Chapter 62: The King’s Troubles
Chapter 62 – The King’s Troubles
His Majesty King Rodney XVI of the Kingdom of Aldo had quite a few troubles lately.
The first worry is that the granary in the royal capital was burnt down by the rebel spies, and the remaining little bit of food, not to mention waving the army to the south to pacify the rebels, has become a problem for the daily supply of 100,000 residents of the royal capital.
The government immediately sent officials to collect food from the royal territories, and what they found almost made His Majesty faint again – the real food in most of the local warehouses didn’t match up with the accounts. Rodney XVI was furious, and after a rigorous investigation, it was discovered that the problem was partly due to the officials in charge of the administration selling the grain privately, and partly due to the local officials bragging about the problem in order to claim credit for their efforts.
His Majesty was so furious that he dispatched bailiffs to escort each offending official back to the capital and summoned the people for a public trial.
After the judge announced the crime, the executioner pushed the criminals into the angry crowd, “It’s all because of these assholes that you are now starving!”
The trial began at 8:00 a.m., the announcement of the crime took less than an hour, and then the “execution time” for the people lasted three hours, and only when the people were exhausted did they disperse at noon. When the executioner went to collect the bodies, the prisoners’ corpses were already inhuman, he cut off the prisoners’ heads and hung them above the city gate, as to whether any of them were scapegoats, who knows?
According to the suggestion of many military generals, the Royal Government should immediately implement a food rationing system, collect all the grain stored in the civilian families, and then regularly issue the necessary rations according to the population of each family, while the rest of the food is fully supplied to the army’s southward march.
However, this suggestion was strongly opposed by the ministers of administration, and their reason was also very sufficient: with the integrity of local officials, the common people would starve to death before they could collect much food, besides, the common people did not know what loyalty and honor were, they only cared about whether they would have food to eat tomorrow or not, and they would definitely rebel when they knew that they were going to starve to death.
His Majesty the King weighed the pros and cons, and in the end did not adopt the military’s proposal.
In order to save food, a strict ban on alcohol was issued to all the territories directly under the royal family: except for a few breweries that were issued with licenses, all others stopped brewing; nobles were forbidden to buy more than half a liter of alcohol per day, while commoners were forbidden to buy more than one liter per week, and had to go to designated places to buy it; and drinking in public was prohibited, as well as banning the presence of alcoholic beverages at banquets, so that they could only drink them quietly in their homes. Violations of the above decrees were punishable by the loss of titles for nobles and the death penalty for commoners.
In order to prevent merchants from taking advantage of the opportunity to inflate the price of food and foodstuffs, the royal government designated a price ceiling, and soldiers supervising sales were stationed in front of every store engaged in food and foodstuffs in the royal capital. Even so, the residents were forced to spend many times more than usual to buy food.
As the food collected from the local area gradually gathered to the capital, the senior management finally breathed a sigh of relief, but want to immediately send the army to the south is impossible, so the army of the King’s diligence was temporarily disbanded, and the foreign lords went back to their own homes to look for their own mothers, and then choose the time to convene again in the coming year, of course, this is also dependent on this year’s harvest how to do.
The second trouble was the youngest daughter’s running away from home. Because of the temporary lack of power to crush Giles’ rebellion, Rodney XVI will have to think carefully about riding the fence everywhere.
The Duke of Veblen, the strongest of the Cavalry, has not yet made a stand against Giles’ rebellion, but has only sent a messenger to request a marriage with the royal family, which is already obvious. His Majesty the King, after repeated consideration, decided to marry his youngest daughter Irene Rodney to him, the Vibran family has many vassals and the location of their territory is crucial, he absolutely cannot be allowed to fall to Giles.
The eldest daughter Catherine is too good, Rodney XVI do not want to give such a jewel to someone else. The king has no son, according to tradition can only pass the throne to his younger brother Prince O’Casey, but Prince O’Casey is a well-known fop, all day long, like to spend the day drinking, like with the minstrels and theater actors and actresses mixed together, who do not think he can be a qualified monarch.
