Sally looked at the man in front of her. His eyes gradually regained the determination of the past, and she finally breathed a sigh of relief. Roddy carefully digested her words. When he removed his identity as the "Prime Minister of the Cabinet," the suffocating pressure was finally relieved.
After a while, he finally crossed this huge threshold in his heart. No one could decide the life and death of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people in a chat. The huge pressure of morality and beliefs made Roddy fall into chaos for a while, and he even tried to escape. This was not shameful, but it proved that he had a very firm bottom line in his heart.
However, this bottom line was praiseworthy in peaceful times, but in the current world, it was incompatible after all.
Indeed, the war he started alone would cause countless deaths, and among them, there must be innocent people, including women and children. But if he did not resist and allowed Efta to be annexed, what would happen?
The entire kingdom would be completely reduced to "cannon fodder," and all the people would die in numbness …
When that time came, the casualties would not just be simple soldiers. Perhaps the entire Kingdom of Karen would be thrown into the furnace of war by the Dragons without mercy. Although Roddy and Kardashian had feelings for each other, from the perspective of the race, the Dragons and humans were not on the same path.
Roddy thought of the movie "The Matrix," but he could not remember the specific content after so many years. But there was a sentence that seemed to be engraved in his mind, "To them, humans … are just batteries."
"I know what to do."
Looking at the crystal wall, Roddy slowly put down his palm, his eyes extremely clear, "Everything in Hollier will proceed according to the original plan, and … I will record all the actions of these people in the cabinet during the war."
Of course, he would not fully believe that these nobles in the cabinet would always stand with him. If it was against an external enemy, their stance might be able to maintain the same, but in the face of the royal family supported by the Dragons, under the huge risk of starting a war, there was no guarantee that some people would do unwise things.
Countless years of history had proven that being stabbed in the back was the deadliest.
"For Efta."
Sally smiled. Roddy stood up straight and saluted, "For everyone."
The image on the crystal wall gradually disappeared after the energy was cut off. Sally, who was standing in the core chamber, slowly stepped down from the special platform. The Grand Arcanist stood behind her. When Sally looked over, she said, "Prime Minister Roddy reminds me of someone."
"High Elves?"
"Yes, perhaps you have heard of him, Lord Duke." Edith casually pointed, and a thin and handsome figure appeared on the crystal wall next to him. "His name is Solomon …"
"Him? Wasn't he banished because he learned elemental magic? " Sally knew Solomon's story, so she didn't understand why Edith would suddenly say that. After all, there were no similarities between their experiences.
"Not just this incident," Edith shook his head, "I'm referring to all the experiences of the Prime Minister in the past few years — because ever since he encountered the orcs in Norland Village, it was as if he began to take revenge on the entire kingdom with his own strength …"
"I'm very curious about what happened to him."
*****
When April came, the busy farming Kingdom of Karen seemed calm, but in fact, everyone realized that a storm was brewing here.
The Age of Karen had completely given up its throne as the top seller in the eastern part of the kingdom, and was replaced by the Royal Weekly. It seemed to be writing exciting good news every day.
"The latest achievements of the Dragon Tower Magicians far exceed Elson's!"
"The production of new wheat has doubled, and may completely solve the kingdom's food shortage."
"Congratulations to the Dragon Tower for the birth of the first Magician. The Red Dragon Lord, Quio, is here to congratulate you!"
The editors of the Royal Weekly were well versed in the way of truth and falsehood. They exaggerated the content to ten points, and exaggerated the negative news to ten points. In this era, most people were illiterate. Not to mention the ability to think independently, just being able to understand the news was already considered to be cultured. With a little bit of embellishment in the square, the content of the newspaper was basically accepted by the people.
Sometimes, quantitative changes could indeed produce qualitative changes. This kind of continuous propaganda continued for two months, and the morale of the originally gloomy eastern part of the kingdom was extremely high. The territory that had been ravaged by the orcs last year had begun to be reclaimed. After the so-called new seeds were sown, the farmers were eagerly looking forward to the harvest. They diligently tended the fields all day long.
The content of the daily conversations had also changed from "will the orcs come back?" to "when will we defeat Eiffta?" The power of public opinion was obvious here. A lie repeated ten thousand times would become the truth. Obviously, most of the nobles had suffered heavy losses in the battle last year, but in less than half a year, people actually believed that Charles II could once again gather a strong army for the "Western Expedition"!
