OR1-EP3: The Bloody Coat of Arms (6)

McNeil don't know if it was the EU side that originally intended to lend a helping hand or if McNeil's persuasion of Father Palaskas had worked, but the embassy finally intended to intervene in the matter. This was good news for McNeil, but there were still many mysteries in his mind that had not been reasonably answered. He had always enjoyed getting to the bottom of anything, even if the results were boring, the process itself was a pleasure. In order to uncover the white-robed men who had come to arrest the exiles, McNeil began to gather information about the organization of the Imperial Knights.

The Britannian Empire was in a peculiar state so far, its power was actually shared between the Emperor and the nobles. This check and balance of power was also reflected in the military, in addition to the empire's land, sea, and air forces, there were countless knight orders affiliated with different nobles throughout the empire. Among them, the most famous is the Knights of the Rounds controlled by the Emperor himself, this organization has only 12 people, and there are often vacancies. The Knights of the Rounds were responsible for the defense of the Emperor on weekdays, and when war broke out, they were sent to the front line to become the commanding generals of the war. In addition to the Knights of the Rounds, there were also the Knights of St. Michael, Knights of St. Gabriel, Knights of St. Raphael, and Knights of St. Uriel, a group of old European aristocrats named after the four archangels. These orders were full of renaissance men who claimed ownership of a piece of Europe and whose lifelong dream was to fight back and reclaim their ancestral territories. The honorary leader of these four orders was the most famous of these nobles, Grand Duke of Velaines, who many believed to be the rightful Autocrator of Russia.

Father Palaskas explains this by saying that the Britannian Empire in its early days used partitioning as it expanded aggressively around the world, i.e., giving blank checks to border nobles to take land outward on their own. The result was that although the Britannian Empire was eventually able to unify the entire American continent, the nobility became the number one problem for successive emperors. As a whole, the aristocracy can be divided into the American faction and the European faction: the American faction of nobles have real power, while the European faction of nobles mostly have empty titles. The European faction can be divided into the Old Europeans, who were exiled to the Americas during the Napoleonic Wars, and the New Europeans, who came to Britannia in the wave of exiles after the First World War. The fundamental contradiction between the two sides lies in their respective attitudes towards foreign affairs, with the American faction preferring to run their estates in the Empire, while the European faction's only hope is to counter-attack and restore the country, and to this end they spared no effort to support Emperor Charles in sweeping away the old nobility and waging wars of aggression against the outside world.

"The resources in the hands of the Emperor of the Britannian Empire are also very limited, if he really intends to wage a foreign war, he will have to find a way to siphon off resources from those nobles." As usual, the priest chatted with McNeil about the current state of the empire over breakfast, "So, assuming that the emperor decides to implement the European-faction nobles' approach, it's tantamount to offending all the native nobles."

"I see. The native nobles have already divided up everything in the empire, so the other nobles and commoners have no choice but to rob them or rob foreign countries, but the action of robbing foreign countries itself requires the native nobles to smash their property for support, which means that there is no way to resolve the conflict between their two sides." McNeil pondered the intricate relationship between the various factions, "Then, assuming that the native nobles decided to strongly support overseas expansion but demanded their share of the benefits overseas, it would be the same as taking away the patrimony that those European nobles regarded as rightfully belonging to themselves ... "

"That's it in a nutshell." The priest finished his omelette, "The actual situation is slightly different, for example, many of the nobles still have alliances with each other, and they are meant to work together ... Well, let's talk about today's activities."

However, McNeil was sick to death of that kind of pretentious banquet, and he bluntly said that he wouldn't be himself if he continued like this. Seeing this, the priest couldn't force McNeil to attend, or else if McNeil got into trouble at the banquet, he, the head of the group, would have to take responsibility for it. Surprisingly, McNeil said that he wanted to learn about the daily life of Britannia's civilians in detail, to see where the gap with the EU really was.

Thinking that this was a good idea, Priest Palaskas decided to let McNeil go out. McNeil first went to a nearby shopping mall, which was a shopping place specially opened for civilians. It was a weekday morning, and it was sparsely populated, with only a few children bouncing around.

"Hey, don't you guys have to go to school?" McNeil asked the children with baskets as he stood in the doorway, "Running around doing this in the daytime?"

"What's school?" One of the boys asked, looking back in confusion.

