Chapter 62 The King's Troubles
His Majesty Rodney XVI, the King of the Kingdom of Aldo, has had a lot of troubles recently.
The first worry is that the granary in the royal capital was burned down by rebel spies. The little remaining food, let alone sending troops south to quell the rebellion, would not be enough for the daily supply of one hundred thousand residents of the royal capital. became a problem.
The government immediately sent officials to mobilize food in the royal family's direct territory. What they found made His Majesty almost fainted again - the actual food stored in most local warehouses did not match the accounts. Rodney XVI was furious. After a rigorous investigation, he found that part of the reason was that the officials in charge of management were reselling privately, and part of the reason was that local officials bragged and concealed the report in order to claim credit and reward.
His Majesty was furious and sent law enforcement officers to escort the offending officials back to the capital one by one, and convened a public trial.
After the judge announced the crime, the executioner pushed the criminals into the angry crowd, "It's these worms that make you hungry now!"
The fate of these prisoners can be imagined. As you know, the trial that started at 8 o'clock in the morning took less than an hour to announce the crime, and then came the "execution time" for the common people to do it for them. It lasted for three hours, and people dispersed at noon when they were exhausted. When the executioner went to collect the corpses, the corpses of the prisoners were no longer human. He cut off the heads of the prisoners and hung them on the city gate. As for whether any of them were scapegoats, who knows?
According to the suggestions of many military generals, the royal government should immediately implement a food rationing system, collect all the food stored in civilian households, and then issue necessary rations regularly based on the population of each household. The food supply was fully supplied to the army heading south.
However, this suggestion was strongly opposed by the administrative ministers, and their reasons were very good: based on the ethics of local officials, not much food would be collected by then, and the people would starve to death first. Civilians have no idea what loyalty and honor are. They only care about whether they have food to eat tomorrow. They will definitely rebel if they know that they are going to starve to death.
After weighing the pros and cons, His Majesty the King ultimately did not adopt the military's suggestion.
In order to save food, a strict prohibition on alcohol was issued to all territories directly under the royal family: except for a few brewing workshops that were issued licenses, other workshops stopped making wine; nobles were not allowed to purchase more than half a liter of wine per day, and civilians were The purchase of alcohol is not allowed to exceed one liter per week and must be purchased from designated places; public drinking is prohibited, alcoholic beverages are prohibited from appearing at banquets, and can only be drunk quietly at home. Anyone who violates the above laws will be severely punished by depriving nobles of their titles and punished by death for civilians.
In order to prevent merchants from taking advantage of the opportunity to drive up grain and food prices, the royal government has designated a price ceiling. Soldiers are stationed in front of every grain and catering store in the royal capital to monitor sales. Even so, residents have to spend many times more than usual to buy food.
As the food collected from the local areas gradually gathered in the royal capital, the senior officials finally breathed a sigh of relief, but it was impossible to send the army south immediately, so King Qin’s army was temporarily disbanded, and the foreign lords Each goes back to his own house to find his own mother, and then choose the time to gather them together in the coming year. Of course, this will depend on this year's harvest.
The second worry is that my youngest daughter has run away from home. Because he did not have the power to crush Giles' rebellion for the time being, Rodney XVI had to think carefully about the fence-sitters everywhere.
Duke Veblen, the most powerful of the fence-sitting faction, has not expressed his position on Giles' rebellion so far. He only sent an envoy to request a marriage with the royal family. This meaning is already obvious. After repeated consideration, His Majesty the King decided to marry his youngest daughter Eileen Rodney to him. The Veblen family had many vassals and the position of their territory was also crucial. He must not be allowed to fall to Giles.
The eldest daughter Catherine was so outstanding that Rodney XVI was reluctant to give such a treasure to others. The king has no sons, so according to tradition he can only pass the throne to his younger brother, Prince O'Casey. However, Prince O'Casey is a well-known playboy who spends his days drinking and hanging out with minstrels and actors. No one likes him. He can be a qualified monarch.
