Blood Holy Scripture: True Ancestor Charlotte de Castel
Chapter 448: -190- War Wealth

Chapter 448: -190- War Wealth

With the complete restoration of the Northern Territory, the Castel family’s rebellion also ended with the destruction of the Legris Family.

The official explanation was that the Legris Family had colluded with the Blood Demon Church, intending to summon the Evil God within the ruins beneath the lands of the north, but instead were devoured by their own schemes, leading to the family’s total ruin.

Numerous legends, following the full takeover of the Viscount Legris Domain by the Castel family, began to take on a plausible façade.

Especially since nearly all residents of the northern land had recently felt a "palpitation" attributable to the failed Divine Descent of the Blood Demon Church, adding credence to the event.

In street taverns and salons of nobles and merchants alike, people relished discussing it, making it a topic of casual after-dinner conversation.

Rumors such as the Blood Demon Church discovering an ancient lost Divine Artifact to attempt a Divine Descent, ultimately foiled by the Castel family; or the Blood Demon Church being on the brink of success in their ritual when the betraying Legris family came to their senses and rebelled, causing their plan to fall short, and so on...

Truth mingled with falsehood, and falsehood intertwined with truth.

In any case... driven by Charlotte’s deliberate actions, all the blame was placed on the Blood Demon Church and the Legris Family.

Of course, in a sense, it wasn’t entirely incorrect to do so, given that the Legris Family indeed had colluded with the Blood Demon Church, and the Blood Demon Church genuinely tried to conduct the Divine Descent, and not all members of the Legris Family had truly fallen.

The only core difference was probably in attributing the resonance of the Divine Statue infused by Charlotte also to the Blood Demon Church.

As for whether the Holy Royal Court’s investigative team would believe this... whether they believed it or not, the subjects of the Northern Territory believed it, the nobles believed it, and Charlotte... oh, she believed it more than anyone.

Meanwhile, since the official explanation from the Castel Family was that the conspiracy of the Blood Demon Church had been thwarted, the subjects’ concerns about the "descent of the Evil God" also quickly dissipated.

Instead, another matter piqued the curiosity of many—

Concerning how the reclaimed domain of the Legris Family would be handled.

The subjects were curious, and the nobles even more so.

Not only curious, but numerous northern nobles had recently flocked to North Port to pay their respects to Charlotte, bringing families, displaying loyalty, showing accomplishments, sharing grievances...

The implied meanings, whether overt or covert, were the same: they hoped Charlotte would take care of their families by granting them a portion of the domain.

As the Lord, Charlotte patiently met with each one.

Aside from the excessive demands, she also fulfilled some of the more reasonable ones.

This was something she had promised in advance, in order to secure the full support of the nobles by promising them land.

The Viscount Legris Domain was sparsely populated and vast; distributing some of the less important lands was not an issue. Now was not the time to strengthen central power, and Charlotte indeed needed to trade some benefits to gain the support of the nobles.

No... in fact, looking at it from another angle, if Charlotte truly intended to follow the path of Divine Enthronement, whether or not to strengthen central power might not even matter much to her.

Adapting to the evolution of the era was the approach; at present, she simply needed to ultimately secure loyalty from above and below and establish her own system of faith.

Of course, when distributing the domain of the Legris Family, Charlotte retained those most crucial territories.

Such as the directly administered Legris Port of the Legris Family, several fortresses along the frontier, the richest Baron domains within the Viscount Legris Domain...

All of these, Charlotte took directly under the administration of the Castel family.

Besides that, there were the shares of the Castel mines held by the Legris family.

Because the Legris Family’s domain was closest to the mines and had contributed the most in the development of the mines, they had historically enjoyed the highest revenue share among the three Viscount families, almost equivalent to the combined shares of the other noble families.

The Legris Family was able to sustain 1,500 fully armored cavalrymen in their mere Viscount Domain, all thanks to the revenue from these mines!

With their title revoked and their lands reclaimed, the Legris Family naturally lost their share in the Castel mines to Charlotte, and she no longer planned to distribute them.

Furthermore, with the shares reclaimed from other rebellious noble families, Castel had nearly half of the silver mine’s dividends.

And with the Castel family’s remaining shares, Charlotte now controlled more than seventy percent of the dividends from the Castel silver mines.

Now that the Castel family had become independent from Bold, they no longer had to abide by the old contracts nor pay the corresponding vassal taxes to the Bold Duchy. Even considering the future taxes to be recalculated for the direct vassals of the kingdom, the income of the Castel family was expected to increase significantly.

Charlotte had the Count Mansion’s tax officer do a preliminary calculation, and the outcome was surprisingly startling.

After this war of external threats and internal turmoil, the income of the Castel family was likely to increase by four to five times, perhaps exceeding two million gold tanas a month, even more than what her father had during his reign ten years ago!

It could only be said that the Northern Land was truly wealthy and its nobles genuinely affluent.

A civil war had made Charlotte, as a Lord, wealthy from the spoils of war...

Seeing these figures, Charlotte suddenly found herself interested in centralizing power again.

It was indeed alluring, taking back just one Viscount domain and some small noble lands, on top of gaining independence from the Bold family.

Even excluding the income gained from reclaiming the Castel silver mines, just the reclaimed noble territories could provide Charlotte with an income reaching five hundred thousand gold tanas a month.

And this was merely the official recorded tax revenue.

In fact, the various resources produced in the territories, especially the scattered transcendent and strategic resources, were priceless.

Taking the Legris Family as an example, they controlled a pasture specifically for breeding war horses.

Although the quality of these horses was just adequate, far inferior to the Dragon Scale Horses of the Northern Territory Grand Duchy, they were still much better than the ordinary horses of Castel.

This pasture also served as the primary source of cavalry horses for the Legris family.

This pasture was naturally claimed by Charlotte as well.

However, although Charlotte’s income had increased, her expenditures were bound to rise too.

The Castel Domain had gained independence and was no longer under Bold’s protection, so Charlotte definitely needed to build her own transcendent army.

Besides that, she also planned to invest money in further planning the development of her domain.

Of course, that was a conversation for later.

Charlotte first instructed the Count Mansion’s cabinet to discuss these matters and come up with viable plans, planning to finalize the specific plans after returning from the meeting at the Royal Capital.

After the official transfer of control over the Legris Domain, Sebastian and Nisi also returned.

Accompanying them was the disguised Blood Count Yulster, as well as the Black Dragon Odosia, whose magical power Sebastian had sealed and who was still in slumber.

However, apart from these individuals, there was a group of unexpected visitors traveling with them—

An envoy group from the Northern Territory Grand Duchy.