It was not the Church of Curses that broke out the crisis first.
In June of 222, half a year after the end of the last war, there was a change in Florence's political situation.
The Grand Duke of Florence is dead.
This is not a political conspiracy. The Grand Duke of Florence was already quite old when the war broke out. He is over seventy years old, and he is not a powerful fighter or mage himself, so there is no way to prolong his life. Therefore, at this age, death is something that will come at any time.
A wind chill took the Duke's life within six days.
A country cannot be without a king for a day. Although Florence has now become a subsidiary country of the Kingdom of Schindler, it still needs a monarch who symbolizes the power of the entire country to maintain the unity of the country.
The favorite candidate of the Kingdom of Schindler is the youngest daughter of the Grand Duke of Florence.
That's right, Schindler did not intend to let the son of the Grand Duke of Florence succeed to the throne smoothly.
This is the result of discussions between Prime Minister Verina and experienced diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Verina believes that in the past six months, many problems have been discovered in the management of the Duchy of Florence. For example, a considerable part of the nobles in Florence are not satisfied with being managed by the Schindlers. Moreover, among the people of the Principality, there is a wave of nationalism that is secretly surging.
Obviously, whether it is the high-level dukedom or the people at the bottom, there is a force brewing against the control of Florence by the Kingdom of Schindler.
In fact, this is nothing. Stationed in the Duchy of Florence, leading the Sixth Army formed from the border guards he once led, and the Duchy of Florence, which was reorganized on the spot after incorporating the defense force of Florence's own country. The national defense force, in the hands of Lieutenant General Paran, has reached more than 30,000 troops.
Among them, the Sixth Army has more than 10,000 troops. The combat effectiveness of this part of the soldiers is not bad, and after being reorganized into a regular army, the treatment of soldiers has been improved, and the level of equipment has also been greatly improved. The strength of this army is no worse than that of the King's Guards. .
With such a legion in charge of the principality, and with the help of the 20,000-strong second-line garrison, Palan's control over Florence is quite reliable.
What's more, the intelligence inside the Principality of Florence is still watched by the Black Hand Academy.
In fact, in the past period of time, the cooperation between Lieutenant General Palan and the Black Hand Academy was quite close. The current second-in-command of the Black Hand Academy, Firmino, is currently stationed in Florence for a long time, in charge of the local intelligence system, and is even responsible for collecting intelligence from the entire western human world.
With their cooperation, within half a year, Palan has knocked out more than a dozen opposition forces who were restless in the dark.
Not many people were killed. After all, if the murders were too serious, it would not be a good thing for controlling Florence, and it would easily arouse resistance on a wider scale. However, through those opposing forces that were wiped out, the Black Hand Academy also controlled a lot of behind-the-scenes masterminds about those opposing forces against Schindler.
According to the clues obtained, behind these opposing forces, there is more or less the shadow of Earl Ecra.
Earl Ecra, the only surviving male direct descendant of the Grand Duke of Florence, is also the natural heir of the Duchy of Florence.
This heir obviously has great ambitions. He is not reconciled to the country he is about to inherit, and is Schindler's puppet.
Lieutenant General Palan, who was in charge of Florence, was very annoyed by the constant small movements in the dark.
The most popular time, he even submitted a report directly to Prime Minister Verina, hoping to kill that stupid earl directly with a beheading tactic.
Of course, this was a bad idea, a sign of Palan's political immaturity, and of course Verina didn't approve of it.
However, then again, Earl Ekla's problem must be resolved.
It just so happened that the Grand Duke of Florence was dying. Under Verina's instructions, Palan turned to support and let the youngest daughter of the Grand Duke, Parrot, who was only fourteen years old, inherit the position of Duke.
Grand Duchess Parrot, that's a very good idea.
Instructions, how could Earl Ecra be willing to give up the power in his hands like this
He enlisted the assistance of the Holy Alliance.
According to the Silver Agreement, the military condominium of Florence is not enjoyed by a single country, Schindler. The Holy Alliance also enjoys military management over the Duchy of Florence.
However, the other three countries of the Holy Alliance are beyond the reach of the Holy Empire, the Victorians don't want to be troublesome, and the Pudley Kingdom has been frightened by Patience during the last war. Without the support of the other two, Susan Queen Bella didn't dare to point fingers at things in the Duchy of Florence, so she formed the de facto Schindler's dominance.
The Holy Alliance invested in the so-called military co-management, only a symbolic regiment, with less than 2,000 troops, placed in the city of Bauhinia. Compared with the power in the hands of Lieutenant General Paran, this number of people is pitifully small.
However, half a year has passed, and the Holy Alliance has obviously become bolder.
After receiving the call for help from Earl Ecra, the Holy Alliance, which had been silent for almost half a year, made its first voice on the military condominium.
They opposed Parrot's succession to the title of Grand Duke of Florence on the grounds that it was unreasonable for a female grand duchess to inherit the title of Grand Duke when the eldest son of the Grand Duke of Florence was still alive.
Dane didn't care about that.
He directly issued his own order, asking Palan to fully support Parrot and make her the real Duke of Florence.
For this reason, Dane also issued an order in advance—to make Parrot, who was only fourteen years old, the earl of the Kingdom of Schindler.
This is the first nobleman of the Kingdom of Schindler!
Schindler is indeed a kingdom, that's right, Dane also has the title of monarch and king of a feudal country on his head. However, it has been four years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and he has never conferred any nobleman.
He didn't want to establish a feudal kingdom at all. The Schindler he wanted to see should be a complete and centralized country. He and his government will govern everything in the entire kingdom, without the need to entrust the land to the nobles and let the nobles manage it.
But in the case of Parrott, due to the special circumstances, Dane set this precedent.