Chapter 358: Undead: Famous in the Continent
His Majesty the King was furious for a long time and swore that he would never confer a knighthood on Coulson O'Neill, the idiot who invited a wolf into the house...Then he received an official letter from Lord Adler requesting merit and title.
The very thick official letter listed the ups and downs and thrilling process of how Count Ezekiel committed serious violations of the constitution and was brought down in one fell swoop by Colson O'Neill, a loyal descendant of the kingdom's knights who painstakingly collected evidence.
Well... most of the process is made up.
Of course, that doesn't matter.
What is important is that in the official letter, Colson O'Neill seemed to humbly ask the royal family whether he would allow him to send the evidence of the evil Count Ezekiel's crimes to the Kingdom's Grand Court and the Council of Nobles for trial by the civil service group.
This means that if the King of the Rhine does not recognize the "justice" of his revenge and does not accept his "surrender" of "punishing the evil count in order to maintain the dignity of the royal family", Coulson O'Neill will expose this matter to the civil service group that represents the nobility...
As for the remaining four noble families in the kingdom, not to mention the standpoint of the Odysseus family, will the other three noble families acquiesce in the Rhine royal family's decision to cut off the "quota" of a great noble, permanently cancel some seats in parliament, and weaken the power of their own camp to contend with the royal family... or will they stand up for Coulson O'Neill even if they have to hold their noses?
The King of the Rhine was so angry that he almost vomited blood.
The great nobles of the Rhine may not be willing to sit at the same table with this shameless thief who relied on the surrender of the black magician and the borrowing of the undead to rise to power, but if the price is the loss of soldiers and generals in their own camp, then the great nobles will have to weigh the pros and cons.
The royal family has always been very dissatisfied with the Ezekiel family. Since the National Protection War two hundred years ago, the Ezekiel family has abandoned nearly half of the land in the Adler territory, resulting in a significant reduction in the taxes collected by the royal family from the Adler territory.
It has been so many years since the Protectorate War, and instead of working hard to restore the land to increase tax revenue, the Ezekiel family has been hiding in a corner of the city of Dutata, which makes the king grit his teeth at the thought of it.
The royal family had long wanted to revoke the title of Ezekiel's family and downgrade Adler to a "large viscountship" like Innadri...but the resistance from parliament was too great and it had never been accomplished.
For more than a hundred years, the four great nobles had been able to support the Ezekiel family with all their might. Now, it was no big deal for them to continue to support Coulson O'Neill, the thief who let the wolf into the house.
His Majesty the King cursed for a long time behind closed doors, but finally signed the official letter inviting Coulson O'Neill to the capital to receive the title of earl.
On the day when the official letter was sent to the capital, the gloomy-looking King selectively published some of the evidence provided by Colson O'Neill, announced the cancellation of all honors for the Ezekiel family, and ordered the Council of Nobles to expel several members of the Ezekiel family.
The Rhine Kingdom's Parliament of Nobles has a total of 42 seats, of which Adler has 6 seats (Innerdery has 0 seats because it is a viscount's territory).
Among these six members, four were members of Ezekiel's family, and two were nobles from the Adler territory. It was the first four that His Majesty the King ordered to be expelled.
The four Ezekiel members of the House, who had been living a luxurious life in the capital with the support of the great noble families, were stunned when they received an expulsion order to cancel their seats and leave the capital immediately.
Upon learning that the "headquarters" had been destroyed and even the current head of the family had been taken prisoner, the four former congressmen were horrified and shouted for relief. They quickly packed up their belongings, sold off and transferred Ezekiel's family businesses in the capital, packed up their property and fled abroad, thus embarking on the path of exiled nobles - they had no choice but to flee, because if Coulson O'Neill came to the capital to accept the award, he would capture them and confiscate their property, and then everything would be ruined.
While the people in the royal capital were discussing the expulsion of the members of the Noble Council, Miss Phoenix of Bugatti City in the Odysseus Territory also learned through her own channels the entire process of the changes in the Adler Territory.
