Chapter 145

Orson never left.

At this moment, the sun shone through the trees into the woods, and countless beams of light hit the tombstones.

Lucius stroked the tombstones from beginning to end.

Finally, he stopped in front of a tombstone.

The three words Marcus were engraved on it.

And there was a bouquet of flowers in front of this tombstone.

It seemed that someone had just come to pay tribute.

"I remember, father, you said that Marcus was your captain of the guards. At that time, General Marcus was found tortured to death in a basement..."

"Yes, I believe he would rather die than reveal the secret of my children, otherwise you might not be here now." Lucius nodded, revealing a nostalgic look.

Seeing that they still had descendants paying tribute, his mood became cheerful.

Chapter 35: The Real Enemy (5K)

On the other side, Lit took Lena to stroll in the Dukedom of Antica.

Finally, the two of them wandered to the Lison Chamber of Commerce.

The reason was simple. Orson asked Litt to get along well with Lena, but Litt really didn't know how to get along well with this half-orc girl from the desert, so he had no choice but to ask for help from Chelinina.

"Sister Chelinina, good morning~" Litt took Lena into Chelinina's office.

"Well, good morning." Chelinina sat at the desk, looked at Litt at the door, and greeted her with a smile.

In the Lison Chamber of Commerce, there are two people who do not need to be notified to enter the Chamber of Commerce, that is, Orson and Litt.

Then, Chelinina saw the girl with big fox ears next to Litt.

"That... Litt, is this person next to you... a half-orc?"

In order to prevent being pointed at by others when walking on the street, Litt took Lena out and deliberately asked her to wear a hood and cloak to cover her ears and tail.

When they arrived at the Chamber of Commerce and came to the door of Chelinina's office, Lena felt a little uncomfortable, so she took off her hood.

"Wow, this is the Chamber of Commerce for humans? You must be Sister Chelinina, right? I heard your name mentioned by my elder brother when he was telling stories in the desert." Lena said this, and came to Chelinina in a familiar manner.

"I heard from my elder brother that you are a very powerful businessman. You must be very rich, right?" Her eyes seemed to be shining with stars.

"Uh..." Listening to the other party's words, Chelinina was stunned for a moment.

"Well, Sister Chelinina, the thing is this..." Litt hurriedly explained to Chelinina that Orson met Lena in the desert.

Of course, Litt did not say the part that Orson told Litt alone.

"Really? Then Orson is really powerful. He can easily bring back a cute little girl in the desert. He is really worthy of him." Chelinina said this, looking like she was teasing Orson, with some jealousy in her tone.

However, there was no dissatisfaction in her eyes when she looked at Lena. On the contrary, such a cute girl is rare among humans, and it is difficult for people to feel disgusted with her.

"Okay, your name is Lena, right?"

"Yes!" Lena nodded energetically.

"Since this is your first time in a human city, why not take you to visit the human market." Cherylina said, standing up.

"It just so happens that I have nothing to do today, let's go to Antica City together. I will take care of your expenses today."

"Great! Thank you, Sister Cherylina!" Lena showed a pleasant surprise and nodded happily.

...

Orson and Lucius left the woods.

"For more than ten years, I have been thinking about revenge for them all the time." Lucius said, looking forward.

"Orson, do you know that eighteen years ago, in addition to the orcs, the empire faced another problem?"

"Another problem?"

"Yes, when the new emperor ascended the throne, there was also a political movement that was very intense."

"Father, are you talking about the election movement?"

"Yes." Lucius nodded.

The so-called electoral movement is that the emperor and the dukes form an electoral meeting, and the meeting votes to decide the candidates.

Of course, the candidates are still selected from the royal family.

Although the imperial power will not fall, if the electoral system is really implemented, it is obvious that the candidates for the throne will contact the duke and ask the duke to support them to take office.

In this way, there will inevitably be power struggles and mutual infighting, which can be said to be of no benefit or progress to the development of the empire.

The only benefit may be that it can avoid the emergence of people as stupid and incompetent as the previous emperor.

"But I remember that in the records of history books, the electoral movement lasted only three years. The reason was that the previous emperor was stupid and incompetent, and the people were miserable. Under the pressure of a group of dukes, they were forced to pass the throne to the current emperor. His Majesty the emperor showed good ability after he took the throne, so the electoral movement ended."

"This is your shortcoming, Orson."

