The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

Chapter 388 Tyrant (15) - Provincial Reform Centralization of power. A system in which all of a nation's power and administrative authority is concentrated in the central government or supreme leader. This system has several advantages. Response is fast when a problem arises. When there are multiple leaders, just coordinating conflicting interests and dividing up roles can take forever, but this process can be largely skipped. Efficient distribution of resources becomes possible. Resources can be strategically concentrated at the national level, redundant investment can be prevented, and efficiency can be maximized through division of production and distribution. Policy gains consistency and fairness. It prevents situations where something is legal in Territory A but illegal in Territory B, or where the same case gets a different verdict depending on the feudal lord. But all these advantages only apply when centralized power is running "well." What if the supreme leader doesn't do their job properly? What if reports sent up from the provinces just keep getting pushed back day after day until the window for resolving them is missed entirely? What if the central government doesn't even bother sending overseers properly, and even when one is somehow sent, they aren't particularly honest either? Guaranteed chaos. It becomes far too easy for officials sent to manage the provinces to simply reign like kings on the ground, or for the local power players to turn those officials into mere figureheads and build a world entirely their own. Normally this wouldn't happen in such a short span of time, but Mihail's legendary achievement — "seizing all the nobles' land with no ability whatsoever to manage it, turning it into a mess, favoring officials who paid bribes, and branding genuine officials who worked hard even under poor conditions as incompetent for lacking results before sidelining them" — had the effect of advancing corruption by what amounted to decades. At this point, one had no choice but to admit he had a genuine talent for ruining a country. And so, upon hearing news that a new Emperor had stirred up a bloodbath at the center, the reaction shown by the real powerholders of the provinces was about this much. "Hmm, guess I'll need to watch myself for a while." An overwhelming sense of crisis? None. Because, for one thing, the distance between the capital and the far edges of the provinces was great. Comparing it by the standard of the "Crown Prince's" past life, it was closer to the sensation Koreans felt upon hearing about some bloody incident in Beijing or Southeast Asia purely through "rumor." There was no TV, and no internet. Of course, communication formulas and magic tools of that sort did exist, but not every province had access to them, and even those who did couldn't help but feel differently between witnessing the scene firsthand and merely hearing about it secondhand. The Emperor, driven mad by vengeance, had killed members of the imperial family? That was a terrifying thing. The Emperor was attempting reform? That was something worth keeping an eye on. But that was about it. Reform or whatever, if he'd caused that much of an uproar, it would take him a good few years just to clean up the capital and get the imperial household under control. He might spend his whole life on just that and still not see it resolved. Having cut off an Emperor's head to become Emperor himself, he might well end up with his own head cut off by someone else and simply die. Which meant that as long as he didn't do anything too conspicuous, reaching out to the provinces was bound to be slow. And when he did reach out to the provinces, he'd naturally extend outward step by step starting from the heart of the capital region, so it would be enough to just watch the situation and grovel flat on the ground when the time came. That was how the provincial powerholders judged things, and so, within a range that wouldn't draw attention, they carried on "as usual." Exploiting the farmers a little, whipping them a little too, bleeding dry anyone from the countryside who tried to rise above their station, taking family members hostage or turning someone into an outcast within the community to crush them into submission if they tried to resist, local officials pulling strings for each other so that a few bloodlines monopolized public office, skimming off the budget that came from the center (not that it amounted to much anyway), treating it as a minor slip when their own children committed a crime while turning it into an unforgivable act of trash when someone else's children did — that sort of thing, anyway. After all, these petty little things weren't easily visible from the outside. They weren't the kind of thing — raising a large army, petitioning the imperial family for something, or openly mourning the previous Emperor — that posed a direct threat to imperial authority. Why would the imperial family, busy enough fighting over power as it was, bother sparing any attention for some backwater like this? Even the warlord-type feudal lords in the provinces who held military power in their grip showed not even that much restraint. Their mindset was that there was no way an incompetent, weakened imperial family could ever defeat the rough, tough warriors of the frontier. "...What is it?" Then, one day. The provincial powerholders had a truly strange experience. A pair of large mirrors, roughly the size of a grown man, was delivered to the front gates of each province's government office or lord's castle. No one knew when, or by what method, they had been left there. But at least it was clear who had left them, because the mirrors came with a document attached that read as follows. [One of these mirrors is to be placed somewhere high where the Territory can be clearly seen; if no suitable place exists, simply set it in the city center or the middle of the village. The other is to be kept and managed at the government office or the lord's castle. Every morning, the feudal lord or the representative dispatched by the imperial household shall properly report on the state of the territory in front of this mirror.] Outrageous content. And beneath it, the imperial seal. There were three kinds of reactions to this. "What kind of nonsense is this? Hey, get rid of this thing!" First: ignoring it. These were people whose sense of political crisis and instinctive intuition had atrophied, thanks to how long the imperial household had neglected them and how long and powerfully they had done as they pleased in the provinces. They felt offended by the way it had been handled — no one had been properly sent to deliver an official document, the item had simply been dumped and left. They also planned to make excuses if push came to shove, saying "I had no idea this was a real order" or "I took it for a simple prank." Those who went beyond ignoring the imperial household to looking down on and hating it even went so far as to smash the mirrors themselves. "Tch, people who can't even manage the capital properly — why would they try to meddle in the provinces? Guess I'll just make a show of going along with it." Second: pretending to comply. These were people who at least had some interest in and awareness of how the world was turning, and who knew how to be cautious in their own way. Since there was nothing to gain from openly defying something the imperial household was pushing forward so blatantly, they decided to go along with instructions for the time being while watching how things developed. After all, it was very common for a policy to start off energetically only to fizzle out into nothing in the end. "I'll give up every privilege and every title...! Just let me live...!" Third: kneeling down and begging. Naturally, these people were an extreme minority. After all, all the imperial household had done so far was send a single pair of mirrors. The surrounding warlords mocked them openly, wondering what on earth had gotten into those people. Of course, those of the third type didn't think of themselves as cowards in the slightest. If anything, they found the ones mocking them pathetic. 