There are regular prophecies in the family, of course not by the family head. Once a prophecy points at the royal family, it will directly mean the royal family owes the Holle family. And if one day the emperor refuses to pay when they ask, well, the next time there is a prophecy, just keep it by yourself and let the emperor face the consequences. In this case, even though they knew and didn’t warn, they won’t be punished.
The empire is special so even though the emperor will have a lifespan of a thousand years, he will only serve for three hundred. Then he will abdicate and become an elder of the family. They aren’t even allowed to take governmental positions, after all, these are all occupied by the high nobles.
Considering that most emperors are old people who have no possibility of advancing, most of them will be over six hundred years old and die not much after they abdicate.
The emperor’s position might be regarded as important in the eyes of the lower nobles, but neither the higher nobles nor the imperial family truly regards this position as admirable. Isn’t it just a family elder than uses their last lifespan to serve as a public servant? The high nobles are basically their own emperor in their fief, so naturally the respect is less towards the emperor.
It is only because the emperor represents the family behind him that they listen to him on larger matters and emergencies. Most of the time, the empire is basically self-governed by the ministers in parliament, the fiefs of nobles are their own property and they only have to follow the foundational laws of the empire, while the border military nobles have a kings authority in their region.
The nobles in the empire all came from a liberal country with a strong sense of independence. It’s fine to follow the general law, but even thousands of years before the spiritual world descended, there was never a case where a single ruler decided everything. At least not for long, when this was the case a few times, it quickly escalated. After experiencing this, who in their right mind would like this form of rule?
When Adele first heard of this, she only had one thought: the empire is a paradise for the higher nobles and common people. The high nobles reign their power with nearly unlimited freedom, while the common people enjoy a good set of foundational laws. All these laws were humanitarian, even their title ‘Basic Rights’ makes people understand their importance.
The ones that suffer are the middle and lower nobles. You can live a happy life as a common person, but when you awaken, you basically have no opportunity to become a noble. A knight has no land, it is rare for barons to own land, a viscount and count may have land but they are just vassals of the higher nobles and have to follow their laws.
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Only when you become a marquis are you able to have some independence, you will only have to pay tribute to the nearest duchy for ‘giving a good play to grow’. But the land you own will have to be conquered by yourself. At least you get land assigned to you as you grow as a noble under the reign high nobles until you are a count, but once you are a marquis, you should be happy if your master doesn’t take his land back.
The steps for nobility are simply too high! A seventh circle for viscount, eight circle for count and ninth circle for marquis. There were cases where a marquis became a duke! When the marquis family grows for a long time and becomes stable and has a long inheritance, they become duchies. Yet Adele knew for a fact that all current duchies and above existed for as long as her soul.
There is a simple explanation for this: all these duchies ceased to exist at one point. Regardless of how strong you become, even if you get the title, you won’t be able to get a position in the higher circle. The four directions of borders are occupied by the military nobles, the parliament is occupied by a grand duchy and two other duchies… these new dukes would basically become the dogs of both sides.
After such hard work, you will only become a dog. It’s no surprise that many of these duchies take great risks to gain power, but all of them failed. Looking at the Holle family, they are just a duchy! There are two grand duchies above and an imperial family above them.
The two duchies in the parliament have to huddle together for warmth and strength, even if they are respected, they still need strength to fight for benefits. They can’t possibly sacrifice every time they want something. This would be too disastrous to the family. How many family heads would be given up in that case?
The three military duchies don’t feel relaxed either – they defend the border! How could a single noble family defend a border to a different country? They have to rely on the parliament for resources and on the nobles for soldiers. If one day, they go to war, they are also the ones that are at the biggest risk.
The grand duchy to the east is still fine, after all, with their strength, they can demand things. But the three duchies don’t have this right. They can only do their own politics and ally themselves with the different factions to gain what they need.
In this situation, the chancellor is the most relaxed! He has the highest power in the parliament. It was only because of the outer and inner minister that he had to work hard. The inner minister has the highest power among the nobles, while the outer minister plays an extremely important role for the military nobles.
It’s because of this that the Holle Trugbild alliance was able to become the fourth faction besides the two grand duchies. The imperial power only has to ensure the balance between these three factions is kept, to let the empire prospers. Only in war times will the imperial family become active. If it wasn’t because the empire is a war monger, people might forget the imperial family exists.
Adele, in her rest, calculated her next steps. Although her current progress was good and she was learned a lot about the empire, she also saw that there wasn’t much change in anything.