Struggle in the Steam Age

"The great emperor of the Holy Visby Empire hereby offers a sincere invitation to Lawrence August to hold a private ball at the Schönbrunn Palace on October 7, 863 at 5 pm, and look forward to your visit."

After finishing the content of the letter, Lawrence discovered that the letter should be an invitation from the royal family to invite him to the ball tomorrow night. In addition to the time and place, the specific location and dress requirements of the Schönbrunn Palace are written in the corners on both sides of the letter. Probably because the dance party was private but was invited by the royal family, so the costume must be formal.

"Fortunately, after the last game, I got a good dress. This time I don't want to be rude. Otherwise, I still have to find the dress everywhere." Lawrence thought. "But why would you send me invitations for the prom at this time?"

It is not surprising that there is a dance party at this time. After all, the dance party, hunting and banquet are essential parts of the nobles' social life. Therefore, the more complicated the situation is, the more the royal family needs to hold various dance parties to take advantage of the opportunity to deal with various things. But he couldn't figure out what this kind of royal private dance would do for himself.

"After all, the rush of the Second Prince’s rebellion is closely related to you, and you have made important contributions in countering the rebellion. So it’s not too strange for the emperor to want to see you. Besides, except for you in the whole rebellion In addition to the contributions you have made, you are also a well-known scholar, so in terms of identity, this kind of dance invitation is also suitable for you."

After feeling the doubts in Lawrence's heart, Nora looked at him and explained: "According to tradition, this kind of private ball of nobles will only invite those who are of equal status. And powerful transcendents, wise scholars and outstanding artists. Is considered equal to the nobility."

"It's really troublesome." Lawrence shook his head slightly. Whether in his previous life or in this life, Lawrence has always lived in a country without nobles. Therefore, the rules between these nobles are naturally a little cold.

"It's really troublesome, but what benefits you can get this time depends on what our great emperor thinks." Nora's slightly teasing voice sounded in Lawrence's mind, as the person who inherited Lawrence's Three Views Occasionally, Nora will naturally value how much the identity of the nobleman is. "And in any case, the emperor Joseph I who wrote you the invitation is worthy of respect even if he removes his emperor status."

"Yes, at least this emperor can be regarded as the blue wisp of the road. It is judged by the phrase Qishanlin." Although Lawrence feels generally about the nobility, he still respects the Emperor Joseph I. Because what the emperor has done before is one of the biggest victories of the intelligent race and the civilized world over the forces of the wilderness in half a century.

After having had breakfast, Lawrence returned to his room and discussed with Nora the possible reasons why he would be invited to the ball. After all, this was the first time he participated in this kind of occasion where the nobles were intrigue, so naturally he was a little uneasy.

"There must be a lot of discussion at the ball, because at least 15 or 6 nobles were completely de-judged in this rebellion. In addition, the current title holders of more than 40 nobles were ordered to commit suicide and pass the title to the heir." Nora In the past few days, when Lawrence was studying magic, she met many people in the court and around her with her cute appearance, and also inquired about many things.

"Handle so many nobles at once!" Lawrence has only seen scattered things in the newspapers about the nobles being dealt with in the past two days, but he didn't expect so many people to be dealt with. You must know that the cornerstone of this empire is the nobility.

"More than that, there are more nobles who have been ordered to surrender their territories." Nora said after a glance at Lawrence. "Those court nobles who have no territory are also ordered to surrender their wealth for atonement. In this case, there is a large amount of land and wealth waiting to be distributed."

"In addition, there are some nobles who temporarily succeeded to the throne that need guardians for various reasons. Because of this, the members of the Imperial Council and the nobles outside recently became a quarrel."

According to the traditional aristocratic inheritance law in the western part of the Old World, the successor to the title is usually required to be the eldest son of the previous generation of aristocratic title holders who are over 18 years old and have normal intelligence. Before reaching the age of 18, the territories of those territorial nobles were jointly managed by the Imperial Court of Arms, the church, and the nobleman’s captain.

However, this does not include transcendents. If the heir is transcendent, no matter how old they are, they can directly control the territory. If there is no eldest son, then the right of inheritance will flow from young to older according to the age of the son.

If there is no son, so can a daughter. But it must be an unmarried daughter. The inheritance rights of married daughters will be very late. At the same time, after inheriting the title, unless the daughter is extraordinary or pays a large amount of marriage autonomy, otherwise, the marriage will be appointed by the noble's superior noble.

Of course, if there are no children, the inheritance rights are generally transferred by brothers, cousins, etc. based on blood ties. However, this time because of the rebellion, the families whose nobles had been ordered to commit suicide before were assigned heirs by the emperor and the imperial council. Of course, this is also in compliance with the internal rules of the nobility. At most, it is the eldest son who skips adulthood and let the minor children inherit.

This time there are so many nobles having problems, so it is a feast for others. Although those who have the right to get a share of the pie will fight, all kinds of quarrels, snatches and private transactions are absolutely inevitable.

However, according to Nara's inquiries, the royal family successfully ate the largest piece this time. However, due to the collective opposition of the nobles of the neutral and emperor factions, the royal family could only merge one earl and two viscounts from the reclaimed aristocratic territories into the royal territories, while the other territories belonged directly to the national territory and belonged to the imperial assembly rule. In addition, part of the territory must be allocated to the nobles.

This is also thanks to the great results of Joseph I’s reforms over the past few decades, turning the entire country into a relatively modern country. Otherwise, according to the virtues of nobles in feudal aristocratic countries half a century ago. The emperor couldn't do anything 100%.

But this does not mean that the nobles in the empire have completely lost their rights. They still hold a lot of power in this country. Therefore, in this incident, they were able to force the emperor to make concessions, so that the final handling of the entire incident did not deprive all the nobles who participated in the rebellion of their titles, as the emperor intended, but only deprived them of their titles. The titles of several nobles who were too involved in this matter, and allowed other nobles to atone for their sins in other ways.

The reason why the emperor invited Lawrence to participate in the dance is likely to be related to this incident. After all, the August family represented behind him suffered heavy losses in this rebellion. And he himself played a very important role in quelling this rebellion.

Lawrence had a vague hunch that his invitation to the ball this time might be involved in the complicated political vortex. But he can only rely on guessing what the matter is.

After all, he knew a handful of people in this city, and these people were not aristocrats, so it was naturally impossible to understand what was behind the ball. Therefore, for many things, Lawrence can only rely on the very few information in his hand to make inferences.

Fortunately, the results of using the power of blood for divination showed that participating in the prom was a good thing for him, which made Lawrence's heart relax a lot.

"I hope that the things here can be handled quickly, and then I can quickly go home and quietly farm on the astral plane." Lawrence thought after the divination. "I just don't know how the jackals are doing construction now."