Yes, the "Western Expedition" had become a slogan that everyone knew.
Of course, such a wave of public opinion was not spontaneous. How could the "Elson Central Intelligence Agency" sit back and watch? However, Charles II was not a fool. After realizing the power of public opinion, he directly organized a team to specifically clean up the "Age of Karen."
At first, he issued an order to prohibit the sale of the book. Every book they saw would be confiscated. After that, he severely punished the merchants who sold the book, ranging from fines to imprisonment without mercy. Then, he imposed a system of consecutive punishments. Charles II's control over the army and the nobles had reached its peak after he had the support of the Dragons. Therefore, the investigation of the "Age of Karen" near the imperial city had almost completely eliminated the influence of the "Eiffta faction" within a few months …
This feeling made Charles II truly understand the benefits of "centralization of power."
The influence of the imperial power of the Kingdom of Karen had been declining for the past few decades. The nobles of the first generation still shed their blood for the king, but today, they were all pursuing their own interests and had no time to care about the royal family. However, since the "Dragon Tower" was established, the nobles came like a breeze, almost lining up to express their loyalty.
Charles II did not dare to carry out any major changes in the political structure like Roddy. Being able to gather power had already made him feel like he was on cloud nine. When the submissive nobles in the council hall bowed to him, he felt ten years younger.
Power was the best aphrodisiac. This saying was indeed true. Recently, Charles II was not only full of energy, but the wrinkles on his face seemed to have lessened. He spent more than eight hours in the council hall and study every day. He had never been so diligent in the more than ten years he had been in power.
"I hope to see Eiffta start to take the initiative to give in by the end of this year. Although our situation is better at the moment, the enemy is not glass that will break at the first touch. " Of course, Charles II did not indulge in vanity all day long. He did not forget to study the information and make a judgment. But obviously, the information he could get was far less complete than Elson's CIA, so there was an error in his judgment. "The previous two wars have highlighted the seriousness of the logistical problem, so this time we must be fully prepared."
He took out a statistical data, which was densely written with a lot of notes. The nobles around could not help but sweat: they came to show their loyalty, thinking that it was just for show. Who knew that the emperor was really not an idiot. He did not do his homework at all. The moment he opened his mouth, he listed a series of previous battle losses and the ratio of investment, so that the nobles no longer underestimated him.
After saying this, Charles II looked at their faces and secretly felt proud. He turned his head and asked Earl Duweiden, "You said that the new wheat that the Dragons helped to research, how much can it increase the yield?"
This question made Duweiden's face a little embarrassed. He coughed lightly and had to bite the bullet to answer, "Your Majesty, actually … actually there is no new wheat."
"Huh? What do you mean? "
"Because I saw in 'Cullen's Era' that Elson announced that he had a new crop, saying that the yield had increased several times. I felt that we should not let the people of the kingdom feel that we are behind on this … So I let the newspaper make up a news and publish it. The seeds are actually the same as before …"
Seeing that Charles II's eyes were gloomy, Duweiden immediately bowed deeply. "Your Majesty, in fact, this is also a last resort! You have also seen that the morale of the people of the kingdom is high recently. We cannot let them feel that they are inferior to Efta from any angle. Besides … I deliberately told them that these seeds need to be carefully cared for to have a good harvest. So even if it is ordinary seeds, the final harvest will be better than in previous years. If the harvest is not good, then say that they did not take good care of it … "
This kind of talk was completely nonsense. The other nobles in the council hall showed a look of contempt, but Charles II narrowed his eyes. "Go on."
"When the time comes, we will cite some areas with higher yields in the newspaper and exaggerate their production figures to three or four times the normal amount. This way, everyone will believe that it is not a problem with the seeds, but their own problem — next year, they will take care of the fields more carefully, and it will also buy us time for research and development …"
After listening to him, Charles II suddenly laughed out loud. "Good! Good! Good! "
After saying 'good' three times in a row, he turned to the other nobles and said, "This is considered to be making use of the newspaper! Do you think that those people who read the newspaper are all smart people? In fact, they believe whatever the newspaper says. Even if I say that there are two suns in the sky, a group of people will really come up with arguments to prove my words. "
"Duweiden's idea is very good. Last year, we were attacked and suffered heavy losses, but this year is a special situation. With the help of the Dragons, we will definitely be able to quickly recover the land and complete the great cause of unification — all of this is for the revival of the Kingdom of Karen!"
"For the revival of the kingdom!"
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
