Throne of the North.

Chapter 585 Bringing the World into a New Era of Extraordinary Power (Part 3)

After bidding farewell to the meeting of nobles, Ryan also fell into introspection.

His words about trying to demolish the house made the nobles uneasy, but they still agreed to open the windows.

Ryan didn't think he had an extra brain compared to these nobles at the top of the pyramid. Was he smarter than everyone else? He just had more knowledge than these nobles, which had nothing to do with intelligence.

If the nobles take what Ryan says to heart and calculate it within their own territories, they will also arrive at the same conclusion.

Besides that, Ryan felt it was a matter of mindset.

The nobles of the empire, or rather all the nobles of this world, are incredibly greedy, yet they maintain a so-called gentlemanly demeanor while being greedy.

For example, the Kingdom of Carlos had been destroyed, but the empire still left half of its land to the Kingdom of Carlos, and even so, the nobles still acted as if they felt guilty.

They actually returned the land to the Kingdom of Carlos, and considered acquiring half of the Kingdom of Carlos's land to be the greatest glory of the entire empire in over a hundred years. They never thought about expanding their territory further. Even if they won the war, the empire probably wouldn't have thought about seizing those lands.

Ryan's thinking is definitely not like that. It's ridiculous. I've already taken it, why would I give it back to someone else?
They want to eat what's in their bowl while eyeing what's in the pot, but in the end, they want me to take everything out of my bowl, and only take a spoonful of what's in the pot?

That's impossible. It doesn't make sense. Lord Ryan has been gradually encroaching on and seizing land that doesn't belong to him, such as the swamp and Zero Crossing City. He would never give away what he already has.

The nobles have never had such a mindset, and it is unknown whether they will become what Ryan described in the future, but Ryan has now achieved his goal.

After the meeting of nobles concluded, Ryan and Elector Freud discussed the establishment of the defensive line and the separate battlefields for the extraordinary legions and ordinary troops.

“There are advantages to separating the extraordinary legions from the ordinary army. This way, the slave and civilian soldiers will also have their own responsibilities and obligations, as well as channels for advancement.”

Ryan stopped speaking and looked at the Elector beside him, whose features were sharp and angular, and whose face was like a sharp sword. He was neither handsome nor refined, but had endured the hardships of hard work and toil.

Ryan asked directly.

"Your Highness Freud, have you ever considered vying for the title of Emperor?"

Ryan felt that this elector did not seem like a qualified contender for the throne. If he really wanted to defeat the other two electors, he should actively win over the support of the nobles and gain more power in the capital.

Freud did not do that; he was more eager to achieve immortal glory in the war than to do those things.

Ryan's words stunned Freud, who looked at Ryan with a puzzled expression.

“Mr. Ryan, how could I not want to become the future emperor of the empire? What are you saying? Do I have any other choice?”

Freud looked at Ryan with some confusion, which made Ryan smile awkwardly.

Too insidious and cunning? The struggle for the throne in the Flor Empire is not so dark as to be filled with intrigue and cruelty in the pursuit of power.

Freud and the nobles of the empire believed that this was his means of seizing the throne.

"Since Your Highness wishes to defeat the two competitors, why not start with the soldiers on the southern battlefield?"

Freud frowned, looking at Lane with some confusion, waiting for him to continue.

There were only two types of armies on the southern battlefield: the imperial army and the noble army. Although the latter were also part of the former, the nobles had absolute ownership of their own armies, and the will of the nobles determined the direction of the army.

Besides that, there's the imperial army, but those armies... don't have many knights.

Freud looked at Ryan, and the nobles could all see that Baron Ryan's way of thinking was quite different from theirs, and he always came up with directions that the nobles could never have imagined.

"Has Your Highness not noticed that the number of commoners in the empire is increasing, while the number of slaves is decreasing?"

“More than a hundred years ago, there were not many commoners in the empire. The population in the nobles’ territories were all slaves of the lords. With the development of the empire over the past hundred years, more and more nobles have realized that the benefits that commoners can bring are greater than the benefits that slaves can bring.”

