Black Iron Crown

At this time, the Kingdom of Bazalan, located in the northwest of the Ridka Empire, was already in turmoil.

Although the new king Emalu took a series of measures to stabilize the situation in the country after he came to power, the internal contradictions have not improved.

Especially the supporters of the old king, they were very dissatisfied with Emalu's rise to power. Many people believed that the old king's 40 was concocted by him, and even the young prince was murdered by him.

Therefore, the vassals in the old king's faction were very dissatisfied with King Emalu, and often violated his orders, and imposed high taxes on merchants in the areas controlled by King Emalu.

But speaking of it, the territory of the Bazalan Kingdom is far smaller than that of the Ridka Empire, so there are not many vassals in the country, and the situation is not as complicated as the Empire.

After all, this is only a slightly larger country than the northern border, and there are only three great lords of the earl level in the territory. They are called great lords, but the strength of lords is not divided by title alone.

Some barons are powerful, even comparable to an earl, while some earls are weak, not even as powerful as a baron.

Even at the level of the king, there have been times when the strength was weak. It was not an ordinary state, but lost all its territories. For example, one of the former kings of the Moreland family, King Princeton, the old emperor The seventh-generation grandfather of Reiner, that is, the eighth-generation grandfather of Reiner.

A king does not have any territory, and has the title of king above his head. Although his status is extremely respectable, no territory means no army and taxation, and no one will respect him.

Many of his titular vassals even mocked him and bestowed him with the title of "King of Lost Land". (John, the King of Lost Land in England, also known as the King of Landless, the son of Henry II, the unpopular king, was once united by his vassals to crusade)

However, unlike the well-known "Lost Land King", although the Princeton King had a very difficult early life, he quickly gained a territory and developed under his management.

Then, through a series of marriages, diplomacy, and wars, they regained the territories that once belonged to the Merland royal family but were embezzled or inherited.

According to statistics, the King of Princeton married six wives in his life. However, except for the last one of these wives who accompanied him to his old age, all of them died inexplicably.

King Princeton did not return those dowry and inherited territories. In addition, he launched seven unilateral wars with a number of 5,000 people.

There are even more wars with less than 5,000 men.

Under his life's southern and northern wars and lower-body conquests, the entire northern territory, including Twarinburg County, and the current Earl of Jorral, Berensburg, were all included in the scope of the Kingdom of Ridka within.

It was also he who accumulated great strength for the Merland family, and also laid the foundation for the conquest war of the Ridka Kingdom later, and is called the Founding King by the present people.

The experience of the previous king of the Bazalan Kingdom was similar to that of King Princeton. The land of the Bazalan royal family was embezzled, entrusted, or inherited, and by his generation, there were very few left.

Except for an imperial capital and a part of the suburban land, they no longer have any territory or people.

There are more than one million people in the huge land of the Bazalan Kingdom, but at that time, only 10,000 people belonged to the royal family.

With his sleight of hand and military prowess, he took back inch by inch of territory, and then reconquered the lords everywhere, keeping them humble and respectful to the royal family.

He is eight years older than his younger brother, the current king of the Bazalan Kingdom, Emalu. Although there is only a mere eight years difference, the physical condition between the two is very different.

The old king had just reached fifty years old when his body completely collapsed. During a previous hunting, some accidents occurred and he lost his life forever.

And because he has no heirs, according to the law of succession, his younger brother Emalu should succeed to the throne.

However, due to the strange death of the old king at that time, the vassals who followed him to fight the world, or the veteran generals who were conferred territories expressed their dissatisfaction with King Emalu.

They believed that Elmaru's heart of disobedience had existed long ago, and he was responsible for the death of the old king.

However, Elmaru managed his own power very early on. He was also one of the deputies when the old king went south and north, and he had a strong power and prestige within the kingdom.

Although these vassals were dissatisfied with it, in the final analysis they did not dare to act rashly.

King Emalu was sitting in the palace that already belonged to him. A dozen or so gorgeous dancers danced lightly, with soft waists and light bodies. King Emalu, the ruler of this country, their owner.

"Your Majesty..." A strong man wearing chain armor walked into the palace and came to King Emalu unhindered. It seemed that he was the king's confidant.

King Emalu glanced at him, and then waved to the dancers in the field, so the wonderful dance and melodious music stopped instantly, and they hurriedly left the palace after saluting to King Emalu.

"What's the matter?" King Emalu looked at this confidant and asked.

He knew that if his people didn't have important things to do, they wouldn't come to disturb him casually, because the skin of the last person who did that had already been pulled off and sewn back on.

"Your Majesty, those who oppose you have become more and more arrogant recently, and they seem to have discovered the dilemma of lack of steel in your hands. They are strictly controlling the outflow of steel and increasing efficiency to build armor!"

After listening to his subordinates, King Emalu frowned even more.

"Sooner or later, I'll pull out their skins!" He said with disgust, and then asked: "So, how about our steel purchases?"

"Barely passable, the merchant you secretly sent has bought a lot of iron farm tools from the northern border of Ridka and returned to cast them..."

"However, our previous method of buying steel at a high price has not been effective, and..."

Having said that, this subordinate did not dare to continue talking.

Because he saw that King Emalu's face was gradually becoming ugly. If he didn't want to be eaten by the hounds raised by the king, then shutting up was his best choice now.

That's right, this subordinate embarrassed King Emalu very much.

At the beginning, he wanted to get more iron and steel to conquer the dissidents, so he bought iron and steel at high prices on a large scale.

And such behavior undoubtedly exposed his thoughts, and also aroused the suspicion of the other lords, and steel was strictly controlled.