Compared to the kingdom itself, it's a land filled with life.
All we need to do is guide the people and distribute their labor fairly. Then, the hardworking people will naturally work hard to make their lives happier. "
Claude personally went to Cobicus to welcome Countess Maria. As she wasn't feeling well after half a month at sea and needed to rest in Cobicus for a few more days, Claude went to the hotel she was staying at to fulfill his teacher-student relationship.
After resting for another three days, Maria arrived at Ankano in a carriage accompanied by Claude. She entered the train station and boarded the carriage Claude had prepared for her.
The scenery along the way surprised her greatly. She felt that the place was as prosperous as the towns around the royal capital.
She had never even heard of trains before, so she asked Claude about it out of curiosity. Claude naturally had to act humble.
Lady Maria had come to the Dominion as a special envoy of King Frederick the First. Her eldest son, Heltinger, was with her. He wore the uniform of a captain of the Imperial Guard and carried a revolver at his side.
But before he entered the carriage, his revolver was confiscated by Gum. The young master did not even have the courage to defend himself. He obediently removed the holster and handed it to Gum.
This scene was witnessed by Maria. She didn't say anything and only sighed deeply.
Compared to Claude, who was almost the same age as her, she felt that her eldest son was far too disappointing.
If she had spent more time disciplining her son back then, he might have been able to do better.
If he and Claude's sister, Angelina, were to get married, he wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of running around like a madman.
During the two days and three nights in Lanu, the two had a frank exchange of views on the relationship between the kingdom and the autonomous region. At the same time, they discussed how the kingdom ended up in its current state.
He bluntly pointed out that it was inevitable for the colonies to become self-governing. Even without the Shiksan colonial war, the colonies would still become self-governing in the end.
He believed that autonomy wasn't independence and there was no need for the king to worry about it.
After the end of the war in the Eastern Regions, the kingdom urgently needed to restore its economy. The newly conquered territories were in ruins, so the kingdom could only turn their attention to the colonies.
At that time, the people of the overseas colonies could no longer stand the kingdom's economic restrictions and ocean trade policies. A strong sense of resistance was brewing. The merchants of the mining and commerce association and many powerful families were the ones who wanted the war zone to fall out with the kingdom.
Had it not been for the Shiksan colony war, it wouldn't have taken long for the colonies to riot as well. That would have been a great loss for the kingdom.
The colonial war allowed Ranger to gain a firm foothold in the colonies. Due to the kingdom's inability to provide support to the colonies, Ranger became a local corps of the colonies and became closer to the local factions in the colonies.
The establishment of the war zone was like the release of the reins around the neck of the colonies.
In order to win the colonial war, the theatre had no choice but to develop the colonies' economy as much as possible since they couldn't get any support from the kingdom.
War was all about logistics. In order to tap into the potential of war and expand their manpower, the theatre had no choice but to turn their attention to the kingdom.
At the time, the two kings were fighting for the throne and the political situation was unstable, which gave the theatre an opportunity to migrate from the mainland.
More than two million families and relatives of the two corps' soldiers had migrated to the colonies, making up for the lack of reinforcements in the colonies' war zone.
Everything in the colonies was built up through the hard work of the kingdom's immigrants. They were the ones who helped the theatre defeat Shiks and win the colonial war.
At the time, Stellin XI made a mess of the mainland and couldn't wait to treat the colonies as a piece of juicy meat.
He sent an emissary with a knife to cut the meat, which incited the disgust and anger of the people of the colonies.
Under the push of the merchants and local nobles, the colonies naturally became an autonomous region.
Claude didn't deny that the theatre played a key role in the process of self-rule, but it was also forced by the kingdom.
Stellin XI's unjust treatment of the five generals and the two corps that fought in the war infuriated all the soldiers who contributed greatly to the kingdom's expansion. That was also the reason why no one objected to the war theatre being renamed as an autonomous region. All the soldiers saw themselves as part of the colony and it became their new home.
It could be said that self-rule was the wish of all the immigrants living there. None of them wished for the colonies to return to the state they were in before the colonial war.
Back then, it was a barren wasteland. The viceroys and commanders sent by the kingdom treated it as a place of exile and only cared about making money. The people were in dire straits.
But now, it was a land filled with hope, a happy new home that the people of the region worked hard to carve out.
Claude pointed out to Maria that the biggest difference between the kingdom, or rather, Freddy I, and the region was the difference in perception. He saw the region as a traitor.
