385 The Warlord in the South II

And Aero did not begrudge them of this fact. 

In a way, these officials were hired by him and king George. And while they were grateful to Aero, they could see right and wrong clearly and they were not afraid to vocalize it

Aero might like power. But he never wanted to be a tyrant.

That would not suit his heart. He likes power because power protects him. He did not seek power just to hurt people. 

While he could hurt people, he would only hurt people that have schemed, plotted or intend to harm him.

He did not direct his power to punish and torture the innocent. That is not the reason why he seeks power.

Even in the beginning, he never seeks power to hurt other people. In the beginning he seeks power for benefit. 

When he got that benefits, when the base desire that had consumed him had been achieved, he set himself to a higher goal.

And that higher goal was the reunification of the continent as one, under one banner

A new world order!

Even in the earlier moment of the formation of Vanheim kingdom, Aero was still leaving a few burrows for him to go away if the King suspect and wanted to kill him for knowing too much

But as he and king George slowly become friends with each other, and evolve their relationship from subordinate and superior to that of teacher and student, Aero truly felt affection for King George and willingly serve under him

A great strategist would choose their own lord. And Aero chose George. They both look at the same direction and dream the same dream

If not for King George untimely death, Aero would be perfectly happy leading the court together with George.

The Six Council was created partly because of the plan of the King and him.

The King give controls to him because he trusts Aero and Aero trust George.

But after his death, Aero had also outfitted the Six Council as one of his escape plan. Because unlike George, his two sons are not to par.

But after knowing a bit about Emperor Edward, and after he had learned of some of his scheme, knowing his cunningness, and his cold heartedness, while one could not say that they did inherit the bravery of their father, they are still not up to par.

They might be a great plotter. 

But a great plotter is not necessarily a good ruler. 

And the more he learns about Emperor Edward, the more he felt that while he could be a strong ruler for the Empire, he would not be a good Emperor for the people.

How then one reconciles the difference between the Empire of the Emperor and the people of the Empire which is the root of the Empire?

To Aero, King George had all the traits of an enlightened ruler.

George had many good traits that not many people could emulate and even less rulers could emulate. 

And none of his son could emulate all the great virtues that their father has which is a great pity. 

They inherited their father bravery but lack any of the other quality that made George the perfect candidate for the lord of the world.

Aero sighed a bit thinking about those old memories. 

But his mind then still thinks about the appointment of official's reform that Zarakh wanted to apply and he was reminded of the officials in the Vanheim court and he could not help but smirk a little

To him, the officials that sometimes defy him is not bad for the Empire. And it is because of that Aero never took it to heart, like those officials also never took it to far.

To those officials, while at times, they did not agree with the Chancellor views and ways of doing thing, they have always respected him. 

This respect stems from the fact that while the Chancellor had power to silence these officials, he did not do it unless there is harm to the Empire in talking too much.

It is better for the officials to be loyal to the Empire than it is for them to be loyal to the Emperor.

This is where one had to have an idea what the Emperor and the Empire is and what is the difference between them

The Empire is the people. 

While it is hard to promote such idea of equality since equality itself is a dream and illusion, what Aero had done was to put a safeguard for the people as he spread the idea that the Empire is the people and the people is the Empire.

The people must be protected because they are the Empire. 

The Emperor governed the Empire which means he governs the people. There must be trust between them

Once that trust is broken then chaos would threaten to rip the Empire apart

The trust itself is not simply for the Emperor to be affable and generous. Trust could be inspired by different thing.

An Emperor that have military power and could protect the Empire from external enemies could be trusted. 

An Emperor that is generous and create economic prosperity is also an Emperor that could be trusted and so on and so forth

The relationship between the Emperor and the people is of trust, benefits and of power. 

Tug of power between the people and the imperial power is always heavily leaned on the imperial power and there is nothing Aero could do. 

But he tried to limit it and strengthen the power of the people

Balance is impossible. But a little bit of leverage is possible. 

One Emperor and millions of people. Aero choice become easy when he had to choose one over the other.

But it is clear that Zarakh wanted to follow him, in doing all kinds of changes to the new Gerad kingdom that he is about to establish. With this alone, Aero could guess the ambition of this general from the south is not small.

