Warlords of the witcher world

Chapter 92 He Changed Aden
The victory parade ends in front of the royal palace in Wengerburg.

Here, His Majesty King Baldwin of Aedirn, who was held in the arms of the nanny, "led" the nobles and officials to receive Lord Protector Herme.

Herme's eyes swept over those officials and nobles. There were different emotions in their eyes, some were excited, some were sad, some were resentful, and some looked indifferent.

Charon and Marshall expressed congratulations, but Herme knew that the expressions of these two people never represented what they thought, so they had to be more cautious when getting along with them.

The Duke Protector memorized all these expressions. Although it cannot be used as a basis for judging friends and foes, it is good to have a reference in mind after all.

There was a reason for Herme's reaction, because he knew that as the war came to an end, the internal struggles that had been suppressed under the general trend of the war would inevitably emerge, so he had to be vigilant as soon as possible.

After all, his background was too low. Although he was a member of the ruling class, he was a knight of the lowest rank. This was enough to be the reason why many people attacked him.

There is nothing to say about the following ceremony, that is, people congratulate the Lord Protector.

During the period, the baby king cried several times, and the scene was a bit of a joke, and then our majesty the king was taken away by the nanny to nurse. For this child, nothing is more important than breastfeeding.

Next, it was the senior officials of the Protectorate's government who really decided on the country's major policies.

This meeting is of extraordinary importance to the Lord Protector's government.

On the second day of Edelsberg's victory, Herme sent a letter to Wengerburg, asking them to organize powerful people from all over the country to Wengerburg to prepare for the meeting.

Herme convened so many people this time to make some important reforms involving the whole country, and at the same time to show his power to the whole country.

The place where the meeting was held was the deliberation hall of the Royal Palace of Aden. This hall is very old. It has stood here since the founding of the Kingdom of Aden, and has experienced countless years of baptism.

On the floor of the hall, there is a map of the north made of different stone materials. There is no doubt that this represents the ambitions of the kings of Aedirn.

Now, this place is covered with the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Aedirn, hanging high in the hall, and the busts of the kings of all ages look down on the people in the hall.

And under these coats of arms are all the people who ruled the destiny of this country today. They all sat neatly in front of the marble table according to their status.

Everyone wore their majestic or gorgeous costumes, showing their best side, and participated in this important meeting of the Kingdom of Aedirn.

And under the marble stone table, there are rows of seats, on which are the nobles, businessmen, guild leaders, meritorious persons and other figures of the Kingdom of Aden.

There are also individual ordinary farmers and citizens, representing their towns and regions.

Of course, these people generally have another identity, that is, the leaders of militias and guerrillas formed during the war.

Many were curious about everything around them, and many of these powerful people from all over Aedirn were visiting this temple for the first time.

Therefore, they are naturally full of curiosity about everything around them.

This is Heme's innovation in state affairs, allowing these powerful people to listen to the assembly of the Lord Protector's government, allowing them to participate in the kingdom's politics.

In special cases, such as the need to understand the specific situation in a certain region, they can even speak up and express their opinions.

To this, everyone naturally responded enthusiastically. Although they were only listed among them, it also represented power.

And more importantly, with the attitude shown by Duke Protector now, he might be able to gain more power in the future.

I didn't see that they were allowed to enter this hall now, isn't this just talking.

And Hermey did intend to give more power to the subordinates, but it's really not suitable at the moment, and it's enough to just open an opening and lay the groundwork.

Since the king is unable to govern at all and is still breastfeeding in the nurse's arms, it is natural that Lord Protector Herme sits on the throne and rules everything.

Naturally, no one has any doubts about this.

Next, Herme brought up the first topic.

But to be precise, this is his order.

"Disarmament must be disarmed. At least two-thirds of the current Aden army must be cut."

Right now, there are more than [-] troops in various parts of Aden.

If you add civilian husbands, it will reach [-], not to mention the short-term recruitment of civilians from various places. If you add that, the number will be countless.

And in order to support such a huge team, Herme consumed an astronomical amount of supplies, and the people were therefore burdened with heavy taxes and continuous collection.

Anyway, now, along with the national treasury, there is also the small treasury of the Duke Protector, and Hemei has dug out all his old books.

