Chapter 367
Chapter 367: Unexpected Visitor
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
It was dangerous high up in the air . Small countries would usually have no aerial defenses, but casually entering a major country's air space would be the same as challenging that country's air defenses and aerial knights .
But the most dangerous possibility was to accidentally enter a mage tower's defense zone . Even a dragon could die against a well-prepared mage tower .
High-quality mage towers would be capable of multiplying a mage's spells' strength by ten times over . A large-scale, high-circle spell would easily reach the scale of a small forbidden spell . It was quite common for mages to be able to slay dragons . This was also why dragons would still maintain a basic amount of respect for the mages .
To my knowledge, the capital city of each major domain in the Bardi Empire had such anti-air defenses . In fact, the more powerful domain lords would even hire mages to construct anti-air mage towers . Of course, they weren't necessarily guarding against external threats . Powerful domain lords in a mega-empire would have wealth comparable to that of small countries and could afford to maintain a sizable amount of aerial cavalry .
Just as how royal authority and religious authority were forever at odds with each other, royal authority and domain lord authority would be forever in conflict .
If it was a time when the royalty was very weak, the local domain lords would typically fight amongst themselves, attacking each other's territory and forcibly kidnapping citizens for population . Perhaps they would use ridiculously flimsy excuses such as "You dared to not invite me when your son was born," or "Your wife tried to flirt with my uncle . " But if the royalty's power was at a nadir, then such excuses that not a single person would believe were more than enough .
A weak royal authority meant that internal chaos was unavoidable . If a particular domain lord emerged with the support of more than half of the factions in the country, then a new royalty would likely be established .
Since the newly-born royalty used their concrete power to obtain that position, the new royalty would naturally have great authority . The royalty would thus enter a period of great authority . But no dynasties in any world lasted forever . It would be impossible for a royal family to forever have only just and wise rulers . As long as the feudal system and bloodline hereditary royal authority continued, it would only be a matter of time before the royalty was changed out yet again .
Obviously, this wasn't exactly a beneficial cycle as this type of society would make war and conflict inevitable . But although ordinary citizens would always suffer when there was war, such a cycle had its contributions to society, too . At the very least, it was a natural opportunity to shake the system and get rid of a foolish or tyrant king .
I had researched about political systems in detail considering probable future developments . However, I had no intentions of starting a "Communist revolution,""attacking the rich and taking their lands," or anything like that . In fact, I didn't even intend to bring a revolutionary change to society apart from introducing the Concept of Law . That was because in this world, where lands were wide, production capabilities were low, and wild magical monsters were overly powerful, a seemingly backwards society where domain lords took responsibility for protecting their citizens was actually the best fit .
"Everyone belongs to the royalty? Everyone should listen to the king? Since you all belong to the royalty, then look to the royalty for protection . "
Domain lords owned every part of their territory and their citizens, and were also the main motivation for citizens to organize into militia and protect their own lands . After all, the origin of the knightly spirit was from people swearing loyalty to their domain lord and their land .
Such a noble spirit originated from the ordinary . Protecting one's possessions was only natural . But as adjustments were made to society over time, stepping slightly over this line could make one into a genius, while stepping over this line even more would make one into an idiot who would be burned at the stake .
If some transmigrator truly arrived and created a major country with centralized authority and provinces instead of domains, exchanging domain lords out for government officials, that transmigrator would never receive a great harvest . All that awaited him would be the collapse of his country .
With centralized authority, one little governmental order might take several years to reach the farther districts in a major country . By the time the order arrived, who knew what it would be changed into? Also, centralized authority meant that the population would be overly concentrated into denser areas . With the current generation's technological level, that would be impossible to support .
Too many people gathering in a single place would cause plagues or famines, problems difficult to solve in this day and age . It would be easy to come to a conclusion that densely populated cities were actually a bad thing here . This would be a common example of doing something bad with good intentions .
Of course, smaller countries like ours could try this on a smaller scale if their technology had developed to a certain extent—slowly developing the size of cities and modernizing them with gradual improvements to health care, communication, transportation, agriculture, and industry . All these fields would be raised by several levels as magical engineering brought about an industrial revolution . Society would naturally change even if I didn't do anything… Oops, I might have accidentally revealed my plans here . Yep, I admit I had indeed wanted to make such drastic changes . But overhauling the feudal society for an entire world wouldn't happen overnight .
Of course, there were rare exceptions, such as extremely small countries, theocracies where religious and royal authority were unified, or countries always at war with their neighbors . For these and various other reasons, few exceptions had excellent political stability that lasted over one thousand years .
Couch—cough—let us stop discussing political systems . After being in a feudal system for so long, what did it matter if it remained for a while longer? I had no intentions of spreading philosophies like "All men are created equal" or "Wealth should be equally distributed amongst everyone . " Nor did I have any intentions of creating something like a Communist Party in this world . Doing something like that would only make me into public enemy number one . I could only do what I could and focus on the present .
The Bardi Empire was in a zenith of royal authority . So of course the local domain lords wouldn't fight amongst each other; instead, it was the opposite . They would team up and work together against royal authority . Since absolutely centralized authority was impossible in this society, the conflict between royal and domain lord authority was destined to be eternal and unending, which would reset only each time a new royalty was born .
The current Bardi Empire's royal authority was the strongest it had ever been in its long history . Orloss was even capable of forcing his domain lords to hand over their eldest sons to come over to the capital for "education . " He even strictly controlled the amount of soldiers permitted in the domain lords' private armies . But making every domain lord obedient would require several centuries without internal or external chaos . That would be impossible for anyone unless they were some sort of undying main character with an incredible cheat .
Although the Bardi Empire was only one country in name, technically speaking it was more like each individual domain was a smaller country . Calculating a country's overall combat strength would typically refer to the royal army and royal knights . But for any large scale warfare, one would have to include the domain lords' private armies . It was only normal that answering their king's summons and sending out their private armies to participate in national warfare would be one of the most basic duties of a domain lord .
Don't underestimate the domain lords' private armies . Their training techniques and equipment would be passed down from generation to generation . Certain specialized equipment and troop types would often become local specialties . There were plenty of private armies even stronger than the royal army . Since the royalty restricted the number of soldiers allowed in the domain lords' armies, the major nobles focused on the quality of their troops . It was actually quite common that an individual soldier in a domain lord's army would be far stronger than the average soldier in the royal knights .
The number of troops permitted to a domain lord would typically be related to that domain lord's noble rank . But there were still ways to circumvent the numbers limitations, such as village militias, reserve troops, and so on . Although none of the domain lords had as many troops as the royal army, adding them together would typically be a huge amount of soldiers several times the size of the royal army . Only that would help them to be able to restrain the royalty from running amok . From a certain standpoint, in a feudal society, the royalty themselves were basically the strongest domain lord of the country .
Well, this was the situation for ordinary domain lords . As for the major domain lords of border domains, it would be impractical and impossible to restrict the number of soldiers they possessed . These major nobles were usually the ones who found it easiest to become a new royalty dynasty .
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