To the traveller's eye, Tars is a laid-back, green village.

In the eyes of contraband traders, Tails is a safe and secluded transit point and trading venue.

In the eyes of those in high positions, the Tails is a concrete example of the local lords sticking to the old ways, resisting government decrees and the trend of the times with their own selfishness, and guiding the development level to lag behind.

The white marl coating is peeling off, the bright red slogans "Coexistence and Co-prosperity" and "Royal Elysium" are conspicuous, the wooden roofs pressed against the stones, the hastily tied fences, and the limited arable land are dotted between the large wastelands. The land is full of poorly dressed and unkempt old people, women and children, and young and middle-aged people are rarely seen. The only people here can rely on is the land under their feet, a limited number of relatives, and faithful livestock. None of the others, including the women's carriage passing in front of them, could arouse their interest.

“...... Official sources record that there were no specialties or attractions worth mentioning in Tars, and because the lord Knight Mikael refused to introduce new policies such as asphalt roads, new agricultural methods, water supply systems, and postal delivery, it was impossible to mention modern industries. At present, the economy of the whole village of Tars is dominated by small-scale farmers, and it is basically self-sufficient. ”

Inside the women's carriage pulled by two horses, through the drapery, Roland looked nonchalantly out the window at the wheat field, and a phrase in the spider report drew Minerva's gaze back into the carriage.

"Lord?"

When Titans invaded Castile, a considerable number of nobles were killed in battle, and some of the original lords were also cut off in the skulls of the original lords in order to deter the natives. The remaining "pacifists" did not make up a high proportion of the aristocracy, and they rarely disobeyed Charlemagne's master's orders. So although they complained a lot about Roland's New Deal at first, they still complied with it, and later reaped a lot of substantial benefits from the New Deal. That little opposition has also vanished. Minerva was a little surprised that a knight lord who had resisted the New Deal so thoroughly could emerge in a rural place like this.

"Is it the original lord?"

"It is, the knight of Córdoba Fernández de Mikael, the knight of the impoverished countryside everywhere, the first lords to surrender after the fall of Salbadu. ”

Strong contradictions and questions welled up from the bottom of her heart, and Minerva frowned slightly.

Since it is a lord who surrendered. Then this person should be the same as the "pacifists", who dare not disobey the governor who symbolizes Charlemagne's will, but this person not only resolutely resists Roland's new policy, but has not done anything at all......

Roland is not the kind of dictator who wields an iron fist on any opposition, and one or two villages have limited influence on his overall plans, and even if left unchecked, they will be subtly changed over time. However, Titans is not a patient organization, and every day if something does not cause something, the mother god opens her eyes, and that group of fanatics will actually let go of the thorn like Knight Mikael. It's unbelievable.

Due to the insistence of almost the entire aristocratic class, Charlemagne's high-level officials were particularly stingy with the granting of knighthoods to the officers of Titans, not to mention the titles of barons and viscounts, and even the titles of knights were also extremely difficult. The only exception to this is the non-hereditary title of "Frontier Noble", where some outstanding officers are awarded titles such as "Earls of the Frontier" based on their military merit and seniority, becoming new lords to administer the newly conquered territories.

Of course. The premise is that the land is ownerless. As for whether there was no owner in the first place, or whether the original owner died for some reason. There's no need to dwell on it.

Therefore, it is quite strange that Titans did not kill Knight Mikael in the name of "disobedient governor".

"The ostensible reason is that he is worried about the protests of the church, and the church here is much stronger than Charlemagne himself, and even Titans cannot be indifferent to the church. There is no good reason to kill a nobleman who has a lot of ties to the church, and it will inevitably invite unnecessary trouble. The real reason. It should be that. ”

The carriage began to slow down, and following the spider's wry smile, Minerva looked ahead.

Along the avenue, another section of the village. A cylindrical military fortress overlooks the village, topped with a golden fleur-de-lis banner and a smaller Titans Eagle banner. Below the fort, commonly known as the "Turret", people preparing to enter and leave the village of Tals quietly lined up with "resident cards" and waited for inspection. Several National Guard soldiers patrolled the queue, occasionally beating a guy back into the queue with a rifle butt, whip and scabbard.