Such a huge mobilization of manpower and material resources has exhausted the kingdom of Aedirn. It was only because of the pressure from Nilfgaard that such a high-intensity search could be carried out, otherwise there would have been rebellions everywhere.

The current war has finally come to an end. With the destruction of the Eastern Group Army, Nilfgaard will not be able to launch a new offensive on the Eastern Front for two or three months.

So to disarm, we must disarm, let the soldiers go home to spend this winter - the most important thing is to reduce the pressure on the government.

In fact, this is a necessary move, because the trend of desertion in the army has become more and more serious.

Especially after the fall of Edelsberg, a large number of Cossacks and soldiers fled the camp and went home.

And the middle and lower rank officers who should have supervised and stopped such behavior turned a blind eye to this.

In their view, the current war is almost over anyway, let them run away and it's nothing, so they don't do anything that offends others.

Among them, the Adenites who were conscripted ran the fastest. These conscripted people were not used to the strict management in the army, not to mention all kinds of military bullying, and they wished to escape as soon as possible.

Several troops were directly emptied because of this, and they all ran away overnight. This wave of deserters cannot be stopped at all.

So, taking advantage of the fact that there were not too many people running away and the situation became too ugly, they quickly sent them away.

Everyone here is aware of this matter, so no one said anything, and the decision on disarmament was not opposed by anyone.

Everyone's views on this are similar to Herme's, disarmament must be disarmed.

Only Marcius had a bitter expression on his face, but Herme also noticed his expression, so he continued,

"Master Marcius, I will leave the work of dismissal to you. You must ensure that every soldier has received the dismissal pay and can go home smoothly. If you don't have enough personnel, you can ask Sir Cecil for more What a dwarf clerk."

Disbandment does not mean that the government's work is easy. Such a large-scale return of people to their hometowns requires a lot of coordination, and the workload is not low at all.

When mentioning Cecil, the mayor of Vergen bowed very modestly, just expressing his own existence.

In the past few months, apart from stuffing his township party inside the government, Herme has been stuffing dwarves.

Fergen has many such dwarven clerks, and their qualities and abilities are very suitable for entering the government.

Of course, the more important reason is to disrupt the original factions in the Aden government, and at the same time let non-human races enter the government. It is also to show goodwill towards non-human races and reduce the appearance of Scoia'tael.

Naturally, many ethnic Zists objected to this, but the protector of the country has soldiers, so it doesn't matter what these people think.

"Of course, Lord Herme, with the help of Lord Cecil, I am more confident in completing the task."

With the human guarantee, Marcie became more assertive in his speech, and he assured Herme by patting his chest.

And that's how the issue went.

After the disarmament, there must be a reorganization of the Aedirn army, but that's not what's happening now.

Moreover, this is a matter of Lechicki's general staff, so there is no need to discuss it here.

"Next, let's discuss the traitor's estate in the Wengerburg area. Everyone, I don't need to say how important this matter is. I want to hear your opinions."

After saying this, Herme picked up the wine glass on the table, drank the wine in one gulp, and waited for the reactions and replies from everyone present.

During the time when Adian was defeated like a mountain, a large number of nobles voluntarily or were voluntarily betrayed Adian, and even the capital Wengerburg was once occupied by the rebels.

With the arrival of Herme and the establishment of the Protectorate's government, these traitors were eliminated one after another.

By now, they had either fled south with the Nilfgaardians, or were dead, and many more were liquidated by the counterattacking Aedirn army.

And their estate and manor are still vacant, currently under the temporary management of the Duke Protector's government.

As for the ultimate ownership of these lands, it is worth discussing.

This place is no worse than the severely damaged southern border. No one cares what to do with the severely damaged land protectors. Anyway, no matter who gets the land there, they have to spend resources to redevelop it.

And here are all high-quality manors and cultivated land, and you can earn money if you get it. I don’t know how many people are looking at these lands with envy.

There have been many messy former noble relatives who came to ask for land, but they were all dismissed by Herme as traitors who were deprived of their land ownership.

Just kidding, how could these lands be given away casually, how could it be given to the messy relatives of those traitors.

"Lord Protector, I think that during this national calamity, the nobles who are still loyal to Wengerburg are very precious, and their loyalty should be rewarded."

The first to speak was the young Duke of Gureta, Alex.

Herme was not surprised at his speech, after all, he was the spokesperson introduced by the nobles.