Establishing a kingdom is already a sign of ambition with an intent to rule. 

But to establish reforms shows that Zarakh ambition did not simply lie on creating a kingdom and laze around inside a place, enjoying the riches of the kingdom

Zarakh…. this person is dangerous in a different way than Muyan in the north

The Stratocracy of Gerad is the cause of the conflict between the generals in the Erciyes army

They battle about the idea of Stratocracy and the new idea of an absolute monarch that Zarakh had proposed to the group

To him, centralizing power if the first step to quickly build the kingdom power to resist Vanheim or nay other external power.

With a clear chain of command, decision could be executed quickly and in a unified manner.

There are also the benefits that the power of the kingdom could be harness to accomplish a vision. 

This focused vision that is harnessed by Vanheim had enable them to grow from a simple powerful nation in the Eats to a super powerful Empire that is the hegemon of the eastern region of the continent

King George centralization of power to the royals had enable Vanheim to focus on the fulfillment of his vision with ease which is the vision that every Vanheimneian knows.

The vision of the past Emperor is now inherited by his successor which is the unifying of the continent under Vanheim

In a decentralized governance of the Stratocracy in the past, there is a Council of Army where the military chiefs would gather and discuss matter but because of this decentralization of power between the kingdom and the military and with each military chief have their own different thought and opinions, the Gerad kingdom sometime diverge from its vision as no one could convince the others and the reaction of the kingdom is mostly reactionary 

This is because there are no clear lines of authority which could be seen with the king sometime possessing low power than the military chiefs and some certain military chiefs possess more power than this other military chief and this chaos of who has the more authority had made the Council of the Army usually disunited in certain focused vision, especially when that vision touch upon their interest

The benefits of the centralized governance outweigh its cons according to Zarakh. 

There is the fact that such move to a centralized governance would reduce cost because of the standard procedures and methods and with the clear chain of command it reduces duplication of responsibilities that may result in additional cost to the kingdom.

The advantages are clear to Zarakh. 

In such a world that wanted to be united, with the trend of time riding on the world being unified, being decentralized at this moment would make them a target to the two great superpowers of the world which is the United Kingdom of Veva in the North and the Vanheim Empire eon the East

Stratocracy did work in Gerad but it also created dissent among the civilian population especially when they compare the live of the people living in capital city of the empire, Vanheim

This is the importation of culture of Vanheim that seep toward the civilian population of Gerad at that time.

One could say that the abundance of talents of the Empire also had something to do with the five policies that Aero had proposed.

With more education, more people become smarter. 

And smart and brilliant translate to power and strength. 

The stronger the people become, the stronger the nation become and with education highly prioritized, innovation and technological and magical advancement rose quickly in the Empire

It is not that the Gerad Stratocracy did not allow its people all of this thing, even though it is restricted to the people that contribute in the military but there is many more underlying problem of Stratocracy

One of them is their treatment of merchants and their inability to maintain a strong economy

the merchants of the Gerad Stratocracy are always look down upon and as such while Gerad Stratocracy had powerful military at its height, it did not have great improvement in their finance, economy or trade.

The over emphasized on military had lead them to overlook the others. 

While the Empire slowly patched up their weakness and improve their strength, the glaring weakness of the Gerad kingdom was not addressed. 

Of course Greater Veranis itself did not capitalize on this weakness during the time of the unifying of the Partition of Veranis but Zarakh knows that if they did not want to be conquered again like last time, they need to make some changes.

Most civilians of the former Gerad kingdom like living in the Greater Veranis since they have more opportunities to shine in their own specialties and the idea of possessing thing is quite a good concept for them when in the past each thing that they possessed could be taken by the kingdom if it is required in time of military emergency

So, they have never felt what it feels like to truly possess the thing and the laws would protect their belonging and properties.

That is the concern of Zarakh. The civilians, the people. Even if they establish back the kingdom, the people no longer wanted to live under such regime.

However, his idea and his vision for anew Gerad had created dispute between Zarakh and the other generals that wanted to reestablish Gerad Stratocracy just like it was before

As such, the southern region is still in chaos and while the Gerad kingdom had been reestablished by Zarakh, who knows how long it would last unless he could take a drastic measure to silence the people who oppose his reforms. 

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