"Have you designed your family emblem?" Claude asked, looking at the emblems of the territorial nobles scattered on the map of the Nasseri area.
Marshal Bolognik walked to Claude's side, looked at the map, and sighed: "Find someone to design it, one official and three spare ones. When you go to the royal capital to register, you will have to review it to avoid following up. The family emblems of other nobles overlap. But I think one of these four emblems will always work. If it really doesn’t work, I’ll find a way later. At the worst, I can just pay a high price and ask someone from the Wang Family Coat of Arms Registration Office to get one for me. ... ..."
Claude laughed: "Don't worry, you are a hereditary viscount. You can carve patterns on the lower half of the family crest. This alone is more conspicuous than the bare family crests around the hereditary baron. As for the emblems, flowers, birds, animals, fish, You can choose any pattern you like, including grass, trees, mountains, rivers, sun, moon and stars. Even if it is the same as others, you can deform the pattern so that it is different from others. You see, those cow patterns on the map are used as family emblems. There are thirteen families, but they all look different."
"Well, I chose the image of a musketeer." Marshal Bolognik said: "The soldier holding a musket and aiming to commemorate my first experience on the battlefield when I was young, and also to let my descendants remember that their ancestors He was born as a civilian soldier, not much nobler than others. He relied on his own efforts to achieve his current status, and obtained titles and territories... "
Claude rolled his eyes on the spot: "Pull it down, you graduated from the Royal Military Academy with the rank of second lieutenant. You are talking nonsense about having a civilian soldier background. A civilian background is true, but becoming a soldier would make yourself too miserable. Who would let a second lieutenant line up among the soldiers to attack the enemy's position? I have had such an experience, but luckily I survived... "
Marshal Bolognik smiled and shook his head: "I really had the experience of holding a musket and marching to the enemy's defensive position in formation with the soldiers. I remember that more than 800 people were dispatched in that attack, and the enemy's position was finally captured and survived. Less than 300. I am very lucky. Like you, I am one of the surviving officers and soldiers.
In fact, the enemy only had a large defensive force on the position that time, but they defeated eight attacks by our two battalions, and most of the soldiers fell on the way to the attack. If their artillery ammunition had not been sufficient and three of the four light infantry field artillery were disabled, perhaps our attack would have failed. By the way, how many territories are there on the map now? "
"Nearly six hundred come home..." Claude picked up a folder next to the table and opened it for a few glances: "As of yesterday, there were already four hundred and fifty registered hereditary baronies in the kingdom. Six families, 61 hereditary viscounts in the Kingdom, 43 hereditary earls, 17 hereditary marquises, and three hereditary dukes. A total of 580 hereditary nobles, and I don’t know if there are any more today. of... ... "
Marshal Bolognik was a little envious: "These aristocratic families should be relatively wealthy. They took the first step to occupy the best place in the Nasseri area as their family territory..."
"The best place in the Nasseri area should be the Royal City of Polivisia where we are currently located and the surrounding areas. However, His Majesty and the Royal Court will not take this place out to grant a title. These nobles who have obtained hereditary territories are also very interested. They are sensible and will not ask the royal city to be the family territory without overestimating their capabilities. They know very well that no matter how much money they pay for the land selection, His Majesty will not agree and will even question his loyalty, so no one will choose this place." Claude explain.
"Have they all paid?" Marshal Bolognik asked curiously.
Claude nodded: "Yes, it is at least 100,000 gold crowns for the site selection fee. News from the royal capital said that His Majesty and the royal court have made a fortune, and the inner and national treasury suddenly increased by tens of millions of gold crowns. . It is said that Her Majesty the Queen also used money from the internal treasury to lend money to those honorary nobles and national parliamentarians who could not collect the fees for promotion and land selection. In addition, there is also news that, in fact, the fees for promotion and land transfer can be exchanged with Your Majesty. Build relationships to get discounts...