At the junction of the two streams of people was a wooden sentry box, painted green, and a few Titans soldiers with guns and their eyes wide as they watched every face that walked in front of them, lest a foreign spy or revolt slip from their hands. In front of them was a large man in an officer's uniform with a third-class commando squad leader's badge pinned to his collar seated on a folding marching chair, with a saber and squinting eyes, and a 12-centimeter-wide white armband on his left arm.

"Gendarmerie?"

"That's right, the gendarmerie. As a concession to the promotion of the Titans military to the nobility, the nobles and the army agreed to expand the authority of the Titans by establishing their own gendarmerie. ”

"But the gendarmes are not just the police who are in charge of the military, how can they directly manage the people?"

The gendarme, also known as the military police, is mainly responsible for maintaining military discipline, ensuring the execution of military orders, and organizing military courts. But the gendarmes of the Titans were different, and from the very beginning, this department had unimaginably vast powers. Even the lowest-ranking private in the gendarmerie can arrest high-ranking generals who are full of medals.

"Moreover, the 'Gendarmerie Order' clearly stipulates that 'the gendarmerie is one of the military sections, subject to the supreme command of the services to which it belongs, and is responsible for military security and the maintenance of military discipline, as well as the business of the judicial police.' Your Highness is invited to pay particular attention to the last sentence - to be in charge of the judicial police, which means that the gendarmerie can also be in charge of the judicial police, not only in charge of the military but also in charge of the civilian population. ”

This is actually a trick played by the second prince Bernard in order to form his own secret service police agency. Since I am not allowed to get spies, then I will reorganize the military police, and if the army does not manage discipline, it will not be chaotic? Could it be that learning from the imperial army and battlefield discipline is seppuku after defeat? With such a platform, it is not a trivial matter to toss spies and expand business in the name of military security?

The truth was just as the Second Prince and his senior staff had assumed. Almost overnight, Titans, with his gendarme armbands, was haunting the streets. In the occupied territories, with the exception of the Saarbadu district, the gendarmerie government was practised. The native Titans gendarmes were known as the Imperial Gendarmes and were only responsible for internal security. The gendarmes of the occupied territories outside the mainland are called military order police. The military police are ordered to be subordinate to the commander of the occupying forces and are responsible for ensuring security in the area of operations as well as in the occupied areas. Prevent the enemy's anti-war propaganda and suppress espionage and guerrilla warfare. Whistleblowing suspicious elements, etc., is the routine work of the military police. Even infiltrating the enemy's side to gather intelligence, carry out assassination and other activities are also the scope of the gendarmerie's work.

As if that were not enough, the gendarmerie has recently set up a new subordinate unit, the Special High Police, commonly known as the "Special High Police". Two groups of halfway monks are rampant and domineering in the occupied area, and they don't take those down-and-out nobles in their eyes at all, as long as they cooperate with them, it is not a problem to save their lives or anything. As for the titular title of "frontier noble", these uncles are not eye-catching for the time being, and it is much more important than being a poor nobleman to find a way to fill their wallets first.

Generally speaking. In addition to robbing and dumping materials, Titans's way to make money is mainly to set up cards to buy road money, or to collect taxes. After all, as a new-style army, the expenses for training soldiers, distributing military salaries and purchasing military supplies require a lot of money, and it is impossible to fill the funding gap by relying on the second prince and the domestic budget alone. Specifically, it is to set up a military-led bureaucratic management system in the occupied areas. Promote an efficient and tough tax system.

Prior to Roland's assumption of office, the largest source of tax revenue in the occupied territories was agricultural taxes. Since Titans passed on the pressure of increasing military spending to the natives, the tax pressure on farmers has increased considerably. In addition, due to the lack of barracks for a while after Titans was stationed, the soldiers were allowed to live in the homes of serfs, and the soldiers who lived in them, along with the military horses, had to be supported by the serf families, which was called "grain and straw expenses". Although the cost of grain and straw can be used to offset military taxes, the grain and straw given by peasant workers to soldiers and horses are converted according to a predetermined price that is much lower than the market price. As a result, farmers suffered a lot of losses. When the troops moved elsewhere, they also had to use the horses of the serfs to transport their belongings (the so-called "leg power"), which often caused the serfs to lose a lot of farm animals.