In comparison, Herme felt that his statement was more interesting,

"Their loyalty should be rewarded" but they didn't say what the reward was, that is, they handed over all the distribution rights to Herme.

This may seem passive, but in reality, it is very clever.

For a long time, Hemeilai has shown a strong rejection of the veteran nobles of Aden, just like this group of people rejected him back then.

Although he also appointed many nobles and did not touch their interests, everyone could clearly see the rejection, let alone Alex who had been by Herme's side for such a long time.

So his choice is to give the right to choose to Herme, and let Herme look at it.

Although Herme hated the nobles, it was impossible to suppress them in all directions. Regardless of their interests, the Nilfgaardian army was still there. If it led to internal strife, it would be too bad.

"Loyalty will of course be rewarded."

Without any hesitation, Herme replied that he didn't mind giving away some of these lands.

Anyway, with the current ability of the Protectorate's government, it can't manage so much land. It's better to give it out to maximize the benefits, at least it can increase some nobles' armed forces.

As for the quantity, just give them a quarter of the land.

The Lord Protector was very satisfied with the words given by Alex, and handed over the allocation initiative to him, instead of the lion embarrassing him by opening his mouth.

And Alex's idea is also simple, he finally entered the center of the Kingdom of Aden, for his own status, he still has to be more cautious at ordinary times.

He didn't want to charge madly for the interests of the old things, that's about the same.

After all, in a class, people have various ideas and interests.

And after Alex, everyone's speeches were not so troublesome to Herme.

The main focus is on the internal distribution of these benefits, which Herme handles with ease.

After synthesizing the opinions of all parties, Herme divided the land into three parts.

A part of the land was given to those who have made outstanding achievements. These people are mainly Heme’s country party members and Haklan people, and part of it is rewarded to meritorious nobles—of course, it must be the nobles who support Heme, that is, The worst thing is to be on the side of Selchik - the last part is the territory directly under the government of the Protectorate.

Of these three parts, the first two each accounted for a quarter of the total value, while the last one accounted for one-half.

In this game, the government of the Protector of the Country undoubtedly got the most things, and the expanded Government of the Protector of the Country has the ability to control these lands.

Coupled with the original direct territory of the royal family of Aden, after this wave, the government of the Protectorate almost controlled more than half of the country's land, and it was still dominated by wealthy areas.

"This time there will be many more nobles in Adian. This is a scene that hasn't appeared in many years."

"Ha, what are you envious of? This time you didn't take the opportunity to get the land of your opponent. That guy actually lost his head and took refuge with the Nilfgaardians. You are against that family because of everything. Instead, it was a blessing in disguise. But don’t be too happy, the land still needs to be rectified, be careful that it will overturn instead.”

"Grass, you crow's mouth, what are you talking about here?"

After completing the distribution of benefits, the following things will be much easier, and even the atmosphere of the discussion will be relaxed in an instant.

Everyone chatted and laughed with each other before the next topic started.

Especially among the people listening below, those who benefited were very happy, and their support for Herme naturally became stronger.

Next, it is generally a discussion of the situation in each region and a response plan, as well as how to comfort this war-torn country.

The first thing to discuss is the southern border. This place was ravaged by military disasters. The army in black was burning and killing and capturing slaves here. A large number of people fled north.

Old villages and towns were generally badly damaged and the infrastructure needed to be rebuilt.

Although the residents of Aedirn who hid in the forests and mountains also left their hiding places after the black army retreated, it will take time to reclaim the destroyed land, and it will take time for the refugees who left their hometowns to return. Township also takes time.

In order to restore the population in the southern border, Heme has been working hard to negotiate with Nilfgaard recently, and the purpose is to exchange prisoners with Nilfgaard.

Now the Lord Protector has nearly [-] Nilfgaardian prisoners of war in his hands, and these people are enough to exchange for many Aedirn prisoners of war and slaves.

It's just that this matter is a long-term tug-of-war, but Herme can afford to wait.

It was unlikely that the Nilfgaardians would launch any offensive against Aedirn from now until next spring.

In short, there is no one in the southern border that can't recover in two or three years, and during this period, it needs continuous blood transfusions from other parts of Aden.

Heme mainly finalized this point and made it a national policy. In addition, he also finalized the matter of relocating the Cossacks.