Autonomy didn't mean independence, and the people of the region weren't traitors to the kingdom either.
They remembered that they were Aueran immigrants and were willing to help the kingdom as much as they could.
The only exception was if the kingdom's demands were too ridiculous, like the emissary who was chased out of the kingdom. His demands were nothing short of ridiculous and would cut off the economic development of the region.
Naturally, Maria didn't agree with Claude's opinion. She believed that if the region still considered themselves citizens of Aueras, they should let bygones be bygones and do their best to help the kingdom fend off its enemies instead of using the opportunity to threaten the kingdom and propose rebellious conditions.
Claude could only smile bitterly. That was the difference in the position of the buttocks.
He could only tell Lady Maria that the overseas autonomous region had fulfilled its duty to the kingdom.
Apart from everything else, there were a million crowns worth of grain and agricultural supplies, two hundred thousand standard Aubass mark III matchlock muskets, a thousand old-fashioned, muzzle-loading light infantry field artillery pieces, twenty thousand medium and heavy projectiles, and a thousand throwers each.
The total value was close to three million crowns, all of which were provided free of charge. That was more than all the support the kingdom provided to the colonies during the colonial war.
There were some things that Claude felt he could explain to Maria in private, so he gave her his analysis one by one.
For example, before the colonies were fully developed, the kingdom would only receive 300,000 crowns in taxes and another 100,000 crowns in tribute. That was the total revenue from the royal treasury and the royal treasury.
Apart from that, the ocean trade between the two continents would bring in all sorts of indirect taxes for the kingdom.
The truth of the matter was cruel. The kingdom treated the entire colonies as a source of resources for plundering, and most of the profits went to the old noble families of the kingdom. The rest of the profits from the ocean trade were monopolized by the new noble families of the kingdom. The kingdom only got a small portion of the profits, while the rest had already been divided up and the kingdom bore the brunt of the infamy.
For example, 70% of the minerals produced in the colonies were bought by the kingdom at a low price and shipped back to the kingdom to be distributed to five military industries.
Don't forget that these five military industries were in the hands of the old noble families. They almost got these mineral resources for free, but the production of weapons and armaments was paid for by the kingdom. Most of the profits went to the hands of these old noble families.
Every year, these old noble families would earn more than a million gold crowns in profit.
The new nobles were quite shrewd. While they couldn't get a share of the minerals in the colonies, they could monopolize the trade between the two continents.
They sold the goods produced in the kingdom to the colonies at a high price and bought the specialties of the colonies at a low price, earning them a profit that wasn't any less than the minerals themselves.
The old nobles, on the other hand, coveted those profits and used their monopoly rights to set prices to restrict the new nobles from monopolizing the ocean trade. That led to a power struggle between the two.
He had always believed that the free trade the new nobles advocated was just a way to break the monopoly and pricing power of the old nobles in the various prefectures of the kingdom.
What they were after was the monopolization of the ocean trade. That could be seen from their use of pricing rights. They were birds of a feather. None of them were good people.
The kingdom's current state had a lot to do with the power struggle between the two nobles.
If Prince Hansbach had succeeded to the throne, Aueras would still be the strongest country in the east of Freia even if the old nobles' interests were harmed.
But the new nobles pushed Prince Wedrick to fight for the throne for their own benefit. While the old nobles watched from the sidelines, Prince Hansbach left in a fit of rage and started the kingdom's civil war. That civil war was the most devastating to the kingdom.
Prince Hansbach's problem was that he was too conceited and didn't know who his main enemy was even when he attacked the kingdom.
He thought he could use the power in his hands to clean up the kingdom and weaken the old nobles' influence.
So, after taking over the royal capital in the Ibnister Plains, he wiped out the old nobles and the new nobles.
In the end, he forced the old nobles to side with Prince Wedrick and laid the foundation for his defeat in the kingdom.
The old nobles' participation in the war resulted in both sides suffering heavy losses. The kingdom was reduced to rubble and Prince Hansbach retreated to his new territory after his defeat. In the end, he was assassinated and disappeared from the stage of the kingdom's history.
However, the victorious veteran aristocratic families did not feel good either, because this kingdom's civil war had harmed their interests.
After Prince Wedrick became Stellin XI, he placed the new merchant nobles in an important position and tossed aside the old nobles who had pushed him to the throne.
But they soon regretted their decision. Stellin XI wasn't a wise king and was on the verge of becoming a tyrant.