His Majesty the King had sensed the hidden ambition of the black magician Yang, so Phoenix naturally did not really think that this was just an ordinary "revenge". He "left work" early that day and hurried back to the old house of Odysseus outside the city to talk to his father in detail.
"It took less than a week from the declaration of war to the announcement of the change of ownership of Adler Territory..." The old earl, who taught Phoenix, said with a wry smile, "Before that, Innadri Territory showed no intention of preparing for war. Food prices did not rise, and steel prices did not fluctuate at all. Even our caravan did not hear any news of food and grass transfers in Innadri Territory... We can only be thankful that our family is still their ally for the time being."
After the undead came to Odysseus to fight a battle at the beginning of the year, the trade between Odysseus and Innadri became closer.
Nowadays, cheap daily necessities produced in Tarantan are circulated not only in the port city of Moses Port, but also in the industrial city of Bugatti; of course, the prices are much higher. For example, the undead cloth that only costs ten copper coins per meter in Innadri costs twenty copper coins per meter in Bugatti City. The prices of goods in the two-copper shop have also doubled or tripled.
After all, the Territory of Odysseus has industrial production capabilities, and it is necessary to impose higher commercial taxes on merchants importing Innadri and Tarantan goods to ensure that local artisans and local factories are not impacted and bankrupted.
Phoenix knew what her father was afraid of, and in fact, she felt similarly... Although she had a very close relationship with her next-door neighbor, this neighbor, in addition to his friendly face on weekdays, also had ferocious fangs that could easily bite another neighbor to pieces. The unfortunate neighbor was not much smaller than her own family - no matter who it was, they would feel a little uneasy.
"Mr. Yang, what exactly do you want to do?" This is the question that Phoenix is most worried about and afraid of the answer to.
The number of the undead silently expanded tenfold, and they extended their hands to the Adler Territory... Anyone who said at this time that the black magician Yang just had a weird habit that all spellcasters had, and liked to promote his followers to become nobles and play the "territorial governance game", obviously had no eyes and no brains.
The old count noticed that his daughter looked strange, and said in a deep voice: "Our family must not do anything unnecessary, Phoenix. No matter what Yang's ambitions are, they have nothing to do with our family. He is our family's friend, and the enemy of the Odysse family is the Rose royal family."
Phoenix looked stern, and quickly lowered his head and said, "Yes, father, our family's only enemy is the Rose royal family."
The Odysseus family is still in a state of preparation for war. Yang's help only dispelled the covetousness of the Rhine royal family and prevented the Odysseus family from being caught in the dilemma of fighting on two fronts. The Rose royal family has never given up its ambition to annex the Odysseus family.
"Since Coulson O'Neill is about to enter the capital to be conferred a title... then you should go to the capital as well." The old earl pondered for a while and said, "The four vacant seats of the Ezekiel family should be helped to get by the O'Neill family at all costs."
After a pause, the old earl picked up the cup beside him and gave his daughter a sly smile: "This is the sincerity of the Odysseus family towards their allies."
Phoenix thought about it and understood his father's intention. He smiled and said, "I understand, father."
While Coulson O'Neill was preparing to enter the capital to be conferred the title as if he were facing a formidable enemy, Yang Qiu, who was temporarily staying in Dutata City, received a telegram from Phoenix of the Odysseus family.
In the telegram, Phoenix congratulated Coulson O'Neill on his successful revenge, and as a noble of the kingdom, thanked the new earl for his contribution to upholding the honor of the nobles of the kingdom. At the end, he briefly introduced the six seats in the Council of Nobles that belonged to the Lord Adler.
After reading the telegram, Yang Qiu couldn't help but smile.
The Odysseus family is indeed well-educated, as they stand on the side in a clever way, without leaving any room for recriminations, and with full sincerity .
The Odysseus family's stance is exactly what Yang Qiu needs at the moment. Using Coulson O'Neill to get his own people into the Council of Nobles and to join in a show with those people in the royal capital will help paralyze the enemy and buy him more time to digest the Adler territory.
But just actively playing along with other people's rules of the game is obviously not enough, he needs to add some chips - chips that make this ambitious black magician more feared and make people dare not provoke him easily.
