For King John VI of Jager, a confederacy of Free Chambers of vassals was certainly better than that of an ally.
No matter when a war is launched, it is frighteningly exhausting for any country. The Free Chamber of Commerce, which is not far from the Yager Kingdom, has always been known as the "City of Fortune". The city of the Free Chamber of Commerce has the most astute businessmen and the best bankers in the world, and gold flows into their pockets continuously through wooden paddle boats and sails traveling to and from the sea.
A great free city banker once famously said proudly: "Whoever wants to win a war must borrow money from the merchants of a free city."
But in Queen Adele's view, the pride of the free city merchants is dangerous, like a rooster with glorious feathers standing on the city wall in self-pity, although it can let its crowing be heard by the whole world , At the same time, it will also attract countless coveted hunters. They thought that an army hired by their deep pockets would be enough to protect them, and that their gold was their best shield.
Reality shattered their naive fantasy.
Roland and the Papal State secretly fueled the bloody riots on Holy Spirit Day, which lasted for nearly half a month. Taking advantage of this great opportunity, the greedy and fierce Jager army marched into the governing capital of the free city—because the consul was exiled by the mob, and the government treasury lost its powerful controller. Although there were piles of gold, no one could Use it in time to hire a solid army.
On the other hand, it is the cunning of John VI.
It is true that, as a city of commerce, the military of the Free Cities Alliance is loose, but they have a fleet that is not bad. And because they have suffered from pirates all year round, many strong fortresses and fortresses have been built along the coast, and it will only be boring to attack the free commercial city from the sea. Therefore, after the riot, John VI protected and bought the deported Algiers.
Led by the Alger family, John VI bypassed the Yardley Peninsula, landed from a small, unfortified Top Bay, easily tore through the defense line of the Free City like a jackal, and inserted into the Union heart.
During the riots of the Algiers family on Holy Spirit Day, the head of the family was hanged on the tower of the Concierge. The two young brothers of the head of the family also failed to escape the murderous hands of the rioting citizens. One was cut open and died in the square, and the other He was arrested on the way to escape and drowned alive in a stinking ditch. The successor of the House of Algiers, a pale and taciturn young man, did not hesitate to take his bloody vengeance when he was able to re-enter the allied cities with the help of John VI's army.
"It takes only a spark to ignite a pile of dry wood."
Heinrich said.
"John VI must be very happy," Adele moved the candle closer to better illuminate the nautical charts spread on the table, "he will have the opportunity to announce the war bonds issued earlier It doesn't count."
At the beginning of July and the end of August last year, the Yager Kingdom fought on two fronts. On the one hand, it organized an army to intimidate Roland. The Lute Empire seized control of this choke point - unfortunately this also fell through with the succession of the new Pope. Two fronts swallowed up most of John VI's treasury.
This year, in order to set sail in early March and launch the second expedition to the Roland Empire, John VI had to issue a large amount of bonds.
As an ally, the free commercial city bought a large amount of bonds unceremoniously - in this way, even if they failed to fight the Roland Empire, they could still double their losses from John VI from the Kingdom of Yager.
Looking at it this way, the merchants of the Free Cities don't mind making a fortune off their allies at all.
Needless to say, John VI had long harbored a grudge against the Free Cities' calculations.
At this moment, John VI was as hungry and greedy as all hungry wolves. The Holy Spirit Day riots briefly exposed the soft belly of the free city, and he immediately pounced on it without hesitation, wanting to gobble up this piece of fragrant fat meat.
However, if Adele is to judge, those mobs who are eager for "freedom" are not worthy of sympathy at all.
Their suspicion and stupidity made the "freedom" they guarded turn into a noose that reduced them to vassal slaves.
"It should be more than a small matter of the return of the Alger family to the governing hall."
The Queen had no fondness for John VI, and a deep understanding of his quality of going to hell almost immediately.
"What else did John VI do?"
"He suppressed the New God sect in the Free Chamber of Commerce." Heinrich replied.
Adele stopped moving her fingers on the map, and she raised her head to look at Heinrich: "Suppression of the New God sect? In the free city?"
"Yes." Heinrich nodded affirmatively.
This time the Queen couldn't help showing a weird, subtle look on her face: "Ah, then he is really a genius."
Of course, the "extraordinary genius" in the Queen's mouth is not a compliment.
Although the free commercial city has a close relationship with the previous old Pope and has contacts with most of the cardinals of the Holy See, the proportion of New Gods in the free commercial city even exceeds that of the Root Empire.
The teachings of the old gods forbid people to enjoy themselves and belittle the status of businessmen, while the teachings of the new gods emphasize that whether they can be saved is determined by God, which is manifested in the amount of wealth and the success of their careers. The latter will naturally be very popular among businessmen —Think about it! Would you rather choose a doctrine that suppresses your status and forbids you to enjoy yourself, or a doctrine that exalts your status and allows you to live in luxury
In 1512, the Free Commercial City passed the "Bord Road Statute" - the first decree in the world to recognize freedom of religious belief in disguise.
This shows that the New God sect has deep roots and wide influence in the free city.
In this way, it is indeed a "genius" move for John VI to continue to suppress the Neotheists in the free city.
"In this case," the smile on the queen's face gradually deepened, "please send a letter to our ally Orsis, and let us help John VI carry out the suppression more thoroughly."
After a pause, she added slowly.
"Liberty City is a piece of fat full of thorns. If you want to swallow it, you must be prepared to get your throat scratched."
Under the candlelight, the queen's smile carried a chilling meaning.
…………………………
No one knows how many homing pigeons flew from the sky of Roland in the early spring of 1558, entered the sky of the Root Empire, and flew from the sky of the Root Empire to the vast sea.