The new nobles he used were like rabid dogs. In order to make up for the economic losses they suffered in the civil war, they used the title Stellin XI granted them to arrest the so-called first prince's allies and supporters in the various prefectures of the kingdom. Refugees and bandits were everywhere in the kingdom.
So, the old nobles decided to set things right and started a mutiny to elect Fredley I as the new king of Aueras.
Even though it was delayed for a year due to the region's invasion of the kingdom's machinery to transport refugees, the old nobles still used Stellin XI's father-in-law, Duke Siegfeld's Crimsondragon to test the might of Thundercrash and came to the conclusion that they were no match for them.
Why did the region still receive a cold reception after Fredley I ascended to the throne and tried to mend their relationship with the kingdom?
The reason was simple. The old nobles still viewed the region as a traitor. They hoped for the region to return to the era when they could plunder as they pleased. Cutting off one's source of wealth was akin to killing one's parents. The old nobles couldn't bear to let go of such a huge fortune that didn't belong to them.
Claude asked Maria if the region's request was too much.
There was a Silent Ocean between the kingdom's mainland and the overseas autonomous region, and the journey by ship would take half a month. Under such circumstances, maintaining a certain degree of independence in the areas of administration, personnel promotion, taxation, economy, and military strength was all for the sake of the overseas autonomous region's better and faster development.
It wasn't for the sake of obtaining the kingdom's approval to delay any measures that could help the region indefinitely.
Therefore, the kingdom's special envoy who was expelled from the kingdom last time proposed that the kingdom have the authority to approve and verify the overseas autonomous region's policies. This was nothing more than a word game played by the old noble families who held great power in the kingdom.
If the region agreed to it, there would be no difference between autonomy and direct rule.
There was also the right to allow the region's goods to be traded in the kingdom. It didn't really make a difference.
As long as the monopoly and pricing power of the counties in the kingdom were in the hands of the old noble families and business nobles, they would be able to decide how much the goods produced by the overseas autonomous dominions would be sold in the kingdom.
The kingdom's envoy also suggested working with the kingdom's trading companies and powerful local families. This was nothing more than a way to make the overseas autonomous region obediently work for them.
Perhaps they believe that we should be grateful for these two conditions, which is why they're demanding for us to provide the kingdom with three million crowns worth of food and other agricultural resources, five million crowns worth of mineral resources that the kingdom urgently needs, and 1.5 million crowns worth of taxes and tributes.
Sometimes, he really didn't understand what they thought the seven million Freemasons in the region were.
Slaves whose fates were in their hands?
It was precisely because the seven million citizens of the region still considered themselves citizens of Aueras that the region was willing to pay 400,000 crowns in taxes and tribute to the kingdom every year. They recognized Aueras as the sovereign kingdom of the region and maintained a diplomatic and military stance with the kingdom. The enemies of the kingdom were the enemies of the region. This didn't harm the interests of the kingdom or the Stellin royal family at all.
However, the region wasn't willing to provide the old nobles with free resources. Was it too much to ask them to offer a reasonable price?
The region's miners weren't slaves. They had to feed their families and they deserved a reasonable reward for their labor.
So, why would the old nobles want the region's resources for free? They were working for the kingdom and producing armaments for the kingdom. Didn't the kingdom have to pay for the weapons they produced?
They also wanted the region to provide them with 200,000 new rifles for free. They would be equipped with bullets and production blueprints for the sake of defending against invaders.
In that case, if the autonomous military region didn't provide it to them, wouldn't they blame the autonomous military region for the kingdom's consecutive defeats?
How could they say that? Did they understand what 200,000 new rifles meant?
It was a huge sum of nearly five million crowns. The region had to sell all the resources they seized from the colonies to gather the new rifles for the two corps to raise their fighting power. Even now, they still owed the bank a loan of two million crowns.
Yet, they wanted to take it all for themselves. What right did they have?
Perhaps in their eyes, the two corps of the region weren't even Aueran troops. That was why they'd ostracized the region's military and looked down on us. Haha …
Which new rifle was really that expensive?
Maria was dumbfounded.
Claude's analysis of why the kingdom had fallen to such a state was a huge blow to her original stance. She suddenly felt that Claude's words made a lot of sense. The kingdom did indeed owe the region a lot.
"Actually, actually, the reason I'm here this time is to ask you to send troops to save the kingdom from danger …" Maria said.