Chapter 25: This country is so useless
"...The Great Tomb of Nazarick and the Lich King Ainz, if you want to be king in that fantasy world, even if you can rely entirely on the undead and monsters to fight, you must also have land and subjects. Only in this way can you obtain Taxes and supplies are needed to achieve sustainable development. First of all, land is not a problem. There are many undeveloped fertile wastelands near the big tomb, but the population is more difficult. We must look for ideas from several nearby countries." >
"...Among the three major surrounding countries. The Slian Theocracy in the south seems to have been established by the previous batches of time travellers. At least it has a deep connection with the time travellers. Therefore, the domestic ruling order is very strict and very powerful. Modern Color is the only country in the world that has a household registration system for all people. At the same time, it has been pursuing human supremacy for hundreds of years. The whole country is extremely hostile to foreigners. It is really difficult to attack this country in the early days.
Although the Bajas Empire in the east is slightly less stable than the Silian Theocracy, it is now thriving because of the efforts of successive generations of emperors to suppress local nobles and pursue a centralization policy. It is not an easy persimmon to pinch. ”
Standing in front of the small blackboard, Wang Qiu talked eloquently, "...and the rest, the Yestije Kingdom, is the weakest link among the Three Kingdoms and the main stage of the original plot. As the saying goes, flies are like flies. There are so many gaps that can be exploited in this kingdom! In order to completely destroy the main plot line, I think it is necessary to start a war in this country. A devastating chaos..."
--inside. The Kingdom of Yestije is a human country with a population of nine million and has been established for nearly two hundred years.
But it is also a declining regime that smells of decay and chaos from the inside out, and looks like it is about to kick its legs and fall to death.
According to "Li. The report "Social Survey and Analysis of the Kingdom of Yestije" shows that compared with the already highly centralized Silian Theocracy and the Bahas Empire, The Kingdom of Yestije still implements a backward feudal lord system. Among the national territory, the royal family directly controls about 30% of the territory, the territories of the six great nobles and princes account for 40%, and the remaining land is occupied by many small nobles, autonomous cities and Owned by semi-barbaric tribes who are nominally loyal to the kingdom, it is like a country within a country. The authority of the central government is very weak and continues to decline, while local forces maintain a delicate balance with each other.
The country has never established a standing army, and its armed forces mainly rely on the personal guards of noble lords and armed peasants recruited on a temporary basis.
Although the royal family theoretically owns 30% of the country's land, these lands are not contiguous but fragmented. As the years passed, the royal family's control over these directly administered territories continued to decline, and in many places it was gradually unable to even collect taxes.
Although the strength of the royal family has been slowly declining for a long time, by relying on the righteousness of the monarch and taking advantage of the conflicts between local nobles and princes, the kings of the past dynasties continued to use their strength and transfer, and could barely control the domestic political situation. Maintain the governing order.
But as time goes by, Li. Most of the hereditary feudal aristocratic lords in the Kingdom of Yestije gradually formed a powerful political alliance, called the aristocratic faction. They joined forces with each other to attack the royalists in the country and continuously weakened the power of the royal family. Coupled with the royal family's ineffective response, the authority of the monarch or the central government has declined sharply in these years, and the country has gradually fallen into anarchy and chaos.
inside. The current king of the Yestije Kingdom is Rambusa III, who has reigned for thirty-nine years and is currently sixty years old. Although this king cannot be said to be stupid or cruel, he is not a very courageous and wise monarch. Basically, he is just an ordinary old man who is mediocre and gets by.
Therefore, in the face of the civil and military struggles of the great nobles and princes in the country, the king has been retreating steadily for decades. In the hands of Rambusa III. The royal power of the Kingdom of Yestije further declined, and finally reached a jaw-dropping level.
Specifically, the country's central institutions, royal guards, and various territories directly under the king's jurisdiction have been gradually infiltrated by the great nobles, and the actual power of the royal family has become weaker and weaker. During his reign, the royal family even gradually lost its ability to control the capital city of Lorenti. A considerable part of the garrison in the capital no longer obeyed the king, but instead became a sword hanging over the head of the royal family. For this reason, Rambusa III had to make an exception and promote Gazef, a commoner, as a warrior commander, and build a new army that was completely loyal to the royal family in order to protect himself. However, due to financial constraints - not only the national treasury, but even the king's personal treasury was usurped. Therefore, the troops under the command of Warrior Commander Gazef only had a few hundred men, and their weapons and equipment were patchwork. They were as miserable as bandits, and there was no trace of the majestic attire of a royal guard at all.
