Chapter 139 The Devil’s Power
When Barov returned to his office in the Town Hall, he immediately closed the door behind himself.
My God, cold shivers were running down his spine, he immediately firmly grasped the God’s Stone of Retaliation hanging around his neck, once more starting to feel safe. It seems His Royal Highness really has become possessed by the devil. Previously he had only thought of it as a sort of crazy speculation, but now he was almost certainly, the one with whom he had just talked was definitely not the 4th Prince.
Barov could still accept his huge character changes with him becoming somewhat eccentric, but how was it possible that he would suddenly have so much new knowledge about topics he had never had any former contact with? Such a thing he had only heard of happening in myth, but in the legends, it was always God who had possessed a mortal body, moving to lead humanity out of their predicament. But since when did the Devil start loving to do the same thing?
If Roland Wimbledon acted like a king and engaged himself in the management of his territory (though that would become a challenging situation), Barov would not be too surprised to learn that the previous information of the 4th Prince was without learning or any skills turned out to be false, but his character still couldn’t be disguised. After all, it was always possible that someone had just secretly taught him how to govern a city or even a country.
But Barov had never heard anything about the ideas and programs coming out of the Prince’s mouth. Yet, he had previously worked for twenty years in the Capital’s City Hall, even becoming the finance minister, so he should have a deep knowledge about how to organize and operate a Town Hall. As a minister, he had had been in charge of many areas, and he even had made numerous secret deals before, but he had never betrayed his higher ups.
The King had issued a decree, that a minister could decide who would work under him. So, each minister had his own power, and they all ended up handling it differently. For example, the minister responsible for the defense of the King’s City had hundreds of knights and mercenary under his control. At the same time, those underground organization also had a lot of influence. When these forces began to rampage, they would most of the time be eying the criminals, but even as a noble it would soon become difficult to stay in the city. They could only wait for the king to place them into prison.
But this wasn’t only in the King’s City, other cities also had the same situation.
So, if I want to become a Lord or King, the most important thing I would need is a big aristocracy or others with an influential background.
If they did not have enough money to recruit any men, could it be that they had any other option that they could lean on? And the more people they controlled, the more they would be valued by others, after all so many people can’t be wrong, right?
But the Prince’s approach completely subverted Barov’s concept of how things worked. He was still the minister and still had his own apprentices, but everyone else was directly recruited and paid for by the Town Hall. In other words, even if he was to die, they could easily exchange him for a new person, or directly raise a person up from below him.
This was a completely new system to him, Barov was now sure of it, the Price was implementing a completely new political system for the Kingdom of Graycastle.
Some people may think that this was just some kind of wishful thinking on the part of Roland, or that Roland believed himself to be infallible. But Barov didn’t think so, he took a quill and recorded down all of His Highness’ requirements.
Looking at the plans, it seemed everything was intertwined, nothing was forgotten.
First, he had to manage the eat and drink for all project.
Barov naturally knew that with a stronger control over the people the instructions issued by the Lord would be executed faster. But doing it in this way, it would also greatly increase the workload for the management, from where was he meant to get all these people who would need to know how to read and write? Furthermore, this would also greatly burden the Lord’s own treasury, only a few Lords would be willing to do this.
And then he turned his attention to His Highness second project, the recruitment of civilians into the City Hall and the education of all civilians.
When Barov thought about these two projects, he couldn’t suppress a shiver.
If His Highness ends up being able to implement everything, how will Border Town look like?
Any civilian will be able to read and write, and as long as the Town Hall wants to increase their workforce, they would be able to find a large number of suitable personnel. And with the possibility to enter the Town Hall, this will, in turn, promote the universal access to the education system. Getting a rewarding position, while at the same time getting a social upgrade, I’m afraid that it would only take one or two years, until everyone will take the initiative to request for an education, even if they cannot get it for themselves, they will definitely plan to send their children to college.
Plus, with all the previous employers’ compensation paid for by the Town Hall, the civilians will no longer need to work all the time to get enough to eat, which is equal to completely breaking away from the situation that only the nobility has the capital to serve as administrative officials.
There is no doubt that only the Devil is able to come up with such a revolutionary system.
Barov took a deep breath, gripping the God’s Stone of Retaliation with his hands, there was now only one question left, could the devil also be something good?
If someone said that the Prince was evil, he would be the first one to stand up to defend him.
In his eyes, the actions of the 4th Prince could be even seen as the moves of a wise King. Even those Kings from the legends of the past never cared as much about the lives of the civilians as did the king. He even bought enough food to feed the civilians using his own money, so that all the common people who had stayed with him inside Border Town, would be able to safely cross the Months of Demons. Furthermore, all these Devil’s technologies and equipment were all meant for the development of Border Town; even these evil witches, they all used their abilities in order to improve the people’s lives.
Barov suddenly had the feeling that even if Roland became the next King of the Kingdom of Graycastle, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.
Thinking of his father’s own teachings: If he had nothing to say he shouldn’t be the one to speak, if he didn’t want to know the answer then he also shouldn’t be the one to ask, so he decided to hide his discovery deep within his heart. Since it was the devil, and the Church are already eying us, if the outer appearance was wrong, he could start an ambush in the Devil’s own camp and expose him for a lot of eyewitnesses.
He shook the bell, calling for Sirius Daly who had recently joined the Town Hall.
Compared with the other stupid and arrogant knights, this young knight from the Wolf Family could be regarded as someone truly outstanding, although he still had the pride of being a former knight, he was still willing to listen to what his teachers had to sy.
“Teacher, what do you have for me?” After shutting the door behind himself he saluted before Barov.
“His Royal Highness plans to open up a new ministry, it will be in charge of supervising the crop’s cultivation and we will need at least two apprentices to help them with the records,” Barov repeated Roland’s request in front of him, “In addition, you should go to the Town’s Hall and pick out ten people who meet the requirements, searching for at least ten possible candidates, and afterwards go through another screening.
“Although the others are only civilians, His Highness has insisted on putting them into the Town Hall as well. If some of them show outstanding performance, perhaps they can even become the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, hey…” He sighed, “You will be in charge of the record keeping, however when the spring plowing is finished, I will take you back.”
“Teacher, only two people will be selected from the Town Hall,” he proudly said, “I am also very familiar with this procedure.”
“You?” Barov became stunned.
“Yes! Before I became a knight, I had helped my father to manage the farm, so I know everything about the wheat planting.” Sirius paused. “But when His Highness asked me if I had any other expertise, I did not say it… because I feared that he would send me to the farmland, to work with the serfs.
Barov liked what he heard, he had both requirements, the education and knowledge of farm work, even if the civilian population joined the Ministry of Agriculture, he still have a candidate that could take over the lead position. For now, Sirius was loyal to him, so after he became the head, it would be the same as having the influence of the Ministry of Agriculture.
“Well,” Barov began, forming his words into a profitable promise, “Do a good job, and maybe you can climb to an even higher position than before.”
When Sirius had left his office, Barov leaned against his chair while humming a light tone.
Since he now knew that His Highness was possessed by the Devil, he had to seize as much power as possible. The Devil was always full of appreciation for ambitious people, this was commonly known and recorded in the legends. And for himself, whether his rights were conferred by the King or granted by the Devil, both privileges were equally as sweet.