His Majesty the King has decided that when he is a hundred years old, instead of passing the throne to his own incompetent brother, it would be better to pass it on to his eldest daughter, and in general he is also training Catherine as a country’s Crown Prince.
So it could only be at the expense of his youngest daughter, Irene. Irene is not interested in politics at all, although as a royal princess, the study of the same did not fall, poetry, song and song, literature and art dance, but she also has a wide range of other interests, such as studying a variety of ancient texts and ancient scrolls, to the alchemists to learn alchemy, or collect a variety of plant specimens, raising some strange animals, etc., these hobbies make her more like a These hobbies made her more like a scholar, but because of her “extensive” hobbies, apart from naming a few uncommon plants, Her Highness hadn’t made much of a name for herself.
If you look at it not as a father, but just as a king, the young Princess Irene is really a good tool for marriage, but …… she ran away from home.
When Rodney XVI explained his decision to his youngest daughter, this Princess Highness looked as usual, and after calmly inquiring about her father’s reasons for this decision, she silently returned to her room.
The king was still amazed that his youngest daughter was so aware of being a child of the royal family, and his heart welled up with endless shame, and then the next day he was informed that his daughter had disappeared. He immediately sent out a search party, anxious about the delayed marriage to the Veblen family, but more concerned about his daughter’s safety as a father.
The third worry was that his eldest daughter, Catherine, who was very close to her sister, was in a state of cold war with himself after learning that her sister was to be used as a tool for the marriage, and her name changed from the usual “Father” to the hard and cold “Your Majesty”. “What an eventful year!” A sense of powerlessness welled up inside the king’s heart.
……
“The army going to the Valley of Thorns has been screened, and this time Viscount Klein will command the reinforcements.”
Catherine announced so in the military meeting, none of the generals present had any objections, Viscount Klein stood up to receive the order, and then everyone began to discuss the military food issue that had been causing headaches lately.
Although the large-scale counter-insurgency army is unable to move south, the army to reinforce Duke Dodge still needs to be sent over, no matter what, we must first hold the Thorn Pass. If the Thorns Pass was lost, the northern hinterland of the kingdom would be open to Giles’ rebels.
After discussing the supply of food and some other details, the meeting ended and the generals went back to their tasks.
Only Ofina stayed behind, and after everyone had dispersed, she walked over to the princess and said quietly, “Her Highness Aileen has taken up residence in a place called Lakeheart Town in the northwestern Arda Territory.”
Catherine nodded, with her familiarity with her sister, the people she sent ahead of the king found the little princess’s whereabouts, but instead of bringing her sister back by force, she secretly deployed additional manpower to protect her while setting up tracking hindrances for the people sent by the king.
Catherine was furious at her father’s decision to use her sister as a tool for marriage, but after many attempts, she still couldn’t change the will of the king of a country, so she could only rebel in this way.
She asked Ofina, “Who is the lord there?”
Ofina said, “The lord is Count Paul Gladman of the Gladman family.”
“Arda? Gladman?” Catherine appeared to be somewhat impressed, but couldn’t recall.
Ofina continued, “The news that came back said that Earl Gleiman eliminated the pirates that invaded the territory not long ago, and also launched an operation called ‘Strike Hard’ to clean up the ruffians in the territory, now the security there is very good, and Her Highness Aileen should not have any security problems for the time being when she lives there. problem.”
The worry in Catherine’s heart was slightly alleviated, then she remembered, wasn’t this Gleiman the same family that had sent a messenger to the military camp to ask for a royal decree when they were in the Highlands a few months ago? At that time, she had also temporarily exempted him from the duty of diligence because of the other party’s territorial predicament, and she had also heard a little bit about the pirate problem in the Northwest Bay, so it looked like this small countryside lord really had some skills.
Catherine still can’t completely rest assured: “still can’t take it lightly, let your people watch a little more closely, once there is any situation immediately use carrier pigeon to send back. In addition, this matter should not be told to others.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
“Tough on you, Ofina.”
(End of chapter)