238 New East Mis (1/2)

The current Eastern Mist Communal Country was no longer that former weak and poor small northern country. With new residents, new armies, a new religion, and so many changes, this country had essentially changed at its foundation.

Its citizens mostly consisted of humans and gray elves. There was no census to count the population ratio, but no matter what the ratio was, there shouldn’t be too much of a difference between their overall general power ranks. After all, the former Tassel Kingdom was still the strongest of the four northern elven kingdoms, far stronger than the weakest northern country of East Mist. Not to mention that the elves’ individual power ranks were far above that of humans, and there was no comparing their high-ranked combat strength and potential, either.

In order to avoid conflicts from accumulating over time from both species’ long-term interaction, I refused to do anything typical according to common sense. Instead, I forcefully pushed through a mixed-living arrangement policy for humans and elves to live together in the same areas.

Perhaps, at the beginning, this would cause conflicts and trouble, but over the long term, this would definitely be far better than misunderstandings and differences creating larger and larger conflicts over time and ending in explosive conflict under the influence of those intentionally sowing discord or those with ambition.

The People of the Mist was a tribe of many different ethnicities to begin with. It was a cultural product of the citizens coming together. Perhaps, as long as I did a good job in dealing with this, I could get this to become completely culturally accepted and become a future leading voice.

In the north, the Eastern Mist Communal Country was probably the only country with more than one species making up its core. But what was more unique about it was the absolutely special makeup of the country’s upper-level leaders.

The original Eastern Mist Communal Country was established as a communal country and not a kingdom, because when it was established, it indeed borrowed some mega-level empires’ strength. The founding king Charles was even the archduke of the strong country Yintanlo, and even made a promise to appear as Yintanlo’s dependant state, at least on the surface.

Charles had the status of a knight that developed a new land for some major country. The fact that he received material resources and power to back him up, and then became a lord in his own right and swore fealty to the original country were all a normal course of events for any newly-born country.

However, it wasn’t long before East Mist truly became a country of its own. Charles tore apart the more than ten dependent state agreements that he had signed. Yep, that guy was fooling everyone from start to finish; he had actually requested and received assistance from more than ten countries, as well as swore fealty to them.

Of course, all of those major countries were in no way happy to discover that they had been fooled. However, the result of Charles playing around with so many countries at once was that all of these countries checked and balanced themselves. None of them gained any benefits in the end, causing the Eastern Mist Communal Country to become truly independent. Actually, this was a difficult and complex process. The geographical advantage (being in a distant location, and so poor that there were few financial benefits to be gained here) also helped tremendously.

However, the consequences were likely that Charles’s personal reputation was in the pits, and this affected East Mist’s reputation right from the very start of its creation. All the human countries in the middle plains viewed East Mist as nothing more than barbarians, not to mention its trustworthiness was at rock bottom.

This was also the historical reason of why all the rulers of East Mist were kings and not archdukes. In fact, even though there were still two archdukes within the Eastern Mist Communal Country, East Mist’s nobility system basically had no more connection with the nobility system in the plains. It was common that East Mist was treated by the other countries as ”barbarians playing house games.”

In this feudal age of knights, the noble domain lords all had significant private armies and were in charge of protecting their own citizens and domains. They were indeed the backbone of this country. But now, from my standpoint, they now posed an obstacle.

At the very least, they had gotten in the way of my policies multiple times already. I knew that they were difficult to deal with, with bucketloads of reasons and excuses against me, and they forever stood against centralization. Especially after I intentionally began to centralize policy and political power; I became their group target, and every month Reyne would receive several local domain lords’ letters reporting that a dishonest official (me) was fooling her, causing plenty of gossip.

And this time, I put the elves into the new city areas under construction and the royal demesnes, as well as into territories of nobles who were friendlier with the royalty. This caused many complaints from various major nobles, since everyone knew that apart from the elves’ artwork and magic, the elves themselves were a great resource.

