The summer of 985 is destined to be an extraordinary summer.

First, the second prince François married Claudia von Schweig, daughter of the Marquis of Schweig, an important nobleman of the Duchy of Saxony.

In the previous engagement ceremony between the two, the second prince François was assassinated, so the official wedding in the imperial capital was very simple, and there was no grand ceremony to celebrate.

However, politically sensitive people can read a special flavor in this marriage, and the emperor is about to establish the crown prince.

Regardless of the fact that François already controls half of the Northern Regions, the administrative and military systems in the western part of the Northern Regions are all under the orders of the Second Prince, and the factories and mines that have provided the main source of income for the royal family in recent years have also been controlled by the Second Prince, not to mention that the Supervision Agency's Investigation Bureau is also the territory of the Second Prince.

It is only said that this marriage is a clear proof of the establishment of the prince, and the queens of the empire are generally from Saxony, which has become an unwritten tacit understanding. The Princess's grandmother was the aunt of the current Duke of Saxony, and her father, Marquis Schweiger, was both a cousin of the Duke of Saxony and an important ally of the Duke.

After this marriage with the Saxon nobles, the limelight of the second prince was even more unparalleled for a while, and everyone was waiting for the emperor's edict.

However, before the edict of the prince was issued, another edict preemptively ignited the entire empire.

Robert Baptiste was made Duke of Baptiste, becoming the fourth person in the history of the empire to be made a duke.

This is the recognition of the independent status of the South Carolina League by the royal family of Western Sahara, and although the five cities of South Castile only occupy one-third of the territory of the Southern Regions, they are the most prosperous and wealthy areas in the Southern Regions. Importantly, the South Carolina Alliance controlled all of the Hainan line of the former Duchy of Castile.

The fact that the Union of South Carolina became a principality recognized by the empire was only the beginning of a dramatic change in the empire as a whole.

Acknowledging that the Union of South Carolina has changed from an autonomous region to a principality is equivalent to the royal family admitting that it cannot interfere in the management of the Union of South Carolina, and that the self-government that exists in name only is better than letting them stand on their own.

And he also used this to trick Robert, not to mention how he dealt with his political allies, just the subsidiary conditions of the establishment of the duchy gave Robert a great headache.

That is, at the same time as the proclamation of the Duchy of Baptiste, the emperor also transferred the jurisdiction of the southern colonies of the New World to the Duchy of Baptiste.

......

The southern colonies of the New World at this time did become a big problem.

The culprit is also the formation of the South Carolina Union.

As early as a year ago, when Robert declared that the five cities of South Carolina would not be involved in the dispute between Castile and Stuart, the colonies of Castile, thousands of miles away, had changed dramatically in the New World.

Originally, the Duchy of Castile occupied the southern part of the New World south of the Huerdo Mountains, but the management method has always been loose and extensive, and only the governor's palace was set up in the city of Ruiou, and the local management was handed over to nearly a thousand lords, large and small.

These lords actually had more power than the nobles of the empire, and in addition to paying taxes to the Duchy of Castile, they were basically the emperors of the land.

After the confrontation between North and South Castia, the Union of South Carolina controlled the entire coastline of Castia, and after independence, it severed the connection between the colony and the former Duchy of Cartia, and inherited all the navy of the Duchy of Castia.

Since most of the lords were descendants of Castilian nobles, and they were mainly from the five southern cities, they were all southern Castilian nobles who believed in the persuasion of Robert's great-grandfather Lee Baptiste and took their own guards to the New World to stake their homes and build their homes.

The descendants of the five cities of South Carolina proposed to bring the colony under the rule of the South Carolina Confederation in response to the situation, but were opposed by the governor and other lords from the north.

Representatives of lords from across the southern part of the New World gathered in the city of Ryo, meeting at the Doge's Palace to decide what to do.

During the meeting, the two sides were at a stalemate, and I don't know which person suddenly put forward a suggestion: since everyone can't agree on whether to belong to the South Carolina Alliance or continue to be loyal to the former Principality of Kadisia, then it is better to simply make the southern part of the New World autonomous.

Unexpectedly, this whimsical idea was agreed to by the vast majority of the lords, and the opponents were immediately besieged, and the grumpy lords beat the venue to pieces, and soon reached a consensus: the southern part of the New World declared autonomy and was no longer a colony of the Duchy of Castia.

The lords were very efficient, and immediately began to formulate a program of autonomy.

