Chapter 287: Rule, Rule, and Rule Some More!
Chapter 287: Rule, Rule, and Rule Some More!
The Kingdom of Gareth was a feudal system.
The old king bestowed titles upon the court nobles and granted them control over the cities, while the territorial nobles held domains outside the urban areas, reigning as petty emperors within their domains.
The army of a hundred thousand that Lily had annihilated with her five thousand troops was assembled by these nobles. While the army was gone, the nobles remained.
Sarge couldn't afford to let these parasites usurp his rule.
He aimed to conquer not just a single city, but the entire kingdom.
"I understand," Lily nodded.
Sarge wanted her to devise a plan, and as for resources, they need not worry too much.
This place was a transportation hub, and the lifting of the war would attract many travelers. Those merchants would surely seize the opportunity to profit, resulting in a large influx of supplies.
As for money, well, that was easily manageable—they were pirates, after all.
"There are about two thousand new members, right?" Sarge asked.
"Two thousand two hundred and thirteen, to be precise," Lily replied.
"We'll use these people to deal with the nobles," Sarge said with a smile. "Those nobles who wish to surrender must relinquish all their ruling powers, and the lands must be returned. All the land in this kingdom shall belong to one person, and that is me!"
Landlord, indeed, the master of the land.
The mines, the farmlands, the buildings—they would all be his!
The territorial nobles were easy to deal with; killing them would mean the land reverted to his possession. As for the people in the cities, that was also manageable. After all, he was a pirate, and now that he had conquered a nation, the entire country was his.
Furthermore, there would be a need for reconstruction, which meant Sarge would spend money, and since he was investing, it naturally followed that it would belong to him.
All the industries would merely have a change of ownership, a singular ownership.
...
The campaign to purge the nobles wasn't as difficult as one might expect. The people of the sea tended to respect and treat nobles preferentially due to their bloodline. Even kings, no matter how brutal and indifferent to the lives of the commoners, would often merely be captured and then advised to treat their citizens better after a revolt.
Yes, it was that miraculous.
However, Sarge had no such reverence. He was, after all, a pirate.
Aside from Augustinburgh, the other towns and cities, even the larger ones, lacked city walls. For example, the grand town of Fleiger in the vice-island of Timerton, and the mountain city of Michel in the main island of Gareth, were all large settlements without fortifications.
As for the nobles, they had already depleted their forces in the previous recruitment drives, and the meager strength they could muster now was far from enough to halt Sarge's advance.
At that moment, cries and screams echoed throughout the mountain city of Michel.
Of course, this was limited to the areas where the nobles resided. The pirates stormed in, hauling out a plethora of resources and wealth, dragging out the nobles who had been living there.
The most prominent noble among them was Nikiforas, the head of the Tihana family.
Among those dragged out was a silver-haired girl who stubbornly held her head high, her eyes fixed on Lily, standing in front of her, as if committing her visage to memory.
Bodies lay all around her.
"Kill them," Lily waved her hand, her eyes devoid of emotion.
It had been half a month since they had decided to take action, and during this time, Lily had eradicated every territorial noble from Augustinburgh to Michel, and this was merely one of them.
"Um..."
Xiver, who had been following behind, couldn't hold himself back any longer after enduring this for half a month. "Some of these nobles haven't really done anything. Can we just take their wealth and let them live as commoners? The boss is implicitly fine with that, you know."
Xiver held no favorable view of nobles, and to be frank, he didn't really care much about the whole situation.
However, he couldn't afford to be too indifferent.
Even someone like him thought that Lily was being a bit too radical.
"Sarge is Sarge. He can afford to be careless, and deal with problems as they arise. But what we should be doing is ensuring that Sarge never even comes across these problems in the first place."
Lily glanced at Xiver out of the corner of her eye and said coldly, "Perhaps some of them are innocent, but ruling power has nothing to do with innocence."
She didn't want to kill them either.
She was a pirate, not a psychopath.
However, there were certain things she had to see clearly, just like her own situation. Princess Oikoter, in exile, regardless of whether she had any intentions, was inherently a signal.
If she hadn't been a princess, she wouldn't have been wanted, and would have long been killed, let alone encountering Sarge.
For the nobles, this possibility of a turnaround existed, no matter how slim the chance. What she had to do was completely snuff out this possibility.
"How these people live is of no consequence to us, but their deaths are of great importance!"
Lily looked towards the distant closed doors and windows, from which commoners stealthily spied through tiny cracks.
"We have merely chosen a side."
If Sarge ruled alone, he wouldn't oppress the commoners. On the contrary, they would lead better lives.
It was a win-win situation, and the price to be paid was merely the eradication of the nobles.
"But this will tarnish our reputation..." Xiver pressed his lips together.
The sentence hung unfinished, but the meaning was clear.
They were outsiders, lacking any bloodline or ruling power. Sarge was merely a pirate, and it was already challenging enough. Now, with the slaughter of so many nobles, not even sparing those who wished to surrender, it would be hard for them to gain recognition.
"It doesn't matter. Sarge doesn't need their loyalty. He only needs them to work," Lily said. "Besides, we just haven't killed enough yet. Once we do, it'll be fine."
"The great Confucian scholars shall justify my actions!"
Within the royal palace, Sarge stood on a balcony, overlooking most of Augustinburgh, and laughed heartily.
Behind him stood Hawkins and the newly surrendered Misty.
After recovering, Misty had intended to resist, but a single sentence from Sarge had dispelled that notion.
"The kingdom won't fare worse under my rule compared to the nobles. They merely need to pay taxes to me. Aren't you also a commoner? Follow me and observe. If you still have other ideas, I won't stop you."
