Chapter 1180 - 511: Uprising Imminent
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"We’ve arrived in Southern Leonais, where we learned a lot of news." As a Leonais, Remon felt somewhat melancholic as he said this sentence. During this journey, he returned to his former village, only to find ruins.
The entire village is now deserted, but traces of the rebellion can still be vaguely seen.
"Currently, many castles and cities in Northern Leonais are deserted due to the disaster caused by Egil’s invasion. Neither the nobles nor the commoners have recovered from the heavy losses, resulting in situations where peasants openly declare the establishment of states or nobles openly declare independence. However, as the Duke of Leonais, Aldred has no ability to manage and can only let things be."
"Meanwhile, the Southern nobility of Leonais are banded together, refusing to heed Duke Aldred’s orders. Instead, they demand Duke Aldred to grant them more independent power and better treatment."
"The entire Leonais is currently rife with peasant uprisings, rebellious peasants are everywhere, gathering in forests and setting up camps in the northern hills. The nobles ignore this, instead fighting madly among themselves for the claim to titles and territories. Every month, small skirmishes or minor civil wars occur within this duchy."
"Without external intervention, Leonais is just a step away from a full-blown revolt, and a total civil war could erupt at any moment."
After listening, Laine signaled them to stop, and the Count himself spoke: "The problems of the Leonais Duchy have been around for a long time..."
Leonais, one of the three largest duchies in Brittania, suffered heavy losses during the attack by King of Scalings, Red Eye Egil. This duchy initially had nearly four thousand registered knights.
During Egil’s invasion, this duchy suffered extremely heavy losses. According to information Laine received from Mogiana, there are now only slightly over a thousand registered knights in Leonais.
Generally speaking, having too many knights is not good news for a duchy. Whenever a lord realizes there are too many knights, they organize Knightly Wars or Knightly Expeditionary Armies, sending these surplus knights to "die", using this opportunity to select excellent knights. This is an unwritten rule in Brittania. Even with slightly larger losses, knight families have many knight’s squires ready to fill the gaps.
Just like the losses of the Knightly Alliance Army organized by Laine and Francois during the Black Stone Stronghold battle and the La-Mesnil Abbey battle, these wars do not harm the duchy, but instead are beneficial.
However, the losses Leonais suffered during Egil’s invasion were beyond what the duchy could bear. Besides the large-scale loss of knights, sergeants and Peasant Infantry Corps also suffered heavy casualties, directly giving Leonais a sense of being unable to recover. The previous duke, Dalheid, chose to atone through an expedition after the war, leaving this mess to his son, leaving the new Duke Aldred with an exhausted and fragmented knight class, famine-spread farmers, and a collapsed financial and security situation.
Duke Aldred can only control the area within a radius of twenty to thirty kilometers around Leonais Castle and its surroundings.
The peasant revolt in the north is intensifying. After all, peasants have nothing to eat, rebellion is certain, and Duke Aldred and local nobles are powerless to solve it. Revolting peasants storm weakly defended castles, kill local lords, seize their wealth, and enjoy knights’ wives and daughters in the process. Those privileged, delicate noble ladies and noblewomen are naturally the favorites of rebel peasants, gaining unanimous praise from rebel leaders. From elegant noble life to tragic public utility, the terrible encounters from heaven to earth lead many noblewomen and noble ladies to abandon their territories and retreat to Leonais, overcrowding the duchy further and exacerbating financial and food pressure.
Worse still, the southern nobles of Leonais are also starting to disobey.
Historically speaking, the south of Leonais originally belonged to the Musillon Duchy. Musillon was stripped of its titles due to the "Mad Duke Meroving" incident, and most of its territory was annexed by Leonais. The local Musillon nobles were once happy to be rid of Meroving’s bloodthirsty rule, but they quickly found themselves excluded from Leonais’ power center, and their estates and manors gradually encroached upon by nobles from the northern part of the duchy, which naturally also aroused dissatisfaction among these former Musillon knightly nobles.
Previously, Northern nobles had the advantage; now the advantage is gone. These former Musillon knightly nobles suffered heavy losses in several wars, and survivors have decided to unite and voice their concerns.