"... This is, ah, you guys ..." McNeil was about to say something when the boys had already walked away. He sighed helplessly and stepped idly into the mall. Almost immediately he noticed a young man in a long shirt searching for something in the frozen section in front of him, the man's shirt was also embroidered with a python design, these details were enough for McNeil to surmise his identity.

"You are ... Colonel Wang, right?"

The youth raised his head, and his full beard was particularly conspicuous. Wang Shuang looked at McNeil and asked in surprise:

"Why are you here too? By the way, someone told me that the deputy who followed that priest to the meeting that day was named McNeil ... I don't remember that you people from the EU would like to go to this kind of place ..."

"It's my first time back in the Britannian Empire and I was hoping to see more of the different sights." McNeil said perfunctorily, "On the contrary, you seem to have gotten into trouble ... What happened afterward?"

Wang Shuang saw that no one was around, so he casually chatted with McNeil about the matter. It turned out that, according to the laws of either side, the killing of a high-ranking noble by a low-ranking noble (and also the intentional killing of a high-ranking noble without any element of vengeance and other sympathetic elements) is an unforgivable crime, coupled with the fact that this matter is likely to turn into a diplomatic incident due to the fact that the deceased is the son of a major official of the South Court Protectorate, Wang Shuang killed the suspect on the spot and said that it would allow the two sides to eliminate the subsequent aftermath of the incident, except that he would be implicated in the case. Theoretically speaking, he only needs to kill the suspect on the spot. Theoretically, he would only need to take a symbolic punishment; however, Elder Lord Chi was on fire because of his eldest son's murder, and Wang Shuang did not think that he would be able to easily escape punishment.

"I was rude earlier; I didn't know that EU still had characters who dared to stand up for what was right." Wang Shuang arched his hand at McNeil and apologized, "You are different from the other Europeans who came here."

"Maybe because I'm sort of half Britannian."

"That's even rarer." Wang Shuang laughed, "If-you don't take it to heart-if the Europeans are jackals, the Britannians are simply worse than pigs and dogs."

Seeing McNeil's face darken, Wang Shuang hurriedly waved his hand and explained:

"No, I mean ... the same negative impression, the Britannians are simply not on the same level compared to the revulsion caused by you Europeans."

McNeil was able to understand the logic behind these words. The South Court Protectorate had long endured EU attacks, and in the middle of the 1st century of the Republican Calendar the two sides engaged in several melee battles in Southeast Asia, with the South Court Protectorate eventually succeeding in repelling the Dutch colonizers. Later on, the Protectorate broke with the Chinese imperial government and was forced to form an alliance with the Britannian Empire in order to prevent the government army from marching south, but Britannia's desire to expand its sphere of influence in the Pacific Ocean caused the two nominal allies to be in conflict from time to time. ... This fragile alliance was unreliable, and if the Britannian Empire decided to start a war machine, the first to suffer would be the Britannian Empire. If one day the Britannian Empire decides to start a war machine, maybe the first to suffer is the South Court Protectorate rather than the EU.

McNeil saw the kebab in the freezer and pointed to the Turkish on it and asked Wang Shuang:

"Is the Turkish kebab here authentic?"

"I'm guessing it's a Texan counterfeit." Wang Shuang picked up the package and looked at it, then threw it back, "You like Turkish kebab?"

"Yeah." McNeil said half-heartedly, "I lived in Adana for a few years in the new ... uh, I've changed my eating habits."

"OK, life is still about having fun, it's better to like grilling than whoring, and gambling." Wang Shuang seemed to recall something, " In the past, those lords who came from EU, as soon as they landed on the ground, they immediately hoofed it to those brothels opened by the nobles or manors almost the same as the brothels, and after they came out, they also boasted about their own great achievements... really duh. "

Actually, the EU has similar establishments. Governor-general Herzog had spoken to McNeil before about how human trafficking had never been banned in Eastern Europe, and it seemed that even organ trafficking had become rampant in recent years. The Governor-general would beat his chest every time he talked about these things, arguing that the short-sightedness of the Senate had destroyed the citizens' trust in the EU. Offending the entire citizenry just to protect the industry of a few people relied on nothing more than the forgetfulness of the citizens, but this dissatisfaction was gradually accumulating, and once the day came to explode, it would be the entire skyscraper that would be destroyed.

McNeil noticed that Wang Shuang had also bought some small-sized clothes and asked curiously:

"Do you have children?"

