Our family is in decline

The heavy snow that had been falling for a few days finally stopped, and those who had been hiding in the buildings for the winter began to come out to clear the snow.

The snow that had originally reached the calf was cleared away, and people were walking on the streets, making the quiet city active again and a little warmer, just like the winter sun.

As for our lord, he did not completely get rid of worldly affairs after returning. On the contrary, a lot of things accumulated during his absence needed to be dealt with.

Fortunately, it was just some signatures. After all, we have to believe in Baldwin's ability. It is more than enough to manage a city, not to mention that we just need to follow the plan.

So Lance was mainly busy with Hamlet's existing system, finishing the military reform, and perfecting and updating the laws.

Those nobles, bureaucrats and lackeys shocked Lance a lot. People can be twisted to this extent, which is really abstract.

Of course, there is another more urgent thing, which is what should Hamlet do next after completing the recovery mission?

As the lord of Hamlet, the nominal and actual ruler, he needs to determine this.

At the beginning, Hamlet had only one main line, that is, the ancestors, and the contradictions between the two sides were irreconcilable.

After overthrowing the ancestors, it was the land. Only by restoring the territory could he feed so many people and use the accumulation of those people to help Hamlet through the difficult transition.

Now that the first two are completed, what path will Lance take next?

Should he start to lie down like those noble lords, or should he use this winter to recuperate and then seek an empire to dominate the world?

At the high-level meeting, Lance directly showed his purpose.

"First, formally establish a government, and the Hamlet area will only accept the jurisdiction of the Hamlet government.

Second, Hamlet does not recognize the privileges enjoyed by the church, prohibits any religious missionary work, and severely cracks down on cults.

Third, abolish slavery. Hamlet does not recognize slaves, and the law does not protect the rights of any slave owners.

Fourth, reopen the four-way trade..."

What Lance has to do is very simple, that is, to secede from one side, which can also be called independence.

In fact, although many great lords in the empire are nominally loyal to the emperor, they are local tyrants in their own territories. This is tacitly understood by everyone and is also the core of the feudal system. They gain support by giving up some power.

The current civil strife and fighting with the rebels are caused by the emperor's desire to interfere in the affairs of their territories, but the two sides have not yet torn their faces.

Even if those people set up a new government, it is impossible to put it on the surface, just like Totnes. Not to mention the emperor of the empire, even the church's control over them has failed, and they run their own system.

The army is a small matter. Totnes even has its own navy, and it is equipped with artillery. Lance was quite shocked when he saw it for the first time. This is not something that a territory can do.

But no one cares. Whether it is the emperor of the empire or the church, they let it go. In fact, they can't control it. It belongs to the kind of even if the lights are turned off, maintaining that little face on the surface.

And Lance directly exposed this matter nakedly, I just want to do it alone.

Although it was expected, the topic raised by Lance still caused heated discussions among everyone.

"Although Hamlet is already independent, there is no need for us to emphasize it."

"Then Totnes has long been out of the control of the Empire, but it has not shown it. Even in the civil war, it did not take sides. It is not good for us to be the first to speak out."

"..."

Everyone said that it could be done. Anyway, it is already the case now, but it is better to cover it up on the surface and not take the initiative to mention it, so as not to make it too ugly.

"When the Hamlet Cataclysm occurred, such a prosperous city could not even beat the cult and was destroyed in an instant. Do you think it is reasonable?

Lance listened to their words without paying too much attention, but mentioned another thing.

"No matter how you look at it, Hamlet was the shield of the Empire. He single-handedly blocked the mountain barbarians, the ice barbarians, and the desert barbarians. How could he be easily destroyed by the cult? ”

After this question was raised, the others seemed to have some thoughts and understood that what happened back then must not be that simple.

Lance had no intention of hiding it from them. Since he asked the question, he had to tell it.

“The reason is very simple. The emperor of the empire intervened at that time. He joined forces with the Ascension Sect and some other guys who wanted to pursue Hamlet.