"You have read a lot of books, but you also have to know that books are compiled by people after all, especially history books. Many things have been beautified and transformed, and they cannot be taken as true."

"It was only twenty years ago that that incident happened. If you ask older citizens, they will have heard some rumors more or less." Lucius said this, explaining to Orson What happened that year: "When the new emperor came to the throne, because the inheritance law of designated heirs was still adopted, a lot of protests broke out in the royal areas. The most serious one, and the one that caused the most harm, was banditry. ”

"Maybe it was organized spontaneously and planned for a long time, or maybe it was instigated and supported by other dukes. The banditry was very serious at the time. The royal family had already spent a lot of effort to suppress the banditry. The city of Antica at that time was also It belongs to the direct jurisdiction of the royal family and is plagued by bandits. "

Orson couldn't help but look surprised when he heard the true situation from Lucius.

"So, father, when you were fighting, you faced not only orcs, but also humans?"

"Yeah." Lucius nodded.

head. "The guards who were just buried in the woods were not killed by orcs, nor was Margaret. They all died at the hands of humans."

"We have avenged most of the people in the Duchy of Antica. Now, it's time to avenge ourselves, Orson."

"Maybe your parents also died from banditry that year."

"But father, the banditry problem has been subsided now, and there are no signs of large-scale banditry activities in the empire..."

"But the person who funded him back then is still alive and still in a high position." Lucius said this, his hands involuntarily tightened the reins, with a hint of anger in his tone.

"Father, could it be that the person you are talking about is..."

"Yeah." Lucius nodded. "That's him, Giovanni."

…

"The struggle between central and local power in the empire is a political issue that has lasted for thousands of years. Over the past thousand years, the empire has generally maintained a relatively stable political environment, but in some specific periods, the political environment of the empire has indeed changed." Lena and others wandered to a school for some unknown reason. She pricked up her ears and listened to the lectures at the school's classroom.

Chelinina and Liteuk were standing not far away.

The two knew that this was Lena's first time entering human society, and it was normal for her to feel novel about a place like school.

"Well, now, please share your thoughts on the issue of monarchy that we talked about in this class."

"Teacher, I think the elective monarchy is an unreasonable system. Its emergence will only make the power of the empire more and more divided. In this way, without an authoritative center, local power will become even more uncontrollable. Through election, The monarchs elected by the imperial system are bound to be more inclined to centralization, the electoral monarchy will eventually collapse, and the inheritance system will still become the emperor's appointment."

"This classmate is right. After all, the royal family is very large. Under the background of the electoral system, many members of the royal family who were not originally in the line of succession can also participate in the election. As long as they have the unanimous support of the dukes, they can even go against the emperor. My wish is at the pinnacle of power. The supreme emperor does not want to see it. People are selfish and want to leave the best to their children. Therefore, even if the electoral monarchy system is implemented, everyone will After the emperor comes to power, the first thing he thinks of will definitely be to abolish the electoral system.”

"So, students, what kind of people do you think would support the electoral monarchy?"

"I think the kind of duke who doesn't have a good relationship with the emperor will choose to support the elective monarchy."

"Most dukes should support it, right? After all, this also increases the connection between the duke and the emperor."

"Local representatives will definitely support the electoral system. Of course, if they are under pressure from the emperor, they probably won't support it."

Lena listened to these questions in confusion, and then walked back to Lite and Chelinina.

"What's going on, Lena, do you hear what's being said?"

"It seems to be talking about the political system, Lena, I don't understand it well..." Lena said, feeling a little disappointed.

"In our area, the most knowledgeable people in the tribe will teach the children, but most of them only teach us literacy and how to survive in the desert. At most, they teach us some stories. We don't have so much free time to discuss these. Issues beyond survival.”

"However, I feel that here, everyone can discuss many issues that have little to do with themselves..."

Hearing Lena's doubts, both Liteuk and Chelinina understood.

After all, the school Lena was attending was considered a wealthy school in Antica, and the school only let the three people in after Lite showed his ID.

"I don't know which teaching method is better, but if it were me, I would probably like being here with humans. After all, there are a lot of things I haven't heard of!" Lena quickly recovered after feeling lost for a while. Got the spirit.

"Let's go to the next place!"

…

On the other side, Giovanni returned to the Duchy of Napoli. This trip to Antica was fruitful, but after returning to the Duchy of Napoli, his mood instantly changed from happy to angry.

