Chapter 202 The Principality of Winter with External Troubles and Internal Troubles
——A great curse.
There are only six treasures left in this world. They are great things that are far more powerful than the name of God and the curse, just like the name itself.
Just knowing its name is equivalent to being part of the ritual.
The current distribution of great-level curses is one each for Noah, Winter, and Denisoya, and the Theocracy has two. There is still one sunk at the bottom of the maelstrom... It is said that the wise men in the underground world are also trying to salvage it.
It can even be said that the current countries all relied on great-level spells to rebuild after disasters. If they had not mastered great-level spells, there would be no gods who would choose to rebuild the enchantment around them.
——It is precisely because great-level curses cannot be compromised that the divine power and the new royal power have reached a certain degree of compromise.
And this great magic item held by Cold Winter...
Is it the three-color scepter that Ivan has always used as a crutch?
At first, he thought that this was proof of the power of the Principality of Winter... Unexpectedly, it was indeed the case, but it was somewhat different from what he thought.
Annan couldn't help but take a closer look at the scepter.
It consists of three colors: silver, black, and dark blue, intertwined with each other like hard vines. At the bottom, these three colors are untied from each other and stick out in three directions, forming a shape like a non-slip bracket.
A structure similar to an armrest is formed at the top - composed of silver rings inlaid with each other, a black cross, and a huge eight-sided deep blue diamond in the middle of the entire pattern.
Usually when Ivan wants to stand up, he will put his hand into the middle of the ring and hold the upper part of the cross. When he is standing, he will put his hand on the ring as if holding a cross.
Just like steering wheel.
This allows Ivan to stand very steadily.
Rather, it was because its function as a "crutch" was so perfect that Annan did not doubt whether it had other uses...
"...But isn't it too dangerous?"
Annan still couldn't help but said: "I remember that other hands of winter have touched it. What if the news leaks and the three-color scepter is stolen?"
"It is precisely because no one can be trusted that you should hold it in your hands; it is precisely because it is not safe to hide it anywhere that you should put it in the sun."
Ivan said slowly and took a deep look at Annan: "It is precisely because neither the Grand Duke nor the scepter can be lost that it is used as a symbol of the Grand Duke's power - so there is no need to consider the consequences of the accidental loss of one of them."
There are obvious differences from other countries.
Here in the winter, there is a "few people" that stands out.
Noah's palace alone had more than 200 attendees; Denisoah and the United Kingdom of the Field Islands had even more - not only the royal family members who lived in the palace, including the harem, slaves and eunuchs.
There were more than three hundred people.
And look back at the Principality of Winter.
At present, there are only a few people in the Grand Duke's Palace of Winter. Ivan no longer has a wife, and he has no elders - the only child at home is Annan.
In addition to the two of them, there are four people in total. All of them are leaders of the Hand of Winter... Originally, there were only six leaders, and two of them were not at home.
Yes.
In the Principality of Winter, there are no servants to serve the Grand Duke. That’s why a separate department was hired from the Hand of Winter to handle the Grand Duke’s internal affairs.
This is partly because the Principality of Winter lacks everything - you know, one of the responsibilities of the Hand of Winter is to monitor the local nobles and prevent them from being too wasteful; and in order to achieve this goal naturally, the Grand Duke must also set an example.
On the other hand, it is also to be responsible for their life safety. If they are attacked, the Hand of Winter may be able to protect the Grand Duke, but asking them to protect their servants... that is impossible.
Although there is surveillance by the Hand of Winter, and the survival of the Blood of Winter is very important for suppressing the frost beasts, theoretically the Principality of Winter should be the most firmly ruled principality. But in fact, the Duke of Winter and his direct heirs, in
No leader of any country has been attacked the most... bar none.
This wonderful phenomenon has also attracted the attention of scholars from other countries.
According to the research results of a sociologist, this should be related to the "winter year" mechanism.
Because in winter, the people of Winter must rely on the protection of small barriers to avoid being frozen to death by the cold wind... This has led to the people of Winter mainly relying on city-states for their lives. As the connections between cities have also
If it becomes loose, ordinary people's respect for Winter's Blood and the laws of the Principality will drop significantly.
Instead, there will be direct control of local nobles and various local laws. The Grand Duke's own ability to supervise and control local nobles will actually be weakened.
But ordinary people don't care about this - their dissatisfaction with the extravagant and wanton local nobles will eventually radiate directly to the Grand Duke. This is consistent with the fact that the local nobles consciously attract people's attention and hatred to the
The "Hand of Winter" responsible for supervising them has something to do with it.
