Chapter 245 Speculation Risk
Mrs. Virgil had just recovered from her shock when she was shocked by Yang Qiu's words of accepting the challenge. She instinctively shouted in denial: "There is no such thing! Ever Hope Territory has not declared war!"
The city defense army that the Bartles family had painstakingly built for a hundred years, plus the private soldiers contributed by various noble families, were like paper in front of the undead army. Even if Mrs. Virgil was crazy, she would never accept the fact that their family was hostile to Charlie Rex on the front battlefield.
What's the difference between this and asking her to hand over the foundation of the Virgil family? !
Nobles without territories have no say in the local area. Both their power and financial resources will gradually decline, and they will have to sell off their properties to make ends meet within one or two generations - she doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of those impoverished families!
The threat of losing her power and position quickly cheered up the baroness who had been widowed for many years. She firmly grasped the maid's shoulders and stood up. She glanced at the shaky Ms. Shirley and said calmly: "Dear Mr. Spellcaster, please forgive my offense. The Virgil family did disturb the peace of the city hall because of my willfulness. Please allow me to formally apologize to you and your followers. In addition, I must warn you that starting a war on the grounds of a lord's mistress is unprecedented in the history of the Rhine Kingdom. If you insist on doing so, then your follower Charles Rex will become a laughing stock of the whole country. Please act rationally!"
...I have to say that this noble lady who has been able to hold on to the family power even after her husband's death for many years is quite capable and not just an incompetent woman who can only flatter Viscount Darcy.
If Yang Qiu is really an indigenous spellcaster, and Ms. Shirley is indeed Charlie Rex's mistress as rumored, then Yang Qiu might really just name a random price for the apology and let the matter go for the sake of "the face of his valuable followers."
In a patriarchal, class-based society, fighting for women, or even for a female lover who is like a plaything, will be condemned for eternity and regarded as a negative example of the times, and anyone can step on it.
Just like when King Wu of Zhou destroyed the Shang Dynasty, the official history would conclude that King Zhou of Shang was extravagant, militaristic, and harsh in punishment and taxation, and even added the hen crowing at dawn. Unofficial history even made up a folk story that the fox demon Su Daji bewitched people and destroyed the country and caused chaos. (In fact, excluding the moral attacks that are difficult to distinguish between true and false, the heavy military affairs, harsh laws, and allowing women to hold power are more in line with modern people's values...)
But is this kind of trampling on so-called morality with ten thousand feet effective?
Of course it is effective.
"Records of the Grand Historian: The Annals of Yin" describes him as "quick-witted, and very sensitive to hearing and seeing", and "Zuo Zhuan" records that "he defeated hundreds of enemies but ended up without an offspring". This is the typical King Zhou of Shang, who was both civil and military and had outstanding talents. However, after he was defeated by the coalition of princes led by King Wu of Zhou, he was still labeled as an eternal tyrant and could never get rid of the label.
Mrs. Virgil was not Chinese and had not read the Chinese History of Five Thousand Years, but she was obviously a qualified feudal ruler. She knew how to hit the feudal rulers' soft spots - you may not be supported by the people, but you cannot give your peers an excuse to attack you.
This excuse is useless when you are in a strong position, but as soon as you slightly expose your weaknesses, your opponents will raise their arms and followers will gather, and you will be powerless to turn the situation around .
But unfortunately - none of these prerequisites are met.
Shirley, who was unable to stand steadily, was not afraid at all and even dared to glare at Mrs. Virgil fiercely... There was nothing between her and Rex as lovers!
Yang Qiu looked expressionlessly at the noblewoman who wanted to drag everyone into the political struggle she was familiar with at the slightest disagreement. She shook her head slowly and said in a deep voice, "I'm sorry, ma'am. The person you kidnapped and attacked was Ms. Shirley, the deputy director of the Civil Affairs Department, a city hall official who shoulders the responsibility of the lives of 300,000 civilians in Innaderi City. There is no room for maneuver in this matter. Prepare for war."
Mrs. Virgil was almost mad: "Mr. Spellcaster! Are you going to ignore the facts?!"
"That's the truth." Yang Qiu was too lazy to argue with her, and helped Shirley out. He turned back and sneered as he left the house, "I'm very curious, what made Madam mistakenly believe that an important senior civil servant in the City Hall, Rex 's right-hand man, was just a mistress who didn't care about being offended?"
Mrs. Virgil was stunned.
The black magician walked into the courtyard and waved his hand, and the thorny vines that were rampant all around silently turned into black mist and dissipated.
Looking at the back of the black magician who was gentlemanly supporting "Rex's mistress" and walking away, Mrs. Virgil's legs went weak and she fell to the ground.
She finally... reacted.
The great magician, who had become famous throughout the continent sixty years ago, would not lie about such a trivial matter when the truth could be revealed with a simple investigation.
If the woman named Shirley really only got to the top by currying favor with Rex, then the notorious "Nightmare Butcher" would never stand up for her.
Mrs. Virgil was also a woman, a woman who lived in a power field and was extremely beautiful when she was young. She knew the value of women too well.
No matter how devilish a figure or angelic a face a woman has, she can only live as a luxury item among toys, and it is impossible for her to rely on her looks and body to gain real power. When people talk about powerful old aristocrats who were deceived by vicious beauties and lost both their money and their lives, they always think that they were defeated by beauty, but they never consider that a vicious heart is also a kind of wisdom and skill that ordinary people do not have.