The original governor of Owendo City was the emperor’s man. We only found out these things after we arrested him. "

It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not, because as long as there is this statement, it's fine.

Although Lance doesn't care about the clown-like emperor of the empire, he must occupy the high ground of public opinion, because if you don't occupy it, others will, and use the entire system of the empire to suppress you.

Loyalty seems to have become a fig leaf for this feudal system.

But if this incident is exposed, it means that your emperor of the empire and the cult are unkind first, so you can't blame Hamlet for being unjust.

Others may not understand it, but Baldwin, who is of noble birth, is not so optimistic. He advised:

"I don't think so, because Hamlet's current system is too... It is very likely that all the nobles will put aside their conflicts and attack Hamlet first."

Baldwin didn't dare to say anything, but everyone understood what he meant. Hamlet's system directly eliminated the privileges of the nobles, which was a death sentence for them.

Sometimes heretics are more hateful than heretics. No matter how hard you fight, everyone is still a noble, but you are not.

"Now the emperor is fighting with those rebels. The contradictions in the empire have reached a point where they cannot be concealed and will develop into the current civil war. Our beginning will only further aggravate their division."

The empire was already in ruins, and now the great nobles were waiting and watching. Hamlet's stepping forward to take the lead was equivalent to helping them get started.

Therefore, those people will definitely cheer for this statement and criticize the emperor. Even if it is not true, it will become true.

There are nobles who defend me.

"According to the lord, the current turbulent contradictions within the empire are irreconcilable and should not merge. But the problem is that the key to the empire has never been the nobility, but the church."

To be honest, the empire was already in disintegration. It relied on the cohesion of the church to keep it together. If it was not independent, there was nothing the emperor could do about it.

But the lord's second order was directly aimed at the church. This was not a slap on the emperor's butt, but a slap on the church's face.

If the church comes forward to stop it, it doesn't even need to be so troublesome. It only needs to make a declaration that "the first to enter Hamlet will be king", and then countless careerists will take action.

"The emperor wants to capture Hamlet to prove himself, and the rebels also want to capture Hamlet to gain the support of the church, not to mention that there is someone like Totnes who is not weaker than Hamlet."

Anyone who can sit here is not an idiot. Although Hamlet is temporarily stable, is it really reasonable to provoke so many enemies?

You know, before the lord wanted to shrink down, why is he so arrogant now?

"Isn't that just right?" Lance smiled, but anyone who knew him well knew what the lord's smile meant.

Now everyone heard that the lord wanted to fight out, but he didn't want to be the bad guy. If the enemy attacked first, he would be able to show off his skills.

So the first two sentences are intentional, in order to force those guys to take the initiative to attack Hamlet.

"The war has made the people of the empire so miserable. Even the stable feudal era is better than the war era. This chaos needs to be ended as soon as possible."

Then Lance added something that sounded a little strange, which made it sound like he was explaining - I only want to end this chaos when seeking the empire and give ordinary people a stable life.

Those who followed Lance from the beginning were quite emotional, because Hamlet really was built in ruins, and he did it.

When Baldwin heard this, he couldn't help but think of his own experience. If the lord hadn't taken action in the first place, how could he have been redeemed in Hamlet?

The lord must have taken action after seeing the suffering of ordinary people outside. He was so kind!

But Lance's real purpose is simple. It is impossible to get rid of the feudal era with the power of a territory. Land limits resources and population.

Because he knows better than anyone else that the power of a territory cannot promote the development of science and technology and lead to modernization.

He needed the power of a country, and for this he did not hesitate to burn up those nobles or churches as firewood.

As for ordinary people, if you have time to fight among yourself, you might as well go work for me.

"But in this case we should not reform the military. On the contrary, it will be useful if we expand the military."

Leonard said this, and it was obvious that the military was ready to face the next war.

