Chapter 25 This country is such a waste

“…… If the Great Tomb of Nasalik and the Lich King Ainz want to dominate that fantasy world, even if they can rely entirely on the undead and monsters to fight, they must also have land and subjects in order to obtain taxes and supplies and achieve sustainable development. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoFirst of all, land is not a problem, and there is a lot of undeveloped fertile wasteland near the big tomb. But the population is more difficult to manage, and you have to start from a few nearby countries. ”

“…… And among the three main countries in the vicinity. The southern state of Slenism seems to have been established by the previous groups of time-travelers, or at least it has a deep relationship with the time-travelers, so the domestic ruling order is very strict and very modern, and it is the only country in the world that has a national household registration system. At the same time, it has pursued human supremacy for hundreds of years, and the whole country is extremely hostile to foreign races, and it is really inconvenient to start with this country in the early days.

The Bajas Empire in the east, although slightly inferior to the Slenianism in terms of stability, is now also thriving because successive generations of emperors have worked hard to suppress local nobles and pursue a centralized policy. ”

Standing in front of the small blackboard, Wang Qiu talked so eloquently, "...... And the rest of the in. The Kingdom of Yestijah is the weakest link among the Three Kingdoms, and it is also the main stage of the original plot. As the saying goes, flies don't bite eggs. And there are so many gaps in this kingdom that can be exploited! In order to completely collapse the main plot line, the main stage of the original work was completely smashed. I think it's necessary to unleash a devastating upheaval in this country next......"

-- Li. The kingdom of Jestijah, a human kingdom with a population of 9 million and a state founded for nearly 200 years.

But it is also a decaying regime that smells of decay and chaos from the inside out, and looks as if it is about to be kicked to death.

According to the "Li. The report of the Social Survey and Analysis of the Kingdom of Yestijah shows that compared to the already highly centralized Slenism and the Bahasian Empire, the Li. The kingdom of Yestijah was still practicing a backward feudal lord system, in which about 30% of the territory was directly under the direct jurisdiction of the royal family, 40% of the territory of the six great noble princes, and the rest of the land was owned by many small nobles, autonomous cities and semi-barbarian tribes who were nominally loyal to the kingdom.

The country had no standing army, and the armed forces relied mainly on the personal escort of noble lords and the armed peasants who were temporarily conscripted.

Although the royal family theoretically owns 30% of the country's land, these lands are not contiguous but fragmented. As the years passed, the royal family's control over these territories continued to decline, and in many places even taxes were not collected.

Originally, although the strength of the royal family has been declining slowly for a long time, with the righteous status of the monarch and the contradictions and conflicts between local nobles and princes, successive kings have continued to use their strength to transfer and move, and can barely control the domestic political situation and maintain the ruling order.

But over time, in. Most of the hereditary feudal noble lords of the kingdom of Yestijah gradually formed a powerful political alliance called the aristocratic faction, which joined forces with each other to fight against the royalists in the country and constantly weaken the power of the royal family. This, coupled with the ineffective response of the royal family, led to a sharp decline in the authority of the monarch or the central government over the years, and the country gradually fell into a state of anarchy and chaos.

Village. The current king of the kingdom of Yestijah is Rambusha III, who reigned for thirty-nine years and is now sixty years old. Although this king is not mediocre and brutal, he is not a very courageous and virtuous monarch, basically an ordinary old man who is mediocre and can get by.

Therefore, in the face of the civil and military battles of the great nobles and princes in the country, this king has almost been losing ground for decades. In the hands of Rambusha III, in. The kingdom of Yestijah had further declined to a jaw-dropping level.

Specifically, the central institutions of the country, the royal guards, and the various king's direct territories were gradually infiltrated by the great aristocracy, and the actual power of the royal family became weaker and weaker. During his reign, the royal family even gradually lost control of the capital city of Lorenti, and a considerable part of the capital's garrison in fact no longer obeyed the king, but became a sword hanging over the royal family's head. For this reason, Rambsha III had to promote Gergeph, a commoner, to the rank of captain of the war, and build a new army completely loyal to the royal family in order to protect himself. However, due to financial constraints - not only the treasury, but even the king's private treasury was usurped. Therefore, the troops under the command of Captain Gurdjief are only a few hundred people, and the weapons and equipment are also patchwork, and they are as destitute as bandits, and they can't see the slightest bit of grandeur as a royal forest army.

In the last few years, even the court has basically gotten out of control. King Rambusa III is no longer "decrees do not leave the capital", nor "decrees do not leave the palace", but the decrees are not very easy to enforce in the palace, and the entire court is full of cronies installed by the great nobles, but there are few people who are truly loyal to the royal family. So much so that even the servants who managed the treasury could openly resist the king's order, but the king could not punish or remove them.