Just like Lady Virgil, if she did not have the corresponding ability, just flattering Viscount Darcy would not be enough for her to keep the Everlook territory left by her late husband.
In this incident, although Mrs. Virgil seemed bold enough to openly kidnap people from the City Hall, she actually had a very clear plan. She set up a public mill in the East City District for the Civil Affairs Department several days in advance to cause trouble, just to lure away the agents of the Civil Affairs Department on an appropriate day - without the agents, even if a conflict occurred, the intensity of the conflict could be controlled.
Setting the kidnapping target on Shirley, the Deputy Director of the Civil Affairs Department and "Rex's lover", also shows Mrs. Virgil's astuteness: apart from the coachman and the valet, the one who knows most of a man's secrets and can pose the most hidden threat to him that is difficult to publicize is not the wife, but the lover.
When Hal, the leader of the thieves' gang, wanted to use the Innadri Weekly to achieve his own goals, he took advantage of the editor-in-chief's lover to make a fuss... This kind of unorthodox cleverness is common to all classes.
What's even more interesting is that Shirley's status is very low and she is completely unpresentable - she is a well-known former prostitute in Westham's red-light district.
In Mrs. Virgil's view, using this lowly "mistress" to take advantage of Charles Rex's weakness was a seemingly risky but actually safe speculation.
Regardless of success or failure, it would be difficult for Rex to get angry - to completely break off relations with Lady Virgil at the risk of opposing all local nobles for the humiliation of a lowly mistress, this was something like a legendary novel, which no political animal would ever do in reality!
And as long as Rex makes a slight concession, Mrs. Virgil will be able to use this opportunity to open up a breakthrough to stop the unreasonable tax reform... Once this is accomplished, Mrs. Virgil herself will gain huge political assets!
There was no way Mrs. Virgil would not take action on this great thing, which had a low risk no matter how you looked at it and would bring huge profits if successful.
The only miscalculation was... this lowly person who used to be a prostitute did not get to the top by pleasing Rex.
She seemed to have talents valuable enough to make the black magician Rex, who had always supported her behind the scenes, come to the front for her!
A lowly person who had fallen into prostitution could actually possess the recognized political talent - how could such a thing be believed by others! Even Lady Virgil would never believe such a fantasy unless she heard the Nightmare Butcher admit it with her own ears. She would only think that this was a self-deprecating illegitimate son, Charlie Rex, who allowed his subordinates to flatter and exaggerate in order to elevate his mistress's status!
The irony is... this is actually true.
This made Mrs. Virgil feel like the whole world was crumbling.
This only miscalculation completely disrupted her plan, causing the "low risk" she had estimated to face to increase countless times, turning it into a violent storm that sank the Virgil family's ship!
Mrs. Virgil, who was already quite old, had a gradually bent back. The skin on her well-maintained face, which had been kept tight by alchemical potions, was visibly loosening. The pride in her eyes, which had been cultivated from decades of luxury, flickered like a candle in the wind.
"It's over... It's all over..."
The lady, who was as frightened as Mrs. Virgil, saw her mumbling to herself in despair and quietly left with her people.
Fortunately, this is Virgil's house and the Nightmare Butcher didn't notice her. She had to stay away from Virgil's house, which was like a big tree that was about to fall!
The noble lady ran nervously out of the chaotic Virgil mansion, where people and horses were stumbling about, got into the carriage with her skirt lifted up, and urged the coachman to drive to Viscount Darcy's house.
The Virgil family is about to fall, and there is no way they can get the territory of Everlook. With the greed of that illegitimate son, Charlie Rex, he will never let outsiders get involved. But the Virgil family still has a lot of assets, and she has to quickly notify Viscount Darcy so that she can also squeeze into the "dividend" circle!
The vulture, dressed in the skin of a noble lady, was thinking about how to share the corpse of her own kind when she suddenly heard the coachman and the attendants screaming in panic. The moving carriage suddenly stopped and threw her off her seat into the opposite carriage.
The lady cursed angrily, got up awkwardly with the help of the maid in the car, and angrily lifted the curtain -
The scolding stopped abruptly.
The lady opened her mouth in horror, forgetting the pain of falling.
The carriage had arrived at Sunset Boulevard, and the driver stopped suddenly only a few dozen meters away from the gate of Viscount Darcy's house.
The sidewalk in front of Darcy's house and the road wide enough to accommodate six carriages were all filled with the dead.
The front door of Darcy's house completely turned into a battlefield. A monster surrounded by strange black smoke rushed out from the wide-open hollow iron door, roaring and screaming as it rushed left and right among the pile of undead.
Some of the undead were fighting with those horrible monsters, many of which had been deformed to the point where they could barely make out their human form. Others formed a skeleton ladder and worked together to climb over the three-meter-high wall of Darcy's house.
From within the wall, one could faintly hear the roars of monsters and the sounds of swords clashing.
Witnessing with my own eyes the fall of Viscount Darcy's family, the leader of the Innadri aristocratic circle, the intensity of the blow was completely different from the collapse of the Virgil family.
The lady stared at the chaotic battlefield at the gate of Viscount Darcy's house for a few seconds, her eyes rolled back, and she fainted.
