Not long after Lilith returned, Herman Green, who had gone to the Green Plains Duchy for the second time to deliver a letter, also came back.
In order to complete Charlotte's mission, Herman Green had stayed in the Green Plains Duchy for a period of time. He lived up to the trust placed in him and brought back explosive news for Charlotte.
"What! Henry wants to invest my father as a King?" Charlotte said in astonishment.
"Yes," Herman Green confirmed once again.
"Didn't that guy Henry say before that he wanted to strip my father of his titles? Has he swallowed his own words so quickly?"
This was too inconsistent with Henry's vengeful personality. Charlotte still found it somewhat hard to believe.
However, Herman mentioned the source of this news—Renee's father, the Grand Steward of the Riverside Castle, Wolf Vondren.
With that man's endorsement, there was nothing left to question.
In fact, according to Herman Green, the news that His Imperial Majesty intended to crown the Duke of Green Plains as a King had already spread throughout the Green Plains Duchy.
Not long ago, Emperor Henry's teacher, the Lord Privy Seal Urosh Lindahl, visited the Green Plains Duchy on a diplomatic mission. At a banquet hosted by Jose Mellerfield, the old minister had loudly proclaimed the Emperor's wish in front of numerous nobles of the Green Plains Duchy.
Even if Wolf Vondren hadn't told Herman, Herman could have learned this news from others.
Besides crowning her old man as King, Henry also prepared to invest Field City to the Duke of Green Plains as the coronation site for the future King of the Green Plains Kingdom.
Field City was a rather unremarkable small town located in the Bayron Region, which was under the direct jurisdiction of the Royal Family. That small town had no prosperous trade and no exquisite architecture; there were only vast swathes of farmland surrounding the town. "Field" meant "farmland" in the Oran language.
Although unremarkable, that small town held a unique significance for the Mellerfield family—it was the place where the Mellerfield family had risen to power. According to family documents, during the Wimbledon Empire era a thousand years ago, the ancestors of the Mellerfield family were major landowners living around Field City, and the family surname originated from there.
The nobles of the Green Plains Duchy felt extremely excited upon hearing such news. If the Green Plains Duchy could be upgraded to the Green Plains Kingdom, most of the duchy's nobles would be promoted by a rank, which was a tangible benefit for them. And returning to the homeland to be crowned King on the land of their ancestors was an unimaginable glory.
After listening to Herman Green's words, Charlotte finally understood why Jose Mellerfield had previously asked Herman to tell her, "The situation in Oran is dangerous now, and the Duchy's military forces are stretched thin. If she causes any more big trouble, it will be difficult for me to rescue her in time."
What was stretched thin in the Duchy was not military force.
It was clearly the hearts of the people.
The Royal Family wanted to invest Field City in the Bayron Region to the Green Plains Duchy, yet the rebellious Ethel had already conquered nearly half of the Bayron Region. Even a three-year-old child could see the Royal Family's intention to make the Green Plains Duchy fight the Cato Kingdom, yet the nobles of the Green Plains Duchy found it hard to resist this temptation.
When everyone leans slightly in a certain direction, it converges into an unstoppable force, and this force was pushing Jose Mellerfield to make a risky choice.
In fact, Charlotte felt that it wasn't just the hearts of the nobles under the Green Plains Duchy that were wavering, but also her own father, the Grand Duke of Green Plains himself...
Perhaps in the future, Jose Mellerfield would say: "It was the people below who pushed me to go to war with the Cato Kingdom."
But Charlotte believed that faced with the merit of obtaining a crown that generations of ancestors had dreamed of for a thousand years but never obtained, Jose Mellerfield would also be moved.
Her old man not publicly rejecting the crown promised by Henry was clear proof.
"It seems the Royal Family still has capable people; they saw through my father's limited capacity at a glance..." Charlotte rubbed her temples in distress. "Jose Mellerfield is only fit to be a small merchant; a little petty profit is enough to make him spin around in circles!"
Herman Green and Cecilia lowered their heads awkwardly in the study. Charlotte could slander the Duke of Green Plains, but they were father and daughter; how could outsiders casually join in on this topic?
Moreover, that was a King!
Looking at the entire world, who would dare call a crown "petty profit"?
Herman Green handed two reply letters to Charlotte again, then left the study.
There were two letters. One was from her cousin and sister-in-law, Monica. In the letter, Monica included a short poem, saying she had started writing poetry again... Unfortunately, the poem lacked the fresh naturalness Charlotte liked and had a few more gloomy hues.
The other letter naturally came from her older brother, Andre. In the letter, Andre defended himself, saying he wasn't dissatisfied with Monica, nor did he intentionally want to miss the wedding date. Rather, someone wanted to kill the pregnant Mary, and he had delayed the wedding to protect Mary. He suspected the person who wanted to kill Mary was the Duchess, Rosie...