The reason why this poor and mediocre king has not been killed so far, or put under house arrest, and completely reduced to a puppet, is partly because the aristocratic faction is not united within the aristocratic faction, and the six most powerful nobles in the country are similar to each other, and they are very jealous of each other, and there is no strong leader who can subdue everyone and replace the royal family. If anyone openly kills the king or rebels, he will become the target of public criticism. Therefore, relying on the contradictions and antagonisms of these powerful vassals, the king finally had some room for survival, and even managed to organize a little of his own lineage in the capital.

On the other hand, li. The royal family of the Kingdom of Yestij, no matter how declining it is, after all, it is a skinny camel bigger than a horse, and there are still a few more reliable territories in the country, such as the fortress city of Ye. Lantil is one of them. This is also the foundation of the strength of the royal family to maintain its status.

In addition, there is another factor, that is, the military threat of the Bahas Empire, which also makes those ambitious nobles quite jealous - if they block all the capital, carry infamy, take risks, raise troops to overthrow the royal family, and subvert the kingdom, but the result is to let the empire take advantage of the weakness, then wouldn't it be in vain? And under the rule of the empire, the situation and status of his family at that time will probably be far worse than now!

However, although the aristocratic faction that prevailed was not ready to overthrow the royal family immediately and blatantly because of these concerns, they were still very unanimous on the issue of continuing to weaken the royal power. In recent years, the aristocratic faction has been trying to force the old king to abdicate: no matter how mediocre King Rambusha III is, after all, he has been in power for decades, and he has some residual prestige and cronies, and his political experience has been relatively rich, so it is not so easy to grasp. If it is replaced by a hairy boy who has no authority and no virtue, then the aristocratic faction will plan to empty the royal power and engage in a constitutional monarchy like the modern British Parliament on the earth; It would have been much easier to depose the royal family and establish an aristocratic republic like that of ancient Rome.

But King Rambusa III also understood this, and despite his old age and infirmity, he still held on to the throne, and at the same time tried to promote new people and carry out various reforms to try to turn some situations around, but he suffered from the fact that there were not many people available at hand, and the results were minimal. And the two sons of the old king are not successful: the eldest prince has been fooled by the nobles, and in order to snatch the throne, he does not hesitate to disagree with his father and act as a puppet of those great nobles. Although the second prince is a little sober, he is far from excellent, and at this time when the authority of the royal family is extremely degraded, it is also very difficult for King Rambusha III to depose Chang Liyu - in fact, even he himself may be deposed at any time.

Finally, Rambusa III had several daughters, one of whom was not only beautiful but also politically gifted, known as the Golden Princess, and engaged in many social reform movements, such as the abolition of slavery. But under the resistance of the aristocracy, it was basically a formality and failed to really have any effect.

It's inside. At a time when the ruling class of the Kingdom of Yestijah was so intrigued and scattered, the livelihood of the people at the bottom of the country was also extremely devastated to the extreme.

-- According to the rumors that the "cat scouts" heard in the streets and alleys of the fortress city, combined with the original content of "The Overlord of the Undead", the final judgment is that the "rich" villages, like the village of Karn that I have seen before, where the villagers can eat three meals of black bread three times a day, have brick houses to live in, and only need to take out 30 to 40 percent of the wheat harvest to pay taxes, are rare in the whole kingdom.

Because Kahn Village is located in the direct territory of the royal family, there are relatively few harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, and it is also in a desolate border area, and the traditional aristocracy is not strong, so there is such a lenient treatment. And at the cost of being at risk of war and monsters at any time - the village of Karn, located on the edge of the forest, was too remote and far from the main transportation routes to avoid the fighting. Many other nearby villages were burned to the ground during the years of conquest between the kingdom and the empire. Other remote mountain villages, which also escaped the disaster of the war, were slaughtered by the monsters that ran rampant in the forest......

The residents of Karn Village were completely lucky enough to have neither been attacked by soldiers nor monsters, and were able to enjoy a relatively leisurely and comfortable life for a long time...... Unfortunately, with the break-in and massacre of the Slian Knights, the good fortune of Karn Village also came to an end.

On the other hand, most of the interior of the kingdom has been able to avoid wars and monsters, but it is saddled with appalling taxes and miscellaneous taxes. Due to the exploitation of officials and nobles, the extremely declining royal family was unable to control the exploitation within a reasonable range, resulting in the annual tax that the peasants in the interior of the kingdom needed to pay were at least 60% of the grain harvest in the fields, and in many places the amount of tax even reached 80%! And that's not even counting the rest of the miscellaneous taxes and the tax collectors' private gains. Many low-level people have to sell their sons and daughters to barely make ends meet.

