57 – Paving Stone for God’s Hand (3)

After hearing my words, the duke said in amazement.

“Sang, a standing army of 5,000… how do you maintain that number of soldiers when you’re only a baron? I will add that to make 10,000 people. It’s not even funny…”

No matter how much I sell sugar, salt, and surplus food to Hamburg, I have enough money, but with the current situation in our territory, we cannot maintain a standing army of more than 5,000.

The cost of eating and drinking, salaries, equipment, training costs, road improvements to maintain transportation capacity, etc… Even the cost of entering the standing army… over 20,000 gold coins.

240,000 gold coins in a year, with a little bit of exaggeration, this money is enough money to paralyze the entire economy of the county of Nantes with monopoly purchases like Heosaeng from Heosaengjeon.

At such shame, the duke laughed loudly as if trying to escape reality.

“Now, man… I don’t know how big your estate is, but even a decent count can’t keep up an army like that. At most, 3,000 is the limit, right? Of course, even those 3,000 people are huge. If you tried to make me laugh, you failed completely. Too bad.”

“You still don’t believe me?”

The Duke listened to me and clicked his tongue.

“Tsk, of course not. Of course, you’ve already succeeded enough. You squeezed the territory and organized a standing army of 3,000 men, and as a result, your lord was given the Countess of Hellsman.”

So I decided to lay down almost all of my cards to keep the negotiations going the way I wanted.

In poker, a hand that almost won would be a royal straight flush if only one card was filled.

“Your Highness, hasn’t it been easier to find sugar lately?”

At my sudden question, the duke replied as if he was dumbfounded.

“Surely, the butler liked that the price of sugar had come down a little thanks to the sugar coming in from Hamburg. So, recently, the number of sweets shops using sugar has increased in our dukedom… why are you suddenly asking?”

Now I have to get all my cards out of here.

“Aren’t you curious where that sugar comes from?”

“I’m not too curious.”

“No, you should be curious. because…”

I stopped talking and whispered to the Duke on the other side of the wall.

“Because all of that sugar comes from Kreutel. Fortress is selling sugar to the Northern Alliance to make more money. Oh, and salt and leftovers. With this kind of business, it is not at all burdensome to maintain a standing army of 5,000 men for the baron. No, rather, since His Majesty has passed away, in preparation for the disloyal ones who are aiming for this gap… I don’t think there will be any problem if we increase the standing guard to 10,000.”

After that, a thumping sound came from beyond the door.

Perhaps the duke fell down while sitting on his chair in shock, but he was not hurt, right?

No matter how much this is a confession room where secrets are not leaked, if a duke or a person is injured, an investigation without sanctuary will come…

But, fortunately, after a while, the duke’s voice, as shocked as before, was heard.

“Selling sugar, salt and food? I knew that sugar was only made in some provinces by damn Spaniards!! Somehow, sugar has become cheap recently, so even when I go to banquets for poor barons, there are always sugar snacks. It was you who did it!!!”

“I am ashamed.”

“Because I’m asking you, don’t pretend to be humble. Ciel von Kreuttel. Because looking at you, all of my vassals, whom I normally thought were competent, all look like incompetent idiots!”

I don’t think I can get anything from stimulating the duke’s heart anymore.

If that’s the case, I guess I can get into the ‘this subject’ now.

“Yes, I understand. Your Excellency, then I have something I want to ask you…”

“What request? If you ask for my daughter, I will give it to you.”

If he even jokingly said that he would give the ‘daughter he got from his original wife’, he would give the current duke enough time to convince him of whatever proposal I make…

Now is the time to put what I want on the scale of negotiation.

“I want to have the title Countess of Nantes.”

“Tell me again.”

“Ciel von Creutel, the rightful lord of Creutel, wants my lord the title Countess of Nantes. Your Highness the Duke.”

A moment of silence passed between the two of us, after which the Duke opened his mouth.

“The title of Count of Nantes… Are you crazy? No matter how powerful you become, there will be no usurpation of the title of ‘lord’ in this Eline.”

“Under normal circumstances, it would be. However, if you hear how I came to think this way, I think you will understand.”

In the negotiations so far, ‘Please buy me because I can do crazy things like this!!’ ‘, the duke said, ‘So what do you want? Put down that gun for now.’

However, now that I have put forward the greatest taboo of the nobility, ‘seize the title of my master’, the Duke of Brussels has now changed from a ‘hostage’ to a ‘situation with swords pointed at each other’s neck’.

Violating this taboo is the same as killing one’s own parents.

Because of that, he spoke confidently with a voice that felt the confidence, curiosity, and hostility he was born with as an aristocrat compared to just before.

“Tell me, Ciel von Kreuttel.”

“First of all, in the first battle, even though I received a declaration of war, I had to fight alone in the plains of Ethlon because His Excellency Count of Nantes did not fulfill his duty to protect me as a vassal. Fortunately, in this battle, I fought two barons under the command of the Duke of Maxburg and won with 3,000 standing soldiers, and was able to secure the Blue Fort and the salt mines.”