"There are seats to be fought for in parliament, the drama of power in the capital to be staged, and muscles to be flexed."
The anti-tax war of attacking Dutata City was originally intended to show muscle. Now that the muscle has been shown, subsequent publicity should naturally follow.
After putting away the telegram, Yang Qiu went to the City Hall and found Zhao Zhenzhen.
Zhao Zhenzhen, who was busy resettling hundreds of thousands of civilians in the slums, knew that Yang Qiu's matter was also very important. She took some time to discuss it with Yang Qiu secretly, and immediately sent invitations to many newspapers in Dutata City, Innadeli, and even Odysseus Territory...
After the loss of the investigation team, the response of the Cult of the Fiery Sun was to spread the threat theory of Yang Qiu, the Nightmare Butcher who had advanced to the legendary level, and deliberately ignored the truly threatening Undead army.
Yang Qiu could probably guess why those guys who had messed up Middle-earth and trapped themselves in the quagmire of Middle-earth would react like this.
There is nothing new under the sun. Even if Yang Qiu is a political novice, he can figure it out by referring to the history of the earth... It is nothing more than hoping to make Yang Qiu a typical villain and prepare a particularly suitable target for the eastern countries and forces that need to rely on war to divert internal conflicts. (When the Indians fought us...)
Yang Qiu could even guess the target that the Church of the Fiery Sun hoped to deceive - the Nosk Federation.
Encircling and suppressing a lone legendary wizard is not the same level of difficulty as dealing with an army of 30,000 undead who are immortal, tactical, and intelligent... Ordinary people with little knowledge would think the former is a greater threat, but only those who have some basic knowledge of war would know that the latter is more difficult.
If only one top-level warrior could dominate the continent and establish a powerful force, then the only living demigod on the continent of Baron would not be squatting in the mountains and forests counting leg hairs.
The Church of the Fiery Sun hopes to turn Yang Qiu into a glass cannon and a soft persimmon, but unfortunately, Yang Qiu is not going to cooperate.
The national team hopes to have more time for peaceful development and will not cooperate with such unreasonable things.
The Fiery Sun Church refused to show off its muscles on behalf of Yang Qiu, and King Rhine, who had suffered a great loss, wished that someone would find trouble with Yang Qiu under any excuse, but of course he would not help.
This kind of self-promotion can only be done by yourself...
When reporters from newspapers in the three places were gathered in Dutata City, Zhao Zhenzhen called in two PLA brothers who had directly participated in the siege of Dutata City and held an unconventional press conference.
On the day when the new Lord of Adler Territory went to the capital to be crowned with a trepidation, the Innadli Weekly, Adler Express, Dutata Daily, and even several important newspapers in Odysse Territory simultaneously published the headlines of the battle of Dutata City, which was personally revealed by the Tarantan Undead himself, who appeared in person, accepted an interview, and spoke personally...
The Innadri, Adler and Odysseus peoples, as well as foreign merchants and travelers in these three territories, were all stunned by the detailed report.
While Coulson O'Neill was nervously waiting for an audience with His Majesty the King in the capital, newspapers that were delivered from Adler and Odysseus a day or two late sparked a heated discussion in the capital.
After shocking countless Rhinelanders, these newspapers were quickly taken to other countries in the eastern region by caravans, passengers on magic steam trains and passenger ships on the Barcelo River...
Before the end of October, countless local newspapers in the Kingdom of Halifax, the Kingdom of Rose, and even many countries and regions in the Norsk Federation published this report from the Rhine Kingdom.
The various characteristics of the Tarantan Undead, which were once regarded as nonsense rumors, began to spread in the eastern part of the Nabaron continent.
Most knowledgeable Easterners initially questioned the authenticity of the report, believing it to be an exaggeration by the Rhine people; but after confirming the brilliant achievements of the Tarantan Undead, such as defeating the Cult of the Fiery Sun a year ago, kidnapping a prince in the midst of thousands of troops, and capturing the city of Dutata within a day, they completely fell silent.
