There was silence all around. The King’s voice was soft, and couldn’t be distinguished between happiness and anger. The nobles thought that the King asked this question with the intent to treat Earl Consett as his next target that needed to be dealt with.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

At this moment, Count Consett felt like a loyal official who was brave enough to dissuade the tyrannical monarch in ancient times. In order to show that the nobles were determined not to give in, this letter of admonishment was drawn up and written by Earl Consett himself and not his scribe. [1]

You c an fi nd t he la te st cha pte rs at ( th e bl mu se . c o m )

Count Consett replied loudly and forcefully, and was prepared to speak eloquently on the spot if the King refused to acknowledge the letter.

The nobles applauded him lowly, calling him “extremely valiant.”

“There are three spelling errors and four grammatical errors.” The King picked up the quill, signed his name on it, then looked at Earl Consett with a smile, “I will send a writing teacher to your castle afterwards. I hope to see a qualified document next time. It shouldn’t be difficult for you, yes?”

Count Consett’s expression blanked out.

There was a moment of silence in the hall, and then the people bursted into laughter.

This was a slight mishap in etiquette, but one had to admit that the atmosphere seemed much happier in this way.

Don’t know which mischievous fellow shouted out into the crowd: “Valiant Earl Consett, oh, may the Lord be able to save your writing!”

Count Consett’s face flushed red.

He sought the source of the voice, wanting to find out which bastard kicked him while he was down, but he only saw rows of faces that were twisted from trying to hold back laughter. Even the nobles who had just cheered him couldn’t help lowering their heads and snickering.

“Please sit down, sir.”

The King handed over the signed document to the Lord Chancellor.

“Subsequently, there will be demarcation officers who will re-survey the royal forest. I hope I didn’t misunderstand your intentions. This is what you want.”

Under the King’s half-joking words, the atmosphere eased.

The bloody massacre just now was brushed lightly aside by the King, and he seemed to be willing to show some sincerity——he didn’t intend to drive all the nobles to the guillotine.

The nobles also felt that they had won some victories.

So at present, it could be regarded as “everybody being satisfied” as a whole.

The Duke of Buckingham sitting on the side sighed quietly in his heart.

——After the King almost died in the Konosen Forest, he made up his mind to revise the Royal Forest Law. He had been waiting for the nobles to attack him with this from the start, so that he could use what he originally planned to do in exchange for some benefits.

Sometimes not knowing the truth might not be a bad thing.

May the Lord bless these “triumphant” nobles.

“Alright, let us discuss the last matter.” The King waited for a while, then smiled and stretched out his hand to silence everyone, “Come, let us discuss…..”

The King looked across half of the hall, his eyes falling on the representatives of the port citizens sent by the Five Port Alliance.

“About the Port Restriction Regulations.”

The King said briskly, his tone very friendly, as if he was just talking about an ordinary, trivial matter. Of course, all the smart people knew that this was today’s finale.

The “Port Restriction Regulations” was something that William III tried to implement, but did not have time to implement in the end.

After the death of William III, the Duke of Buckingham exhausted all his energy to defend his nephew’s throne, so the “Port Restriction Regulation” continued to be delayed. It was not until this day that the King mentioned it for the first time during parliament.

The port citizens’ representatives sent by the Five Port Alliance sat in their chairs, but they were not very worried.

Long before participating in the parliament, the Five Port Alliance won the alliance of the great nobles along the southeast coast. The relationship between the Five Port Alliance and the nobles along the coast was definitely closer than the relationship between the King and them.

They were partners of interest.

The restriction regulations would not be passed.

“Of course, after all, the regulations have been shelved for a long time, and some things still need to be revised.”

As if not seeing the unworried looks of the Five Port Alliance, the King clapped his hands. The King’s judges stood up with copies of legal documents and distributed them.

“Perhaps I need to trouble you gentlemen to spend a little time looking at these changes?”

The representatives of the Five Port Alliance looked at the distributed documents and suddenly got a bad feeling. They nervously took over the new restrictions from the judge.

For a time, the whole hall was full of “rustling” page turning sounds.

The King observed the expressions of everyone, and unsurprisingly watched as joy suffused the faces of the nobles, while the representatives of the Five Port Alliance gradually lost their composure.

The new “Port Restriction Regulations” made some changes on the original basis. The 1/3 pence tax originally collected by the Five Port Alliance was re-stipulated and assigned to the local aristocrats in the southeast in accordance with the provisions of the Law of the Lords [2]. In addition, there were several other new regulations, all of which reassigned the interests that originally belonged to the Five Port Alliance.

The alliance between the Five Port Alliance and the southeast aristocrats was by no means unbreakable.

So long as there was competition for interests, even iron barrels could be riddled with holes.

“Tell me, what are your opinions?”

The King seemed to ask amiably.

The representatives of the Five Port Alliance turned their gazes on the nobles who had originally made a private agreement with them.

They were destined to be disappointed.

The nobles were naturally full of praise for this, as if all of them had lost their memory in an instant, turning a blind eye to the gazes of their former partners. Many impatient fellows even stood up and praised the new regulations, saying that they inherited Legrand’s usual legal spirit.