Taxes, grain costs, and foot strength put a heavy burden on the peasants of the occupied territories, while Charlemagne's frequent use of troops increased the demand for grain, wine, beef cattle, and wool. As a result, many of the surrendered "pacifist" aristocrats and landlords took back the land leased to the serfs and turned it into their own or joint ventures with the Titans and conglomerates. In this way, the joints are opened, the transit tax and cumbersome inspection procedures in the transportation process are exempted, and more income is obtained at the same time. This behavior led to an increase in the time that serfs spent serving free forced labor on the landlord's land. The vast majority of landlords believed that the three days of servitude for serfs a week was too little, and simply adopted a system of servitude in which the number was indefinite and distributed according to demand. Even the grain and wine produced by the landlords from their camps had to be transported by serfs in horse-drawn wagons to the Titans grain collection station or to the port warehouse controlled by the consortium.

In contrast to the plight of the peasants, both Titans and the great nobles made a fortune. They spent a lot of money on luxury living and construction, as evidenced by the recent neoclassical architecture. The estates of the great nobles were no longer used for defense, but for enjoyment and show-off, and often included galleries, theaters, and concert halls, as well as special hunting forests for the amusement of their owners and guests. The huge gap between the rich and the poor was even more abhorrent, further igniting the peasants' revolt.

The direct consequence of the intensification of social contradictions is the uprisings and terrorist activities that have occurred one after another. Before the implementation of the new policy in the SAR, there was not a single week without riots, assassinations and reprisals. Desperate peasants killed traitorous landlords and ruthless soldiers, while Titans enforced brutal hostage laws, shot civilians in retaliation, or threw entire villages into concentration camps.

It wasn't until Roland began to implement the New Deal that this situation was curbed. Military spending was brought under the government's control, the Titans were stripped of their taxing powers, the fiscal system was clarified, and after industrialization, with the rise of commercial activity, more and more aristocrats began to participate in commercial investment, either through guò proxy investment, or to build manufacturing factories and shops on their own land. Nowadays, people's interest in land is gradually starting to fade. Roland was finally free to solve some practical problems for the peasant representatives who came to the governor's palace every day to report their sufferings.

"It's a big job, and the Castilian nobility is the stiffest headed group of people in the world. For these 'orthodox' and decent people, land is life, and whoever touches the land or conducts a census is their life. They wouldn't mind raising the 'patriotic banner' and setting off a rebellion at such a time. ”

Elena teased in her usual sarcastic tone, even though she was also a Castilian nobleman. But she is one of the few enlightened people, and by nature she is rebellious by nature, and she has made a complete break with the idea of "must follow" early on. He didn't like his own aristocracy or Charlemagne, but he supported Roland's New Deal, hoping that this moderate social change would bring fresh air to Castile, which had been closed for hundreds of years, and lead to the awakening of the whole nation.

It is precisely because of her delicate stance that she is more soberly able to see the achievements and problems of the SAR today.

"In addition to the nobility, Titans was also a problem, due to the influence of the consortium and the political covenant. They don't dare say anything to you, but they are still quite unhappy with the deprivation of political participation and tax collection rights, such as the disguised collection of transit taxes in the name of 'defending the border and preventing terrorists from crossing the border,' and there are rumors that Titans and some lords are collaborating in illegal acts such as smuggling illegal drugs. ”

"Wait for me, this kind of thing ......!"

"Unfounded rumors, Your Highness, I don't know what the nobles on Charlemagne's side are like, but ours are rotten for a long time. Long before the war, many nobles were involved in smuggling Charlemagne. Among them were the "One-Eyed Grand Duchess" Ana de Mendoza i Tela Zelda, the Marquis of Carpio, the Count of Castaneta, the Grand Duke of Ascoli, the Duke of Arx, the Duke of Medina Seri - a few of the great nobles. For them, betraying the country for money is nothing. Not to mention the lack of illegal drugs. ”

Elena smiled fearlessly, unconsciously overlapping that sarcastic smile with someone, and Minerva's heart flashed with unhappiness.

-- For the sake of 300 percent of the benefits, people dare to trample on the laws of the world.

It was as if the mocking voice sounded in my ears again, looking down on others from a high vantage point, denying the wisdom and cruelty of others.