"Civilians are gaining more and more say in the empire, and this is especially evident in war."

A glint flashed in Ryan's eyes as he calmly said:
"We have already decided on the form of the war. On the defensive line, ordinary troops will be the main force, while the extraordinary legions will only occupy key battlefields. In this way, many of those slave soldiers will become civilians because of their military achievements. So what about the civilians?"

"Perhaps Your Highness can provide them with a path to advancement, allowing them to become knights."

"To turn commoners into knights?"

Freud hesitated, but it wasn't that he lacked the ability. As the elector stepped onto the imperial political stage, his resources and power also increased, especially now that he had become the commander-in-chief of the Southern War. As expected, he had even more supporters within the royal family.

"The nobles' army is smaller than the empire's army, but the nobles' knights are more numerous than the empire's knights."

Ryan said this, referring to the enormous changes that had taken place in the Flor Empire over the years.

Take Winged Canyon as an example. In addition to the Winged Dragon Legion and the Elephant Legion, there are tens of thousands of ordinary soldiers. They come from the bloodlines of many nobles in the empire, but they belong entirely to the empire as a whole, to the emperor rather than to any particular noble.

The soldiers and commanders of the fortresses in the provinces bordering the northern border of the Empire are entirely under the Empire's control. Moreover, as the Empire begins to challenge the authority of the Dawn Church and starts to fight against the entire world on its own, the number of such armies is increasing.

In Ryan's view, the current Flor Empire is a vast empire where feudalism and imperialism coexist, and because it lacks a papacy that uses divine power to suppress thought, it is moving towards a centralized feudal imperial system.

The chariots of history roared forward, making the nobles increasingly reliant on this vast empire, as evidenced by the ever-present large number of nobles in the imperial capital.

The emperor's authority grew with the war with the Papacy, and now the nobles almost instinctively dared not disobey Flor III's orders.

The nobles cannot see what the future holds, but Ryan has experience to share and can foresee that in the near future, the empire's prosperity will not be limited to economic prosperity.

As long as there is no divine intervention, the flame of human civilization can continuously challenge the authority of the gods.

Elector Freud could certainly seize such an opportunity, and as for Ryan, he also needed Freud's help. Ryan's advantages could be maximized when the population no longer belonged entirely to the nobility and had relative freedom.

The most direct example is that the Frozen Territory of Ryan is admired by many people in the Northwind Province. They always envy the commoners living in the Frozen Territory, but these people can never enter the Frozen Territory because the noble lords control their freedom.

Ryan wanted to undermine the nobility, but he found only impenetrable walls everywhere.

The ancient system confined those people within a cage called 'territory,' which served as protection for weak nobles, but not for the now powerful Ryan.

The Elector is a good candidate to undermine the imperial system. For example, Volvo could easily establish the Northern Heroes Guild in the south, something Ryan couldn't do. Similarly, Ryan is no better suited than Freud to reward slaves or commoners by turning them into knights. Besides the prevailing trend, Ryan also has his own selfish motives. If Freud chooses to do so, Ryan can naturally hide in the Elector's shadow and recruit commoner knights belonging to the empire.

Others need a life-giving potion, but Ryan only needs a spiritual blessing.

Ryan was more adept than anyone else at winning people over.

Only when the elector did it did Ryan have the opportunity to do so, thereby strengthening the influence of the title of Baron Ryan throughout the Empire.

Freud carefully considered the feasibility of what Ryan said. He still believed that directly winning over the nobles was better and more convenient than winning over those commoners who would be flattered and kneel down when they saw him.

The scene Ryan described would consume a lot of his energy, and Freud did not want to waste his time.

He was about to refuse Ryan's offer when he heard Ryan continuing:

"Knights born from commoners have only one place to go: to serve as knight commanders in the imperial army."