At the end of the letter, Andre said he heard that Charlotte was fighting a war here. He asked with concern if Charlotte was safe. Additionally, he had sent knights under his command to bring some money to the Lanwan Viscountcy, hoping to support his little sister's war.
After counting, Cecilia told Charlotte that there were only eight knights sent by Andre, and the money brought was only seven thousand five hundred and sixty-two Fuso.
While Charlotte complained in her heart that her older brother was truly poor—he might as well have kept this pitiful stash of private money to buy milk powder for his illegitimate child—she picked up her pen, wanting to write replies to Monica and Andre.
But after dipping the pen in ink, Charlotte suddenly didn't know what to write for a moment.
Charlotte dropped the pen with a lack of interest, clasped her hands behind her back, and paced back and forth in the room a few times. Finally, she stopped in front of the large map hanging on the wall.
Charlotte looked up at the map, pondering for a long time, and suddenly spoke: "Something must have happened in the Bonan Duchy."
"Hmm?" Cecilia couldn't keep up with Charlotte's train of thought for a moment.
Charlotte explained, "If nothing had happened in the Bonan Duchy, the Royal Family probably wouldn't bear to part with a crown to instigate my father to go to war with the Cato Kingdom. Back when the Edisa people fought to the walls of Platinum City, the Royal Family couldn't bear to do this."
Cecilia nodded as if realizing something, then asked curiously, "What could happen to the Bonan Duchy?"
"Who knows," Charlotte shrugged. "The Duke of Bonan died so hastily and left behind so many sons. I wouldn't be surprised no matter what happens in the Bonan Duchy right now."
Saying this, Charlotte couldn't help but sigh: "Our intelligence agency is still short-handed, and the Lanwan Viscountcy is so remote..."
The Lanwan Viscountcy was located in a corner of the Oran Empire. If something happened in the neighboring Green Plains Duchy, it could still slowly spread here. But for news from places further away, outside the Green Plains Duchy, if Charlotte didn't actively send people to inquire, just waiting for it to spread over would probably be worse than looking it up in history books a hundred years later.
But to specifically send people to scout for this news... Charlotte didn't have that much manpower in hand.
Although the Gray Cloak Order led by Robin Mancini had repeatedly achieved military merits, its scale remained limited. The core cadre of Gray Cloak Knights did not exceed thirty in total. They could at most infiltrate two or three city-states simultaneously; dealing with the situation on the Soqya Peninsula was already very taxing, let alone attending to intelligence within the Oran Empire.
The Rose Knights currently only consisted of two or three kittens—yes, referring to the two cats, Sophia and Laura. aside from using them for physical and mental entertainment at night, Charlotte could hardly count on them for now.
Cecilia thought seriously for a while, then suddenly had a flash of inspiration and said, "The Commerce Department!"
"What?" Charlotte asked in confusion.
"Under the Commerce Department of Elm Tree Town, there are three caravans responsible for periodically purchasing grain, alcohol, timber, and other items needed in large quantities from within the Empire. The captains and accountants of these three caravans were all personally selected by me. They are smart, articulate, and considered loyal and reliable. If it's news that isn't classified, we can ask them to inquire while doing business, then compile it and submit it to you," Cecilia suggested.
After thinking briefly, Charlotte affirmed, "Good idea. I'll leave this matter to you then, Cecilia."
"As you command." Cecilia accepted the task. After a brief pause, she frowned and reported, "Recently, I've received several reports that the enrollment situation at Elm Tree Town Primary School doesn't seem very good..."
With the end of the spring plowing in the Lanwan Viscountcy, the second phase of the Elm Tree Town project had also started, and the first thing to be built was the academy—Cecilia was very concerned about promoting education. The construction of the academy was simple: level a piece of land, build a few small wooden cabins, surround it with a fence, and an academy was built.
Charlotte named it "Elm Tree Town Primary School." Cecilia and the local subjects felt that Charlotte chose this name because this academy only enrolled children under thirteen.
Although Cecilia had high hopes for this primary school, the actual situation after it opened was not optimistic. It would be one thing if many parents were unwilling to send their children to school—they could use the excuse that the family needed the children to help with work. But some children themselves didn't want to go to school either, frequently skipping classes. Some children would even rather go home and work than stay in school to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic...
"Do you need to tell me about such a small matter?" Charlotte asked in confusion.
Cecilia sighed and said helplessly, "I can't understand. Studying must be at least easier than farm work, right? I don't understand why those children hate studying so much?"
