the North, and then they are wiped off the map by some unspeakable weapon that Perfectcot takes out.

It was precisely because the military and the Council of Nobles understood the extent to which Perfecto could do what she did, so when she suddenly put down all the work at hand and prepared to return to the North, it really caused panic.

Many people thought that Perfectcott was annoyed by Langton's affairs and was going back to the North to get out of trouble.

This even alarmed the Queen to come and persuade Perfectok in person, asking her if she had anything to be unhappy about, and promising that as long as Perfectok opened her mouth, anything that made her unhappy would disappear from the empire, no matter in what sense.

The Queen herself knew better than anyone that nothing could go wrong in Perfecto, even though it seemed that the North was functioning normally now and the situation in the Empire itself was under control. As long as the final immigration was completed, the Empire could safely shift the focus of its development to the North.

But this still cannot be separated from Perfect.

As the environment continues to deteriorate, the Empire needs Perfecto's talents to prepare for future disasters.

However, Perfect is not going to quit her job, but she needs to go back to the North to find solutions to the various troubles the empire is currently facing.

Of course, the more important thing is that she needs to remove the mountain of herself that can suppress everything, and give those who oppose her a channel to vent and a chance to oppose her.

As long as Perfecto was not in Langton, all the problems that had been suppressed by her presence would surface on their own.

When all these problems come out at once, it is time for Perfect to catch them all in one fell swoop.

During the time she was away from Langton, she could focus her energy back on the study of alchemy instead of being entangled in endless government affairs every day, leaving her with little time and energy to study alchemy.

Perfect has never forgotten that his main job is always an alchemist. The identities of a noble, an imperial minister, and a northern lord... these identities are just additions derived from the identity of an alchemist.

Only by firmly grasping the core of her job can she better play these additional roles.

On the contrary, the additional identity does not bring any bonus to her core job.

After all, for an alchemist, power, status and wealth are actually meaningless. As long as she is willing, all of these are within her reach.

An alchemist holding the Philosopher's Stone can also ignore the little bonus of resources that power, status and wealth can bring.

Not to mention that Perfectoct also has the artifact, the Emerald Record, so he doesn't need to worry about acquiring knowledge like ordinary alchemists.

She only needs to focus on the study of alchemy and new knowledge, and she will be able to continue to progress and improve.

And as she continues to improve her alchemy skills, all the problems she faces will no longer be problems.

"My Lord Earl, it's windy on the deck, you'd better go into the cabin! If anything happens to your body, it will be the biggest loss to the empire!" The captain of the airship appeared behind Perfecto and urged her to go back to the cabin.

The deck of the airship was very cold. Even the crew members had to wear thick woolen coats to protect themselves from the cold wind when walking on the deck.

The captain thought that Perfecto's behavior of standing on the deck to enjoy the breeze was very likely to cause problems.

Not to mention the other serious consequences that might result, the fact that Perfect might catch a cold was something the captain of this airship could not afford.

Although a cold sounds common, it is actually a stubborn disease that has never been cured by humans. Moreover, with the current level of medical care in this world, there is a certain chance that a cold can lead to death.

So even though he didn't dare to disturb Perfect, the captain still went to persuade her to go back to the cabin.

Fortunately, Perfect was not a particularly stubborn person, and after blowing for such a long time, she felt cold all over and was eager to return to a warmer place.

But before returning to the cabin, Perfect looked at the captain and asked him a question: "Captain, have you ever encountered a mutiny among the crew? If you encountered a mutiny among the crew and wanted to overthrow your leader, what would you do?
Suppose the ship you are driving is sailing through a storm and it will capsize if you are not careful. You have to forcefully suppress all the crew members and make them risk their lives to go on deck, but the crew members don't want to do this and they start a mutiny.

In this situation, what would you do? Would you reason with the crew members, or forcefully suppress all the mutinous crew members and throw the leader of the riot into the sea? Or do you have a better way to deal with it? "

Facing Perfect's question, the captain was stunned for a moment, but he quickly replied: "On a ship, the captain's orders must be absolute, because only in this way can the ship be an organic whole that can face any challenge.

Generally speaking, the captain will calm the emotions of the crew and try not to use overly harsh measures to suppress the mutiny.

After all, the crew members are living people, and exploiting them too harshly may easily lead to a larger-scale mutiny.

But if there is a mutiny during a storm, then I have to strike hard, because I don’t have time to slowly comfort my crew. They have to choose between possible death and certain death. ”

(End of this chapter)