"Among the six provinces near the northern border, a large number of people have been lost in the fight against the full-scale invasion of the orcs, and the empire needs to replenish the troops in those fortresses."

“The participation of nobles is essential, but at present the nobles’ focus is on the war with the Papacy in the south, and the fortresses in several northern provinces need to be filled with a large number of commoners.”

Freud's eyes lit up. He wasn't thinking about the common people, but rather how to influence the nobles in those provinces through such means.

Currently, the nobles in the northern provinces are too far from the political center, so they have no intention of accepting the olive branch extended by the Electors, and the Electors have no opportunity to win them over.

They lacked a reason, and His Majesty the Emperor did not grant them sufficient power.

Freud needed to gain the support of the nobles through military achievements on the battlefield to defeat the other two competitors, and the empire's war was either in the south or the north.

Freud no longer rejected Lane; he intended to inquire about this possibility with several nobles who were already fully committed to supporting him.

As for Lane, Freud gave her a grateful smile.

Favorability +10.

Perhaps that's how it is. Ryan and Elector Volvo are very close. I heard that the Adventurers' Guild that Volvo recently set up in the Kingdom of Carlos includes a part of Baron Ryan.

Ryan was somewhat mysterious, according to Freud, who had only had fewer than three encounters with the baron.

Ryan didn't care. With Freud's interest growing, Ryan finally confirmed two things.

That means wars will no longer be large-scale, large-army wars like before; medium-sized military wars will become the mainstream.

Deciding the outcome in one fell swoop will no longer be easy.

……

The empire's defenses are being built at a frantic pace. Ryan would very much like to suggest that mages participate, but the nobles and mage lords clearly do not believe that noble mages should do the same work as those commoners; they only need to meditate diligently in quiet places.

Ryan was powerless to do anything about it; he was merely a member of the nobility in the Southern War, not one of the war's leaders.

The nobles agreed to Ryan's suggestion to split up the Extraordinary Legion and station them in key locations. There was actually a very important reason for this.

That is, they are afraid of divine punishment.

They feared that the divine punishment that had destroyed the royal city of Carlos would fall again, annihilating their entire superhuman legion.

Therefore, they accepted Ryan's suggestion to split up the Extraordinary Legion, placing it in key locations that, for the time being... safe.

Even if divine punishment falls, it won't wipe them all out.

Ryan also discovered that as the shadow of war gathered once again, the nobles began to discuss how to face the divine punishment of the Dawn Church.

The nobles gradually came to understand the possibilities that Ryan had considered.

"Perhaps, the Lord of Dawn is already gradually awakening."

The nobles' bold speculations explained why divine punishment was so terrible, directly destroying a royal capital.

Fortunately, after so much time has passed, their ability to accept things has improved considerably. Furthermore, within the empire, Columbus III dispatched a large number of followers of the Church of Light to the southern battlefield, allowing the nobles to see that they too had faith to support them.

"Praise the light."

During this time, Ryan often heard such words from the nobles, and seeing the bright smiles on their faces, Ryan couldn't help but feel strange.

The imperial nobles had a pitifully small amount of reverence for the gods.

What exactly did they do that was blasphemous a hundred years ago?
And what kind of confidence did the legendary Lord Rais, the empire's first blasphemer, give to these nobles?
The nobles finally began to take their rivals seriously.

"Perhaps we should think of a way to deal with that Archbishop Doyle."

These words came from the Earl of Stirling.

Archbishop Doyle, who had previously destroyed the royal city of Carlos, boldly dispatched all his troops to a place far from him, leaving himself alone on the front lines of the war, in order to demonstrate that he was deeply favored by the gods.

Fearing divine retribution, none of the empire's nobles suggested launching an attack, allowing Archbishop Doyle to gain immense prestige.

Now that the nobles have regained their confidence, they naturally begin to consider this troublesome enemy.

Ryan simply smiled and offered a chilling suggestion.

"Wouldn't it be better to just kill him?"

(End of this chapter)