Chapter 1315 - 1233: Output Innovation
Contrary to the expectations of the entire empire’s public opinion, this war in the Immortal Stone Field ended in just a month.
With the departure of the Duke of Damos, except for a few scattered resisting troops, the entire region quieted down.
Even those nobles were cautiously inquiring for news rather than confronting head-on.
Obviously, so far, the Holy Alliance Army hasn’t shown any deadly intent towards the nobles.
They were indeed frightened and dared not resist carelessly.
This war ended too quickly.
It started on February 7 and ended on March 5, not even much affecting the spring plowing.
Farmers hiding in caves and forests gradually descended to return to their homes.
Some remote villages hadn’t even realized a war had occurred until messengers and priests on horseback came to post notices, then they knew what had happened.
Sapphire County, Desami Town.
Only around eight o’clock, the townspeople were awakened by the urgent sound of hooves.
Compared to the Holy Alliance’s scale of a thousand or eight hundred people in a town, this Sapphire Town had only 90 households, about four hundred people.
So when the gendarmerie and Holy Path monks arrived, almost everyone in town could hear, including local public representatives staying in the inn.
They quietly opened a slit of their windows to see the gendarmes in the church square.
The gendarmes generally wore blue uniforms with white spike-topped round helmets, followed by three newly appointed monks from the Holy Sect.
According to Jeanne’s plan, each county first established a County Monastery, then formed Village Monasteries, completing the appointments of local bishops and parish priests.
As for the original bishops and parish priests, they were transferred to the County Monastery for assessment first.
Those unwilling to comply would either flee themselves or be invited by the army, and these gendarmes were here today to do just that.
Watching the parish priest in black being lifted off the ground and carried away trembling by the gendarmes, Mizha began to shed tears.
Several nearby representatives looked on curiously, all stepping forward to ask what happened?
Mizha pointed at the Holy Path monks reading the notice to the townspeople below: "I’m afraid once we go, there will be no burial for us!"
"Why is Brother Mizha saying such things?" Several representatives were appalled.
"Is there still a need to say?" Mizha, overwhelmed by sorrow, wept, "They swallowed the church and weren’t satisfied, don’t dare touch the nobles, aren’t we the only ones left?"
"Are you delusional? How could it be as you say?" Kashke, the wool merchant, disdained from the bed edge.
"Brother, you early converted to the Holy Sect, of course it’s fine for you, we are miserable." Mizha babbled, "We are bound to enter that Trinity Education Team, won’t rest until they take all our property, forgotten what happened in Thousand River Valley?"
"Alas!" Several representatives all showed sorrow upon hearing this.
The once magnates and oligarchs of the Thousand River Valley were either beheaded by the Saint’s Grandson or knelt down to serve obediently.
Their fate would be no different.
Even if the Holy Alliance scorned their small wealth, wouldn’t the Holy Alliance’s middle class covet it?
Ultimately, the Holy Alliance would certainly prioritize their own people.
This Believers’ Assembly must have a conspiracy; they must offer significant concessions.
According to the Holy Alliance’s practice, apart from gradually replacing the original church with Holy Sect monks, the most important point was to gather the middle class.
Beyond rural farmers, the politically active middle class, second only in influence to nobles and oligarchs, became the target of the Holy Alliance’s enticement.
As the saying goes, politics is about reducing enemies and increasing friends, that’s the rationale.
Thus, after stabilizing the Immortal Stone Field, April saw the Believers’ Assembly convened in Immortal Stone Field.
As per Holy Alliance tradition, they must first gather public representatives for the Believers’ Assembly to meet and get to know each other.
Then establish the rules of engagement, using farmers, the middle class (citizens, merchants, bureaucrats), and the Holy Alliance’s own army to suppress the nobles and oligarchs.
However, due to the deliberate media offensive by the nobles and oligarchs, such matters turned entirely different.
"Alright." Kashke, the wool merchant, stood up, "Think of the Holy Alliance soldiers, they won’t be those kinds of people.
Besides, I heard that the new Patriarch of the Jewel Federation is not a Thousand River Valley person, but someone from our Immortal Stone Field!"
...
Meanwhile, Fishing City, Palace Area.
The place once only accessible to noble carriages and silk shoes was now trampled by the boots of officers and soldiers and the cloth shoes of civilians.
On the bluestone streets designated for carriages, citizens wearing windbreakers, leather vests, coarse linen clothes, and blacksmith jackets came and went.
Many have lived here all their lives, yet it’s their first time entering the palace area.
The marble wave-shaped walls adorned with black iron wrought fences.
Beyond the fences, layers of green trees and flowerbeds surrounded fountain pools.
Graceful maids carried trays, and house-born servants drew water from the palace’s small river.
This once unattainable scene was now completely in view.
These dozen or so palaces, each covering tens of acres, with hundreds to nearly a thousand servants and guests, sustained only seven or eight noble families.
Yet, the noble ladies were at this moment helplessly and irritably closing the curtains, not looking at the civilians outside the fences.
Outside the former private residences, civilians squeezed their heads between the iron fences, gazing toward the homes.
How could the nobility’s glory allow civilians to view at will?
However, with the Holy Alliance’s arrival, everything changed.
Civilians, driven by curiosity and even a sense of revenge, gazed everywhere, both envious and gleeful.
You nobles, always secretly hiding in your palaces, talking about noble dignity.
Isn’t this nobility now fully exposed to them?
However, the most envied at this moment were the soldiers and officers.
Looking up, those soldiers with ribbons on their chests, with families and luggage, were moving into a mansion of the Dregnesken family one after another.
From now on, this mansion would be converted into a barracks and Mansion Square.
Know that many among them were from the Immortal Stone Field.
The Holy Alliance always collectively referred to the new five-county area as the new five counties, but it actually belonged to two different domains.
Wolf Bridge County and Crow Roost County of Thorn Garden, and the Upper Seene County and Red Sand County of Immortal Stone Field.
The Fire Salamander Brigade stationed long-term in Upper Seene County, with recruitment conducted locally, made up a considerable proportion of Immortal Stone Field people in the army.
In the eyes of the local Immortal Stone Field people, they were just a bunch of miners and country bumpkins from the three outer counties, flaunting authority over them once they became soldiers.
Can they endure that?
From the citizens’ performance, they can.
Especially since many wounded retired officers or those with higher education among soldiers were staying to serve as local officials.
A common soldier who recognized a few words could even become a tax collector!
With their vast knowledge, how could they only serve as notaries in court, where is justice?
But what could they do?
If they provoked them now, what if they made things difficult later?
Apart from envying their luck, citizens had no other way.
Those stinking outsiders, actually overruling them, it’s truly unfair of the Holy Father.
If they had known the Holy Alliance could win, if they had known the Holy Alliance treated soldiers so well, they would have enlisted in Upper Seene County at any cost.
A pitiful, hateful, detestable group of lucky ones!