Chapter 137: The Kingdom of Alemannia
23 April 1526.
Exactly two weeks had passed since the Great Hall of the Swabian keep had been washed in Vatican blood and melted wax. The unforgiving mud of the valley had finally begun to dry under the warming spring sun, but the ledger of the Holy Roman Empire had been permanently, rewritten in Swabia’s iron.
Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria was no longer a sovereign lord...
The treacherous noble was no longer sitting on his high throne in Munich, plotting his rise to the Emperor’s inner circle. Instead, he was broken. During the humiliating days following the disastrous wedding assassination, Wilhelm had been forced to legally, publicly sign the vassalage ledgers.
The sheer terror of watching his expensive mercenaries get slaughtered by the star fortress, combined with the horrific, blistered wax burns covering his face, had shattered his noble pride.
Wilhelm was now nothing more than a terrified tax collector in the Swabia region.
Thus, Konrad had not wasted a single, valuable fraction of a second. He knew that signing a piece of parchment in a blood-soaked hall meant nothing if you didn’t back it up with violence.
Within three days of the wedding, Konrad had sent a concentrated army of 4,000 elite veterans directly to Bavaria.
Under the disciplined command of Marshal Eckhard, the Swabian halberdiers, Swiss Pikemen, and newly promoted musketeers had marched straight down the main trade roads.
They brought the twelve-pounder cannons and the modified Gatling carts with them.
They were camped right outside the wealthy stone walls of Munich. They didn’t even need to fire a single lead bullet. They were simply getting ready, locking down the lucrative Bavarian salt mines and cutting off any potential rebellion before it could even spark.
The presence of 4,000 Swabian guns camped near the town forced the remaining local lords to bow their heads.
Through sheer military force, Konrad had successfully hired himself as the Duke of Bavaria.
Konrad sat alone in his private study, his hands resting on the desk. The room was buried under a mountain of new administrative ledgers, complex tax codes from Munich, and raw metallurgical reports from the Savoyard borders.
He had absorbed the largest Duchy in the south, and the sheer volume of paperwork required to merge the two massive economies was incredibly staggering.
However, right in the center of the desk, ignoring the trade mathematics and the Fugger banking drafts, lay a large, detailed piece of parchment.
Konrad stared intently at the wet black ink. He was redesigning the identity of his bloodline.
For the past two weeks, Konrad had authorized many things... he had entirely reformed the agricultural supply lines. He had expanded the lower forges to build more steam boilers. But the most change was psychological.
The old von Frundsberg banner... a simple black flag bearing the single, double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire was insufficient for the massive scale of his new power.
He needed a new corporate brand to project his authority across the continent.
Konrad had drafted the new design himself.
He had taken thedark black background of his family’s original banner, but he replaced the standard imperial eagle. Instead, he had drawn three aggressive eagles intertwining in a united front. He had melted the colors together.
Three eagles. Gold, black, and red.
The gold represented the sheer, undeniable wealth of the Swabian silver and the new Bavarian salt.
The pitch black symbolized the raw gunpowder, the black coal, and the iron of his industrial forges.
And the deep red stood for the amounts of blood that had been shed to forge the alliance.
The latch of the study door clicked , breaking his intense focus.
Lady Katarina walked into the room. She was wearing a stunning, tailored gown of dark crimson and black.
She ignored the blueprints of the steam engines and stepped right up to the desk.
"Is this the new ledger, Konrad?" Katarina asked. "I must admit, it is highly ambitious. Three eagles."
Katarina tilted her head. "And what exactly are we calling this predator, my Imperial Duke? The combined Duchy of Swabia and Bavaria is too long for a proper trade ledger."
Even so, the title of ’Imperial Duke’ was starting to feel highly restrictive to Konrad’s mind.
"We are dropping the Duchy titles," Konrad whispered.
Katarina froze. Her eyes widened.
"The old Roman ledgers called this entire southern region by a specific, ancient name before the Empire broke it apart into weak, squabbling territories," Konrad explained. "I am bringing it back."
"Konrad... you cannot legally declare yourself a King," Katarina warned. "The Emperor will declare war on us the second he hears the raven!"
"Hmm? Who said that? I’ll be under his rule for a while, and he’ll turn a blind eye," Konrad grunted, "From this exact moment forward, the von Frundsberg ledgers do not report to an Imperial Duke. They report to the Kingdom of Alemannia."
The Kingdom of Alemannia.
But before Katarina could process the weight of his newly declared kingdom, the doors of the study were pushed open.
Isolde stepped into the room.
She bypassed Katarina and walked to the desk, slamming a piece of parchment right on top of his new, freshly drawn Kingdom of Alemannia banner.
"Isolde?" Konrad frowned.
Isolde swallowed hard. My shadow-walker died crossing the northern checkpoints," Isolde explained. "The blood belongs to the Imperial couriers he had to slaughter to intercept that letter. The Holy Roman Empire is tearing itself in half."
"Brandenburg and Austria..." Isolde continued. "They have declared open war on the Emperor. His armies are tied down in the east, and the Brandenburg musketeers are shattering his northern vanguard. He is demanding that his loyal vassals immediately ride to his defense."
"Brandenburg and Austria?" Konrad whispered.
Katarina scoffed. "His loyal vassals?" Katarina spat. "The Emperor was conspiring with the Vatican just two weeks ago to burn this valley to the ground. And now that his own northern Dukes are biting at his throat, he expects you to bankrupt your forges to save his throne?"
"He isn’t asking for our thoughts and prayers, Katarina," Konrad stated. "He is issuing a legally binding Imperial quota. If we refuse, we validate the Vatican’s narrative that we are treasonous heretics."
Konrad turned away from the desk, pacing across the floorboards.
Marshal Eckhard was currently camped outside Munich with 4,000 men, locking down the Bavarian salt mines and pacifying the remaining local lords.
Another chunk of his infantry was permanently stationed on the western borders, ensuring the annexed Savoyard territory didn’t rebel.
"Give me the exact numbers in the valley," Konrad demanded without looking back.
"We have exactly 3,509 trained men sitting idle inside the Swabian valley and the star fortress, My Lord," Isolde answered. "Mostly the newly integrated Savoyard musketeers, the surviving Swiss Pikemen, and two companies of veteran halberdiers."