This was also why I didn’t dare to completely disperse the elves. The lands were vast and the ruler was distant, so the domain lords were the biggest authorities in their own lands. I couldn’t count on all the domain lords being of good moral character. These gray elves were already afraid after having so many incidents happen to them, so I couldn’t possibly allow anything bad to befall them yet again. That would cause all my long-term goals to go up in smoke.

But this situation, where the domain lords acted like local kings, couldn’t be allowed to continue. Perhaps it was because of my experiences as Yongye and in the Underground that I had gotten used to centralized authority gathered in one place, but I was dissatisfied with this feudal system from the very start.

When I merely wanted to open up free movement within the Mist Alliance for all its citizens, it caused a huge amount of obstacles and backlash against me, which made me all the more determined to utterly overhaul this system.

But, I also knew that forcefully changing the political system would affect all these nobles’ personal benefits, which would be no different from starting an internal civil war. That was why I could only take the slow method, sharpening my sword and killing one at a time, step by step.

The newly-born Eastern Mist Communal Country was a country that was unified with its church; it worshipped the Law God Wumianzhe as its national church. There were two highest-ranked leaders in name—Her Highness Reyne, who had civil authority, while the other one was the highest-ranked priest Xueti, who of course had religious authority... just thinking about how this country’s highest-ranked leaders were actually a naughty child and a bastard that was often surrounded and beaten up by Town Security made me feel an oncoming a heart attack.

Yep, after saying all this, perhaps some of you would have guessed how it was that I intended to decrease the local domain lords’ authority. The battle between civil and religious authority was an endless one in any country, and the unstoppable force of divine might would make any domain lord have difficulty countering it.

Since the Church of Law was the national church, it wouldn’t be too much to ask for a large temple and local church branches to be constructed in each domain now, would it?

Since the Church of Law has been recognized by the citizens, then having Judgementors and Knights of Justice patrol around the entirety of East Mist and spreading the church’s teachings wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?

Since the divine job class members of the Church of Law are humble yet skilled in battle, and were excellently viewed by all sections of society and welcomed everywhere, then taking the long term into consideration, it was only natural to expand their forces, and recruiting people from your domain wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?

Since...

Under that series of ”sinces,” when the Church of Law continuously expanded in each local domain, there could only be one result.

”Since the Law God’s teachings stipulate that everyone should be equal under the law, since you committed serious crimes just because you were a noble, then it wouldn’t be too much to ask for to cut off your head, now, would it!?”

By that time, since I was the one who truly controlled the religious authority, I would naturally be able to decrease the domain lords’ civil authority and complete my goal of centralizing power.

In my plan, if the Mist Alliance could be compared to a tremendous giant, then the Eastern Mist Communal Country would definitely be both the giant’s critical spot, its heart, as well as its fist, as it was the first country that recognized the Law God as its national church. As the main headquarters of the Church of Law, every step the East Mist took would surely be imitated by other places, and it definitely had to become the perfect model that I had in my mind.

”Along with new development in technology, floating airships for citizens’ use and transportation technology for traveling between cities will become a reality sooner or later. After transportation becomes more convenient, moving military forces will become more convenient as well, which will cause the domain lords’ duty to protect their own citizens to lose meaning. The system of each domain being like its own small kingdom will naturally become meaningless.”

Of course, it was still a long way until that could be realized, but wasn’t it nice to have some expectations?

What I had to do was simply plant my seeds, and patiently wait for the day of harvest.

”Yep, it’s definitely not because I want to slack off or anything like that.”

But, from a certain standpoint, my status was quite awkward.

In name, I was an ancestor of East Mist. In that case, my status should be above the current ruler’s. Of course, this didn’t include actual authority, since in history, all those emperor’s grandfathers and so on stopped involving themselves in political affairs. Any that were technically retired and still wanted to get majorly involved meant that the country would soon be involved in civil war.

That was why, in terms of civil authority, my status was incredibly awkward. In a way, any that swore loyalty to me were technically betraying the current ruler’s authority, but luckily, Reyne placed total trust in me and even gave me the identity of ”Teacher to the Queen,” giving me support in all areas so I wouldn’t be too awkward in the royal palace.