However, the Sarge who reached out was full of contempt for the nobles in his words and demeanor, and his aura was astonishingly formidable.
She could choose to distrust Sarge, but she trusted Xiver. They knew each other, and while that guy might be a bit of a wanderer, he had a keen eye for people. Since he had submitted, Misty thought that perhaps she should give it a chance.
"Because of who she is, she's also not a big fan of the nobility. The reason she agreed to Tihana was because, in addition to the fact that she knew Tihana, the most important reason was that she believed that after Tihana occupied the throne, she would treat this country well.
She's a standard civilian.
It's just that she has some concerns now, and that golden-haired man has spoken them out loud.
You're killing too much.
Every day, the Den Den Mushi would transmit intelligence. We all know about the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Moria, and his reputation is huge. Now he's purging the nobles in Timerton, and the reaction there isn't too significant since there aren't that many nobles in that territory, mostly just army families.
But the main island of Gareth is a different story; it's the stronghold of the territorial nobles, with each town and village ruled by a noble. The messages coming through the Den Den Mushi are quite shocking.
To put it bluntly, every step of Lily's journey has been soaked in blood.
Not only does she find it inappropriate, but Hawkins is also worried. If no one acknowledges it, then won't Sarge's rule be nothing but a sham?
And then he spoke those words.
Regarding what Lily has done, Sarge is well aware. He did say that nobles who surrender can be spared, but if Lily insists on doing this, Sarge won't stand in her way.
He doesn't care about such matters.
"Old Hawk, do you know why Kaido couldn't gain control in the Land of Wano? Even though he propped up a puppet, he's still being cursed at." Sarge turned to ask.
Hawkins shook his head.
He didn't quite understand what Sarge was talking about with all that stuff about great scholars and interpreting the classics, but he could grasp the general meaning.
As for Kaido...
Who knows?
All he knows is that Kaido is one of the Four Emperors.
"It's because of fear," Sarge revealed a mouthful of gleaming white teeth. "With the Land of Wano's geographical conditions, it's the perfect place for ruling. All you need to do is kill off everyone with ruling power and then treat the commoners fairly, and that's it.
"Despite having the greatest strength on the high seas, he chose to prop up a puppet and let him ruin the Land of Wano. As a result, he's still alive, but the people below despise him, so he's destined never to gain true control.
"No matter how strong he is, he still reveres royalty and bloodlines, and he won't easily take that highest position for himself. But I'm different."
Sarge looked forward, his gaze fixed on the ruins of Augustinburgh. "I've never known fear since the day I was born.
"I came here for two words: rule, and rule some more!
"Killing the nobles, for this place, it's all about rebuilding. Those who have the ability to make it here will do so, and whatever they achieve will be theirs, with not a single cent less in treatment. The only thing they must do is..."
He spread his arms wide, his voice booming out to those who had already begun the reconstruction, "Submit to my rule, pledge your loyalty to me, and you can have it all: wealth, status, I'll give it all to you! Hahahaha, whoohahahaha!"
The overbearing aura of a conqueror surged like a black-red torrent, sweeping forward without restraint, blanketing the entire city. Some people looked up in fear, while others' eyes glinted with newfound ambition.
It had also been half a month since the reconstruction began, and Sarge was a man of his word. He paid well, and this amount of money was enough to support an entire family, perhaps even a little more than before his arrival.
After all, the taxes were lower now.
Landlords would, of course, collect rent, and when it came to people, that meant collecting taxes.
But unlike before, they no longer had to pay so many taxes. Aside from the basic head tax and land tax, if they wanted to gather firewood, they had to pay a forest tax because the forests belonged to the nobles, not to the people.
If they wanted to raise poultry, they had to pay a livestock tax, and even if they didn't have money, they still had to hand over some eggs and poultry.
Commoners weren't allowed to bake bread, and if they wanted to buy bread, they had to pay a market tax. Those who wanted to bake their own would have to pay a mill tax in addition to a bakery tax, and then another market tax on top of that.
The nobles' subjects, if they wanted to move to another place, had to pay a relocation tax.
There was a marriage tax for weddings, an inheritance tax for inheriting property, a transport tax for transportation, and even a window tax for having windows in their homes. If they didn't want to pay the window tax, they could seal up their windows, but then they'd have to pay a materials tax on the sealing materials used.
In short, while Augustinburgh was a transportation hub with thriving commerce, the commoners' lives were barely passable. Those who appeared well-off were merely the tip of the iceberg, and the vast majority were struggling to get by.
A crowd of miserable wretches!
Sarge had no interest in such a sorry lot, so with a grand wave of his hand, all those taxes were gone!
He also enacted a law within the city: as long as they acknowledged the land as his and paid taxes according to their income, that was all they needed to do.
For those earning less than 50,000 beri a year, they only needed to pay 5%. Those earning less than 100,000 paid 7%. Less than 200,000 paid 10%. Less than 300,000 paid 20%. And for those earning over that amount, he took half.
Anyone earning over 3,000,000 beri a year was undeniably wealthy.
As for industries, the city was in the midst of reconstruction, so there weren't many industries to speak of yet. However, some things needed to be made clear beforehand. Sarge permitted anyone to do business here, but on one condition: these industries must acknowledge him as their owner.
He might not involve himself in their management, but when he had a need, these industries must serve him first and foremost.
And such an arrangement was commonplace for the commoners.
They were used to serving the nobles, and they had no complaints about it. Instead, they were thrilled and delighted by Sarge's tax exemption.
With the heavy taxes gone, even though their homes might have been destroyed, they were earning more than before.
And as for this man being a pirate, well, some people had already stopped caring about that.
Lord Sarge was so good to them!
(End of Chapter)
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