After discussing South Aedirn, there is Wenger Castle, the core area of ​​Aedirn.

In this Nilfgaardian invasion, the damage to the Wengerburg area was not serious, at most it was the chaos of production organization during the period when the imperial invasion was the most ferocious.

The Nilfgaardians were not able to stay long on the richest plain in the kingdom, and naturally there could not be too many massacres and looting.

The biggest damage to the local area was caused by the massive expropriation by the Lord Protector's government.

This place is closest to Wenger Castle, the ruling center of the Lord Protector's government, so it was naturally recruited crazily, and Herme's tax collectors crazily scraped land here.

At the same time, the Cossacks and nomads were not less sneaky and looted on a small scale, which caused chaos in some areas.

Fortunately, this is the problem here, and then only need to recuperate.

As for the most troublesome issue of territory allocation here, it has been resolved in the previous discussion.

And Herme decided to return some of the excess supplies in his hand, and compensate the people as much as possible-after all, after the major disarmament, there is no need to keep such a huge amount of supplies.

Of course, this is mainly to allow the public to survive this winter better.

When the war breaks out in the spring of next year, there will be another large-scale expropriation at that time.

Another reason that cannot be said is that it is a face-saving project. As the core area of ​​the Kingdom of Aden, especially near the capital, how can it be starved to death everywhere.

As for other places, hahaha, the weather is really nice today...

The next area is Upper Aedirn and Posada (the Valley of Flowers as the elves call it). These two areas are still relatively stable, and the problem is not too big.

Upper Aden was the first area to be surrendered by Herme, and it was always in the rear, so it was very stable.

It also accepted a large number of refugees, and now these refugees are returning home one after another under the arrangement of the dwarves.

At the same time, the Vergen dwarves used their business network to collect a lot of supplies for Herme, and the dwarven clerks they provided also supported the government of the Protectorate in many places.

Posada was once ravaged by the Nilfgaardian army during the war, and the local guards fled without a fight, and once it was about to fall completely.

However, after the Battle of Wengerburg, the Nilfgaardians also quickly retreated, and the damage to this land was very limited.

Even now, there are still many Scoia'tael guerrillas scattered in the area. After all, Posada has the ancient palace of the elves, and it is the land that Emhyr promised to the elves. The elves naturally take this as their key invasion area.

Even many elves from the Blue Mountains came down and joined the local Scoia'tael, making the local situation even more rotten.

But it's just corruption. Although the Scoia'tael's guerrillas are annoying, they are just annoying. They can't cause too much trouble for the Duke Protector's government.

Moreover, Hemei decided to send Leila's special forces there. Hemei believed that as he joined the army, the area would be pacified soon.

In the end, it is the northwest of Aden led by Herme's hometown, Esenland.

The situation there is the best. The local people are very supportive of Herme, and the local area has not been damaged by war. It is Herme's most reliable rear.

Hemei will never forget everything his hometown has done for him in this war, and he will naturally give something in return.

But to everyone's surprise, Herme's rewards this time were mainly property and glory.

Not much involved land and real power.

After all, Herme has never forgotten that he is the Lord Protector of Aedirn, not just the Lord of Esenland.

The hometown has acquired enough things, and it is not suitable to continue to increase.

The current situation has been criticized by many people, and he naturally cannot continue this situation.

Naturally, no one objected to Herme's decisions.

And everyone was mainly surprised, why didn't Hermey give his hometown more resources.

However, Hermey did this, and naturally no one questioned it, so the discussion on the next project continued.

Then there are many complicated things, such as wartime laws, death benefits, and tax provisions.

Although these are extremely cumbersome, they must be discussed. It is these cumbersome things that constitute the country's ruling system.

Herme brought a lot of new ideas. After all, he came from another world and had many new ideas for this world.

It was also during this discussion that many things changed. Herme's ruling style began to seep into the country, and Aden's political structure also changed unconsciously...

Herme actually has more ideas, but the implementation of those ideas will take more time, and it will take a longer time to settle down.

There is no other way but to try again after the war is over.

When all the issues were finally over, Hemei let out a long sigh of relief. He had finally laid out the major regulations, and the country would also change according to his will.

But he didn't feel any slack because of this. This difficult war is not over yet. Only by winning this war can his changes continue and be further deepened.

(End of this chapter)