'You idiots! You morons!! Don't you understand what it means that mirrors could be placed, all at once, in every corner of every province!?' A mirror the size of a person had been brought in by some means, without anyone noticing at all. If that was possible, then why couldn't a person be delivered the same way? And among the third type, those who were even better informed also knew what the specialty of Kirie, the archmage currently said to be the greatest in the empire, actually was. Summoning magic. Magic that calls something forth from somewhere else to appear before oneself, and manipulates it. If so, wasn't it conceivable, conversely, that something in front of oneself could be sent off to somewhere else as well? So they groveled as low as they could, and didn't even bother explaining to those around them why they were doing it. Everyone would find out eventually anyway, so there was no reason to leak heaven's secrets and stir up confusion over the imperial household's intentions. And then a week passed. Those who had ignored it mocked it all the more, saying see, nothing happened after all; those who had merely gone through the motions kept reporting this and that with their mouths while actually improving nothing; and those who had groveled low had to apologize and make amends to the people they'd been oppressing all this while, and even then were driven out with nothing but their lives and a bit of property to their names. Everyone mocked those who had submitted to the imperial household. "Well then, it's about time you stepped up." "Yes, Your Majesty." And then, on the day that marked exactly two weeks. The provincial feudal lords who had taken the imperial household lightly experienced ruin. A renowned swordsmanship house that maintained its own 4th- and 5th-rank household knight order and had once dreamed of someday becoming independent as its own kingdom was slaughtered to the last man before the Spear Saint's deformed spear. A gathering of retired soldiers who had been enjoying their wine, confident that the empire — on the verge of war and in no position to touch people so deeply tied to the military — would never lay a hand on them, turned into so many grapes in a juicer before the Blood Lady. A great merchant who had once held the empire's economy in the palm of his hand was transmuted into a lump of gold before the hand of the head of House Boriel. An official skilled in forging and falsifying official documents, who had exploited the commoners with a paper trail that showed no problems whatsoever, was mounted on an apple tree like a specimen before an arrow from the Divine Archer. 6th Rank: demigods. A reserve army of transcendents capable of standing against a nation on their own. Even so, people of that caliber couldn't bring down an entire empire by force alone. The empire was simply too vast and too broad, and even they had limits to their mana and stamina. But infiltrating the very heart of enemy territory via Kirie's transfer magic and then simply wiping out the leadership alone was well within their reach. Even that much was only "well within their reach" because a 5th rank mage, or sometimes a group of them, was occasionally mixed in among the would-be traitors; had that not been the case, it would have been called nothing more than child's play. This alone was an enormous feat, but the Emperor had no intention of stopping here. After all, if it were simply a matter of killing, even Mihail could have managed that much, let alone him. Of course, Mihail — lacking both the cooperation of a 6th Rank and the ability to modify Kirie's transfer magic to turn this operation from armchair theory into reality — would have had to send in a suppression force directly and fight a far harder battle, but the end result itself might have come out similarly. The real difference had to come after the breaking. To the provincial people thrown into chaos after losing their leader or oppressor, the 6th Ranks on site said simply this: Go in front of the mirror. And follow its instructions. People were first shocked to learn that the mirror, left carelessly at the center of the territory, was in fact a communication-and-surveillance device directly linked to imperial officials, and then felt a second wave of chills upon realizing that the mirror, abandoned there all this while, had been quietly gathering information the entire time. And the new provincial administrative control department the Emperor had established put on a brilliant display. "Ah, yes. Mr. Fredrick. You're in charge of provincial administration, correct? I'll go over the various manuals with you, and from now on all you need to do is follow them. Depending on your performance, instead of a new administrator being dispatched, you yourself may be allowed to remain as administrator." "Yes, yes. None of you civilians stand to lose anything in particular. If anything, your lives are going to get better from here on. A new official will be dispatched soon, so in the meantime, please do look out for one another." "So, to be clear, this mirror exists to help with provincial administration, not to resolve your personal troubles. And please don't curse at it. You have been warned." "I believe I told you not to curse!! Anyone who abuses a receptionist like that is no longer a civilian!! Security!! Rough them up!!" They took out the leadership, filled the temporary administrative vacuum through the communication network, and once new officials were selected or dispatched, used the communication device itself both to monitor the state of the province and for officials to file their reports. Of course, mass-producing multifunctional communication magic tools like this was no ordinary expense, so the already none-too-healthy state of the treasury turned into even more of a mess, but the Emperor didn't mind. After all, by stripping the provincial warlords, every last coin they had embezzled had been recovered into the national treasury. Of course, it would take more time before the officials were truly effective and the provinces were rebuilt, but at the very least, they had succeeded in squeezing out the pus. It was something that happened in the second month after the Emperor's coronation.