Chapter 790, the Bigger the Country, the Better

After sending off the High King's envoy, everyone in the king's tent began to express their opinions.

Obviously, whether it is the enlightened knight nobles represented by Francois, the traditional knight nobles represented by Callard, or the church forces represented by Alfred, the new generation represented by the old guard commander Bertrand The noble forces of the Jin army, and even the sanctuary witch Veronica who reluctantly came out to discuss matters after a short rest, everyone is not interested in stationing troops in the bad land, but it seems that the Dwarf High King and Bellegar are willing to bear military expenses and After the supply, everyone's opinion is still inclined to give it a try. After all, the dwarves have a lot of money, but they have no population. Since these dwarves are willing to pay to help the Bretons maintain this army, then everything is easy to say .

After some discussion, most of the people dispersed, leaving only Ryan, Francois, Callard, Veronica and others. Among them, Veronica immediately signaled Catherine to bring tea and water, and Witch Garland directly Sitting on a comfortable and soft wide chair, she said to her apprentice, "Catherine, do you have any more coffee beans?"

"Yes, mentor, I still have a lot left." Although Catherine has been promoted to a legendary witch, she still has to rely on her mentor. At least for now, her realm is unstable and she lacks hard power and financial resources. She has not yet become independent. The capital, and Veronica is actually good to her own apprentice, the relationship between the master and the apprentice is good, and there is no conflict of interest.

"Then get me a cup of Hazelnut Vanilla Almond Garland Oversized Dessert Caramel Sauce Mocha Sauce Mixed with Starbucks Cream Frappuccino." Veronica's face was flushed, she leaned lazily on the chair, and waved for Catherine to go arrange.

"Okay." Catherine and Callard looked at each other, and Callard opened his mouth. Earl Gallament immediately felt Ryan's playful eyes, and could only blush. Just as he was about to say something, Catherine immediately gave Callard winked, then bowed respectfully, and went to make a hazelnut vanilla almond garland super-large dessert caramel sauce mocha sauce mixed with Starbucks cream Frappuccino for Veronica.

Francois and Callard are no strangers to Veronica's character. From a certain point of view, the knights and nobles who led the expedition to Eight Peaks led by Callard even recognized Veronica. Very high, only one step away from Queen Suria.

Ryan knew why this happened. This was a side effect of the Great Expedition. Since Veronica had contributed a lot to this Great Expedition and had always had a high sense of presence, even the knights were concerned about it. She has changed a lot, especially the knight nobles of the northern faction highly recognize Veronica's status.

The King of Knights can feel that there is going to be a storm in his backyard again, and Ryan will definitely not interfere with this kind of thing. How far it will go depends on the follow-up, because Veronica and Orika have used His own performance conquered the knight nobles and established his own prestige.

When he goes back, Ryan can take advantage of the opportunity to entrust Veronica with important tasks.

"Ryan, how many people do you plan to keep?" Francois is actually not very interested in the so-called garrison on Eight Peaks Mountain, and Duke Winford cares more about when to withdraw the troops and return to the country to share the huge wealth of the dwarves.

"Leave Durant and his Britannia Independence Group first." Ryan said in a deep voice, and the King of Knights also felt a little bit pained that the dwarves would offer such generous conditions: "It seems that we don't keep any People can't do anything here. It just so happens that the Britska Principality left by the black-hearted Rep has more than 3,000 swords. It's better to let Durant move all the population to Eight Peaks Mountain. , Beastmen, Chaos cultists, and all kinds of bandits, robbers, and murderers are rampant border princes."

"Yes." Francois nodded slowly.

Is the place where the border prince leads a good place?

Don't be funny, the Prince of the Borderlands is a real place where ghosts and ghosts haunt, where all kinds of bandits, robbers, and murderers who were expelled and exiled by the empire, Britannia, and the southern countries gathered, and various Chaos sects ran rampant. He is always harassed by greenskins and beastmen, and besides, the war among the border princes has never stopped.

The one who brought disaster to the Border Prince recently was Tamu Khan. Even today, several years have passed, those Chaos war gangs are still hiding in the forests and mountains, coming out from time to time to harm the residents here.

