A Tale of Strategies For the Throne

Not to mention that Heymos, who rarely lost his temper and ignored Garlan, made Garlan a little confused.

And here, the female knight, who was waiting to talk to Garlan, whom she hadn't seen for several years, heard half a sentence before the horse suddenly turned around and left.

Fataya looked up, but could only see the back of Heymos who was riding away.

The young man was completely blocked by the tall figure of the black knight, and she couldn't even see a hair.

She looked at the back of His Excellency Heymos in a daze, not knowing what was going on at all.

However, she couldn't figure it out, and her lover knew it all.

Looking at the back of his master exuding an oppressive aura, and the appearance of King Garlan hugging tightly in his arms, Suo Jia felt a toothache.

As Fataya's lover, he watched his lover being taken away by the king right in front of his eyes, and he should be the one who got angry.

But for some reason, when he saw Lord Heymos dragging King Garlan from the back of another horse into his arms from a distance on the back of a running horse, he didn't want to He said he was angry, and even the corners of his mouth couldn't help twitching because of the sudden illusory toothache.

In addition, before King Garlan finished speaking, he deliberately reversed his behavior and left...

Suo Jia just wanted to hehe in his heart.

He thought that he was often reprimanded by Fataya for being narrow-minded, jealous, and narrow-minded. Now he has an urge to grab Fataya's shoulder and shake it vigorously, pointing at Heymos while shaking. The adult's back asked her——

Look, look for yourself, compared to that one, my heart is really very broad!

That person's jealousy and possessiveness are really terrible, okay——

However, Suo Jia was still sane after all, and did not do this kind of behavior.

He took a step forward and helped his lover who was still looking at the front blankly up.

Fataya stood up, frowning tightly.

"Did my rude behavior offend His Excellency Heymos?"

She looked at Suo Jia worriedly and asked.

"Will it affect you?"

She knew that her lover was a subordinate of His Excellency Heymos.

Quarrels belong to quarrels, Suo Jia's position in her heart has always been very important, she naturally does not want to bring trouble to Suo Jia.

Fataya's worrying words immediately made Suo Jia feel elated.

"Don't worry, Lord Heymos is not the kind of narrow-minded person, and he won't get angry over such a trivial matter."

——Except for the matter of King Garlan, the eye of the mind is definitely smaller than the tip of a needle.

While comforting Fataya, Suo Jia silently added this sentence in his heart.

"but……"

Fataya always felt that something was wrong.

Suo Jia coughed, interrupted her, pointed to the horse behind her and said: "Don't think too much, we'd better follow, after all, this horse..."

"Uh, yes, this horse has to be returned to His Majesty."

Suddenly remembering that the horse belonged to Garlan, Fataya quickly got on the horse, and chased forward with Suo Jia.

They quickly caught up with Heymos and the others, because although Heymos turned his horse's head and ran back, he was only trotting, not fast.

When Fataya caught up, he saw Garlan turning his head back and whispering something to Heymos.

On the other hand, Heymos pursed his lips, his expression was cold, and he didn't say a word.

He let Garlan talk to him in a low voice, but his eyes were fixed on the front without even looking at Garlan, and he still rode his horse forward at a slow pace.

Fataya couldn't help but frowned.

His Excellency Heymos's attitude was too rude to King Garlan.

As soon as she finished thinking this way, she saw Garlan sigh a little, as if he was a little helpless, but he didn't seem to be angry because Heymos ignored her attitude, that kind of helplessness was more like his big pet making trouble The feeling of being disobedient.

Then, Fataya saw Garlan raised his hand and rubbed Heymos' head.

The boy patted Heymos' head, and said a few words to him softly with a smile that seemed to be coaxing a child.

... This sense of sight seems to be smoothing the hair of the big black wolf dog ...

The corner of the female knight's mouth couldn't help twitching.

Although he couldn't hear what Garlan said, suddenly, Fataya keenly felt that the originally fierce aura around Heymos had softened a bit.

The gaze that was fixedly staring ahead also fell on the face of the young man in front of him.

The gaze that was sharp and sharp like a knife's edge a second ago met Garlan's smiling gaze with curved eyes, it was like a sharp sword in its sheath, wrapped around by soft white clouds.

That look, in an instant, the snow melted away.

Only softness remains, only attachment remains.

Those golden-red eyes carried the afterglow of the sunset in the sky, and the moment they stared at Garlan in front of him, it seemed as if they had jumped through hundreds of millions of years.

Everything in the world will eventually pass away.

Only his gaze on the boy in his arms is immortal.

……

puff.

Fataya looked away abruptly.

what happened?

Seeing Heymos's gaze on Garlan, the female knight's heart beat violently for no reason at this moment.