Most of the 580 kingdom nobles who have obtained hereditary territories are hereditary nobles. They only need to pay a land selection fee of 100,000 gold crowns to obtain a satisfactory hereditary territory. The rest are wealthy honorary nobles and third-generation nobles. They paid the promotion fee to be promoted to a hereditary baron, and paid the land selection fee to obtain the family's hereditary territory. It is estimated that His Majesty and the Royal Court received nearly 30 million gold crowns from these two charges.
It is said that there are still seven to eight hundred kingdom nobles in the royal capital who have not yet obtained territory. They are all third-generation nobles and honorary nobles. Think about it, His Majesty granted the status of honorary barons to all members of the National Assembly, which instantly added more than 300 honorary barons to the kingdom. At present, all these honorary barons are raising money to obtain a hereditary family territory from Her Majesty. Her Majesty the Queen's loan business is doing very well. One hand lends out the money and the other hand takes it back. There is no capital and huge profits! "
This was all information collected by spies from the overseas autonomous territories' offices in the capital, and they reported all the rumors circulating in the streets of the capital. Of course, the fact that Her Majesty the Queen's lending is almost semi-public in the capital is known to many people. When Claude saw it, he just said a few words casually, but he couldn't say that he was envious or jealous...
It’s just that Marshal Bolognik didn’t want to criticize the rights and wrongs of the royal family behind his back. He changed the subject: “Claude, do you think that if all the nobles in the kingdom have a family territory, will the entire Nasseri area be allocated? complete?"
Claude shook his head: "That's not possible. Even the hereditary dukes only occupy half of the county. The territory of the hereditary barons of the kingdom is only one village. Those who are lucky can occupy a small town. The central part of the Nasseri region There are sixteen local counties, five counties in the northeast and seven counties in the southwest, as well as the Royal City of Polyvisia and the surrounding directly governed territories. The entire area is not much smaller than the kingdom itself.
There are currently 580 kingdom nobles with territories scattered in these 28 local counties, and the territory they occupy is only a quarter of the entire Nasseri region. As for the seven or eight hundred kingdom nobles in the royal capital, they can only be promoted to hereditary barons at most. Their combined territory is at most as large as the territory of these 580 kingdom nobles, and there should be half of it in the Nasseri area. The land is reserved for your majesty to grant ennoblements in the future, or for the members of the Overseas Dominion Parliament and us generals who are ennobled for military merit to choose..."
Marshal Bolognik was a little disgusted: "Those territories that were selected by others were given to us. When it comes to our overseas autonomous territories, there are no good places..."
Claude smiled bitterly: "If you and I go to choose a good place to be our hereditary family territory first, then what do you think Allen, Bick and Skerry will think, what will the councilors from the overseas autonomous territories think, we What will the generals who are newly promoted to the honorary nobility of the kingdom think? Will they still believe that we are the leader? Maybe His Majesty and the Royal Court want us to do this. Without the overseas autonomous territories, do you think there are still people who regard us as the leader? Is it the same thing?"
Marshal Bolognik was silent. This was also his dilemma. Without the Rock Legion, he would not have become the Kingdom Marshal. The Rock Legion was one of the two major legions of the overseas autonomous territories. And if he leaves the overseas autonomous territories, no one will take him seriously. No matter he is the marshal of the kingdom or the hereditary viscount of the kingdom, he has the identity and status he has today because of the backing of the overseas autonomous territories.
"Let's wait another month. When the armored fleet escorts the MPs from the Dominion to Florik Harbor in September, we will also set off for Past City, the capital of the Beibu Gulf. By then, all the MPs from our overseas Dominion will have obtained The generals with honorary noble status in the kingdom will hold a meeting there to discuss how to deal with your majesty’s grant of family territory. Speaker Bennett has written to me and told me that he hopes that we can unite together and not give the royal court the opportunity to defeat each other individually. Opportunity, self-disruption..."
Claude put his arm around Marshal Bolognik's shoulder. Of course, he was the only one qualified to do so: "No one could have imagined that something like this would happen before we sent out troops. Your Majesty's move caught our overseas autonomous territories off guard. Skerry said He wrote to us and told us not to act rashly. It would be best if we all work together to get through this crisis. Didn’t he warn us in his letter that if this mishandling leads to bad results, it may even cause the entire overseas dominions to be divided? Disintegration. It is the hardest thing to gather and recover when people’s hearts are scattered.”
