Chapter 258: A Complex Struggle
The matter concerned her own noble title, so Ferrier didn’t dare to be careless. After the Imperial Envoy arrived, she devoted herself to organizing a high-class banquet and invited nearby nobles to attend.
To say it was high-class was only relative to the Northland. In fact, these people were mostly minor nobles from the Imperial Border. Most of them had never been to the Imperial Capital in their lives, let alone met a noble from the capital. So, they all discarded their restraint, like bees encountering flowers, surrounding them and refusing to leave.
Marquis Bergasos, who frequently served as an envoy to various parts of the Empire, was long accustomed to such scenes. Although he was surrounded by a group of insignificant people he looked down upon, who constantly flattered him with their clumsy attempts, he was not annoyed. Instead, he observed Ferrier, who was smiling and talking, with some interest.
Marquis Bergasos never forgot the task the Emperor had entrusted to him. Therefore, from the moment he stepped into the banquet, he had already begun his work as an envoy.
The development of the Northland was a strategy the Empire had formulated long ago. This was because there was no more land within the Empire that could be developed. The unrest that erupted every few decades was a clear sign of this. The Empire’s method of quelling the unrest seemed effective, successfully bringing about decades of peace each time.
However, the Emperor knew that this was playing with fire. The slightest misstep could lead to the risk of the world being turned upside down.
When that time came, the nobles would still be nobles, but whether he would still be the Emperor was another matter.
In fact, the royal family had the intention of expanding northward many years ago. Otherwise, what was the purpose of maintaining the large Imperial Border Army?
However, due to the obstruction of the conservative forces within the Empire, they were unable to proceed. Twenty years ago, they barely managed to assemble a Pioneer Group, which had been struggling to survive ever since.
However, with the recent resurgence of unrest, the Imperial nobles, eager for fiefdoms, seized the opportunity to bring up the old issue, attempting to accelerate the development of the Northland. This was because only then would they have a chance to obtain land.
Thus, the Emperor went with the flow, leading to the formation of the Second Northland Pioneer Group, which included many individuals associated with the Imperial nobles.
As for driving the rebels into the Northland to fatten them up, this was a tactic of the Traditional nobles, with the cooperation of the Imperial nobles.
It was obvious that, apart from the Traditional nobles, who else could drive hundreds of thousands of rebels into the Northland? Even the Emperor couldn’t. Only the Traditional nobles, these local emperors, had such capability.
So why were the Imperial nobles, who had always been at odds with the Traditional nobles, willing to cooperate, even daring to deceive the Emperor? It was simply because only with the emergence of new land would they, the Imperial nobles with only empty titles, have the opportunity to acquire fiefdoms.
Trying to seize land from the Traditional nobles was simply unrealistic. The Imperial nobles were well aware of this, and they even knew that the Emperor had always been dangling an unattainable carrot in front of them.
This illusory carrot, beautiful to look at but inedible, couldn’t last forever. Apart from the newly appointed nobles who were still grateful to the Emperor, most Imperial nobles understood that the Emperor was treating them like dogs and using them as tools.
So, forget deceiving him, if killing the Emperor meant obtaining a fiefdom, they would need to draw lots to decide who had the chance to strike.
The poor Emperor had been kept in the dark before. After learning the truth, even if he was furious, he could only acquiesce. What else could he do? He couldn’t touch the Traditional nobles, and the Imperial nobles were supported by the royal family to counter the Traditional nobles. He couldn’t cripple himself, could he?
Acquiescing didn’t mean the Emperor would let the matter continue unchecked. Now, with the idea of re-appointing Northland nobles as Imperial nobles, he had seized the initiative. Even though the Traditional nobles had placed a Deputy Envoy, there was no good way to counter this.
The Empire’s pyramid: the royal family stood at the top, followed by the Traditional nobles, the Imperial nobles, the knight class, and lastly, the Northland nobles.
It could be said that the Northland nobles were completely excluded from the Empire’s mainstream circle. Therefore, no one was willing to give up the opportunity to be appointed as an Imperial noble.
Moreover, the Imperial nobles were only nominally powerful because they lacked fiefdoms. The problem was that the Northland nobles never lacked land. They only needed to focus on development for a few generations, and they might have a chance to become Traditional nobles. Therefore, anyone who stood in their way was an enemy.
At the banquet, while Marquis Bergasos was observing, Count Dekla was not idle either. Even the Ninth Princess, who had been smiling without speaking and maintaining her princessly demeanor, was secretly observing everything.
The Northland was a treasure trove for anyone with ambition. The Imperial nobles wanted the land here to become enduring Traditional nobles, and the Traditional nobles were incredibly greedy for land. They had previously prevented the Empire from developing the Northland because they didn’t want to see the royal family grow stronger as a result. But once the floodgates were opened, they would be the most ferocious group.
Even the seemingly unambitious Ninth Princess had her own schemes, because no one wanted to be a dispensable tool for marriage alliances.
This banquet made Ferrier feel exhausted. For the first time, she questioned whether her initial choice was correct.
She enjoyed the grand spectacle and luxurious life of the nobility, but that didn’t mean she liked the scheming and infighting among them, let alone the political struggles of the Empire’s upper echelon.
This was just a banquet, so when Ferrier returned, she didn’t even bother removing her makeup and immediately contacted Owen.
In the two-way mirror, the two looked at each other, but neither spoke. The frequent intelligence exchanges beforehand had made both of them anticipate the current situation, but there was still a gap between imagination and reality.
“The situation on your side is too complex,” Owen said, rubbing his temples with a tired expression.
Owen wasn’t exaggerating. He had already provided Ferrier with a lot of talent, but to this day, her control over her territory was less than thirty percent, and even Ferrier herself couldn’t say for sure how much of that was real.
It could be said that Ferrier’s territory was basically ruined, unless Owen gave the last Subordinate City slot to Ferrier Town and relied on the system’s power to assimilate it.
The key was that there were too many informants in Ferrier Town. Any slight movement would spread far and wide.
Although Owen was confident in the system’s assimilation ability, he couldn’t guarantee that no one would notice anything unusual.
Like Little Finger of the Black Hand. This person had initially stayed in Autumn Field Town, but later, whether due to a busy schedule or sensing something, he hadn’t come for a long time. Meanwhile, the Black Hand’s intelligence station in the Northland had unknowingly taken the shape of Root.
Owen didn’t know if Little Finger had noticed this. Therefore, although the system’s assimilation ability was useful, it absolutely had to be used with caution.
Therefore, although Ferrier and her territory were valuable, they weren’t valuable enough to make Owen take the risk.
After all, the ability to assimilate, which could silently alter things at a fundamental level, was too daunting. If it weren’t for the fact that he controlled this ability, Owen would feel that anyone possessing it was absolutely evil and deserved to be humanely eliminated – strapped to a nuclear bomb and launched into the sun, scattered across the universe by the solar wind.
It was conceivable what kind of blow Owen would face if this matter were exposed. Therefore, even though he had a Subordinate City slot in his hand, he didn’t dare to use it on Ferrier Town. All his Subordinate Cities were in the remote Northland, precisely to avoid exposure.
