Chapter 127 Heart of the Storm (XV)
◎Gift◎
Julius stamped his seal on the parchment. Almost half a month had passed since the two emperors of Calais died in an internal struggle. The powerful empire that once stood at the top of Syracuse had completely entered a state of chaos with the death of its monarch. The nobles were eager to support a new emperor of their own - or simply take the throne themselves.
Like Assyria before and Roman now, the royal family of Calais does not have many descendants, but the Assyrian royal family did not have many children, and the decline of the Roman royal bloodline was mostly attributed to Queen Amenra. As for the royal family of Calais... it was simply because they were all lunatics who did not recognize their relatives. The sick, crazy, and neurotic genes were passed down from generation to generation with their blood. It was not uncommon for the royal family to kill each other. In the end, only this uncle and nephew were left, and they lived up to the strength of their bloodline, and put the final end to this cursed royal family.
An ancient royal family that had been passed down for hundreds of years was completely annihilated, and what followed was a fight for this huge legacy.
However, under the brutal suppression of the bloody royal family, the nobles have always lived in fear. The emperors of Calais allowed them to have wealth and did not care much about their debauchery and brutality in their fiefdoms, but they were very sensitive to the army in the hands of the nobles. Therefore, unlike the Romans and Assyrians, the nobles of Calais had very strict conscription standards. Once the guards or even young and middle-aged people in the manors and fiefdoms exceeded a certain number, it would arouse the suspicion of the royal family.
Such an extreme strong trunk and weak branches made the royal family's prestige always override that of the nobility, and also caused many conflicts within the royal family. Occasionally, aristocratic rebellion would break out, and the royal family would suppress it with more severe means. Duke François became famous in his early years for suppressing rebellions with his brother. After the last emperor of the royal family died, Calais completely became an erupting active volcano.
This lucrative spoils was obtained jointly by Raphael and Sancha, but due to the reality, they could not take over all the land with the strength of just two people - in fact, it was not impossible, but the overly tight time did not allow them to complete this plan. According to their plan, it would take at least a ten-year transition period for the chaos in Calais to be completely quelled and become a peaceful region.
In this decade, or perhaps longer, this land will become the experimental soil for a new political system, or in other words, the experimental field for any system that has the potential to move the world forward.
All changes would inevitably involve the shedding of blood and the loss of countless lives. Every revolution in history was soaked in the smell of blood. Raphael knew it, and Sanxia knew it too. However, they still wrote down this agreement with their own hands, which would surely become infamous in the future.
With the Tolan River as the boundary, the land west of Calais belonged to Roman, and the vast fertile plains and hills in the south were incorporated into the territory of the Papal States, including the coastline and ports adjacent to the Black Sea. From then on, the waters surrounding the Assyrian Empire were completely controlled by Raphael, and the Papal States and Assyria became closely connected neighbors in terms of geographical location.
In addition to the two-thirds of the land divided between Roman and the Papal States, the mountains and plateaus north of Calais were occupied by the nobles of Old Calais, who re-established an empire there, also named "Calais", but this name was soon spontaneously called North Calais to distinguish it from the original Calais Empire.
The establishment of Northern California seemed too smooth to later generations. All cities obeyed the orders of the new dynasty obediently, and the nobles even fought several wars for the new crown. This was completely incomprehensible to people.
The fact is that the establishment of Beika does have the shadow of Raphael and Sanxia.
If they wanted to, with their current strength - Roman, Assyrian and Papal States - there would certainly not be so many fish slipping through the net, but neither Sanxia nor Raphael were interested in expanding their territory to such a terrifying extent in such a short period of time.
Conquering a country is not a difficult thing, the difficult part is what happens after conquering them.
The conflicts and frictions in merging two unfamiliar and even generations-old enemies into one were enough to scare every monarch. Sangxia was unwilling to take on a big trouble, so she chose the fertile land adjacent to Rome. This harvest alone was enough for the young queen to gain unprecedented glory in the Roman court and the public.