Marshal Bolognik smiled bitterly and patted Claude's hand that held his shoulder, and pointed to the map of the Nasseri region on the wall with the crests of the noble families of the kingdom: "I understand what you are saying, but there is something wrong with it. It’s not our turn to settle for a good place. All the recognized rich and productive places in this Nasseri region have now become owned lands. As the lords of these places, they can earn a lot of income without any effort.
Look at the areas where the seven small and medium-sized gold, silver and copper mining bases are located. They were immediately marked with the family crests of various established noble families in the kingdom. It is said that they now have people stationed at the mine permanently to calculate our daily ore mining volume, and will take over after our half-year mining period expires next month. They even sent messengers privately to ask me if we could sell some Hicks prisoners to them to continue working as miners..."
These seven small and medium-sized gold, silver and copper mining bases overseas autonomous territories have obtained mining rights for half a year. Because the Nasseri area will be granted by His Majesty as a noble territory, Claude is too lazy to assign the captured 100,000 The rest of the Hicks prisoners were to do the labor of repairing national highways and digging and repairing irrigation canals. Instead, some of them were selected to mine in the seven small and medium-sized gold, silver and copper mining bases, and the rest were in the royal city and The surrounding area is busy.
The production of gold, silver and copper mines in the first five months was not bad. Without the corrupt officials of the Nasseri Kingdom who were trying to conceal the situation from above, the ore production of these seven small and medium-sized gold, silver and copper mining bases was very good. People are surprised. It is almost twice as much as what was registered in the account books of the original Nasseri Kingdom. According to this calculation, the gold and silver reserves produced in a year can actually reach more than three million gold crowns. However, the original account books of the Nasseri Kingdom’s treasury Only gold and silver reserves worth 1.4 million gold crowns and revenue from the minting of copper coins were registered.
It is conceivable that the officials of the former Nasseri Kingdom who handled these gold, silver and copper mines embezzled almost half of the output of these mines, but now they have benefited from the Thunder Legion and the Rock Legion. The gold, silver and copper mines produced by the mining rights for this half-year are used as stationing funds for the two legions, and only 200,000 gold crowns need to be handed over to the royal court and the treasury. I originally thought that the ore mined after half a year of hard work could make up for the hundreds of thousands of gold and silver reserves that were taken away by the special envoy. But now I find that I have made a lot of money, nearly one million gold crowns more... ..
This is why Marshal Bolognik is unhappy. The Thunder Legion and the Rock Legion only have a half-year mining period. Now the territorial nobles where these seven small and medium-sized gold, silver and copper mining bases are located are in place, and they are waiting for the expiration of next month to take over these mineral bases. From now on, these minerals will belong to their hereditary family territories. Although half of it must be handed over to the kingdom, it is still based on the account books and records of the original Nasseri Kingdom. In the future, these territorial nobles will have two or three times the mineral income.
"Don't forget that our overseas autonomous territories are rich in gold and silver mineral resources." Claude reminded. Small-value transactions in overseas dominions are all paper money. According to statistics, there are about 30 million gold crowns worth of small-denomination paper money in private circulation, a large part of which is used in the colonies of various countries on the west coast.
However, the colonies on the West Coast do not allow the Overseas Minsheng Bank of the overseas dominions to open branches in their colonies. However, the commercial banks opened by the overseas dominions there can exchange gold, silver and copper coins for these banknotes, so banknotes are becoming more and more popular in the colonies on the West Coast.
Bailu City in the Kingdom's mainland allowed Overseas Minsheng Bank to open a branch, but Wangdu did not. However, the Wangdu office functioned as a branch and could exchange banknotes and gold, silver and copper coins. It's just that the people in the royal capital don't trust paper money very much. Except for the merchants traveling to and from Bailu City, paper money is difficult to promote and use among the people in the royal capital.
