Chapter 271: The Fifth Ring of the Imperial Capital
In fact, Owen’s guess was correct. The person he met was indeed one of the Emperor’s body doubles, and there were actually many similar body doubles. They randomly appeared in the Imperial Palace and various parts of the Imperial Capital, handling some unimportant but trivial matters in the Emperor’s appearance and name, such as meeting with people or attending certain banquets and ceremonies.
But don’t underestimate these body doubles of the Emperor, because no one knows where the real Emperor is or whether he will appear as a body double.
You might think he is the Emperor’s body double, but who can guarantee that he is not the Emperor himself?
Even Marquis Bergasos, as the Emperor’s confidant, sometimes couldn’t be sure whether the person he was meeting was the real Emperor.
However, he was very smart and never tried to test whether the person in front of him was the real Emperor. He remained respectful at all times and carried out orders without hesitation. This was also the reason why he was still the Emperor’s confidant, unlike his former companions who disappeared without a trace.
On the way back for Owen and his party, the body double had already reported the details of the meeting to the Emperor who was handling government affairs. The report didn’t contain any personal opinions, just like a ruthless repeating machine.
The Emperor didn’t know whether he listened or not, but he dismissed the body double with a note.
In fact, for the Emperor, the Northland was important, but the nobles of the Northland were not. Therefore, it didn’t matter who came. Even if there was an Owen of unknown origin mixed in, it still wouldn’t arouse the Emperor’s slightest interest.
Controlling such a large empire consumed too much of the Emperor’s energy, and decades of ruling had made him see too much. It could be said that even if Owen directly rebelled, it would still be ranked in the hundreds in the order of affairs the Emperor needed to deal with.
It was not that he didn’t pay attention to it, but that it was unnecessary. The entire empire had a population of hundreds of millions. Did the Emperor need to care about a small lord with a population of only tens of thousands?
Perhaps this was the first and last time he heard this name, so the Emperor didn’t even need to remember it and just dealt with it casually.
Owen had overestimated himself before. In front of the huge empire, he was just a small bug. No matter how much he jumped, he would only attract the attention of his opponents who were also bugs. The real big shots would not waste their energy paying attention to such trivial matters, so his various worries did not happen, and everything went very smoothly.
After resting in the manor for two days, Marquis Bergasos, who had received the Emperor’s permission, was ready to take them to the House of Lords for registration. Only after completing the registration at the House of Lords could they truly become nobles and be eligible to be conferred as lords of the Northland by the Emperor.
A noble is a noble, and a lord is a lord. A noble is not necessarily a lord, but a lord must be a noble.
At this time, Marquis Bergasos was actually very envious of Owen and the others deep down in his heart, because he had worked hard for half his life to get a viscounty, while these people started as viscounts and had no upper limit. As long as they worked hard to develop for a few years, becoming earls was only a matter of time.
But if Marquis Bergasos was asked to switch places with them, he wouldn’t be willing. After all, this was the Imperial Capital. Even though viscounts were as common as dogs and earls were everywhere, and only marquises could have some influence, it couldn’t change the fact that this was the core of the entire empire.
This time they were not riding in the royal carriage, so Owen and the others were finally able to have a good look at the Imperial Capital.
The magnificence of the Imperial Capital naturally went without saying. With millions of people gathered here, it was impossible for it not to be magnificent. Moreover, because there were not many high-rise buildings, there was no situation where one community could accommodate tens of thousands of people, so the area it covered was even larger, terrifyingly large. The city walls alone had five layers, which were traces left by continuous expansion over thousands of years.
However, the city walls were not more magnificent the later they were built. On the contrary, the city walls were shorter and shorter, like terraces.
For example, the outermost city wall was only six meters high and four meters wide, and it was not built of solid ashlar, but of fired bricks, and the interior was filled with steamed soil, so its defensive power was not as strong as imagined.
But the further in the city walls were, the more terrifying they were, especially the Third Ring city wall, which was over ten meters high. There were also hidden bunkers, armories, canteens, and hospitals inside. It was not an exaggeration to say that it was a war fortress.
But the most powerful ones were the First Ring city wall that guarded the Imperial Palace and the Second Ring city wall that guarded the inner city, because these two city walls were integrated with magic barriers, not just simple physical defenses.
After learning about this, Owen’s expression became a bit strange. A song about the five rings was ready to come out, but he held back in the end.
According to the division, the First Ring was the Imperial Palace as the core, followed by the Second Ring inner city, the Third Ring noble district, the Fourth Ring commercial district, and the Fifth Ring commoner district. Further out were the Sixth and Seventh Rings without city walls, which were supply circles composed of towns, mainly responsible for production and transportation to maintain the operation and vitality of the Imperial Capital.
Just like Owen’s North City, it was impossible for all the residents to be in the city. A considerable number of settlements had to be retained outside the city to facilitate farming and production.
After all, with the size of North City, it was impossible to maintain it for a long time just by transporting materials from various places. The local area also had to have a sufficient amount of planting and production capacity.
Passing through the first city gate and entering the Fifth Ring city wall, Owen found that this place was not even as good as his North City, because both the buildings and the roads gave people a feeling of disrepair. The potholes on the road surface were often filled with accumulated water, which was splashed by the horse-drawn carriage wheels, making pedestrians avoid it. From this point alone, it could be seen that the Imperial Capital was not as good as imagined.
If the dilapidated buildings and roads only made Owen frown, then the commoners here were unpleasant.
It was not that they were dressed sloppily or ugly, but the suppressed and numb expressions on their faces made people feel suffocated.
Owen didn’t need to ask to know what kind of exploitation and pressure the commoners of the Imperial Capital were under, and the slums that occasionally showed a corner also confirmed his thoughts.
If you don’t study, work, and pay taxes hard, you can only end up in the hellish slums. This is the cruel reality that every person in the Imperial Capital has to face from the day they are born.
The upper space was only this big. Even for nobles, only one person could inherit the title, and the rest had to find another way out, such as doing business or pledging allegiance to other nobles.
And the business competition in the Imperial Capital was equally fierce. It was only natural for the big fish to eat the small fish. Countless people went bankrupt and fell to the slums.
Not to mention the commoners who were under the greatest pressure. An accident or an illness could knock the whole family into hell and become consumables or the living dead in the slums.
Owen keenly realized that the dark side of the Imperial Capital might be beyond his imagination, but he was powerless to change anything.
Because class meant exploitation, exploitation meant poverty, poverty bred suffering, and suffering brought disaster. It was like a noose around the neck. No one could escape, and no one could change it, not even the Emperor.