In the past few years, even the palace has basically lost control. King Rampusa III now no longer "does not give orders outside the capital", nor does he "does not give orders outside the palace", but that the government orders are not easy to use in the palace. The entire palace is full of cronies planted by the nobles, but there are not many. A person who is truly loyal to the royal family. So much so that even the servants who managed the treasury could openly resist the king's orders, but the king could not punish or replace them.
The reason why this pitiful and mediocre king has not been killed or put under house arrest and completely reduced to a puppet is because on the one hand, the aristocracy is not united and the six most powerful aristocrats in the country are equally powerful. , are very jealous of each other, and there is no strong leader who can convince everyone and replace the royal family. If anyone openly commits regicide or rebellion, he will be targeted by the public. Therefore, relying on the contradictions and opposition of these powerful vassals, the king finally still has some room for survival, and he can even manage to organize some of his own direct forces in the capital.
On the other hand, Li. No matter how declining the royal family of the Kingdom of Yestije is, after all, a skinny camel is bigger than a horse. There are still a few relatively reliable direct jurisdictions in the country, such as fortress cities. Lantier is one of them. This is also the foundation of strength for the royal family to maintain its status.
In addition, there is another factor, that is, the military threat of the Bajas Empire, which also makes those ambitious nobles quite afraid - if they block all their capital, bear infamy, take risks, raise troops to overthrow the royal family, subvert If the kingdom is defeated, but the result is that the empire takes advantage of it, wouldn't it be in vain? Moreover, under the rule of the empire, the situation and status of my family will probably be far worse than it is now!
However, although due to the above concerns, the dominant aristocratic faction was not ready to overthrow the royal family immediately and blatantly, they were still very consistent on the issue of continuing to weaken the royal power. In recent years, the aristocratic faction has been trying to force the old king to abdicate: no matter how mediocre King Rambusa III is, after all, he has been in power for decades, has some residual power and close relatives, and has gained rich political experience, so he is not so easy to manipulate. . If a young boy with no power and morality is replaced, then whether the aristocracy plans to erect the royal power and establish a constitutional monarchy like the modern British Parliament on earth; or simply depose the royal family and establish an aristocratic republic like ancient Rome, it will be impossible. Much easier.
But King Rambusa III also understood this. Even though he was old and frail, he still held on to the throne. At the same time, he worked hard to promote new people and implemented various reforms. He wanted to restore some situations, but he was suffering from There were not many available people on hand, and the results were minimal. The two sons of the old king were useless: the eldest prince had been deceived by the nobles. In order to seize the throne, he did not hesitate to rebel against his father and act as a puppet of those nobles. Although the second prince is a little more sober, he is far from outstanding. At this time when the authority of the royal family is extremely degraded, it is very difficult for King Rambusa III to abolish the eldest son and establish a young one. In fact, even he himself can do it at any time. Possibility of being deposed.
Finally, Rambusa III also had several daughters. One of them was not only beautiful, but also very talented in politics. She was known as the Golden Princess and had carried out many social reform movements, such as the abolition of slavery. However, due to the resistance of the nobles, it was basically a mere formality and failed to have any real effect.
It's right there. While the ruling class of the Yestije Kingdom is so infighting and disorganized, the livelihood of the people at the bottom of the country is also in dire straits.
——Based on the rumors heard by the "Cat Scout" in the streets and alleys of the fortress city, combined with the original content of "Overlord King of the Undead", the final judgment was reached: like the Karn Village I saw before, the villagers can "Rich" villages that had enough bread to eat, had brick houses to live in, and only had to pay taxes on 30 to 40 percent of their wheat harvest were rare in the entire kingdom.
Because Kahn Village is located in the territory directly under the jurisdiction of the royal family, there are relatively few excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes, and it is also in a desolate border area where the traditional noble power is not strong, so it has such relaxed treatment. The price is that it may be devastated by war and monsters at any time. The village of Karn, located on the edge of the forest, has escaped the war because it is too remote and far away from major transportation routes. Many other nearby villages were burnt to ashes during the successive battles between the kingdom and the empire. Other remote mountain villages that also escaped the military disaster were massacred miserably by the rampaging monsters in the forest...
It was entirely because of good luck that the residents of Kahn Village were not attacked by war or invaded by monsters. They were able to enjoy light corvee and meager taxes for a long time and live a relatively leisurely and comfortable life... It is a pity that with those batches of Si Even with the intrusion and massacre of the Knights of the Theocracy, the good luck of Karn Village came to an end.
On the other hand, although most places in the interior of the kingdom are safe from war and monsters, they are burdened with appalling exorbitant taxes. Due to the layers of exploitation and factionalism by officials and nobles, the extremely decadent royal family was unable to control the exploitation within a reasonable range. As a result, the taxes that farmers in the kingdom had to pay every year were at least equivalent to 60% of the grain harvest in the fields. In many places, The collection amount has even reached 80%! This does not include other miscellaneous taxes and tax collectors' private gains. Many people at the bottom have to sell their children and daughters in order to eke out a living.