You must know that many war horses were captured in previous wars, but the cavalry force is also undergoing this reform. Now there are horses, but not so many people.

"It's still the same problem. Resources don't appear out of thin air. At this stage, let alone Hamlet, even wealthy Totnes cannot afford to expand the army with that treatment standard. We must first return the treatment to a reasonable level.

Another reason is that the form of war has changed. Musketeers trained for one month can kill knights and longbowmen trained for half a lifetime, and artillery trained for three months can destroy fortifications that require human lives.

We don't need soldiers to master the skills of fighting on horseback. Now all we need is for the warhorse to send the musketeers to the designated position. The positioning of the warhorse has changed, and the requirements for cavalry training have naturally changed.

Not only did this military reform not damage the army's combat effectiveness, on the contrary, after adjustments, it was able to draw tens of thousands of troops with this as the backbone, because their opponents were not cultists, but ordinary people. "

"Times have changed. In the face of firearms, not to mention knights, even the church has..." Barton followed this and talked about the battle at that time. He saw with his own eyes that the priests of the church were crushed into pulp in front of the cannonballs.

"But there's always something incomprehensible. Can those recruits handle the pressure?"

They have seen the horror of extraordinary power, and Barristan is reminding everyone that whether they are nobles or churches, there may be some contaminating things.

"The Guards were created to deal with extraordinary beings. I believe they can solve these problems."

Everyone has no objection to this. Once the two most important ones are finalized, the following ones can only be regarded as tacks on.

The abolition of slavery didn't even need to be discussed. The lord was merciful and it was normal to not see this.

In fact, the focus of Lance's abolition of slavery is not on ordinary people. If you want to understand clearly, you need to read the two above together.

It does not accept outside jurisdiction and also abolishes the church's privileges, which means that the church cannot judge anyone in Hamlet.

His goal is to abolish the church's suppression of the extraordinary people. Abolition of slavery is just a superficial phenomenon. It is more about buying horse bones with a lot of money.

Extraordinary people are all talents, but they are also very dangerous, so Lance does not want to make too many official promises. He is only willing to attract them to see if they can be used for me.

As for the fourth one, reopening the four-way trade can be specifically mentioned for its importance.

The closure of Hamlet before was only a necessary means for a certain period of time, but it is impossible to close it forever. It is necessary to take advantage of Hamlet's geographical advantages.

Why was Hamlet so rich that the emperor of the empire envied it?

It was because of the prosperous business. There were mountains blocking the north of the empire. There was only a gap like Hamlet. If you want to go north, you can only go here.

Count Bastia monopolized the trade route in and out of the mountains and he was so rich, not to mention that Hamlet was also a place connecting two continents. Merchants from all directions had to transit here.

Rules need to be formulated, and there are also business taxes and other messy things. Now Lance has dug out the information from the old house's library, and then arranged people to organize and study it, and come up with a plan as soon as possible.

Why did he choose a few of those merchants to stay in Owendo? He planned to reopen the trade route and let them lead the caravan to pass the message.

And one of the issues that needs to be discussed here is the ruins.

The core of this route was the city, which is now the ruins.

But now the city has moved south, so the ruins just blocked the route. If you want to open the trade route, you must take the ruins.

"After playing a few times before, no one believes in treasure anymore, but more people catch rats. The problem of solving the ruins is already in front of us."

"The skeletons in the ruins are all resurrected by necromancers. If you don't kill those necromancers, it will never end."

"Find a way to find the location of those necromancers..."

After a period of discussion, it is actually not so fast to come up with a plan. It is more about communicating various things with the top leaders to let everyone know that there are still many things about Hamlet.

In fact, all these things can be summed up as one thing, that is, to accumulate strength and wait for the right time.

"Next, we will do three things." Lance raised his hand and stretched out three fingers to emphasize: "Development, development, and development!"

Lance finalized the next affairs. This winter is destined not to be too quiet.