Road to the Crown

Chapter 266: Opportunity

3rd August 1574

"I wish you luck in the war. I'm leaving first three armies of mine under your command, along with all their base and expanded equipment. Use them wisely."

For some reason, despite only a few days passing ever since I received my injuries, the rate at which they were healing was astonishing. Despite knowing that going out of my way to the skeletal gate of the projected wall that would surround the entirety of the currently developed area might set my healing back for quite a while, it was something that I simply had to do.

"Don't worry too much about it. I already sent some letters to the capital, so that by the time you will heal to the point of being able to comfortably move, you should be set as the commander of the punitive army against Ostros. Also, despite what I said a long time ago... "

Rather than finishing his sentence, Jan pulled a simple piece of paper marked with his seal out of his breast pocket before passing it to me.

"This is the land ownership deed, for all the areas from Sandomir, through those mines all the way the Rak village. With this, you will officially join the circle of the high nobles, while preventing anyone from interfering with those lands. Also, during my absence, I set you as the highest protector of the Sandomir, but knowing your character and aims, I guess you won't really bother yourself with already developed areas."

Sending me a funny look, Jan passed another piece of paper to me, before grabbing my hand lightly, and barely even shaking it, as if worried that any more energetic move would pose a threat to my already fragile health.

"Don't worry about it. I will make sure to establish a stable route to the frontlines so that our forces won't need to worry about food or gunpowder. Once again, good luck and gest lost already. I have enough of your face after staring at it for the past few days!"

Sending my protector off in a jokingly manner, I couldn't help but feel a target being instantly painted on my back. Even with all his reassurances and actions, without Jan in place to curb any attempts at stealing or even destroying my wealth, I only had myself and my retainers to count on. 

Yet, there was nothing I could do about the current situation. With my body already on the verge of collapsing from the strain of standing straight for just a few minutes, there was no way I could personally oversee the punitive action against Ostros. At least, not yet.

"Let's go back."

Ordering with a weak voice, in one instant, I could feel Al's and Elemo's hands grabbing me under my shoulders and placing me on a stretcher. With the sky now nearly completely filling my vision, I could go back with my thoughts to how the talks with Governor went through a few days back.

"It's really hard to believe this entire story Or it would be, if not for everything that you introduced to your lands already."

"I understand why you feel so pressed to modernise the country and prevent the events that might lead to its downfall, but doing so too rapidly might bring adverse effect as to what you hope to achieve."

"While I have the stray thought of promoting you as the next king-elect for the times when the parliament will finally decide to not wait for Henry anymore, but I don't think it would work well for you. Being able to develop lands, and being able to govern them, are two completely different matters."

"For now, let's just focus on stabilizing the country, pushing Muscovites back and clearing up Ostros rebellion. As much as I would love to do more, we can't change the world within a week."

Contrary to my expectations, despite how unrealistic my entire story sounded, Jan was able not only to act as if he believed in it, but also came up with several rational proposals and ideas. And as much as I didn't want to agree with some of them, I wasn't in the state to argue with him.

For now, we agreed to focus on expanding my power as a noble, so that my ideas, when brough to the parliament, would hold greater meaning and weight than if I were to keep being just a small, landed noble and rentier. In fact, it was the main reason behind the cession of the local lands where the mining town was located!

"Sir, now that you are a proper lord of this place, don't you think you should officially set the location of a new town?"

As I was buried in my thoughts, Elemo voice managed to wake me up from my usual immersion. 

"Locate the town, you say"

Only after digesting his words for a moment, did I manage to realise just what the heck did he meant with those words of his. 

For those not well-versed in the current law, only the direct owners of the land on which a new settlement was to be located and the King himself had the right to announce the location. But to be frank, what did even locating a town meant in the first place?

It was something pretty simple. Unless a town, city or even a simple village was properly located, it would lack any law protection given to the citizens or the villagers. In short words, it would be considered as nothing more than an occupied patch of land, under the law that the nearest settled location operated on. That meant, that unless I were to locate the mining town of mine, as in to put its name on the commonwealth's map, every worker, every trader and every officer living in the town, would be considered as the villager from the village that just so happened to be the closest to this place!

"That's actually a good idea. The only question is, which law should we impose in the city? It's not like Polish, German or Lubecan laws could be applied to the way in which everything works here At least, thanks to the fact that I'm now de jure regent of the Jan's governance over the Sandomir, I'm free to choose any locating law I want"

As soon as I spoke those words, I realised that the current situation gave me another opportunity!

For someone from the future like me, the reasons behind the fall of the commonwealth were fairly obvious. Outside of the stuff that I was unable to change like the geography of the country and nearly complete lack of geographical protection from both major rivals to the east and west, it was the diminishing of the middle class that proved to be one of the major flaws to the commonwealth society!

With the lesser nobles taking over the position of the middle class in the country, those who were born without the title, but were capable of creating their own wealth and future Had no way to actually influence the course in which the country would go!

That quickly lead to the situation where those who felt entitled to the privileges but failing to provide anything in return to the country, while those who actually could contribute and were willing to, were kept away from the circle of power.

And wasn't the situation that I had on hand, a perfect way to put the founding stone for the great construction that would change it?

"Elemo, Al Bring me to my chambers and call all of the high ranking officers in there as well. Rather than using any other law that already exists and has proved to be unusable for us, we will codify our own set of rules!"

From the way the stretcher on which I was carried shook the moment I said those words, I could tell how disturbed my retainers were by my words!

"Sir With all due respect, but so far, only your development plants proved to be successful. As much as we are not willing to take the glory that sir deserve for those things alone, don't you think that attempting to create a new law from the scratch Rather than proving too challenging, might be a little bit too intrusive for the old folks at the senate? Like, what if this will be one thing they won't agree to swallow, putting them against us?"

While it was nice to hear that rather than portraying themselves as nobles who served under me, Al already considered my side as something he fully and utterly belonged to, it didn't change how right his point was. 

But while I didn't really want to go against the entirety of the country with my reforms, I would never get the chance to do so otherwise! 

"While that's true, they can't really do anything about it right now. Didn't you hear those golden words, that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission?"