"No, at least not right now." Wang Shuang scratched his head in frustration, "This is going to the nearby orphanage ... Those children are really pitiful, they grew up without parents, and there is no noble to take them as foster children - hey, how can a noble adopt a commoner? "

McNeil was reminded of the big shots who were always touting philanthropy. They were forever calling on others to give generously, while they themselves were too stingy to give a dime. Some of them would even pretend to take pictures in front of certain places, while others simply didn't want to do such superficial work. They never want to spend their own money, not if it is profitable. It's been almost a week since the delegation arrived under the banner of promoting charity, and McNeil hasn't seen any of them give even a penny away.

"And they don't have a chance to go to school, and when they grow up, they just repeat a life of despair."

"That's the scariest bit." Wang Shuang sighed and suddenly brightened up, "Right, I've inquired that you have a foundation under you, can you donate a little money to these orphans?"

McNeil shook his head with a bitter smile, "Colonel, that's a lie. That money was intended to be given to the families of fallen soldiers ... all of it is a pension, only they put a different spin on it and put the money in my name. In fact, I'm a poor man, my entire fortune is only 150,000 euros."

Wang Shuang calculated the value of 150,000 euros and realized that McNeil really wasn't a rich man.

"Indeed, this amount is not even enough to buy a house in the suburbs of Chengtian Superior Prefecture." Wang Shuang picked up the items he had bought, checked out and prepared to leave the mall, only to find McNeil following closely behind him. He just assumed that McNeil was on his way, so he ignored the foreigner following him and took off to rush to the nearby orphanage. It was only when he got there that he realized that McNeil had actually followed him all the way to the entrance of the orphanage as well.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm an orphan too." McNeil spread his hands to show his innocence, "I think it's my duty to let those children who have the same experience as me see a little ... hope."

The two walked into the orphanage on foot. The director of the orphanage warmly greeted Wang Shuang, and from the conversation between the director and Wang Shuang, McNeil learned that this military attaché stationed abroad from the embassy of the Nanting Protectorate would come here almost every week to visit these orphans. Not only that, Wang Shuang seemed to have opened a martial arts school in the neighborhood, and some of the students were children of Nanting Protectorate staff, while others were local civilians. It was said that when the martial arts center was first opened, some knights under the command of some nobles came to smash the center, but they were beaten by Wang Shuang with one against ten, and no one said anything about the martial arts center after that.

"Those Britannian nobles are nothing but rich thugs, yet not only do they claim to be nobler than the commoners, they also brag about their kind of unimpressive martial arts." After Wang Shuang handed over the purchased goods to the dean, he sat down to talk with McNeil, "Originally, I did not want to bother with them in general, but these noble lords say from time to time that we are the sickly men of the South Seas, so it can't be tolerated. Since they emphasize so much on the martial arts of knights, I will let them see what it means to be full of martial virtues."

"However, martial arts cannot replace guns." McNeil said, "Besides, it's unfair to have commoners and nobles compare this."

Wang Shuang laughed and patted McNeil's shoulder hard.

"McNeil, what I care about is not whether it's useful or useless, it's that I must fight for this." Wang Shuang said aloud, "If the nobles say they can earn more money than the commoners, then I'll let them fall to pennilessness; if the nobles say they are more in line with the empire's chivalry than the commoners, I'll teach the commoners to smash the head of these lords. It's not as if kings and lords are born; you EU and we in the South Court Protectorate are free from this destiny, but the imperial government and the Britannian Empire in the Americas are still under the control of the old order. One day, I hope that we will be able to reclaim the mainland in the north and restore our ancestors' will, and that you will be able to make an expedition to the New World and sweep away these undead who live in the old world."

"And then?" McNeil asked tentatively.

"Where is the then? We won't live to see that day." Wang Shuang slouched on the couch.

TBC

Chapter Notes:

Although Emperor Charles's speech called the Chinese Federation a lazy man's den of equally distributed wealth, that doesn't make the Federation a dubious communist-monarchist sewing monstrosity. Almost all peasant revolts in Chinese history claimed to distribute wealth equally, and the new dynasties established by peasant revolts invariably broke their promises. As a result, the Chinese Federation may be in the same precarious position as the Britannian Empire, which is nominally a constitutional monarchy, but which may transform itself into an absolute monarchy or an aristocratic oligarchy, depending on the circumstances.

Tragically, compulsory education in the Britannian Empire was something that wasn't implemented until late in Charles' reign. Odysseus had urged officials to make sure that compulsory education would be universal, but the fact was that not even Euphemia had received a full high school education.