For Prince Harauu, these few days have not been comfortable.

When I first arrived in Viruga, everything was fresh. Had it not been for his father's instructions when he left Parabun, he could have considered it a trip. Feel the southern atmosphere here, taste the beauty here, how pleasant it will be.

However, he also understands that Wiruga is not only rich, but also related to whether the influence and strength of the royal family can be restored. When von Byron, a little baron, took Viruga, in addition to praising him, the country questioned the king more. A baron with mercenary No. 2000 completed what the king had spent a lot of manpower and material resources tossing for more than ten years, which made the king seriously questioned.

Of course, people who understand know that Byron is also stained with the king's light, and if it weren't for King Haraus who consumed Rhodok's national strength to the way it is now, how could he have a chance to go deep into Rhodok and capture Viruga. Unfortunately, for those nobles who oppose the king, this can be completely ignored, as long as they scold the king.

In this case, King Haraus attached great importance to the letter sent by Byron. He knew very well that von Byron wanted to monopolize the big city, and he knew that this kid didn't have the appetite to swallow such a large area of land now. So he sent his close relatives south with an elite force, hoping to stabilize von Byron, stabilize the form of the south, and control this land that he had been eyeing for more than ten years.

His father sent him one of his most powerful knights, Konish, as his guard, and he chose three other noble knightly officers with the title of baron, leading 21 knights, 300 heavy cavalry, 500 qualified infantry, and 500 qualified crossbowmen, as well as a sufficient number of sergeants and snipers, to accompany him south.

Such a line-up was comparable to the entire army of a town count, and Prince Harauu thought that the little baron, who had taken Viruga by mercenaries and trickery, would be frightened, and obediently relinquished the city to administer the land given to him by the king in the countryside, and to enjoy the great wealth looted from the city. The prince himself became the master of the land, and he also thought about how to treat Byron before he set out, and if Byron was obedient, as the heir to the kingdom, he would be happy to make him his help, to assist himself in this time of decline of royal power, and if Byron was still alive after he ascended the throne, he did not mind adding another family of counts to the kingdom.

Therefore, compared with Byron, he was more concerned about how to take care of the military horses and war horses brought by his troops in the south, whether they could get enough forage and care.

However, this idea changed several times during his journey south, because the further south he went, the more and more detailed the rumors about Byron became.

And what surprised him and the knights the most was that the first reaction of the southern peasants when they saw their tall horses and hoplites was to ask if they were Byron's troops.

Most of these peasants were illiterate, and it is fair to say that they did not know the royal emblem of Swadia. But the fact that they naturally equated a never-before-seen and very powerful force with von Byron made the knights deeply uneasy.

As they feared, von Byron did not hide his strength when he greeted the prince, and the knights of Paraven saw the equally well-armed and well-trained mercenary cavalry, as well as hundreds of mercenaries armed with halberds and lumberjacks.

The rumors they heard were true, von Byron's mercenaries were strong and numerous, and at that moment, Cornish immediately and their troops were not necessarily able to suppress Byron, so when Prince Harauu still showed that haughty attitude towards Byron like a monarch according to the original plan, he immediately stopped the prince, and gave Byron kind words and comfort, and found the prince a step down by the way.

The episode of the dinner party that night also gave the prince a great headache, and one of his knights looked down on Byron, and deliberately ordered his soldiers to throw Byron's peony banner on the ground at will, which was a great disrespect to any nobleman and a provocation to the family.

Byron was furious and demanded that the two soldiers be punished, as well as the knight who was the commander. However, although the prince demanded an apology from the knight, he only reprimanded him a few words out of protection, and there was no other punishment. Byron was not satisfied with this and left the banquet hall under the pretext of being unwell.

Byron was absent, and many things that could have been resolved were postponed that night. When the prince's escort took over the defense of the city at the appointed time the next morning, they found that Byron's troops were all gone, and that both the city defense soldiers and the training troops had left the city the previous night. Even the militiamen and prisoners who kept the law and order were taken away by Byron.

Without their help, these elite Paravonians would have to learn about the city from scratch, develop patrols, and pay out of their own pockets to replenish the armory that had already been emptied.

Even worse was the financial report handed to the prince by the officials, which was so low that he couldn't believe that a large southern city with a population of tens of thousands could not earn as much as a village on the outskirts of Paravon! After careful questioning, he learned that before his arrival, von Byron had cut taxes by a factor of ten, and all kinds of taxes were cut to the extreme, in exchange for the support of the locals.

Of course, Conig gave the little prince a wake-up call, telling him that it was most likely a problem that Byron had deliberately left for him.

Raising taxes may annoy the local nobility and populace, but if it is not increased, the meagre income will not be enough to sustain the daily expenses of the prince alone, let alone the expenses of the other 1,000 people.

He understood that until he arrived in the city, Byron had always regarded Veruga as his possession, and that he was both a protector, an ally, and an aggressor to him. This bloodless war had actually begun before he arrived, but his actions made Byron choose a worse method.

After taking over Viruga, Prince Harauu summoned the city's more important nobles to figure out the deal they had made with Byron, and then compensated them to some extent by raising taxes back to the original level with the fewest enemies possible.

And the part that supplied those nobles naturally had to be recovered from the merchants who came and went and the peasants in the territory of Viruga.

Most of Byron's previous regulations on the reduction of commercial and village taxes were cancelled by the prince, because the prince found that Byron had taken all the major items of gold in his own hands and his subordinates, and that the agricultural taxes and customs duties, which were to be divided among the royal family, were all reduced, which was clearly aimed at him. Now is the time for a headache, the problems of those civilians are not in the consideration of His Royal Highness the Prince, so he cut all their preferential policies at once.

He made a big mistake, in Swadia, the peasants were the most exploited, so the green forest robbers could not kill anything. And those merchants who are also born in commoners, although they have a certain status, they also have to be subordinate to the aristocracy, and become the "money bags" in the nobles' jokes. The lords of most of Svadia made it a habit to oppress peasants and foreign merchants, and Prince Harauu was deeply influenced by them.

He did not know how important the development of industry and commerce was in the land of Rhodok. He didn't know how deep the rebellious tradition of the local peasants and citizens was in the great granary of the south in Viruga. Their strength is far stronger than those of their counterparts in the north.