Witt couldn't help but change his face: "Teacher, do you suspect that the Koras father and son have ...... That, political ambitions? ”

Philip shook his hand contemptuously, "What doubts are there to talk about now?" Isn't that obvious! What did Rudolph raise his own military expenses to expand the army in the past two years? Don't you just want to be the king of yourself! Now that the war in the north is over, and Rudolph is about to return to Fort Atonement with 30,000 troops, the next step must be to force me to surrender power, and if I refuse to bow my head, a bloody and tragic civil war will be staged in Fort Atonement......"

Witt's eyes widened in surprise: "Since you guessed that Rudolph returned with the intention of rebellion, why did you send General Krautz and the Knights to the frontier to suppress bandits at such a dangerous time, isn't this opening the door for Rudolph to seize power......"

Philip shook his head and said bitterly, "Because there are more pressing threats to be solved in the city than Rudolph right now, and staying in the city with that paranoia of Klautz will only help." ”

"You mean the 'tithing'?" Witt closed the door of his room and approached Philip in a low voice, "Teacher, the atmosphere in the city has been very tense these days, the streets and alleys are discussing the new tax law, and they are all cursing the tyranny of the empire, if the Fogel family superintendent really wants to tithes in the city...... I'm worried that we're going to make a big mess. ”

"Tithing for heretics is absurd, and it is inevitable that the people will complain." Philip said lightly.

"But...... There are already people in the city who are organizing a rally to protest, and it is said that thousands of people will attend, and tomorrow morning they will fence off the tax building and ask the tax collector to come out and negotiate with them. ”

"Only 1,000 people participated?" Philip tugged at the corners of his mouth and said disappreciatively: "Werther, you underestimated the anger of the people, and I think the number of people who will participate in the protest tomorrow will be at least tens of thousands." ”

"Teacher, are you kidding?" The young priest was full of surprise, "There has never been a precedent for tens of thousands of people to gather to make trouble in the Fort of Atonement, no matter how harsh the new tax law is, there will not be so many people who dare to break the law and besiege the tax inspector sent by the imperial capital. ”

"What has not happened in the past does not mean that it will not happen in the future, Werther, the Far Eastern Province is no longer the oppressive and dull heretical penal colony of the past, and this generation of Far Easterners is no longer willing to be as obedient as their fathers, and the Kolas Legion will spread the so-called 'National Awakening Theory' everywhere it goes, declaring that the Far Eastern Province should establish a country belonging to the Far Easterners, protect the Far Eastern peoples from the oppression of the Empire, completely get rid of heresy and enjoy freedom of belief...... These dangerous ideas are spreading like a plague in the Far East, changing people's attitudes, and tithes are a fuse, giving the radicals under Rudolph's influence a chance to vent their grievances, and if we don't hurry to try to appease the angry populace, they will open the gates and invite the Koraz Legion and the Sindra Church into the city, replacing the old system that we represent! Philip made a painful prophecy.

Pastor Witt was dumbfounded. He was too young to comprehend Philip's profound foresight.

The Rudolph Legion brought a vibrant wave of enlightenment to the Far East, and the people who were bathed in this wave were restless, fed up with reality, and felt the need to change the status quo.

When people don't understand what freedom is, there is probably no motivation to resist, if you don't give him some kind of right, he won't dare to ask for it, but the closed door opens a gap slightly, so that people can see a ray of free sunshine, and the desire to break the door and throw themselves into the sun will be irrepressibly expanded, even if the person in power chooses to compromise and promise to loosen the chains a little, it can't stop people from breaking the shackles completely.

Philip was well aware that beneath his ass sat a crater that could erupt violently at any moment. He did not want to fall victim to the revolution in the Far East, and he was incapable of dissipating the anger in the hearts of the people, so it was better to carry out the reform from the top down in advance than to be overthrown by the revolution from below and lose all the privileges he currently enjoyed.

In fact, as early as when Rudolph's army went to the plateau to fight, Philip had a premonition that there would be such a day, in order to prevent the Far East from falling into the hands of Rudolph, he proposed to the imperial high command to pardon the descendants of heretics in the Far Eastern provinces, and proposed a plan to liberate heresy: those who paid taxes for the empire for 10 years and had no criminal record during the period would automatically receive free indulgences; The Atonement automatically became Pero believers, with equal rights with Imperial citizens, to ensure that the Dominance of the Light Church in the Far Eastern intellectual circles was maintained, and to suppress the spread of the Sindra faith, thereby destroying the popular base of the Kolas clique and curbing its political ambitions, thus avoiding a civil war in the Far Eastern provinces.

However, it was not long before Philip's dream of reforming the church was crushed by the harsh reality. The rejecting of his proposal by the Imperial Cabinet and the Holy See, and the escalation of the decree on the universal tithes of the inhabitants of the Far Eastern provinces, intensified the great social contradictions that forced him to make a difficult decision as soon as possible: to be loyal to the state, or to preserve the Church.

Charles IV, who had been on the throne for nearly three decades, was getting old and sickly, and in recent years he had rarely taken charge of the government himself, and most of the affairs of the state were handled by cabinet ministers. However, the Imperial Cabinet has never been monolithic, and there are many parties with complex relationships, among which there are three most influential factions: the conservative faction led by the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, the military forces led by the imperial brother Prince Siegmont, and the young reformers represented by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Frank, and outside the cabinet, the huge influence of the Holy Light Church cannot be ignored.

The Church nominally did not send representatives to the Cabinet to participate in politics, but the three major factions of the Cabinet were more or less connected with the Church, and the Count of Müller was able to enter the Cabinet with the strong support of the contemporary "Ecumenical Patriarch" and "Saint" Gregory, and the crown prince himself also had the aura of the priesthood of the "Grand Duke" and the Peero electorate, representing the radical reform forces in the Church. Relatively speaking, the relationship between the military and the church was very close, and Prince Zygmunt was adept at juggling between Gregory and the crown prince, pulling one faction against another, and always adjusting his position according to specific interests.

As the state religion of the Holy Assanian Empire, the Holy Light Church has been founded for 16 centuries, and in this long history, the church has never stopped infiltrating the state apparatus, and the organizational structure has also expanded from the original simple religious community to an extremely complex and bloated social organization that includes hundreds of thousands of clergy, and its influence has also expanded from religious affairs to all fields of politics, economy, culture, education, diplomacy, military and even the national economy and people's livelihood. The synthesis of businessmen and politicians, the three highest priesthoods who lead such a worldwide organization, is known as the "Triumvirate of the Church".

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