Under such circumstances, it is already good for farmers to be able to maintain one meal a day without starving to death. In fact, many people starve to death in the countryside every year.

And this expropriated wealth is almost entirely used for all kinds of extravagant pleasures. The extremely corrupt aristocratic ruling class does not want to organize production, build water conservancy, or even take care of the most basic public security, and let bandits and monsters run rampant. In addition to paying such heavy taxes and miscellaneous taxes, ordinary people have to find ways to scrape together money to hire adventurers to crusade against monsters in order to obtain the minimum security.

Next, the Bahas Empire's successive invasions were even more reliable. The livelihood of the Jestijah kingdom was further worse: the Bahasian Empire used a standing army that was completely out of production, which was not only more combative, but also not limited by the agricultural production cycle. The kingdom did not have a standing army, and if it wanted to be evenly matched, it would have to mobilize hundreds of thousands of peasant soldiers to barely contend with each other.

However, the empire deliberately chooses to send troops around the autumn harvest every year. In this regard, in. If the kingdom of Yestija mobilizes a large army to meet the attack, then no matter whether it wins or loses, it will take too much labor from the fields, which will seriously affect the autumn harvest, and then lead to famine in the following year. But if you sit idly by, then the professional army of the empire will invade the hinterland of the kingdom on a large scale, burning, killing and plundering, and the same will be given. The kingdom of Jestijah has done great damage......

-- Basically, it was Tang Gaozong's strategy of harassing and destroying Goguryeo, and no matter how the opponent coped, the result was continuous blood loss and decay.

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“…… In short, in. The kingdom of Yestija is now a ruined house with holes, from the foundation, the pillars to the beams, it is almost decayed, and if someone kicks the door hard, the whole house will collapse with a bang......"

Wang Qiu finally concluded, while Li Wei raised his hand and asked, "...... Brother Wang Qiu, I admit that your analysis and final conclusions of this social survey are very correct, but the question is who should give it. What about the last funeral kick in this dilapidated house in the kingdom of Jestijah?

You know, unlike the few times you've traveled before, we don't have a space-time door to that world now, except for the useless novice account, there are only twenty gamer accounts that can cheat and level up, and they are all non-human races...... Whether it's twenty kittens, or twenty Iron Golems, twenty slimes, or twenty goblins, I'm afraid they won't be able to complete such a huge and complex task! ”

“…… You're right, for the time being, our power in the other world is indeed very weak, but don't worry, we don't need to do this at all, and someone will naturally do it for you. Wang Qiu replied, "...... You've all read the original! In just a few days, there will be an evil indigenous terrorist group called 'Zhiranong' who will attempt to establish a presence in the fortified city of Ye. Rantir has set off a scourge of the dead, and has been orchestrating it for many years. It was only when the protagonist Ainz showed his might that he was suppressed. But what if these guys succeed? He shifted his words.

Everyone in the command center immediately realized, "...... So, what do we do about it? ”

“…… Quite simply, just find a reasonable excuse to get Ainz and his servants out of the city as quickly as possible...... With the strength of the 'Zhiranong' terrorist organization in the plot, there should be no opponents in this city to hinder them. Wang Qiu said calmly, "...... Of course, in order to get more reward points, you can also save a few small characters who were originally scheduled to die......"

So, on the seventh day of his journey through another world, the Lich King Ainz left the fortress city with a few boxes of acquired books and all kinds of basic knowledge about this world. Lantil, and then opened the [random door] outside the city to return to the Great Tomb of Nasalik.

Through the investigation in the past few days, he has initially understood his own strength and the weakness of this world, but he has also discovered his shortcomings.

-- That is, illiterate, to be precise, the words of the world. In the past few days, Anz has been reading the literature of the other world, and it has been completely carried out by relying on the cat scholar who is squatting on his shoulder, and continues to use the scholar's professional skill [proficient in languages] to provide personal translation.

Therefore, he plans to immerse himself in studying as soon as he returns to the Great Tomb of Nasalik, and at the same time, he also wants the Guild Guardian NPCs of the Great Tomb of Nasalik, as well as the main members of the Battle Maids and other major members to participate in the study, and master the writing of this world as soon as possible - just like the few kitten scholar players who analyzed the magic items and history and culture of the Atlas with him said: "...... Knowledge is power, and this is an unquestionable truth in any world. Mr. Ainz, no matter what your plans for the future are, nothing can be accomplished with a group of illiterate people......"

Inz was convinced by this and decided to take the next step after learning the words of this world.

At the same time, another group of uninvited guests stepped into the fortress city. The Adventurer's Guild of Lantil......