The duke listened to my words and answered in a voice of astonishment, as if someone had read an article about an ‘unimaginable murder to pieces’ in Korea.

“Nonsense!! If you had defeated Hellsmann, you could have fought and defeated even two barons… How could a man called a lord not move a single soldier in a situation where his vassal had been declared war? Is that a person?”

“My story is not over yet.”

“Continue the story. It’s amazing that there’s such a person as human scum.”

“It is still just the beginning. ”

And I took a moment, took a deep breath, and then said.

“Whoa, but in the war I fought alone to protect myself, in exchange for signing a peace negotiation with ‘His Highness the Duke of Maxburg’ alone, he said that he would forgive his sins by dedicating 3,000 of the 5,000 gold coins he received as compensation. .”

“Is that a human?”

Unlike the duke, who reacted violently, I calmly continued the conversation.

“Is that all there is to it? Wasn’t the last war with Count Hellsmann also caused by the rejection of his courtship by the lady of Count Gent?”

“I know that well, because the ball where the count of Nantes asked the count’s daughter to marry was the one I hosted.”

“The count of Nantes in that war was truly spectacle. Except for other trivial things… When fighting a war, he said he wanted to be at the vanguard of a lance charge like knights in chivalry literature in battles that were almost won, so he ran away from the vanguard, to my surprise!”

After my words, there was silence between us for quite some time.

The Duke then heard the sound of something flying and breaking or crashing into the wall from beyond the wall, as if he was angry just hearing it, even though this story was not his own.

After the crackling, crackling, crackling stopped, the Duke answered in a slightly breathy voice.

“This is nonsense… Any aristocrat of the Empire can’t escape once they claim to be the vanguard and start charging. In any situation… but is it human to run away from there? I’d rather be a cultist who doesn’t believe in Deus than that bastard. To violate the oath with the vassal, to claim to be the vanguard, and to run away from there… is that what a human would do?”

“It’s all true, Your Highness. You should be able to find out if you investigate the count of Nantes right away.”

After hearing my words, the duke replied in a tired voice.

“No, no matter how evil you are, you wouldn’t dare to do such a terrible thing in front of me.”

“Then can I trust you now understand why I am arguing against the Count of Nantes?”

“I understand. But this is always the time to look at this as an individual and as a knight. As the duke of Brussels, if the succession war broke out and civil war broke out, he would have to kill his master and get rid of the youngster who became the Count of Nantes and eat the land as well. Isn’t it?”

The more the better, the more territory and population you have when fighting a civil war, the better.

Because if the territory is large, more soldiers can produce food to eat, and if the population is large, more soldiers can be recruited.

In addition, the civil war caused by the succession to the throne is an online game, so you can expand your power by killing an ally player.

‘I am a traitor who does not support the heir to the throne!’ With just one justification, there will be a ‘great cause’ to subdue nobles who do not have a master-servant relationship.

So, now, I am not for a cause or justification, but after I occupy Nantes, the duke in front of me must come up with a ‘reason not to invade here’ and throw it.

“Yes, but. Even if, after I conquer Nantes, Your Highness gains my domain, the trouble will only increase. My domain is a land blessed with sugar, salt, and a port, and the wealth of the county of Nantes extends far to the far reaches of the Northern Union… Wouldn’t His Highness, the Duke of Maxburg, target Nantes? If you go to Nantes, you will have to deal with the nobles who have many heirs to the throne on their backs, as well as Her Majesty Maxburg.”

What I said was something the Duke already knew, but I and the Duke didn’t bother telling this story.

It was for questions to confirm what each other wanted from each other.

And the question I wanted finally poured out of the duke’s mouth.

“Then what are your conditions? Are you saying you won’t participate in this war for the succession?”

“Yes, I have no interest in that war at all. In the first place, my territory is the farthest corner of Elaine, so how could I take the capital by enlisting someone who has the right to succeed to the throne? Therefore, if I take Nantes, I will do my best only to stabilize Nantes. I will never turn my eyes to Elysium.”

After saying that, the wire mesh between the duke and me was removed before I knew it, and through the removed space, two pages of oaths came in.

In that oath, as the duke and I had already said, ‘On the condition of inviolability towards each other, we acquiesce to the territorial sovereignty of the county of Nantes.’ was written.

Seeing that the duke’s signet ring had already been stamped, it must be a ‘secret pact’.

So I took my signet ring, stamped my seal on both contracts, and handed one of them to the Duke.

The duke quickly snatched the contract and said in a displeased voice.

“When you said that you were greedy for the county of Nantes, I secretly expected it. You’re lacking in justification, so I filled that justification and let you have Nantes, and in return I tried to hold on to the leash. You managed to get out too.”

To that, I answered skillfully.

“majesty. I was weak and had to become a cunning rabbit if I wanted to survive. So, in order to survive, I dug three holes, and luckily I just picked one of the three holes and got out.”