dognovel Chapter 195 The Aftermath of Joy
Chapter 195 The Aftermath of Joy
"This is real, I saw it with my own eyes!"
In a tavern in the Earl's Castle, a drinker was telling something loudly to the people around him.
"Okay, okay, we've known this for a long time. Our Lord Earl has finally taken a step towards growth. He's starting a family after establishing his career." The drinker next to him continued what he said after hearing it.
"But I heard that Miss Matilda is a Yoda. Will she be regarded as a traitor by other nobles in Midland? I heard that Windham is impeaching the Earl's father." Another drinker said worriedly.
"What's there to be afraid of? When we were living in dire straits before, we never saw those nobles come to rescue us. They ate, drank, spent money and bullied ordinary people like us freely in the rear. Now they want to control the marriage freedom of our lord? If they dare to do so, I will be the first to disagree!"
His words were greeted with cheers from the people in the tavern. Most of them had become numb and unable to think because of the oppression of the Midlan nobles, Yuda soldiers, and various bandits, but with John's baptism of the entire Franche-Comté and the subsequent construction, they also changed from slaves to the current well-fed and well-clothed citizen class.
When life got better, people started to think about other things. In addition to supporting John, they thought carefully about their previous miserable lives, and their anger suddenly rose.
In this situation, John gave another wave of help, which was to allow residents to own weapons. At the beginning, except for bows and crossbows, which needed to be reported to the local relevant departments, other weapons did not need to be reported. The purpose of doing this was to provide the people with some self-protection capabilities for fear that Yoda and the remnants of the bandits would continue to cause chaos.
The effect was very good at the beginning. Then when John inadvertently saw several villagers carrying a cannon to assist the soldiers in suppressing bandits, he ordered that all weapons must be reported and residents were not allowed to own gunpowder weapons.
But even so, every resident's home has some weapons to a greater or lesser extent. Most of these weapons are made directly from local blacksmith shops, and some are second-hand goods from the Yoda people.
In short, in order to protect their hard-earned happy life and resentment against foreign invaders, and with the blessing of John's invincible army, the residents who obtained weapons wanted to fight directly with the nobles who had persecuted them before, to let them see what Franche-Comté shock was.
Now, when the residents heard that the Midland nobles wanted to dictate to John again, they thought that their current lives were closely related to John. In their opinion, dictating to John was the same as dictating to themselves, so they naturally became angry.
"If they dare to come, we will arm ourselves and fight them. Damn, a bunch of rubbish that can't even be defeated by the Yoda people, along with a bunch of nobles who only know how to drink and have fun, want to fight us? There's no need to send out the army. We can just form an army with one person from each family and beat them back!"
"Yes! What a bullshit noble lord of Midland! Our only lord is Earl John!"
Amid the cheers of the crowd, a drinker sitting in the corner took advantage of the enthusiasm of the drinkers to come to the counter, handed the money to the tavern owner and left the tavern.
"So, the people in the territory have no good feelings towards Midland at all?" John asked Wesker in the castle. He originally wanted to use spies to collect citizens' opinions on his marriage to Matilda, but he ended up getting such unexpected information.
"From the intelligence I received, citizens generally don't have a good impression of Midlan, especially the Midlan nobles. Their level of disgust may even be higher than that of the Yoda people." Wesker responded after carefully reviewing the intelligence.
"Fortunately, we didn't let them out. If they said the same thing outside, we would have no choice but to surrender to Yoda." John sighed. Although the internal factions of Midland were complicated and no action would be successfully completed in the end, this environment also distracted the senior officials including the king, preventing them from focusing on his territory.
Of course, the most important point is that although John is the Count of Franche-Comté, he also holds the position of Governor of the Forest, and he can ask His Majesty the King for a salary for this position.
In the spirit of taking as much as he could, John would always wait until the king paid the military salaries for the southern battlefields and then send people to Wendam’s military department to collect his salary, because this meant that Wendam’s treasury had sufficient funds.
John's salary is usually around 1000 gold coins per year, which is not too much, but not too little either. He can think of it as an early pension for himself.
"Speaking of this, what happened to those Kushan people?" John suddenly remembered that after he took these people in, he never went to see them, and he didn't know whether they were dead or alive.
"It's not clear at the moment. I'll send a spy to investigate." Wesker said and left John's office.
In the prison not far from the Earl's Castle where the Kushans were held, the Kushans were not forced to work like prisoners in prisons in other areas. On the contrary, they were now bored to death.
Because the warden said that the Kushan nobles would be treated as Yoda nobles, in addition to being exempted from the work that ordinary prisoners had to do, even physical work such as cleaning rooms and carrying prison supplies was assigned to servants. However, the Kushans refused the jailers' help in taking care of their lives and gave these tasks to their own servants.
In addition to dormitories and canteens, this place also has bathrooms, a small library, and a racecourse for the entertainment of the nobles. It can be said that except for not being allowed to go out, everything else is pretty good.
In a dormitory in the prison, a young Kushan man was lying on his bed and said to an old man sitting in the corner:
"Grandpa, why don't you think those Midlanders kill us and treat us so well?"
The old man opened his eyes, looked at his grandson and said:
“My child, don’t be misled by their direction. If you accept the instigation of pagans, you will not be able to see God after death.” After saying this, he closed his eyes again.
The child just nodded slightly when he saw this. At this time, the prison bell rang. Every time this happened, it meant that the canteen was open for dinner. He picked up his and his grandfather's rice bowls, left the dormitory, and walked towards the canteen.
However, when he arrived at the cafeteria, there was already a long line. Just as he was about to line up, a smell of meat wafted over from the front.
"This is... grilled lamb chops! And the aroma is almost the same as in Kusha!" The boy's eyes lit up. Although the cafeteria provides meat every day, the amount each person gets is limited, and there are no large amounts of spices added like in Kusha.
As time went by, it was soon his turn. The chef in front of him first gave him two flatbreads, and then used a spoon to scoop out large chunks of mutton from the bucket to fill his and his grandfather's lunch boxes.
"So many today." The boy said in broken Midland language.
"You are lucky. You have come at a good time. Our master is getting married, so the warden has improved today's meals to celebrate. Even our wages have increased a lot." The chef responded to him while serving him food.
"So that's how it is." The young man thought to himself. Although his grandfather taught him not to have a favorable impression of pagans, looking at the two boxes full of fragrant mutton, he still silently blessed the lord and his wife whom he had never met:
"May you and your loved ones be happy forever..."