Obviously it was in broad daylight, and obviously those two were just talking with each other with a chuckle and a low voice.

But that...uh...the indescribable atmosphere between the two... made her feel embarrassed to continue watching.

She, who has always been careless and nervous, unexpectedly felt her cheeks burn slightly for no reason.

She couldn't describe it.

Anyway...the Lord Heymos looked at King Garlan with special, special eyes...

foul?

…………

........................

Because of the lack of a horse, Heymos refused to let go, and Garlan, who managed to appease the angry big black wolf, didn't bother to bother, so he just rode with Heymos.

Just in time, with Heymos pulling the reins, he would have his hands free to start nibbling on the warm chili con carne that Heymos had just bought for him.

Just now you can gallop your horse in a remote place, but now you are in a place where people come and go, naturally you have to slow down your horse and walk slowly on the street.

Suo Jia glanced at his lover.

The female knight already had a strong sense of responsibility, and rode close behind her on her horse, watching her surroundings vigilantly, loyally guarding Garlan's side.

"Your Mightiness."

On the street, Suo Jia naturally only used this kind of vague honorific title.

"Did you come out for a private visit again this time?"

Yes, 'again'.

The reason why Suo Jia asked this was because Garlan had gone out of the palace in private more than once or twice, and he was almost becoming a habitual offender.

This young king is completely different from the previous kings.

The kings of all dynasties are located at the highest point of the palace, high above the throne, looking down on all living beings from the throne.

Only when leading troops to go out, can the people of the king's city catch a glimpse of the king surrounded by countless guards from afar.

But this young king always left the palace from time to time, came to the people in the king city, talked with ordinary people, and visited privately.

Every time he visited and returned to the palace, one or two dignitaries would suffer.

After doing this a few times, all the dignitaries in the royal city who used to oppress and plunder civilians were in danger and restrained a lot, for fear that one day if they were unlucky, they would be caught by the young king who came out of the palace for private visits.

I don't know which powerful person will suffer this time.

Suo Jia thought silently in his heart.

"No, it's not a private visit this time, it's a bit troublesome to solve."

The young man who answered vaguely while biting the spicy bolognese scone one bite at a time did not look like an unattainable king with a dignified posture.

Looking at the young king in front of him who was almost completely different from what he had imagined, and Heymos, whose eyes were only on Garlan who was eating a scone with soft eyes, Suo Jia suddenly felt a little bit suffocated.

He took a deep breath, suppressed the little stuff in his heart, and continued to ask.

"I don't know what it is? Do you need my help?"

Suo Jia has always been a person who knows current affairs very well.

Although in order to help Huimos fight for the throne before, he could use any means to deal with Garlan, but now that the overall situation has been settled, looking at his master's hopeless appearance of being fascinated by the boy king-in fact, he is in his own house. His IQ would drop sharply in front of his lover, and he has no position to say such a thing—I'm afraid he won't be able to count on it in the future.

That being the case, of course he had to change his position and began to think about how to serve Gallan to improve his status.

You must know that his mortal enemy, Xie Muer, who has been fighting against him since he was a child and has been defeated by the opponent until now, is now extremely trusted by the young king, and the result of this is that in the current royal court, the power of the Sun God Shamash Temple is also Overwhelmed the temple of Nanna, the god of the night.

As a priest of Nanna, he naturally had to try to turn this situation around.

He didn't want to spend his life losing out to his deadpan, deadpan enemy.

"Well, you should also know that I have newly established a trade and trade department, which started operation half a month ago, but when I went to see it in the afternoon, I found that no merchant seemed willing to trade there."

Garlan didn't shy away from it, and continued to gnaw on the scones while telling the story.

He knew that although Suo Jia was good at intrigue and scheming, and he was not a very good person, he was very loyal to Heymos and could be trusted.

"that……"

Of course, Suo Jia, who pays close attention to all kinds of dynamics in the royal city, knows very well about the trade and trade agency that Garlan mentioned.

If you go there to trade, you have to pay a certain percentage of business tax. Of course, those businessmen who regard money as their life are not willing to go, after all, they will lose a lot of money for nothing.

That department was still so depressed under the support of Wang, which made many people laugh.

Those people didn't dare to talk about the real mastermind behind the scenes, King Garlan, so they secretly ridiculed Tal, who was in charge of the Commerce and Trade Department.

There was even a wave of Tal's incompetence in the royal court, demanding that King Garlan abolish the Commerce and Trade Administration.

but……

Suo Jia also thought about this matter in private.

Although he is good at setting up schemes on the battlefield and in politics to deceive people invisible, he is not familiar with business and trade, and of course he can't understand the purpose of Garlan's establishment of the trade bureau for a while.