Calais and Roman have always been enemies of each other. Their hatred extends from the battlefield to the dinner tables of civilians. Even intermarriage is a rare thing. The queen's achievements have surpassed her ancestors, and she does not need to bring more trouble to her country.
And Raphael... Raphael faces a greater dilemma than Sangxia.
He also has an Assyrian crown in his hand!
As the monarch of the secular Assyrian state and the spokesperson of the Kingdom of God, Raphael has more things to deal with. Assyria is still just a new country that needs his hand-in-hand guidance to move forward. The Papal States needs his constant attention. As for Calais, he really has no more energy to deal with it.
Simply put, the current economic, political and social development conditions do not support the birth of such a large empire.
So Raphael and Sancha chose another way to divert the conflict in Calais: to promote the birth of North Calais.
Let those ambitious people who want to restore their country and rebel make trouble on this land, and also complete the social experiment that Raphael wanted to complete here.
Either the experiment is successful and Syracuse will have the conditions for the birth of a huge country. At the very least, it will provide a place for those energetic rebels to vent.
To put it bluntly, Beiga is a safety device set up by Raphael and Sancha for the rest of Syracuse.
Raphael knew that this meant countless innocent people would be involved, and those living in cities north of Calais would unknowingly become victims of this safety device. He knew that he had committed a heinous crime that could not be recorded in history, but he had no choice.
During the period after the collapse of Calais, Julius had received countless letters, just like when Raphael was crowned Emperor of Assyria. With the collapse of Calais, the kings and dukes of other small countries were completely unable to sit still.
The Papal States, Roman Empire, Assyria, and now Calais. They realized belatedly that the entire Syracuse had become the one-man show of Saint Sistine I. The only one who might have been able to compete with him, the Queen of Roman Empire, had clearly shown that she was in cahoots with him in the division of interests after the fall of Calais, not to mention that they were actually blood-related siblings!
What is going on? !
The kings realized with horror that, just as Rome was buried in history, a vast country seemed to be slowly taking shape, and its owner had already carved his name on the cornerstone of the country.
The founding of Rome destroyed countless city-states and countries. So, does the earthly kingdom of Saint Sixtus I still have the soil for them to live in?
The fear of being swallowed by giants caused them to send a large number of letters to the Vatican, in which they tried to find out the Pope's next move.
It is true that the promulgation of the "Monarchical Law" separated the Pope's crown and the rule of Assyria, and Assyria began to form a political form that people had never seen before - a strange political ecosystem that seemed to exclude the monarch. The next pope obviously could not become the successor of Assyria, but the land of Calais that was now incorporated into the Papal States was real! ▓
Saint Sistine I can stand at the top of this world for at least thirty years, so everything about him, including his likes and dislikes, will become the object of people's efforts to gain advantage of him. Such inquiries appeared once after he succeeded the Pope, once after he purged the Thirteen Councils of the Papal States, once after he conquered Assyria, and now it has appeared again, each time on a larger scale than the previous one.
As the secretary general who stayed in Florence, Julius was already familiar with such inquiries and temptations, but he still couldn't help but marvel at the number of letters he received this time.
All the well-known and famous families in the country of Syracuse sent letters of greeting to Florence, regardless of whether they were devout believers in the Holy See and "always admired the glory of the Holy Father" as they said in their letters.
Julius chose to reply to some of the letters personally, gave some to the secretary in the Secretariat to reply, sent some back unopened, and forwarded some to Calais to be replied to by Raphael.
In the evening, the bells of the Cathedral of Thorns rang three times and evening prayers began. Julius finally finished all the troublesome paperwork and managed to find some free time without any plans. Then his deacon quietly walked in.
Julius frowned slightly when he saw the other person’s expression.
"Sir, the elders invite you to attend a meeting tonight."
This was a sudden notice, but not so unexpected. Julius took off his silver-rimmed glasses and threw them on the table. The oak tabletop made a crisp and solid sound. The head of Portia seemed to sneer: "I thought they could endure for a long time, but it's less than half a month."