The letters carried by these seemingly benign and harmless birds set off a prelude to a storm of war in the entire sea of heaven.
Bode Road City is one of the main cities of the Free Chamber of Commerce City Alliance. It has the largest wool import and export trade port in the alliance, and has many experienced textile workers. At the same time, as the promulgation site of the planned hell of the "Borde Road Decree", it also has the most members of the New God Church in the alliance.
If Queen Adele of the Roland Empire hadn't carried out the religious cleansing in August last year, then Broadway City would definitely be the most tolerant city in the world towards religion. Here, only yellow gold coins are the eternal truth. New gods, old gods and even pagans, whoever is rich is respected, and whoever is poor is worthless.
However, this mild and relaxed atmosphere was broken this spring.
It has been a long time since the Holy Spirit Day riots, but the smell of blood has shrouded the sky over Bodelu City, mixed with the smell of burnt human flesh.
These smells come from the corpses of the new gods, which are increasing every day.
As we all know, the Kingdom of Yager takes the Old Gods as the state religion, and John VI himself is an extreme Old Gods monarch. The Yager Kingdom is currently the country with the most heresy courts set up along the coast of the Sea of Heaven. In Jager, all Neotheists are regarded as heretics and may be thrown on the stake at any time.
In 1541, John VI carried out a great purge in the country. More than a thousand believers of the New God sect were tied to the stake and burned alive. The cruelty was outrageous. John VI was nicknamed "Bloody John" for this reason.
After his army marched into the free city, he quickly brought Jager's set of "inquisitors" over, demanding that the New God believers correct their sins within a limited time and pay a certain amount of ransom money. The former is out of John VI's own religious piety, while the latter is to raise more military expenditures.
Although most citizens of the original free chamber of commerce city felt embarrassed by the change of ownership of the alliance government, they hadn't reached the point where everything was destroyed. However, the tyrannical plunder of John VI shattered their last hope. A growing number of Protestants are refusing to surrender their possessions or follow the traditional Eucharist rituals of the Protestants.
After the number of Neotheists who refused to pay the ransom increased, John VI had to have his soldiers take to the streets and go door to door to drag the Neotheists from their rooms. Incidentally, their property was also searched clean.
This kind of situation is not uncommon in this era. After almost every powerful ruler captures a new territory, the local residents will suffer—not only do they have to face the plunder of soldiers, but they often lose their lives. It's just that, after this kind of violent massacre reaches a certain limit, it often triggers new violent confrontation between the two parties. More and more citizens gathered to fight John VI's army.
When John VI found out that the rebellion was one after another, he not only failed to collect enough military expenditures to start the war at the end of March as he wished, but was also sinking into the quagmire of the free commercial city bit by bit, and it was difficult to get out.
"These damned spies! Heretics!"
John VI roared loudly in his study.
The resistance of the Protestants has been scattered from the beginning, and then gradually organized, becoming difficult and cunning, and the scale is getting bigger and bigger. They even contacted the New God believers who had been suppressed and lurked in Yager's territory, and provoked a new round of religious uprisings in the Yager Kingdom—even if the scale was not large, it was already a terrible sign.
John VI didn't believe that this was something that scattered businessmen and New God believers could do. There was no handwriting of the Root Empire and the Roland Empire behind it, and he could twist the devil's head off.
"I'm going to throw them all to the gallows."
The fat on his face trembled, and John VI swore.
None of the officials and servants in the study dared to speak out, and all lowered their heads tremblingly, only to hear the heavy footsteps of John VI stomping back and forth in the study. John VI was an obese man who was close to fifty years old. His figure was jaw-droppingly wide. It took two people to close his waist. When he was angry, his breath was cloudy with the stench of years of drinking and meat.
In addition, he was violent by nature, and once an unlucky official made a sound when he was angry, and he was beaten to death alive.
Fortunately, it didn't take long for John VI's anger to be suppressed by himself this time.
He walked to the nautical chart hanging on the wall of the study room, and while checking the map, he greeted Emperor Orsis of Root and Queen Adele of Roland incessantly. Especially for the latter, the curses that spewed out of his mouth could not even be uttered by the most vile and despicable scoundrels, and everyone in the room looked at each other in dismay.
"Call other ruling families, re-sign the peace treaty between Yager and Free City, and hunt for spies, not one of them is allowed to be missed, and I will hang them all."
Standing in front of the map, King John VI calmed down and ordered solemnly.
King John VI did not know about the comment Queen Adele made before the candlelight some time ago, and that comment could not be more accurate.
After occupying the free city, John VI finally discovered that this coveted piece of fat was full of barbs. The Lute Empire was eyeing the north, and the Yager Kingdom had no way of annexing the Free City smoothly in the face of huge resistance. If there is too much threat to the Alliance Governing Hall, under the instigation of spies, it is easy to make these families turn to Root and Roland. And asking John VI to spit out the benefits he had swallowed was no different from cutting his flesh with a knife.
But if he still wants to launch the war smoothly at the end of March, he will have to cut his own flesh with a knife.
After such a trip, by interfering in the internal affairs of the free city, John VI's benefits were pitifully small, and a rift was created between the allies.
Thinking of this, John VI wished to devour Roland's spies and their masters alive.
Suspicious Jager Snatchers flooded the streets, and bad luck began for the woolworkers and weavers of Broad Road—John VI abandoned his plans to convert the Protestants and collect ransom money, but his soldiers But anytime and anywhere, in the name of "spies", they can break into any citizen's house and search wantonly.
If the person being searched happened to be a member of the New God sect, then the chances of him being identified as a "spy" would increase exponentially.
For a time, the entire port city was shrouded in terror and panic.
At this moment, the Roland Empire, Queen Adele promulgated a new policy:
"Special Asylum Regulations".