His Majesty the King has decided that after a hundred years, instead of passing the throne to his incompetent brother, it would be better to pass it on to his eldest daughter. In normal times, he also trains Catherine as the crown prince of a country. of.
So I had to sacrifice my little daughter Irene. Eileen is not interested in politics at all. Although as a royal princess, she has not fallen behind in what she should learn, including poetry, poetry, art and dance. However, she also has other wide-ranging interests in daily life, such as studying various ancient times. Reading texts and ancient scrolls, learning alchemy from alchemists and warlocks, or collecting specimens of various plants, raising some strange animals, etc. These hobbies make her more like a scholar, but it is precisely because of her dabbling in too much. "Extensive", except for naming a few uncommon plants, Her Royal Highness has not made any big names.
If you look at it not from the perspective of a father, but simply from the perspective of the king of a country, the little princess Irene is indeed a good marriage tool, but... she ran away from home.
When Rodney XVI explained his decision to his youngest daughter, Her Royal Highness the Princess looked as normal. After calmly asking her father why he made this decision, she returned silently. own room.
The king was also surprised that his youngest daughter's awareness of being a royal child was so high, and he felt endless guilt in his heart. Then he learned the news that his daughter had disappeared the next day. He immediately sent out men to search everywhere. Although he was anxious about delaying his marriage with the Veblen family, he was more concerned about the safety of his daughter as a father.
The third worry is that the eldest daughter Catherine has a very deep relationship with her younger sister. After learning that her younger sister was going to be used as a marriage tool, she and herself were in a cold war, and their title also changed from the usual "father". He became a stiff and cold "His Majesty the King". "What a troubled time!" The king felt powerless in his heart.
……
“The troops heading to Stranglethorn Valley have been sorted out, and this time Viscount Klein will command the reinforcements.”
Catherine announced this at the military meeting, and all the generals present had no objections. Viscount Klein stood up to accept the order, and then everyone began to discuss the recent headache of military rations.
Although the large-scale counter-rebellion army is unable to move south, the army to reinforce Duke Dodge still has to be sent there. No matter what, the Thorn Pass must be defended first. If the Thorn Pass is lost, the northern hinterland of the kingdom will be open to the Giles rebels.
After discussing the supply of military rations and other details, the meeting ended and the generals went back to work on their tasks.
Only Aofina stayed. After everyone dispersed, she walked to the princess and whispered: "Her Highness Eileen has settled in a place called Lake Town in Northwest Alda. "
Katherine nodded. Relying on her familiarity with her sister, she sent people to find the whereabouts of the little princess before the king. However, she did not force her sister back, but secretly sent more people. Protect, and at the same time set up tracking obstacles for the people sent by the king.
Catherine was very angry at her father's decision to use her sister as a marriage tool, but after many attempts, she still could not change the will of the king of the country, so she could only resist in this way.
She asked Ofina: "Who is the lord there?"
Ofina said: "The lord is Count Paul Graiman of the Graiman family."
"Alda? Graiman?" Catherine seemed to have some impression, but she couldn't remember.
Ofina continued: "The news came back that Earl Grayman had recently exterminated the pirates who invaded the territory, and also launched an operation called 'Strike Hard' to eliminate the gangsters in the territory. The gangsters have been cleaned up, and the security there is now very good. There should be no safety problems for Her Highness Irene living there for the time being.”
The worry in Catherine's heart eased a little, and then she remembered that wasn't this Graiman the same family that sent envoys to the military camp to ask for the edict when they were in the highlands a few months ago? At that time, she had temporarily exempted him from his duty to serve as king because of the difficulties in the other party's territory. She had also heard a little about the pirate problem in the northwest bay. It seemed that this little country lord was really quite capable.
Katherine still couldn't be completely reassured: "You still can't take it lightly, ask your people to keep a close eye on it, and use carrier pigeons to report back as soon as there is any situation. Also, don't tell others about this."
< br>“Yes, Your Royal Highness!”
“Thank you for your hard work, Ofina.”
(End of this chapter)