Volume 5 Chapter 124 Giant change with the Stantine Duchy
June in year 3787, it was just a normal first month of summer for the other countries of the Sines Continent, but for the Stantine Duchy in the southwest, it definitely wasn’t normal and could be considered one of the most important months in the history of the duchy.
In the beginning of June, because the lords that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce approached about the magic signal towers rejected them, they announced that they would stop their cooperation with those lords. It caused the territory of those lords to fall into chaos and it made the other citizens of the duchy worried.
Everyone was very worried that if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce gave up their investment in the Stantine Duchy because of this, it would have a serious adverse effect on the duchy.
During the month, the Stantine Duchy congress speaker Anklo suddenly announced that he would be resigning as speaker.
The explanation that he gave was that after being speaker for three years, according to the rules of congress, he had already finished his first term. Due to health reasons, he wouldn’t continue serving as speaker.
This news created a large stir in the Stantine Duchy.
Although the growth of the Stantine Duchy was because of the large investments of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, one couldn’t neglect the congress that was led by Anklo.
In the minds of many of the Stantine Duchy’s people, he had already become the most important leader that led the Stantine Duchy.
Now that he had suddenly announced his resignation, people were worried about the fate of the Stantine Duchy.
Would his successor be able to lead the Stantine Duchy with the same high speed development?
But no one could give an accurate answer to this.
Although the congress was already prepared for Anklo’s resignation, replacing him with a new speaker on the same day, he was only a viscount that wasn’t well known from the north of the duchy. Without the experience of time, no one knew what this new speaker could do.
However, when everyone was questioning this new speaker, once the speaker took office, he announced a very shocking decision. He would be abolishing the private territory of n.o.bles in the Stantine Duchy!
Once this news was spread, it didn’t just shock everyone in the Stantine Duchy, it shocked the people of the surrounding countries.
Since ancient times, it was tradition on the Sines Continent for n.o.bles to have territory.
As a n.o.ble, if they only had their status and no territory, it was no different from an empty sh.e.l.l.
Because the foundation of n.o.bles were their private territories.
Private territories could provide n.o.bles with grains, population, and the funds that they needed which were the most important thing to their power.
If they didn’t have any territory, they wouldn’t have any power.
In any country of the Sines Continent, for all the thousands of n.o.bles, their first demand was private territory. They would treat their territories as their bottom line.
If their territories were taken, it was no different from declaring war with them!
So everyone thought that when this new speaker thought of this idea, their first reaction was that he was crazy.
He wanted to pa.s.s this strange decision, it was simply a joke!
When everyone was thinking that the new speaker was a joke, something unexpected happened.
The Stantine Duchy congress actually pa.s.sed this decision that people couldn’t believe!
The Stantine Duchy had officially abolished the rights of n.o.bles to have private territories!
When countless people were shocked by this, they all turned to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce was without a doubt the most influential company in the Stantine Duchy. Xu Yi as the chairman and one of the largest lords in the Stantine Duchy, the territory under him was several dozen kilometers wide.
If the congress abolished private territories, how would Xu Yi as a lord respond?
Would he be willing to hand over his precious territory?
It had to be known, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s main base was established on this private territory. If he handed it over, what would the Frestech Chamber of Commerce do?
When everyone thought that Xu Yi would reject this, something happened that no one expected.
The day after this decision was pa.s.sed, Xu Yi was the first to announce that he would hand over all his private territory and return his territory to the congress.
However, at the same time, Xu Yi on behalf of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had purchased the land use rights to the area the main base was on. It was a total of fifty kilometers of land and it was pa.s.sed by congress.
When this news came out, everyone understood.
It was no wonder this unknown speaker was bold enough to make this shocking decision and could even pa.s.s it through congress.
It seemed like he was supported by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce!
Or to put it more directly, the new speaker had become the speaker through the support of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, so he represented the will of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce!
When the speaker Anklo resigned, it was impossible for it to be unrelated to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
Everyone in the Stantine Duchy felt doubt over this.
What was the Frestech Chamber of Commerce thinking?
If Xu Yi wanted more territory, even if he was rejected by the congress before, now that he had replaced the speaker, it was no problem to achieve this goal. Why did he toss out such a shocking decision?
Taking all the land under the n.o.bles, this was basically declaring war on all the n.o.bles in the Stantine Duchy!
How would these n.o.bles just accept this?
Facts proved that once this proposal pa.s.sed and after Xu Yi took the lead to carry it out, there were strong refusals from all over the Stantine Duchy.
There were four counts, seven viscounts, and dozens of barons who announced that they would accept this new proposal. They openly expressed that they wouldn’t accept the leadership of the congress and declared their territories as self governing.
To everyone, this was equal to declaring their independence.
The Stantine Duchy definitely wouldn’t accept this, but the only problem was how they would handle it.
The lords had quite a few troops under them and with the Stantine Duchy congress didn’t have any troops under them, so they wouldn’t have a way to deal with them.
But at this time, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce made a move.
Near the end of June, the congress announced that these four counts, seven viscounts, and countless barons that rejected this were committing treason and they would subjugate them.
However, the congress also announced that in the name of congress, they would invite the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s guards to act as the troops of congress to subjugate these lords.
Everyone was in an uproar over this.
The Stantine Duchy congress doing this was simply stating they were in the hands of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, everything they did was to serve the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
However, everyone understood that they couldn’t influence the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s actions.
At the end of June, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s guards moved out. In just a single week, they completely defeated all the n.o.bles that were determined as committing treason.
During this entire process, the lords that he purchased large amounts of military magic machines couldn’t pose any threats to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s guards, being unable to resist at all.
Those rebelling lords were completely defeated and congress took back their territories without any politeness.
Everyone understood that when competing with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, they could only obey them.
So after this, the other lords of the Stantine Duchy agreed to obey the proposal of congress and handed over the rights to all their territory.
But it was different from Xu Yi’s territory. Although those n.o.bles had handed over the rights to all their private property, the congress authorized them to rent some land to invest in and gave them small pieces of land as their personal property.
These small pieces of land were not different from their private territories, it was just different in name. Because they were much smaller, they could only build private manors on them and they wouldn’t have much influence.
On the final day of June, the congress took back the rights of the final lord and announced that from this day forth, there would be no more lords in the Stantine Duchy.
Although there would still be n.o.bles, they would no longer have territories. All they would have were some unrelated n.o.ble rights.
Of course, congress only took back their rights to private properties and didn’t touch their private businesses.
The rubber plantations, the fruit orchards, and factories under them would still give them the same benefits.
However, all the n.o.bles that obeyed the proposal were able to cooperate with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce again.
So when this turbulent June was over and they entered July, everyone found that the Stantine Duchy compared to before, other than changing their speaker and all the lords losing the rights to their private properties wasn’t really that different.
The n.o.bles relied on the benefits of the businesses under them to live luxurious lives and the citizens worked hard to improve their lives.
But everyone knew that the Stantine Duchy was completely different from before.
At this time, there were several guests that arrived in the Stantine Duchy that didn’t seem to change on the surface.