But even so, the intensity of war faced by the border princeland is still much smaller than that of the empire. The vast land and sparse population and frequent harassment from various forces are bound to make it impossible for the border princeland to form a powerful kingdom. It shouldn't be too difficult for Fengshan to come here. After all, Bafengshan is actually very easy to defend. You only need to guard the gate of Titan and the ley line network road. The eight dangerous peaks that run through the sky are enough to stop all enemies.

"It's a definite matter for Durant and the independent group to stay." Regarding this, Francois nodded slightly, but Duke Winford quickly frowned again: "But if you look at it according to the requirements of the dwarves, they Not only do they want us to garrison Eight Peaks Mountain, but the dwarves hope to build a new defense system with the help of human beings."

"Well." Ryan nodded slowly: "Yes, I hope so too. It just so happens that when Bafeng Mountain is recovered, we can rely on Bafeng Mountain and Haimen Pass to build a mature defense system to ensure that when the evil land has Able to stall the Greenskins and prepare the Empire and the Dwarves for a massive invasion."

"But...we don't seem to need to do this." Francois was still full of doubts, and the father-in-law stroked his beard: "Ryan, are we going to station troops in the bad land? The environment here is too bad, the army is here It will only be gradually exhausted by the harsh climate and severe military pressure, and our presence here will not benefit Brittania much, will it?"

"..." Ryan said nothing, the King of Knights thought of something, and he was still hesitating.

"Your Majesty, our great expedition has consumed a lot of national power. Although the harvest is extremely rich, new knights need time to get their own spurs, new serf infantry also need time to train, and your old guards also need time to replenish. "Kalad also said: "If there are a large number of troops stationed in the bad land, not only will we be overwhelmed, but even the nobles in the country will have a lot of opinions."

"How about recruiting some new troops? We can recruit troops in the country, leaving a small number of veterans with a large number of recruits, with a rotation of three to five years." Ryan thought for a while, and finally said his plan: "Garrison on the edge of the Northern Badlands , It is of great significance to defend against the greenskin frenzy in the Badlands. We can bring the empire in, especially Marius, the Grand Duke of Aviland and Elector of Tuscany. I think he will be very willing to send troops to assist us. And through this method, we can extend our sphere of influence into the border princely territory, where we can dump our goods, and at the same time obtain a large amount of raw materials and cheap labor here."

"Prince of the Frontier?" Francois nodded after hearing this, the old man thought for a while, then suddenly smiled: "Ryan, don't you want to tell me that you want to annex the Prince of Expansion of territory? I want to remind you that the bigger the country, the better it is!"

"Hahahahaha! I know I know." Ryan couldn't help laughing after hearing Francois' half-joking warning.

Indeed, countries are often not as big as possible, because a country's ability to conquer and control actually has an upper limit.

Before taking the throne, Ryan once thought why the empire adopted the system of electors instead of a centralized system, why the entire empire should be divided into several provinces, and the electors should be almost completely autonomous, why not deploy them uniformly, It is in charge of the military nobles under the empire.

After Ryan really became the king, he realized that it was not impossible, but impossible.

After the size of the country was huge, the imperial court had to face three prominent problems.

First, the border is long, with enemies on all sides, and many forces are impossible to negotiate with (Chaos, Dark Elves, Greenskins, Beastmen), which has led to great external military pressure, which makes it necessary for the empire to station heavy troops on the border. To defend against possible invasions, it is easy to form a military town system (that is, the border earl system).

Second, for this world, the land area is too large. Based on the way of information exchange here, it is determined that the imperial court cannot remotely command from a distance. The Nord Kingdom is more than 1,500 kilometers away from the imperial capital Brunswick. The kingdom of Slev is more than 2,000 kilometers away from Brunswick, the capital of the empire. Ryan has personally seen the courier sent from Winter City, the capital of Nord King, even if it is 600 miles urgent, it will take seven days to reach Brunswick, seven days Nord can perish if the capital permits the order to attack or not, and the mana consumed by long-distance magic communication is extremely alarming.

In this case, the emperor must allow localities to form and command the army independently, so that the electors have independent military power to deal with various emergencies, protect their own territory, facilitate the unification of military orders, and maintain the combat effectiveness of the army. After a long time, the electors of course went their own way and ignored the emperor's orders.