Ever since the news of the fall of Calais came, the Holy See including the Portia family had been ready to make a move. They had never intended to expand the territory of the Papal States, and being able to obtain everything they had now was enough to make them ecstatic, but Raphael always managed to surprise them time and time again. The expansion of the territory of the Papal States was completely double joy, and at the same time, it was also urging them to achieve their wish as soon as possible.
Syracuse has entered a period of stability and peace. Unless Raphael still wants to attack those scattered small countries, he will definitely be content to consolidate his achievements.
"Has Cardinal Lombardi sent any letter in the past two days?" Julius asked.
"No, but this morning Cardinal Lombardi's son visited Monsignor Francesco."
Julius frowned. "Francisco Portia? What do he and that old man have to talk about? Have they met before? No, that's not right..."
The secretary general fell into a long period of thought. After a long while, he pressed his fingers on the table, and a cold light flashed in his deep purple eyes: "Ah... I see, does Francisco have a daughter who is old enough to get engaged?"
The butler responded quickly: "You mean Miss Sophia? Yes."
Julius' eyes were extremely cold and fierce for a moment, like a poisonous snake showing its fangs, but he quickly concealed this abnormality. The man with iron-gray hair said expressionlessly, "I remember I once received a crown with the words 'Heart of the Loyal' inlaid on it. I asked a craftsman to turn the crown into a necklace and secretly gave it to Cardinal Lombardi, telling him that I wish his son's marriage will be a happy one."
The butler felt a thin layer of shivers on his back because of his master's overly calm tone.
He bowed his head deeply and said, "Yes."
The ladies' necklace was delivered to the Lombardi Palace on the third morning. The cardinal, with his thick limbs, kind and majestic face, gazed at the dazzling gem necklace with a face so gloomy that water could drip out of it.
His second son, the tentative fiancé of Miss Sophia, leaned against the corner of the table, stretched out a hand to fiddle with the necklace, and marveled at the extremely pure and plump diamond on it: "It's so beautiful, worthy of being the thing of the Patriarch of Portia. Such a good treasure is rare. When I give it to Sophia, won't that woman be devoted to me?"
The cardinal endured it again and again, but finally couldn't hold back and roared: "Idiot, didn't you listen to me when I told you the name of this necklace?! Also, I told you not to tell anyone about Sophia, didn't you listen again?"
His sons were all somewhat similar to him. Apart from the hair and eye color which they inherited from his wife who had a noble and delicate figure, they all had overly broad shoulders and thick limbs like him. This was a very "un-aristocratic" appearance. Cardinal Lombardi gained the favor of the common people with such appearance, but was always excluded from the upper-class circles because of this. This second son was particularly similar to him, which made Cardinal Lombardi both happy and annoyed.
"I didn't tell anyone!" the man argued dissatisfiedly, "So what if he knew? Didn't he send a gift? The heart of a loyal man proves that he blesses this marriage! Isn't that good?" The honest-looking man already had a wife, but he didn't like the ordinary woman he married to consolidate his father's cardinal position. And Sophia... putting aside other things, at least she was beautiful in the Portia family's tradition.
"Idiot! Idiot! I told you to read more books!" Cardinal Lombardi felt his temples beating wildly, and he tried his best to hold back his anger. "If you knew, the origin of the name of this gem is that it is because Archduke Durand's wife betrayed her husband and conspired with her lover to murder her husband for profit, so Archduke Durand made this crown for his daughter when she got married. The gem on it was the one Archduke Durand's wife wore when she was assassinated. Apart from this crown, he gave his daughter nothing else."
"Now, tell me," the cardinal roared angrily, "tell me what this name means!"
The Heart of the Loyal, this gem is not a compliment or praise to the loyal, but a vicious mockery and curse.
"Julius is threatening me." Cardinal Lombardi said to himself, "It seems we have to be a little more obedient. He is not someone who can be easily fooled."
The author has something to say:
I got stuck after writing a few hundred words for the Little Emperor's extra chapter. This character is really hard to write. His perverted temperament is so hard to figure out...
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