Grand Duke Ivan's achievements are undeniable. But the nobles still have other tricks.
One theory is that the Hand of Winter has restricted the Archduke's channels for obtaining information, just like the Kingdom of Denisoya where the eunuchs were in charge - but this statement can only be understood by people with some culture.
Another more common theory is to blame Grand Duke Ivan's poor health.
Why are there so many taxes, because a lot of resources have to be used to support the Archduke's life? Why are the Hands of Winter or the nobles acting so recklessly? It's because the Archduke is in poor health, so he cannot leave Frostwhisper.
This resulted in the Duke of Winter often being attacked by various types of attacks.
Of course, there are actually very few "Avengers" who are completely brainless.
Most of the attackers knew that Ivan must be protected by the Hand of Winter.
They all hope to achieve their goals by kidnapping the grand duke's heirs, wives or other relatives.
Either they are asking for the release of an important political prisoner (usually a spy from another country, or connected with the Icebreaker Army); there are also some whimsical people who are asking the Grand Duke to pass one or several laws; and some are
I hope the Grand Duke can punish certain local nobles. Of course, their kidnapping is almost impossible to succeed.
But there are some smarter ones who will pretend to be the names of certain local nobles and directly assassinate the Grand Duke. They hope that after the Grand Duke can find out, he will retaliate against a certain noble.
This is also the reason why Annan still has to investigate carefully even though the Northland Alliance assassinated Annan.
Neither Annan nor Ivan wanted to be used as a weapon - they had to find out before they could take action. Because in the history of winter, there had indeed been such incidents of blaming political opponents.
In addition, it is also necessary to prevent the possibility of food being poisoned by spies from other countries, or servants being bribed to eavesdrop on intelligence and steal important documents. For the Principality of Winter, which can be said to be a "remote country", "servants"
"It's not easy for a person of this status to be bribed.
Even if they are both countries protected by the Righteous God, this does not mean that the relations between countries will be good.
Regardless of border friction issues, the completely different cultural atmosphere alone will lead to a lack of communication between them.
In addition, King Noah of the previous generation - the one who claimed to unify the five countries and rebuild the Great Barrier.
Although Annan knows that this is actually because he is the "child in the cup" whose life span is locked, so he deliberately intends to use this method to make enemies for Noah and retaliate against the Kingdom of Noah for giving birth to him... But other countries
Neither the people nor the top management know this.
As a result, the revenge of the boy in the cup not only hurt Noah, but also directly disturbed the muddy waters - his declaration of war on Winter alerted Denisoya and the Theocracy, and they had to launch a campaign.
arms race.
After the Theocracy and the United Kingdom of Denisoya increased in strength, Winter had to remain vigilant against them.
As a result, the peace that could be maintained for the time being after the bloody battle is now increasingly shaky.
In addition, the incident of the Winter Defying Man also reminded the Winter family that even the Hand of Winter, which holds a curse like a caged bird and is completely unable to disobey the orders of Grand Duke Winter, cannot be absolutely trusted.
The result is.
Grand Duke Ivan not only had to find ways to lead all the people through the difficult winter.
He also had to do his best to maintain diplomatic deterrence externally, suppress the alliance of northern nobles who had long been rebellious internally, and make good friends with several extraordinary nobles in the south.
In addition, there is also the mess left by the Icebreaker Army and the Winter Defenders - there are always restless people in the Frost Beast Army, and a very important Frost Beast was lost some time ago. I suspect that there are still people making Frost Beasts.
experiment.
And looking back, Annan was assassinated again... According to Annan's feedback, it seems that he didn't just want to evade Dmitry's power. If the bloodline of "Gryaznuha Winter" was found,
, then the situation becomes more complicated.
They still don't know what method the Winter Defenders used to break the curse of the "Hand of Winter" and lead the other Hands of Winter out of the Archduke's control.
In this case, the local nobles withheld taxes and relied on the "local law" to act arbitrarily, which was already the simplest situation.
——They are all unruly people.
And with so many troubles coming together, Ivan's body couldn't hold on any longer.
"...The situation faced by Lingdong is very complicated. Fortunately, you are back."
Ivan said slowly: "I must first hand over the title of Grand Duke and the curse to you. Then I can conduct some investigations... and actions as I thought.
"Follow me, Annan. I'll teach you how to use the power of the scepter."