In fact, there are precedents for colonial autonomy to follow, and the three regions in the northern part of the New World are typical of the autonomous system, and when the South Castile League led by Robert first declared independence, it also imitated a system similar to that of the York City Region. The Dominions were recognized as part of the territory of the empire, the royal family was revered as the supreme ruler, and taxes were paid to the royal family, and the officials were mostly delegated by the royal family, and only administrative matters were decided by a "parliament" made up of natives.

It's just that the South Carolina Union and the southern part of the New World, which has just declared autonomy, although they claim to be a Dominion loyal to the Crown, their actual intention is to pay a symbolic tax to the Crown and maintain their righteous status, but in fact, the military and political officials of the Dominion are all appointed by the Dominion's parliament, and the vast majority of the tax revenue is also used for the construction of the Dominion itself.

The southern part of the New World is located on a plateau, the sun is strong, and it is easy to get sunburned during long-term outdoor activities, so the nobles of the empire like to call the lords of the southern part of the New World "Red Neck".

It was these "red necks" who first established the "parliament" with great efficiency, elected more than 100 lords with relatively large territories or more active territories as councilors, and then imitated Robert's actions in the South Carolina Union, and the council appointed officials and officers, and used local taxes to build their own army.

The name of the Dominion was also determined, the "Autonomous Region of Pappas", taken from the Pappas steppe, which occupied most of the southern part of the New World.

The declaration of autonomy in the southern part of the New World was actually at the end of 984, but there were so many events happening at that time that everyone had no time to pay attention to the farce of a group of red-necked lords.

At least at that time, most people did not have the heart to deal with the Papas Autonomous Region.

Although there are no major confrontations in the border area between Stuart and Castia, there are constant skirmishes.

On the other hand, the Duchy of Stuart and the royal family are at loggerheads in the Gyeonggi region, and it looks like war is about to start at any moment.

At this time, the Duchy of Stuart didn't even have time to care about the loss of its own colonies in the New World, let alone care about what other people's colonies were tossing.

The Union of South Carolina, which declared autonomy, and the Duchy of Castile to the north, fought on the border, with both sides claiming victory. But anyone with a discerning eye can see that after the war, the Duchy of Castile was unable to continue to move south, unable to contain the South Carolina Alliance by force, and unable to occupy any port, which was the defeat of the Duchy of Casdia, and since then the Duchy of Castile in the north has become a landlocked principality. 1234

In the Northern Regions, the revenge army shouting the slogan of overthrowing the aristocracy and wealth is in chaos, and the so-called revolutionary ideas are quietly spreading among the people of the Northern Regions.

The Tavaré region in the middle of the New World was occupied by the Kingdom of Light, which frightened the people of the Medis region in the north.

The Chippewa region was greatly damaged by the beast tide, and the only relatively stable York City region defied the royal family's directives.

Therefore, while everyone was taking care of themselves, the act of autonomy in the southern part of the New World was tacitly tolerated, and like the South Carolina Union, it was nominally an imperial autonomy, but in fact became an independent kingdom.

Pappas made his own collar for half a year, and he didn't give a single silver coin to the royal family, so he was finally targeted by the royal family. It only took a letter of edict to provoke a conflict between Pappas and Robert.

I can't spare my hands to clean you up, Robert has a navy!

......

Robert, who became a duke, did not swallow the "poisonous bait" sent by the emperor and chose to indulge the "independent" behavior of the "Pappas Autonomous Region".

Neither take the jurisdiction granted by the royal family to collect taxes, nor do you ignore the management of the autonomous region, everything is business as usual, and the colonies are as you please.

Robert focused his energies on the governance within the newly formed Duchy of Baptiste.

The first is the need for stable internal relationships.

When they first broke away from the autonomy of Castile, the other southern nobles made a lot of efforts, and they definitely couldn't let themselves reap all the benefits.

Robert had to visit his allies in person, explaining to them that "the marquis is not my wish", and at the same time mobilizing men from the Mithril Society to defend his "fiefdom" of the former Castile City, in case the Rand side is angry and attacks the Five Cities in the South again.

The Western Sahara Empire is in chaos here, and the forces of all parties contain each other and fear each other, but no one has the time to take care of the Kingdom of Light.

In order to build a colony and reduce the cost of grain shipping, Hei Ye still arranged a large number of immigrants to the New World. Since Hei Ye could not separate himself as a leader for the fleet that crossed the Sea of Mist, the subsequent ships traveling between the mainland of the Kingdom of Light and the colonies of the New World could only depart from Tavarai, with a voyage ranging from one and a half months to three months.

Originally, after Tavaré was occupied by the Kingdom of Light, as a window to the outside world, it did not exclude merchants and adventurers from the Empire.

