Our family is in decline

"I'm not sure yet, are you really sure that Hamlet can win? You know, you don't know who wins or loses without fighting."

Lance didn't answer, but asked back.

But thinking of what he said when they met, he reacted instantly, and the smile on his face became a little playful.

"By the way, I almost forgot that the victory of those nobles has no effect on you, and you are even more willing to eliminate Hamlet.

But there is another possibility. When Hamlet wins and makes changes, it will touch the core interests of the church, so you are eager to get my opinion.

And it is obvious that the current emperor can no longer satisfy you. Change another one and pretend that nothing happened, right?"

As he said this, Lance's mouth corners slowly curled up, "How can it be so easy to stay out of it now?"

The purpose of the exchange was revealed after two sentences, and the beggar could only bite the bullet and continue.

"But if we support Hamlet, you will become the new emperor of the empire. We have only one request, which is to maintain the status quo."

This means that the church is ready to bet on Hamlet, or Lance, and sell out all the emperors, nobles and bureaucrats in exchange for their unchanged status and treatment in the state church of the empire.

Changing an emperor is almost like changing a partner for them, or to put it bluntly, a watchdog.

"What era is it, and you are still playing this game? Do I need the church to nod if I want to be the emperor? Are you the emperor or am I the emperor?" Lance mocked without giving any face, "Maintain the status quo? Then what? All ordinary people are still blinded by your holy light to support you guys?"

Speaking of which, the current emperor is still canonized by the church, but when talking to Lance about this, it's good enough that he didn't take up weapons to chop him.

A few damn charlatans dare to ride on my head. Is it because the labor camp is not luxurious enough or the sanatorium is too quiet?

"Once the church supports the nobles, it will launch a holy war. The coalition forces will be supported by priests and priests, and a steady stream of believers will join the army. There will never be a shortage of soldiers, and the holy light will cover this land."

"In the final analysis, it's just because you can't ride on the heads of ordinary people anymore. You come to me now. What did you do before?"

Lance was not afraid of threats at all. Instead, he laughed. That smile looked like a devil to people like the beggar monks.

"You keep saying that you are doing it for the people, but aren't you pushing them into the quagmire of war now?"

Seeing that threats are useless, you are using moral kidnapping, right? Unfortunately, Lance has no morals at all, and he teased back.

"Then you are provoking rebellions everywhere, aren't you also pushing ordinary people into war? You hide behind, anyway, you don't have to go, right? The person who died is not you."

Debating with Lance is just looking for trouble. He has no bottom line. It doesn't matter if he drags ordinary people into war.

Moreover, he knew very well how abstract human nature was. Without the struggle of blood and fire, they would never awaken and would not cherish the life they had.

At this moment, the monk's hand holding the staff was white, which meant that he had failed to beat it once before, otherwise he would have killed this demon here at all costs.

After a moment of silence, he finally gave in, or there was no other way.

"Maybe what happened at the beginning made you feel uncomfortable, but the church has sheltered the people of the empire for so many years, and even Hamlet had the best church back then. The church is part of the empire and part of Hamlet. Why can't you accept us?"

Faced with the monk's defense, Lance just wanted to laugh, but did not rush to refute, but motioned for the two to follow.

Soon they came to a memorial hall, where they collected the evidence of the crimes of those guys when Lance regained the territory, including many church members.

"Don't talk nonsense. You should know that Hamlet has never discriminated against or oppressed believers. You two have lived here and committed treason. Even so, has Hamlet ever targeted you?

One of our friends is a combat nun, and some of the senior leaders are from the Crusades. Some of the ordinary people are related to the church, or they are also pan-believers. Do they have any problems here?"

Lance raised his hand and pointed at the evidence on the whole wall and questioned.

"Can't you look for the reasons from yourself for what has happened? Blaming everything on me is too overbearing, isn't it?

Did I force you to oppress ordinary people? Did I force you to lend money at high interest rates? Did I force you to trade slaves? Or did I force you monks to molest children?

You even have internal oppression. A priest recruited seven nuns, six of whom got pregnant and had abortions more than once. Is the remaining one merciful? She is not old enough to get pregnant.

The victims were rescued by us and settled in the city. How do you explain this? Doing such dirty things in the name of Holy Light, where is your Holy Light? Tell me!"

The evidence is here, so the two of them have no room to refute Lance's questioning.

"How can the Holy Light allow such evil..." The candle-burning priest lowered his head in shame, his hideous and terrifying face was full of complex emotions, and his gnashing voice revealed his anger.

"It's just a small number of pests. There are still many righteous people in the church. We don't know about this, otherwise we will definitely punish them."

The friar forced an explanation with a stern face, but Lance was sarcastic.

"A small part..."

"At least we didn't do it!"

Martin was really pressed to the limit, but Lance didn't mean to continue playing, but suddenly calmed down.

"I don't deny what you said, at least you two are beggars who truly follow the vow of poverty, and that's why you can see me and listen to me say these words."

When Martin heard Lance give in, he couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope in his heart.

"That's right, our friars have never recognized those things."

Lance no longer had the patience to talk nonsense with them, and directly gave the conditions.

"I give you a choice. All the people in your church must give up those extravagant lives and strictly follow the vows of poverty and abstinence. Those who violate the oath will be expelled from the church and severely punished.

All clergy must pass the exam. We will not recognize those without certificates. Promotion and appointment must also be approved by the official, and the same applies to those who are not recognized.

You cannot preach in public places, only in specific areas. You cannot force others to believe, and you cannot attack other beliefs and non-believers.

End all cruel rituals and criminal laws, abolish the Inquisition and the Knights, and at the same time have the obligation to cooperate with the official to maintain a stable and harmonious society."

Lance's words directly cut off their way of obtaining money and power, and also cut off their channels for expanding their influence and controlling others.