"And if the rumors are not confirmed, the Doge will need to be like attending a masquerade. Is it such a low-key visit to such a small village? If you put on a show, you won't find anything. ”

It seems that she finds it very interesting to tease a princess, and at the first opportunity, Elena will provoke her. Under the aggressive posture, the shadow of a righteous thief in a black cloak can be faintly seen.

But. That's the end of her game.

"Miss Lolita, please pay attention to your statement, these words will bother me as far as my position is concerned. ”

"I'm sorry about that, Governor. ”

"Thank you for your understanding, and I would appreciate it if I could even correct my title in the future. ”

"Understood, young master. ”

Nodding at Yelena, a wry smile faded from her face.

As Elena had said before, he did have the idea of restricting Titans and the lords from being overly greedy, but that was only part of the reason for the trip.

Something has been wrong with the atmosphere lately.

Not only the SAR, but the whole world seems to be filled with a comfortable and strange air, and no one knows what is going on under the surface of peaceful confrontation...... The signs are becoming more and more clear that they point to the war, and in this context, the consortium has not said anything, which cannot be justified.

Are you really not ready? I'm afraid not to.

Perhaps, like the people of other countries, the ordinary citizens of Alfheim have felt the tremendous prosperity of the past ten years, with new technologies, new life, financial prosperity, and economic prosperity, all of which are amazing and seem to be flourishing endlessly. It seems that people who have never experienced war will frantically join the war until they win the victory or disappear under the surface of history with the banner of war...... But in fact, the way of thinking of elves is very different from that of humans of the same era. In addition to the difference in value orientation, a very important difference is the awareness of war.

Geographically speaking, the area controlled by Yalfheim is the heart of the continent and can be called the "Land of the Four Wars". In terms of the geopolitical environment and military security situation, Yalfheim is even more "embattled", but in terms of national defense strength, especially military theory and technical equipment, Yalfheim can definitely be called a military power. Regardless of independence or not, the elves must face the situation of almost all hostile countries around them as soon as they are founded, and once there is a sovereign and independent elven state, I am afraid that the surrounding countries do not want to erase this new country from the map, and the area controlled by the elves itself is small, lacks strategic depth, has a long and easy to attack and difficult to defend, and the mainland is scarce in natural resources, and strictly depends on overseas colonies and foreign trade. All levels from the government to the common people have a deep-rooted willingness to fight for military superiority in order to secure the country and strengthen their families, and they have maintained a "ready for war" psychological state at any time, compared with Charlemagne, who did not know what war was, they were much more rational.

But rationality does not mean forever rejecting war and being willing to lurk in the great shadow of the human camp as a shadow state. As long as there is a suitable opportunity, this war plane will go into full force and crush the qiē that stands in front of it.

With the strength of the defense army, I am afraid that under the all-out onslaught, Charlemagne, a seemingly incomparably powerful giant, will also be released. The reason for the delay in taking action is simply that the right time has not been met. Is it really just an arbitrary move by the military as in the past, or is it an opportunity for Yalfheim to push the fanatical military action behind the scenes......

It is quite difficult to verify this, needless to say Li Lin, the consortium has issued a silent order early on, and it is impossible to bypass Stasi's surveillance and secrecy system to obtain relevant information. Charlemagne's military department could not count on it, they did not even know the fact that Alfheim was in existence and that he was influenced and induced, and they were not very interested in their own political position. The church could have tried to get in touch with it, but they were afraid that they had less information than they did.

No matter how reluctant and uncomfortable he is, the investigation of this matter can only stop here for the time being. Now the only way to investigate Titans and the army is to see what they are up to.

The village of Tails was the first point of entry for the investigation.

There have been reports that the village of Tails is a transit point for the trade of illegal drugs, and that there are high-ranking Titans personnel involved, and if they can get some leverage to negotiate with them, they may be able to find out some information......

Just as he was beginning to plan his next plans and itinerary, the carriage stopped, and a loud shout came from the front.

"Bastard, dare to ask for money?! Don't talk about taking a few rotten eggs from you, Lao Tzu never gives money to eat watermelon in restaurants in the city or outside the city!!"

Roland's expression suddenly became sinister. (To be continued......)