Under such circumstances, it is already very good for farmers to be able to sustain one meal a day without starving to death. In fact, many people starve to death in the countryside every year.
And these expropriated wealth were almost entirely used for various luxurious enjoyments. The extremely corrupt aristocratic ruling class does not even care about organizing production or building water conservancy, nor even the most basic public security, allowing bandits and monsters to run rampant. In addition to paying such heavy taxes and miscellaneous taxes, the common people also had to find ways to raise money to hire adventurers to defeat monsters in order to obtain the minimum safety guarantee.
Next, the Bajas Empire's successive invasions made it even more difficult. The people's livelihood in the Kingdom of Yestije was further worsened: the Bahas Empire used a fully off-the-job standing army, which not only had stronger combat effectiveness, but also sent troops to fight without being restricted by the agricultural production cycle. The kingdom does not have a standing army. If it wants to be evenly matched, it must mobilize hundreds of thousands of peasants and soldiers to barely compete.
However, the empire deliberately chooses to send troops around the autumn harvest every year. In this regard, Li. If the Kingdom of Yestije mobilizes a large army to attack, no matter whether they win or lose, too much labor will be taken away from the fields, which will seriously affect the autumn harvest and lead to famine in the coming year. But if they sit idly by and do nothing, then the empire's professional army will invade the hinterland of the kingdom in large numbers, burning, killing, looting, and destroying everything. The Kingdom of Yestije brought huge damage...
——Basically, it was Tang Gaozong's strategy to harass and destroy Goguryeo. No matter how the opponent dealt with it, the result was continuous blood loss and decline.
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"...In short, the Kingdom of Yestije is currently a dilapidated house riddled with holes. From the foundation, pillars to beams, everything is almost rotten. As long as someone kicks the door hard, then The whole house will collapse..."
Wang Qiu finally concluded like this, while Li Wei raised his hand and asked, "...Brother Wang Qiu, I admit that your social survey analysis and final conclusion are correct, but the question is, who should be asked to give Li Wei . What about the final funeral kick to this dilapidated house in the Kingdom of Yestije?
You know, unlike the several time travels you have experienced before, now we do not have a time and space door leading to that world. Apart from useless novice accounts, there are only twenty game player accounts that can cheat and level up. That's all, they are all from non-human races... No matter whether it is twenty kittens, twenty iron golems, twenty slimes, or twenty goblins, I am afraid that they will not be able to complete such a huge and complicated task. Mission! ”
"...You are right. Our power in the other world is indeed very weak for the time being, but please don't worry, we don't need to do this at all. Someone will naturally do it for us." Wang Qiu replied, "...You all too Have you read the original work? In just a few days, there will be a man named 'Zhilanong' An evil indigenous terrorist organization attempted to cause a natural disaster of the undead in the fortress city of Lantier, and had been carefully planning for it for many years before it was suppressed only after the protagonist Ainz showed his prowess. But what if these guys succeed?" he asked.
Everyone in the command center suddenly realized, "...So, what should we do in this matter?"
"...It's very simple, just find a reasonable excuse to drive Ainz and his servants away from the city as soon as possible... With the strength shown by the 'Zhilanon' terrorist organization in the plot, in this There should be no opponents in this city that could hinder them," Wang Qiu said calmly, "...Of course, in order to get more reward points, we can also save a few small characters who were originally scheduled to die..."
So, on the seventh day after traveling through another world, Lich King Ainz left the fortress city with a few boxes of purchased books and all the basic knowledge about this world he had collected. Rantel then opened the [Random Door] outside the city and returned to the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
Through these few days of investigation, he has initially understood his own strength and the weakness of the world, but he has also discovered his shortcomings.
——That means being illiterate, to be precise, not knowing the words of this world. In the past few days, Ainz has been able to read documents from other worlds entirely by relying on the cat scholar squatting on his shoulder, continuously using the scholar's professional skill [Language Proficiency], and providing personal translation.
Therefore, he plans to immerse himself in studying as soon as he returns to the Great Tomb of Nazarick. At the same time, he also wants the guild guardian NPCs of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, as well as the battle maids and other key members to participate in the study, so as to master the words of this world as soon as possible— —It’s like analyzing otherworldly magic items with him As those kitty scholar players of History and Culture said: "...Knowledge is power. This is an undoubted truth in any world. Mr. Ainz, no matter what your plans for the future, with A group of illiterate people can never accomplish anything big..."
Ainz was convinced of this and decided to take the next step after learning the words of this world. At the same time, another group of uninvited guests entered the fortress city. Lantel's Adventurer's Guild...