Unlike other regions, except for the natives, the occupation of the Kingdom of Light expelled all the Imperials.

However, as new immigrants from the Kingdom of Light continued to arrive in Tavaré, and then use Tavaré as a transit point to settle in the interior in batches, Tavaré's role as a transportation hub became more and more important, and the call for the expulsion of the remnants of the empire, merchants, and neutral adventurers became louder and louder.

Even if they cannot be evicted, they need to be strictly managed, rather than allowed to roam freely in Tavare.

The ordinary residents of the Kingdom of Light are very repulsive to people of different faiths, even compatriots like the Ugin tribe, who have the same beliefs, but they have not awakened the Light Department, and they will be discriminated against.

The standard chain of discrimination is that the transcendents of the awakened light system are higher than the ordinary people who have not awakened, and the ordinary people who have not awakened are higher than the transcendents of the other lineages, and no matter who they are, they discriminate against non-light god believers. convenient

The natives of the New World are very interesting, and when the Kingdom of Light came as liberators, they gladly accepted the belief of the God of Light and quickly integrated into the Kingdom of Light.

Tavaré, the only open place, has been occupied by the Kingdom of Light for more than a year, and the contradictions between believers and non-believers of the God of Light have gradually deepened.

If it is according to Hei Ye's own will, it will definitely be a quick expulsion, without mercy, in the communication with the empire, Hei Ye has always been known for being tough.

But because Marianne West, the most important representative of the Imperial merchants, is one of the few Imperial people that the God of Light particularly values, although others can't recognize Fat Tangerine, but Hei Ye knows that as long as Marian, Fat Tangerine doesn't give Lily a hug, but has to lie in Marian's arms.

There are two categories of businessmen who settled in Tavaré, Zhu Yaofeng. On the one hand, there were New World merchants who traveled between Yorktown, Ryo, and Zipewa, all of whom were inextricably linked to Marianne's Vestre firm. On the other hand, there was a group of merchants from Port Mousse, whose business was mainly to communicate between the newly formed Duchy of Baptiste and the Kingdom of Light, some of whom had settled in Tavare for a long time, presumably because they were worried about the stability of the Duchy of Baptiste and opening a new retreat in the New World. These people spontaneously surrounded Fabian's father.

Viscount Bernand is actually not sensitive to politics, he is just a noble son with good courage, and he is also educated to keep the inheritance of his ancestors and become the core of the so-called Mousse Party, all because of his third son. Fabian has been by the side of the black master every day for more than a year, learning the skills of the natural department on the one hand, and acting as the secretary of the black master on the other.

At first, it was just that Fat Orange arranged Fabian to study with Hei Ye, and Hei Ye soon found that although Fabian's cultivation talent was average, he was well-organized, neat, and spoke well.

It was Marianne and Fabian who made it impossible for the Black Lord to make up his mind to expel Tavaré's Western Sahara Empire.

And Fat Orange, the real first person in the Kingdom of Light, returned to the rainforest to continue training Jacques and Lily.

Hei Ye's recent work has focused on building railways and telegraphs, which are important projects in cooperation with the Duchy of Baptiste, and he doesn't care about the small contradictions between the Empire and the Divine Kingdom.

It wasn't until two weeks ago that the first temple of light was completed in Tavaré, and the devotees of the god of light were finally able to enter the temple to worship the gods according to tradition, but at the same time it once again exacerbated the conflict between believers and non-believers.

The reason for this was that the priests, in their sermons, pointed out that there were many "lost" non-believers around them and called on them to bring them into the temple.

In fact, this is the regular operation of the priests of the God of Light, in order to obtain enough power of faith for the high priest to cultivate, the priesthood system of the Kingdom of Light has long transformed everyone in the Kingdom of Light into believers of the God of Light.

Although Fat Orange knew about it, he did not reject it, if it was Fat Orange five thousand years ago, he would have opposed the priest's practice, and the faith should have been voluntary, and it was also done when Fat Orange was sober. However, the memory is partially restored, and Fat Orange, who has experienced the death of his friend in battle and was betrayed by the high priest, is desperate to regain his strength, so the need for the power of faith is even more urgent. It also acquiesced in the priests' request that all the natives convert to the god of light.

It is not known whether the original intention of the priests was to call for the aborigines who had not yet converted to the god of light to be brought into the temple, or if they were targeting the people of the Western Sahara Empire who were residing in Tavaré.

Since then, however, the contradictions between the Empire and the Divine Kingdom residing in Tavaré have begun to become open and action-oriented.