Today's Luo Ming is still very cautious, setting him a small goal first and becoming a legend. It's not too late to think about the rest when that happens.

After all, a legendary powerhouse, but he can live for hundreds of years at every turn, and it is not impossible to maintain it for a thousand years if it is well maintained.

On the way to the royal capital, apart from Charlotte's confiding, nothing else actually happened.

The bandits had never seen them at all.

Luo Ming originally wanted to try his sword with a few bandits who didn't open his eyes, after all, he had just become a sword master, so he was still very excited. Now there is only one way to vent by throwing a sword at the woods.

At this time, it was originally the day when the nobles wanted to travel to the royal capital. If the bandits make trouble at this time, they are looking for death.

Although there are many intrigues within the aristocracy, they still have a certain class consciousness, and they do a good job in terms of unanimity with the outside world.

If any nobleman is killed by bandits on the road, the nearby nobles will also lose face.

At this time, even if the Grand Duke announced that he would send troops to suppress the bandits, the nobles would obediently give the Grand Duke a passage, and even those nobles who were most opposed to strengthening the royal power would not add to the chaos at this time.

It stands to reason, then, that with the exception of some of the most vicious bandits, the average bandit would stop at this time, or at least not attack the nobles.

Besides, will the nobles go without escorts? Some nobles are even swordsmanship masters or magicians, and the bandits are not tired of life, so they will naturally be cautious and not cause trouble.

Robbing those merchants who are ready to sell goods to the nobles, there will be more oil and water.

In the early morning of the third day, not long after departure, Luo Ming and his party had already arrived at the periphery of the royal capital.

In this era, there will naturally be no super-giant cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

The city enclosed within the walls of Brandon is about five square kilometers in itself, which in modern times is only the sum of the size of several districts.

There are only 100,000 of them. However, in this era, it is already an outstanding city.

Not only that, the great dukes of the past dynasties were all grand and strategic, in order to strengthen the royal power, centralize power, but also to enhance the strength of the royal family itself, and deter the princes, made a lot of efforts, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is "the aftermath of the sixth emperor".

Outside the city of Brandon, there are more than 20 million acres, about 14,000 square kilometers of vast land, all of which are directly controlled by the royal family.

The royal family set up messengers and post houses in these places, as well as many castles, watchtowers, lookouts, barracks......

The area closer to Brandon was directly governed by the royal family, and there were three satellite cities next to Brandon, which were also managed by the most trusted people of the royal family, and the more distant areas had many non-hereditary regional governors, who sent large amounts of taxes, resources, horses, and elite soldiers to the satellite cities or even Brandon for storage.

Outside of this royal domain, there are many small lords - ranging from knights to viscounts, who can be said to be extremely small in front of the royal family, unable to unite into a joint force against the royal family, and many are still loyal to the royal family for generations like the Valentine family.

Again, a large circle of land is indirectly controlled by the royal family.

I am afraid that such a plan took the painstaking efforts of more than ten generations of grand dukes, as well as many wars to quell the rebellion, before it was finally realized.

The royal family owns nearly a quarter of the country's land, but it doesn't mean much if it's scattered across the country.

Now with this plan, almost eighteen percent of the country's contiguous land is under the control of the royal family—even the most powerful princes of the principality, plus his vassals, can only mobilize less than ten percent of the country's land in the event of a rebellion.

In other words, even relying only on the strength of this royal domain near Brandon City, you can quickly form a strong army and wipe out any hill in the country one-on-one.

If the loyal nobles of the whole country were mobilized and the power of the royal territories scattered throughout the country were mobilized, even if the three dukes and several marquis rebelled together, the odds would be almost five-five.

Although there were some nobles who were as loyal as Charlotte, more of them only wanted to maintain their privileges.

Shouting out "the wind can enter, the rain can enter, but the grand duke cannot enter" -- this is not a name for revolution and progress, but a cover used to cover up the real purpose of separatism, small hills, and local separatism.

Or send troops for a weak and incompetent Grand Duke...... There are many precedents both on Earth and in this world.

If there is no guarantee of such a system, let alone strengthening the centralization of power, perhaps the authority of the Grand Duke will become as effective as Zhou Tianzi.

There has been such a country on earth that has become a joke, Poland.

After the death of the king, the Poles stipulated that the country should be governed by a noble parliament, and implemented a super dish of boiled oil, which was more gorgeous than "the minority obeys the majority", and the super policy "one vote veto" was 10,000 years ahead of world civilization.

As long as one of the nobles in the council disagrees, the policy cannot be carried out - there are more than 300 nobles in the council, and it is difficult to unite them.

Even if the enemy was approaching, the nobles finally united to pass the conscription bill, and after the soldiers were recruited, the parliament actually had different opinions on the military pay bill, quarreled for a long time, and finally made the soldiers who could have been used to defend the country lack food and clothing, and mutinied angrily.

When entering the area under the actual control of the royal family, or the capital area, Luo Ming looked out of the window and could see that the degree of development here was much stronger than that in the county.

It was only right that the Grand Duke controlled the most resources in the country, and naturally had the money to invest in improving the output of his territory, building bazaars and towns, improving farm implements, building some water conservancy facilities—and then it would take years, decades, or even centuries to pay for itself, and then to generate more rewards.

Many of them are things that may not necessarily be rewarded within a generation, and the predecessors planted trees and the later people enjoyed the shade, as the ruler of the country, such courage is really impressive.

On this stretch of the road, Luo Ming had already seen two messengers hurrying across the relatively flat road on horseback, and had also passed three checkpoints.

There are no tolls charged at the checkpoint, only a symbolic inquiry about identity and whether there have been any thieves in the vicinity.

Although the level is small, at least there is an arrow tower and a dozen guards, which, combined with the terrain, is enough to delay the pace of hundreds of people.

It's just something that's on the surface, and who knows how many more defenses there are out of sight.

In this era, the Duchy of Lothar, and especially the Brandon region of its capital area, was undoubtedly a jewel in the dark wilderness.