Necromancer: Becoming a God from a Lord

Duke Ralph's mansion was much more luxurious and spacious than Harvey's lord's castle. This could be seen from the furnishings in the Duke's private study and living room. The carved oak bookcases occupied two full walls. The corners of all wooden furniture were carefully inlaid with gilded edges. Various books filled the place to the brim, and the collection was even comparable to that of a research-based spellcaster's wizard tower.

Perhaps he was really frightened in the assassination. All the windows facing outward in the Duke's mansion were nailed shut with wooden seals, and thick velvet curtains were pulled up from the inside to cover them. The natural light during the day could not shine into the room at all, and the huge castle seemed to be covered with a layer of gloom and darkness.

Harvey didn't like this environment very much. For him, a small study with large floor-to-ceiling windows, plenty of light, and always warmed by the heater was more to his liking.

Suddenly, the guards whispered questions outside the room, and then the door was gently knocked.

"Come in!" Harvey put down the book he was flipping through and looked up to find that it was the army commander Pierce who pushed the door open.

"Sir, the interrogation of the noble captives has been completed." Pierce bowed slightly and placed a stack of white paper in front of Harvey.

"Is this the entire list? Are there only these nobles left in Duke Ralph's fiefdom?" Harvey picked up the list and looked through it carefully, and asked with some confusion.

"Yes." Pierce answered affirmatively, "The Ralph family has always been cautious in enfeoffment of vassal nobles. There are a total of 136 small nobles and knights under the territory. Excluding those diehards who died in our military operations, there are 70 people who surrendered voluntarily or were forced to be captured because of ignorance. Most of them are knight landlords and declining small nobles far away from Fengyuan City." Harvey nodded and turned to the first page of the list. He found that the first few lines were the direct line of Duke Ralph's family - in addition to the fifth Duchess, there were also the Duke's three young children... When Duke Ralph fled, he only took his eldest son and two direct nephews with him, and left the rest of the family behind. In addition, the only Ralph family member with the highest status and position who was captured alive in Fengyuan City was Baron Simone, the Duke's younger brother. According to the blood warriors who were responsible for capturing them, this baron led his family members out of the secret passage, carrying several boxes of gold and sneaking out of the city. As soon as he emerged, he was caught by the special operations team of the Northern Army who had been waiting at the exit of the secret passage. He was very tough and drew his long sword to break through at all costs, but then his leg was broken by a gunshot.

Harvey quickly read through the entire list, tapped the table with satisfaction and said, "Well done, how is the feedback from the people in the city?"

Pierce looked a little strange, and hesitated for a moment before saying, "Sir, although we have tried our best to express our attitude to the people and encouraged them to actively report the crimes of these nobles, but... civilians accusing nobles is really unheard of for the locals, and they have never dared to think about it."

Harvey had expected this. No matter how fierce the attacks and occupations between the nobles were, for the ordinary working people, it was nothing more than a change of lords to continue to exploit and oppress themselves. It was only bad luck to anger the nobles and be beaten and killed at will. Unbearable resistance would only result in being hanged or hung at the city gate for public display.

The people who were firmly tied to the land could only concentrate on the harvest of the land in front of them. It was not easy to ensure that they could survive without going hungry.

"Since the people dare not report the crimes of the nobles, let them confess on their own initiative..." Harvey looked up at Pierce and said lightly, "Anyway, you are always good at interrogation. I believe you will make a [fair] verdict soon."

Pierce immediately understood his hint, raised the corners of his mouth slightly, saluted and left in a hurry.

In fact, guilt or innocence is just a cover. For these "exploiters" who have been sucking blood from the people for many generations, Harvey thinks that there will be fish that slip through the net if he shoots one every other person. It is impossible for them to be wronged.

…

Not long after Pierce left, the secret police 088 in charge of Fengyuan City's intelligence work came to see Harvey.

"Sir, how do you plan to deal with these captured nobles?"

"Why?" Harvey raised his eyebrows and asked curiously, "Are there people among them who have been bribed by you?"

088 nodded, bowed and explained slowly: "The second son of Baron Frost Eagle, Sir Ross, has always been our target of winning over and inciting rebellion."

Harvey couldn't help laughing, "That stubborn Baron Frost Eagle? I heard that when he broke through the Fengyuanling Mountain Fort, he saw that he was defeated and even planned to commit suicide to avoid being captured and humiliated, but he was knocked unconscious on the spot by his son and guards, and dragged to surrender, right?"

He found the page of the Frost Eagle family from the list of nobles on the table in front of him and checked it, then picked up the pen and crossed out the young man named Ross.

"You have been in Fengyuan City for less than half a year, and you have actually succeeded in inciting a noble to rebel. It seems that Asdaren's training of you is very effective." 088 said modestly: "Thank you for your praise, the main reason is that this young man has a kind heart, which is rare... He adheres to the knight's creed, but does not act rigidly. In addition, his birth is not noble, and his biological mother is a civilian maid, who has always sympathized with ordinary people."

Harvey nodded and ordered: "Then wait a while, bring him to see me after the public trial of the nobles is over."

After that, he stood up and walked to the bookcase, took out a biography of the Ralph family and flipped through it, "In addition, arrange for your people to start announcing to the public in the city as soon as possible. At the latest one week later, I will publicly try all the nobles in the clock tower square in the inner city. Those who commit serious crimes will be sentenced to hanging in public, and accomplices will be sent to the north for imprisonment or labor..."

"Just... execute them directly?" 088 looked a little surprised, "I'm thinking... if the reputation of the mass execution of nobles spreads to other parts of the country, will it cause..."

No mistakes in one song, one post, one content, one 6, one 9, one book, one bar, take a look!

As expected of a guy like Asdaren who was born in an ancient wizard family, the intelligence personnel he personally trained had completely abandoned class emotions in their thinking and ideas, and were more concerned with political influence and weighing gains and losses... Harvey shook his head with a smile, and found that the subordinates he trained were better at political struggles than himself.

He sighed, looked at the young man of the same age standing in front of him, and gently instructed: "This is an inevitable result... In the future, under my governance, there will be no more hereditary nobles with real power. Those titles will eventually become empty titles that only represent personal and family honors, and the people will spontaneously become our biggest supporters after tasting the sweetness of not being oppressed at will."

As for those hereditary nobles - after losing their fiefdoms and power under Harvey's military oppression, if they want to save their lives and continue to live a comfortable life, they must bow down to him and follow the laws and policies he promulgated, so that they can obtain reasonable and legal interests for the continuation of their families.

Of course, Harvey will also provide them with a strong military force as a backer. Once they have tasted the sweetness of "magic technology is the primary productive force", they probably won't want to return to the current ignorant and decadent situation - after all, most of the fiefdoms of the lower-level nobles are not rich, and they are even in danger of bankruptcy when they encounter poor management. And this group of people is the largest in the aristocratic class.

I believe that they will soon realize that if they hold on to Harvey's thigh tightly, they can easily live a comfortable life that they could not imagine before.