Thirdly, the financial issue, this is even simpler. For example, when the first emperor of the Celestial Dynasty attacked the Xiongnu in Ryan’s previous life, 160 shi of grain was shipped from the central government, and only 1 shi of grain was left to be delivered to the front line of the battle. The transportation loss was as high as 90% More than nine, similarly, if the imperial court does not allow the electors to be financially independent, collect taxes and raise their own troops, then let alone the front line against chaos in the north, even the Black Fire Pass where Aiweiling resists the greenskins. Years of food loss would bankrupt the empire's finances.

Brother, the local finances and taxes have to be collected from the local government to the central government, and then distributed from the central government to the local government. Even without corruption and any supply lines, the loss is astonishing. Do you think it’s Alipay transfers? The King of Nord pressed a button, and the desk of Emperor Karl Franz in the capital sounded "Ding~Imperial Treasure Received Five~Thousand Gold Mark~".

That's why the empire was clearly capable of conquering Kislev but allowed it to become independent, why the Grand Duke of Nord dared to call himself the king of Nord, and the empire could only turn a blind eye.

When a limit threshold is exceeded, the bigger the country, the weaker it becomes, and the bigger it becomes, the more powerless it becomes. Enemies are everywhere on the border, and the imperial defenders often can only watch the destruction happen without doing anything. The financial resources are stretched, and the number of troops is insufficient. , so that the great empire has no energy and ability to resist foreign enemies.

So Ryan now thinks back to what many people in his previous life clamored about drinking the Danube River and conquering Madagascar with iron hoofs, and he feels very speechless. When the empire was first born, people were emotionally positive, optimistic, and aggressive, but it does not mean it will always be In this way, it is difficult to conquer, and it is even more difficult to rule such a huge empire. The Mongolian Empire split into four major Khanates and the Yuan Dynasty after only a few years after drinking the Danube River?

So, assuming that the emperor wants to centralize power, control the army, control financial power, and be able to remotely micro-manage, is it possible?

Yes, there is a dynasty in China that did it. All the elite troops were concentrated in the center, leaving only the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled to the localities. All local taxes were collected and only the basic maintenance fees were left. The emperor micromanaged all day long, and the generals were only responsible for obeying orders. Order the arrow.

This dynasty is called Dasong.

And even if it is a big gift, the empire will not be able to learn it. The reason is very simple. A certain great man through the ages said that if you want to fight against the outside world, you must first settle inside.

Because even the empire is full of dangers, chaos cultists, beastmen, green skin tribes, and undead and chaos demons that appear from time to time, assuming that the imperial court took away the local elite troops, leaving only the security system and militia system, How does that place deal with these enemies who are enough to destroy a civilization?

This is the difference between Lane and Karl Franz, Lane did it, Brittania after his years of conquest (actually adding Angron and the four Emperor Custodians constantly patrolling, this point Very important!), has basically solved Anne’s problem, since the king has the ability to ensure the peace of the kingdom, the dukes naturally trust him and are willing to respond to his call.

And Karl Franz couldn't do it, let alone guaranteeing the security of the entire empire, he couldn't even guarantee the security of his Rickland, or even the blood pine forest only tens of kilometers away from Brunswick. Under such circumstances, the King of Cards had already done his best, and the electors did not listen to the announcement. Occasionally, they came to the capital for a meeting, which was already enough to give the King of Cards face.

After thinking about it in his head, Ryan thought that he also had something to learn from. If you can't give it away, don't we still have Dameng?

"My idea is this. We can properly garrison troops in Junkubao and Bafeng Mountain. We can set up a military system, let the defenders farm by themselves, supplemented by supplies, and the soldiers are rotated every three to five years. As for the fortress, You can ask the dwarves to assist us in the construction, and I think the High King or Belegar will definitely not object." Ryan revealed his plan: "The main composition of the garrison is a small number of veterans and a large number of recruits. The number should not be large. Two or three thousand people are a guard. , Let the empire also send troops to participate, we also lead the recruitment of the domestic and border princes, anyway, the dwarves will pay for the equipment."

"At the same time, we are looking for a place with mountains and water before the Arsenal Castle and Eight Peaks Mountain, and let the dwarves help us build a new fortress, so that we can build a new line of defense and cordon in the northern badlands. They The goal is not to eliminate and resist a possible greenskin invasion, but to delay the attack time of the greenskin army as much as possible, and at the same time report the news to the dwarves and the empire, so that they can prepare for defense."

"These three guards are collectively referred to as the 'Three Guards of Evil Land'!"