Although he can't understand, he has a brain.

So, after pondering over it for a long time, he vaguely had an idea in his mind, but he was not sure.

During this time, Suo Jia has been silently watching the development of the situation.

He vaguely noticed that someone seemed to be fueling the flames in the royal city, deliberately publicizing the fact that the Commerce and Trade Department would collect commercial taxes, taking it out of context, and using such a thing to cover up the other benefits of the Commerce and Trade Department—they deliberately used public opinion in the Among the merchants, the mainstream impression has formed that the purpose of the establishment of the Commercial and Trade Department is to cut flesh from them by the Boy King.

Suo Jia had already guessed that there might be a large group of forces secretly trying to abolish the existence of the Commerce and Trade Department.

The benefits that are enough to make that force not hesitate to play tricks behind the new king's back... must be very large.

It is because it is too big that those who have vested interests are reluctant to spit out this big piece of fat.

They didn't dare to confront the tough King Garlan head-on, so they did things secretly, using rumors to control the merchants and the Commerce and Trade Department to be hostile.

At this moment, the group of them had already returned to the remote Commerce and Trade Department on horseback.

From the bustling bazaar just now to the location of the Commerce and Trade Department, in contrast, the place feels deserted and depressed.

Except for a dozen guards standing guard outside the gate, the gate was empty and no one could be seen coming in or out.

There are not many people in the wide street specially widened here.

"Someone is behind the scenes."

Soga said,

"If this continues, there will be people in the court meeting who will request the abolition of the Commerce and Trade Department on the grounds that this is useless and a waste of manpower."

He looked at Garlan and asked, "What are you going to do?"

Swallowing the last bite of scones, Garlan looked up at the deserted door of the Commerce and Trade Department.

The sun was about to sink into the horizon, and the last faint sunlight shone from behind, hiding half of Garlan's face under the cloak and hood in the backlight.

He quietly stared at the almost deserted gate.

Suo Jia looked at the back of the silent young king.

he thinks,

At the beginning, it was this person who personally promised to let the merchants voluntarily choose whether to come to the Commerce and Trade Department for transactions.

I'm afraid that at that time, this person never thought that no businessman was willing to come.

However, until now... King Garlan would not be able to break his original promise and force merchants to settle in it.

………………

Suo Jia's prophecy soon came true.

In the small court meeting a few days later, after finishing the usual handling of local government affairs, someone stood up.

"King Garlan, your newly established Commerce and Trade Bureau has so far... not had much effect."

The minister who stood up euphemistically changed the word 'no effect' to 'not very effective', but others could understand what he meant.

"Continue, I'm afraid it's also..."

As the director of the Commerce and Trade Department, Tal's chubby face immediately turned red when he was directly told that his department was useless during the court meeting.

However, he couldn't refute it.

Someone took the lead, and immediately after that, another person stood up.

"Your Majesty, because of the Commerce and Trade Department, your reputation in the Royal City has been greatly affected."

He respectfully said,

"Since it is not very useful here, it is better to abolish it. Firstly, it can avoid the public's discussion of you, and secondly, it can also save some manpower and material resources."

Several ministers echoed it and proposed to abolish the useless trade bureau.

They all said that for the sake of King Garlan's "wise name" and in order not to increase the burden on the people, it would be best to abolish the Commerce and Trade Department and that business tax.

This is all for the sake of the prestige of King Garlan. After all, no other country on the mainland has such a saying of commercial tax. Only Aaron Landis has this tax. If it is preached by those merchants walking on the mainland, not only Damage to the reputation of King Garlan, and even the reputation of Aaron Landis will be affected.

What's more, if you are too harsh on the merchants, the merchants will not be willing to come to Aaron Landis. In the long run, it will lead to the weakening of Aaron Landis' business.

The general meaning of those words can be summed up as follows——

Your Majesty, you can't just go your own way.

Adding tax items is not what a wise king should do.

Money is just a thing outside of the body. Compared with that kind of thing, the righteous name of you and Aaron Landis is more important.

Under the earnest persuasion of all the dignitaries and ministers, Garlan, who was sitting on the malachite throne, remained very quiet.

He sat and listened quietly to the speeches of the crowd.

"I have heard all your advice."

At the end of the court meeting, Garlan stood up.

"Maybe I didn't think carefully about it at the beginning." He said, "I will think about it carefully."

After speaking, he got up from the throne and left.

The azure cloak was raised behind the young king who turned and left.

When he turned around, the blond hair swept over his cheeks, making it difficult to see his expression at this time.

The people in the court also retreated one after another, and some of them exchanged understanding and satisfied eyes with each other when they left.