Struggle in the Steam Age

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

After reading the contents of the letter, Lawrence found 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 Schönbrunn Palace are also written in the corners on both sides of the letter. It may be because the ball is private but it is invited by the royal family, so the dress must be formal.

"Fortunately, I got a good dress after the last competition, and I won't be rude to wear it this time. Otherwise, I would have to look for a dress everywhere now." Lawrence thought. "But why did you send me a prom invitation at this time?"

It is not surprising to have a ball at this time, after all, balls, hunting and banquets are an essential part of the social life of nobles. Therefore, the more complicated the situation is now, the more the royal family needs to hold various balls to take the opportunity to deal with various things. But he couldn't figure out what to do with such a royal private ball.

"After all, you are closely related to the sudden outbreak of the second prince's rebellion, and you have made important contributions in countering the rebellion. So it is not too strange that the emperor wants to see you. Besides, apart from your involvement in the entire rebellion In addition to your contributions, you are also a famous scholar, so it is appropriate to invite you to this kind of ball in terms of status."

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

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

"It's indeed troublesome, but what benefits you can get this time depends entirely on what our great emperor thinks." Nora's slightly teasing voice sounded in Lawrence's mind, as a person who inherited Lawrence's three views Occasionally, Nora would naturally value her status as an aristocrat. "And no matter what, the Emperor Joseph I who wrote you the invitation is worthy of respect even if he removes his status as emperor."

"That's right, at least this emperor can be regarded as the blue thread of the road, and the evaluation of the mountains and forests." Although Lawrence felt ordinary about nobles, he still had a lot of respect for Emperor Joseph I. Because what the emperor did before was one of the biggest victories that the intelligent race and the civilized world had won against the wilderness forces in half a century.

After a hasty breakfast, Lawrence returned to his room and discussed with Nora the possible reasons why he was invited to the dance. After all, it was his first time participating in this kind of occasion where the nobles were intriguing, so he was naturally a little uneasy.

"A lot of things must be discussed at the ball, because at least 15 or 16 nobles were completely expelled during the rebellion. In addition, the current title holders of more than 40 nobles were ordered to commit suicide and pass the titles to their heirs." Nora During the past few days when Lawrence was studying magic, she got to know a lot of people in and around the referee court with her cute appearance, and at the same time learned a lot of things.

"Deal with so many nobles at once!" Lawrence had only read about the treatment of certain nobles from the newspapers 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 kind of empire is the nobility.

"Not only that, but more nobles were ordered to surrender their territories." Nora said after glancing at Lawrence. "Those court nobles who have no lands are also ordered to hand over the wealth in their possession to atone for their sins. In this case, there is a large amount of land and wealth waiting to be distributed."

"Besides, there are also some temporary nobles who need guardians for various reasons. Because of this, the members of the Imperial Council and the nobles outside have quarreled recently."

According to the traditional aristocratic succession law in the western part of the old continent, the heir to the title is usually required to be the eldest son of the previous generation of aristocratic title holders who are at least 18 years old and have normal intelligence. Before reaching the age of 18, the territories of the nobles of those territories are under the joint trusteeship of the Imperial Heraldry, the Church and the nobleman's lord.

However, this does not include superhumans. If the heir is a superhuman, no matter how old he is, he can directly have the right to rule the territory. If there is no eldest son, then the inheritance rights will be transferred according to the age of the eldest son.

If you don't have a son, you can also have a daughter. But it must be an unmarried daughter, and the married daughter's inheritance rights will be very backward. At the same time, after inheriting the title, unless the daughter is an extraordinary person or pays a large amount of marriage autonomy fee, otherwise, the marriage will be appointed by the noble's superior directly subordinate noble.

Of course, if there are no children, the inheritance rights are generally transferred by brothers, cousins, etc. according to blood relationship. But this time, because of the rebellion, the emperor and the imperial parliament appointed heirs to those families whose nobles were ordered to commit suicide. Of course, this also abides by the internal rules of the nobility. At most, the eldest son who is an adult is skipped and the second son who is a minor inherits.

If so many nobles have problems this time, it will be a feast for others. Although those who have the right to a share of the pie will not fight, but all kinds of quarrels, snatches and private transactions are absolutely inevitable.

However, according to the information Nora inquired, the royal family managed to eat the biggest piece this time. However, due to the collective opposition of the nobles from the neutral faction and the emperor's faction, the royal family can only merge one earl and two viscounts in the recovered noble territories into the territory directly under the royal family, while the other territories directly belong to the national territory and belong to the imperial parliament rule. In addition, a part of the territory must be allocated to the nobles.

This is also thanks to Joseph I's decades of reforms that have achieved great results, turning the entire country into a relatively modern country. Otherwise, follow the virtues of the nobles in the feudal aristocratic countries half a century ago. The emperor can't do anything 100%.

But this does not mean that the nobles have completely lost their rights in the empire, they still hold a lot of power in this country. That's why they were able to force the emperor to make concessions in this incident, 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 thought, but only deprived a few of the nobles who participated in the rebellion. The titles of nobles who were involved too deeply, and allowed other nobles to atone for their sins in other ways.

The reason why the emperor invited Lawrence to the ball now is likely to be related to this incident. After all, the August family represented by him suffered heavy losses in this rebellion. And he himself played a very important role in the process of putting down the rebellion.

Lawrence had a vague premonition that being invited to the ball this time would probably be involved in a complicated political vortex. But he can only guess what it is.

After all, he knew a few people in this city, and these people were not nobles, so naturally it was impossible to understand what was behind this ball. Therefore, Lawrence can only infer many things based on the very little information in his hand.

Fortunately, the results of divination by using the power of the blood showed that participating in the dance would be a good thing for him, which made Lawrence feel a lot more relaxed.

"I hope the matter here can be dealt with quickly, and then I can go home and quietly farm in the Astral Plane." After the divination, Lawrence thought. "I just don't know how the construction of those jackals is doing now."