Charlotte crossed her arms and laughed, "Cecilia, you can't apply your own situation to others. For some people, studying is actually much more painful than working. For those children who have been allowed to run wild since childhood and haven't developed study habits, not loving to study is the norm."
"But, what if the students themselves don't want to attend school? If they don't learn, it's useless no matter how the teachers teach, right?" Cecilia said with distress.
"Can they just not learn because they don't want to?" Charlotte sneered indifferently. "Have someone issue a test on literacy and basic arithmetic every month for the students to take. For every literacy mistake, arrest their father and give him a lash of the whip. For every arithmetic mistake, arrest their mother and give her a lash."
Cecilia listened, dumbfounded. It took a long while before she blankly asked, "What if they don't have parents?"
"Then whip their uncles or elders. If they don't have any elders, whip their neighbors," Charlotte answered without thinking.
Children refusing to study and neighbors getting whipped sounded very unreasonable. In Charlotte's previous life, such a rule would definitely be condemned by thousands.
But what era was this? It was the feudal era, the era of slavery. As a grand feudal lord, Charlotte didn't need to reason with a bunch of commoners.
This year, the canal would open for navigation, the cement factory would be completed, and Elm Tree Town would expand again... These achievements would bring a large number of jobs requiring literacy and the ability to count. Charlotte urgently needed to cultivate enough "high-quality" laborers, and these twelve or thirteen-year-old children at Elm Tree Town Primary School were the first batch. In this era, a fourteen or fifteen-year-old could count as a full laborer. Thirteen-year-old children could study writing and arithmetic for a year, and next year they could step into "high-tech" positions.
"The school I founded isn't a place where they study if they want to and don't if they don't. With me, receiving education is an obligation they must fulfill, just like farmers must perform labor service and knights must perform military service. What is the crime for evading service? Hanging. I'm only whipping their parents; that's already merciful enough."
Charlotte explained the "feudal characteristics" of her compulsory education theory to Cecilia.
"This is too..." Cecilia didn't know how to evaluate it for a moment.
"Don't worry," Charlotte laughed again and said. "It will probably only require whipping for the first two years. Once the populace sees how much the lives of the first and second batches of educated children have improved, they will soon actively urge their own children to study hard."
Cecilia had to take a deep breath and say, "Alright, I hope you are right."
Just as Charlotte and Cecilia were discussing the education issues of the unruly brats, the study door was suddenly knocked upon.
"Come in," Charlotte said.
A female knight wearing leather armor pushed the door open and entered. It was Anna, who was responsible for guarding the castle.
For Charlotte's castle, the outer perimeter was guarded by the territory guard, which drew different knights daily for duty. The interior was guarded by the two female knights, Anna and Celine, in rotation. However, Celine had gone to Dorukocha with her father not long ago, so the internal guard duty of the castle had been Anna's responsibility recently.
After entering, Anna bowed to Charlotte and Cecilia: "Viscount, Miss Cecilia."
Charlotte raised her hand, signaling Anna not to stand on ceremony, and asked, "Is something the matter? Anna."
Charlotte discovered that after awakening the Second Wing, aside from gaining the ability to absorb extraordinary power from food, her First Wing ability, "Beguilement," had also grown significantly.
This growth was a bit strange to speak of. Not only was Charlotte more relaxed and adept when using "Beguilement" again, but even the effects of the "Beguilement" Charlotte had previously placed on others seemed to have been strengthened and consolidated.
Charlotte discovered this when she accidentally passed by Anna's room one night and unintentionally saw Anna praying in the direction of her room.
To verify the timeliness of her ability, Charlotte hadn't used "Beguilement" on Anna for a long time. Facts proved that repeated layering of "Beguilement" decayed very slowly on a subject like Anna, who already possessed conditions of loyalty toward Charlotte. But no matter how slow the decay, there was ultimately decay; there was no such thing as it not weakening at all, nor had there ever been a case where the effect suddenly became stronger.
Regarding this, Charlotte could only link it to her promotion to the Second Wing.
"The Lanwan Research Institute says that the Citizen-Soldier Faction adapted by Mr. Ferguson is almost complete," Anna reported.
Charlotte had gathered the scholars under her command and established a Lanwan Research Institute, located right next to Elm Tree Town Primary School. Even the architectural style of the institute was similar to the primary school.
"Really?" Charlotte was skeptical. "Don't tell me that guy Ferguson is pulling some stunt again?"
"It should be true," Anna nodded and said. "Knight Jack Moore is currently taking Mr. Ferguson to conduct tests at the Fairy Lake Military Camp. Mr. Robert Kay and Mr. Cliff Chapman have also gone."
Hearing this, Charlotte finally revealed a look of pleasant surprise. "That is truly wonderful. Cecilia, let's go take a look together."
"Mhm." Cecilia nodded with a smile.
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