The representatives of the Five Port Alliance stood up, but when they were about to refute the King clapped his hands.

“Alright, gentlemen.” He terminated the discussion, “It is not early any longer, so let us vote. Everyone, please.”

He glanced deeply at the representatives of the Five Port Alliance.

Feeling as if they had been thrown into an ice cave, they watched as their former allies abandoned them in a blink of an eye.

The southeast aristocrats, who they originally thought would become their comrades in arms, now became their competitors.

The bell of St. Wyth Cathedral rang.

Under the ringing of the bells over the Rose Palace, the voting ended, and the new “Port Restriction Regulations” was passed with a very high vote of approval.

……………………

When the parliament representatives left, they saw that the entrance of the palace was still bright red. The guillotine stood high on the ground, and the blood of the county lords stained the snow.

Someone stood in front of the guillotine for a long time.

He was the only patriarch of the five main families of the Five Port Alliance to come to Metzl Castle, Patriarch Dawson.

This patriarch with brown hair and brown eyes looked at the blood that had been frozen in the severe cold for a long time, and finally made a decision.

He raised his head: “I hope God will bless Legrand and the Dawson family.”

This was destined to be a busy winter, on that was diametrically opposite to the past.

The newly appointed county lords hurried back, and the representatives of the free citizens returned to their counties happily. The blood of the executed county lords froze into ice at the gate of the palace, while the civilians in the dilapidated houses felt a rare warmth despite the mid-winter temperature. Even if the King’s intention was not so, things were moving in a good direction.

There was hope in everything.

The representatives of the Five Port Alliance also returned with the new “Port Restriction Regulations.” This winter had just begun for many people, and some people already understood that the biting winter had come for the Five Port Alliance.

They either bowed their heads to the King or rise up against him in resistance.

The Five Port Alliance chose the latter.

The end of October 1432.

In the first week after the parliament, the Five Port Alliance, headed by the five families including Guros, protested to the royal court: they believed that the “Port Restriction Regulations” violated the powers promised to them by the royal family since the eleventh century. It went against the free spirit of the port cities.

Represented by the Five Port Alliance, the merchant guilds along the southeast coast united and refused to provide maritime military services to the royal family unless the royal family made amendments to the “Port Restriction Regulations” [3]. They also refused to transport the supplies needed to build castles all over the country for the royal family.

The two important military castle projects being built by the King had to be interrupted.

The resistance movement of the Five Port Alliance kicked off.

……………………

“You don’t seem too worried?”

The Duke of Buckingham and the King walked slowly on the promenade of the palace, chatting as they walked.

The Duke of Buckingham was referring to the resistance movement of the merchant guilds in the southeastern region. Under the organization of the Five Port Alliance, this time maritime merchants, large and small, united and unanimously refused to accept the King’s restrictions.

The momentum was quite big.

The southeast region could be regarded as the richest place in Legrand. It was where the business capital of the empire was located.

But the King did not seem to regard the union of merchants as anything of importance.

“The materials used to build the military castles can also be transported by land.” The King replied, “The Gelug family will be happy to take on this responsibility. The State of Ingres will not reject the royal family’s purchase plan——they are too poor. Even the Chancellor of Exchequer felt a little unbearable when negotiating. As for those merchants…..”

The King smiled.

“They are businessmen, not aristocrats, nor common people. My dear uncle.”

“You already have a solution?”

“What do businessmen want freedom for?” The King asked, and then he replied himself, “The meaning of freedom itself is for profit. It’s a simple thing…..place the interests in front of them and they will be faster than anyone else in making their choice.”

The King walked forward on the icy rock ground.

“Just watch. An anti-monopoly law, and you will know how fragile the alliance between merchants is.”

The King said softly.

“Then I will watch.”

The Duke of Buckingham responded gently.

The King looked at the entire long corridor, and the beautifully carved stone pillars that stood tall and straight. There was no warmth in the King’s eyes.

He never made jokes.

Once seated on the table of power, everyone would become a hunter. If you want to treat other people as prey, you must prepare yourself to become prey one day.

And never forget one thing——

All of you here are wolves, and all of you here are lambs.

You c an fi nd t he la te st cha pte rs at ( th e bl mu se . c o m )

AN: [1] As early as the 13th century, it was common for nobles to read and write, and other classes also began to become literate. However, writing in the eyes of many nobles at that time was a troublesome thing, and it was not worthy of their own status, so they would hire specialized writers.

[2] Historically, in 1040, the Savior’s Monastery and St. Augustine’s Monastery had frequent disputes over their right to levy a 1/3 pence tax in Sandwich.

[3] The meaning of navy here does not mean the navy in the modern sense, but refers to the navy in the medieval era. Taking the English Navy as the prototype, England did not have a formal naval management organization at the time, and there were no professional naval soldiers. The Port City Alliance provided important maritime military services to the royal family.

If you would like to show some ♡  then please consider supporting this translator! ლ(⌒εー)ლ

Prev