Who can tolerate their lifeblood being in the hands of others? Moreover, the power will only shrink smaller and smaller. Even Martin, who seems to have no desires, finds it difficult to accept such terms.

"Impossible, even if I agree, how can so many people in the church agree?"

"Isn't it just right? I know that your faction of the Mendicant Order has always been marginalized within the church, and now that you have my support, it is time for you to rectify the church and clean up those termites."

Martin came here to find a way to use his support for Hamlet as a bargaining chip to exchange for a position in the new order in the church, but now why is it the other way around?

However, Martin also realized that this is indeed an opportunity. It is a fact that their faction has been suppressed and marginalized within the church, and even many people look down on them as poor ghosts.

"Is there really no discussion?"

"I am not discussing anything with you, and I am not targeting you, but all religions must accept it, either reform or destroy it."

Lance didn't care at all. What does it have to do with him how many people died? Instead of killing a group of fanatics, he left trouble.

Such a resolute attitude made Martin speechless for a while. He actually wanted to get the advice of the candle-lit priest, but found that the priest was looking at the evidence on the side, and he was speechless for a while.

Why did you go to see those things?

"Let me go back and think about it." Lance did not force him to agree, but he did add a sentence. "What restrains us is faith. We respect blessings. Those who try to influence and control others are cults. We must eradicate them resolutely. It depends on you whether the church can leave anything behind." After saying that, he left without giving any face. Martin's coming over can only mean one thing. After the saints were completely gone, their holy light had problems. They had no ability to intervene in this battle, so they would shrink their forces and even stand on Hamlet's side in exchange for something. However, even if they were fine, they could not affect the overall situation. How could a religion stop the tide of the times? No matter what humans do, they can't stop the change of climate. The cold of winter was exhausted in several heavy snows, and then it gradually began to warm up. Although it was still very cold, spring seemed to be just around the corner. As the roads thawed, most villages and towns were very excited when they met caravans carrying supplies from afar. Because of the heavy snow blockade, supplies were in short supply, especially refined salt and farm tools. One was a necessity, and the other was related to spring plowing, which was a very important activity in the year and related to the harvest of the year.

In addition, they were eager to get news from the outside world in the boring and closed environment, and of course, the news spread by the caravan was about Hamlet.

Now I know why Lance wanted to talk to those merchants. The news about Hamlet showed a very terrifying spread ability with the revival of spring.

Just like a giant beast that has been sleeping for many years, it has survived the pain in its body and has been dormant for many years. A low roar can make the surrounding feel the terrifying pressure.

In a very ordinary farm, the foreman uneasily found the farmer, who was a thin old man who looked a little mean.

"Sir, a few more serfs ran away today."

"A bunch of damn low-class people! I'm going to kill those guys! Damn Hamlet!"

No matter how the farmer yelled, it couldn't change the facts. Several serfs had run away in the past few days. Affecting spring plowing would affect his core interests.

It was difficult for them to catch the people back, because the small farms did not have so many people, and if they asked the local lords to borrow people to search, they would have to pay a lot of money to get those people to move.

But in fact, giving money was useless, because there were too many similar things, and there were escaped slaves everywhere, and they could not catch them at all.

And once they entered the range of Hamlet, who would dare to cause trouble? Even the knights did not dare, let alone them.

The news of Hamlet's abolition of slavery brought hope to many desperate serfs. Most of them owed usury that could never be repaid for various reasons, and they were slaves for generations.

According to the calculation of one generation every twenty years, they may have served the same master for three generations, but the debts are getting bigger and bigger.

They were whipped by the foreman all day in the fields, working for the master, and planting fields that did not belong to them. Every harvest seemed to have nothing to do with them, and even eating was impossible.

These people could no longer see the future. It is conceivable what they would do when they heard that going to Hamlet would eliminate their slave status and not have to pay the debt that would never be paid off?

Of course, only the brave had this determination. Most slaves were still numbly working day after day, or simply could not receive news from the outside world.

But these people who took action had already made the nobles panic. What would happen if this continued?

Even the empire noticed the terrifying infection ability, which spread like a plague.

The coalition forces, which had been procrastinating, decided to pass quickly. Of course, another reason was that the church had ended. It was no longer the reason for not interfering in the internal affairs of the nobles before, but came out to stand directly.

Declaring that Hamlet was a dark place that even the Holy Light could not illuminate, he began to summon Crusaders on the grounds of holy war.

Now that he had the church, he was finally able to convince the three parties, at least on the surface.

In fact, it was easy to imagine how the people in the church could agree to Lance's request, which was to cut off their roots and eat their flesh.

They were used to enjoying that kind of luxurious and decadent life, so how could they be willing to keep their vows and be poor and abstinent.

Not to mention that Lance was also preparing to settle accounts with them. Who among these people had not done a lot of shady things?

Can this be checked? What if something was really found out?

So after knowing Lance's plan, they fought back more fiercely and stood firmly on the opposite side.

But what about it?

No matter how loud the outside world was, and the voices against Hamlet were getting louder and louder, they still did what they had to do internally.

On the one hand, they were preparing for war, and on the other hand, they did not even interfere with normal operations, and the people lived a stable life.

If they were in another place, they would probably collapse, but the residents of Hamlet had all seen big scenes, and instead of being afraid, they were excited.

Because the propaganda has changed, telling the stories of the escaped slaves, most people are indignant, and now most of them have suffered and been oppressed, and they are redeemed here.

So everyone did not retreat at all when facing the coalition forces, and they could not go back to the life worse than pigs and dogs.

On the contrary, it became the program to overthrow the nobles, overthrow religion, and save the ordinary people. Many retired veterans are eager for the lord to summon them to the battlefield again to fight for humanity.