What's ridiculous is that in the overseas dominions, after being accustomed to using banknotes, they are too lazy to exploit the gold and silver mineral resources in the Rocky Mountain State. After all, the gold and silver reserves of the Overseas Minsheng Bank are enough to handle 20 million gold crowns, which can fully handle the exchange of banknotes. After the Thunder Legion and the Rock Legion destroyed the Kingdom of Nasseri and the Principality of Karnas, they transported a large amount of captured gold and silver property back to the overseas autonomous territories, forgetting to keep some more as emergency funds. After being stationed here, I discovered that it is best to purchase supplies for the army in kind, such as real gold, silver, and copper coins. No one is willing to accept banknotes.
That's why Marshal Bolognik is so concerned about the production of these gold, silver and copper mines. More than 100,000 people from two legions are stationed here. The funds spent on purchasing every day are not a small amount, including the logistical supply of fresh meat, fish, vegetables and fruits. Purchases cost thousands of gold crowns every month. After General Bolognik took over these official duties, he regretted that he had been too generous and should not have allowed the kingdom's envoys to take away so many gold and silver reserves. Looking at the current royal treasury and the royal court, they have the most money.
"None of those Hicks captives can be sold to these kingdom nobles. After the parliamentarians from our overseas autonomous territories come to discuss it, maybe we will need these captives to develop our new territories." Claude said.
On June 1, 601 of the Holy Light Calendar, King Frederic I of the Kingdom of Overas officially promulgated a grant of title approved by the Parliament of Nobles and the National Assembly, granting hereditary status to the nobles of the kingdom in the newly occupied Nasseri region. family territory. As of August 1, 580 nobles of the kingdom had obtained hereditary family territories.
However, there has been no movement from the kingdom's nobles from the overseas autonomous territories, as if they have never heard of this granting order. The main reason for this is that the overseas autonomous territories are too far away from the Kingdom's mainland, and it takes two months to go back and forth. The two legions of the Dominion Military Region are stationed in the Nasseri region and the Kannas region and cannot return to the overseas autonomous territories in a short time. Therefore, the members of the Overseas Dominion Parliament decided to all go to the Beibu Gulf in the Kannas region, where the capital Pagoda A meeting was held in Stern City to discuss matters concerning the granting of seals.
Claude and Marshal Bolognik left the Royal City of Polyvisia on August 20 and led the Thunder Legion to the Gulf of Tonkin. The reason why he brought his troops there was to prepare for reorganization in the Gulf of Tonkin. General Albert wrote a letter to Claude asking for help. After the fall of the Principality of Karrnath, countless horse bandits appeared on the Karrnath prairie, in large and small groups, and they often attacked towns guarded by the Thunder Legion. General Albert only had a temporary division at hand, and he had done his best to defend the Beibu Gulf area.
The Rock Legion continued to be stationed in the Royal City of Polyvisia, and Claude took away all the prisoners and excess military supplies during this trip. News from the royal capital said that the royal court, which had money on hand, cooperated with the Kingdom's Army Department and began to vigorously reorganize the Guards Corps, the Red Dragon Corps and the Griffin Corps. It is said that His Majesty compensated the influence of the old noble families in these three legions, so that the Red Dragon Legion and the Griffin Legion were again under the control of the Royal Court and the Kingdom's Army Department.
A large number of members of the kingdom's established aristocratic families who have obtained hereditary family territories have retired from the three major armies of the kingdom. They have gathered their cronies and children in the kingdom's army to form the private armed forces of each of their families, and even the old ones. The influence of the noble families has been greatly reduced in these three legions, and His Majesty and the Royal Court have paid a heavy price for this.
There are rumors in the capital that after the Red Dragon Legion is reorganized, it will be dispatched to the Nasseri area to garrison the Royal City of Polyvisia, replacing the Thunder Legion and the Rock Legion. The Griffin Legion will serve as a mountain legion stationed in the Odin Mountains to protect the east gate of the kingdom. The Guards Corps still stayed in the royal capital and the Ibinist Plain. There is also news that His Majesty also wanted to re-establish the Blue Feather Army to garrison Bailu City and the coastal areas, but was opposed by many ministers in the royal court. They believed that the Blue Feather Army was rebellious and should not be re-established... .