"That loser Lawrence!" Giovanni looked at the information sent and angrily tore the paper into pieces, then threw it into the fire.

"Why are things always so bad with Aragorn!"

Yes, Giovanni asked Lawrence to use the financial resources and means of the Aragon branch of the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce to cut off Chelinina's most profitable textile industry.

Lawrence did as he was told. He competed with Chelinina and used his connections and means to buy textile raw materials at a high price, and then stockpiled a large amount of goods to make the supply chain of Chelinina tight.

Everything went according to plan and in an orderly manner.

Seeing that Chelinina's industry in the Duke of Aragon was about to end, the iron fist of Leon, Duke of Aragon, fell on Lawrence's head.

Although it was Leon, it was mainly his only son Manuel's credit.

Manuel persuaded Leon and made Leon realize that as the pillar of the Aragon region's economy, the textile industry of the Lison Chamber of Commerce could bring a lot of commercial taxes to the Aragon region every year, while the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce was just a blood-sucking borer, providing only a few returns.

In the end, Leon listened to Manuel's advice and directly issued a duke's order to forcibly adjust the cotton price, and announced that the high-priced purchase of cotton on the market constituted unfair competition, forcing the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce to release the goods.

This move directly broke Lawrence's spine. After this, the Aragon branch of the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce was unable to recover, while the Lison Chamber of Commerce recovered through the goods put on the market by the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce, and its scale was even larger than before.

In this series of actions, the most important thing is the letter sent by Orson to Manuel.

As colleagues working in the Student Union, Orson and Manuel have a good relationship. Under the words of persuasion and reason, Manuel was persuaded by Orson and agreed to help Orson.

"Waste, what a waste!" Giovanni stomped his feet in anger.

When he confiscated the assets of the Lison Chamber of Commerce before, he was a step late, so that the Lison Chamber of Commerce withdrew its investment from the Duke of Napoli in advance, and the loss he caused to the Lison Chamber of Commerce was only the fur.

Now he wants to use Lawrence to break one leg of the Lison Chamber of Commerce, but his ally's leg is broken.

The only thing to be thankful for now is that the loss this time is only borne by the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce.

At this time, Giovanni suddenly thought of something, and then looked at the butler beside him.

"Where is Donny? Where did this guy go?"

"Reporting to the master, Master Donny went to meet some female companions today." The butler told Giovanni what Donny was doing in a more obscure way.

Hearing that his son was so useless and was still fooling around outside at this time, Giovanni almost couldn't breathe.

"Butler, you find Donny for me, I want to see him within an hour."

"Okay." The butler agreed, and then hurried out of the Duke's mansion and went to the romantic place that Donny often went to.

Half an hour later, looking at Donny in front of him, who was not dressed properly and had some kiss marks on his face and neck, the first thing Giovanni did was to walk up and slap Donny.

Seeing this, Donnie naturally did not dare to resist, but lowered his head and asked timidly: "Father, you are back, but I did not welcome you. It is my fault. You are right to hit me."

"That's not the question." Giovanni shook his head. "Donnie, you are my son, and my only son. Although I informed you that I would be back today, look at what you are doing?!"

"I don't ask you to be as good as Orson, but can't you even be as honest and stable as Litt?!" Giovanni's tone was full of regret.

"How can I trust you to hand over the family affairs to you in the future if you are like this!?" Giovanni said this, and then continued to say an angry word: "If it really doesn't work, I will learn from Giovanni and adopt a capable child and give him the power."

"I'm sorry, father, it's my fault, don't be angry!" Donnie was shocked when he heard Giovanni say this, and he lowered his head to apologize.

He could tell that his father was really angry, otherwise he, who valued blood ties, would never say such a thing.

"I hope you won't disappoint me again in the future." Giovanni said this, and his anger subsided a little, and then asked: "Has there been no major incidents in the Duke's territory these days?"

"To answer my father, everything in the Duke's territory is going according to plan, and there have been no accidents."

"That's fine." Giovanni nodded with satisfaction. "But the absence of accidents is not a reason for you to be so indulgent. This time I come back, I will punish you by not allowing you to go to that kind of place for a month. For this month, you will stay by my side and learn how to rule such a large territory."

"Okay." Although Donnie was very unhappy when he heard that he would not be able to have fun for a month, he could only agree with his father's words on the surface.

...