Chapter 246: Tipping the Scales
The master of Breisburg and the War Minister were personally leading the army on the eastern front, and his heir was distinguishing himself on the southern front, so the only ones effectively heading the government were the two ministers.
After the Finance Minister, who had been the overwhelming number one, fell from grace over the royal tax embezzlement case, power within the newly reorganized government was split between the Military and Judicial Departments, while the Administrative Department, the previous number two, dropped to number three.
Unfortunately, Adelbert, who had boldly pushed aside his father to seize the Finance Department, couldn’t even squeeze in among them. It looked like it would be a long time before the Finance Department could recover.
The Administrative Minister, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, was looking very gaunt.
He’d been a cantankerous old man, but his half-dead appearance made him seem rather pitiful.
There’s a reason they say when the cat’s away, the mice will play, but he seemed overwhelmed, swamped with a frenzied flood of work that left him no moment to spare.
Then again, from what I’d heard, an administrative vacuum had opened up while he was purging the officials who had gone down alongside the Finance Department, and he’d had a hard time filling it. With a civil war breaking out on top of that, wasn’t he probably cursing those two brothers in his heart?
"Does a man who calls himself a military commander have time to wander around at his leisure?"
Once he glared at me and sneered, any thought that he was pitiful vanished completely. Of course, a cantankerous old man doesn’t change.
"A siege is in full swing at Baschurten."
"Then why aren’t you taking the castle as quickly as possible? Why are you here?"
"I came because I need weapons stored in the royal armory."
"...Do you have any idea what kind of place the royal armory is, that you’d say such a thing?"
The Administrative Minister looked at me as though he found it genuinely absurd. The royal armory stored far more important materiel than an ordinary armory, so its significance went without saying.
"The Baschurten invasion force’s preparations were inadequate, so the siege engines they brought proved woefully insufficient against Baschurten Castle, which is even ringed by a natural moat. That’s why I came up with the idea of cannons."
"I figured as much from the moment you asked His Highness for firearms, but you really do love gunpowder weapons. Do you have any idea how much gunpowder and cannonballs cost, that you mean to use them?"
"Is money the issue right now? If we’re tied down at Baschurten, we can’t support the eastern front."
With the Grand Duke’s army defeated in the third battle, there was no telling how the civil war would unfold. In that situation, if we ended up tied down at Baschurten for a long time, we wouldn’t be able to consolidate our forces.
And I had a guess as to what the Administrative Minister truly wanted. Taking the cannons and gunpowder out of the royal armory wasn’t such an important matter to him.
"Let’s be honest now, shall we? What you truly want is my cooperation, isn’t it?"
With those words striking at the heart of the matter, I felt the Administrative Minister’s eyes waver slightly. He never could have imagined that I saw straight through his thinking via the Manager Scouter.
"...How did you figure that out?"
"Because your thoughts were plain to see, Minister."
"Heh, you’ve truly become a noble one can’t let his guard down around."
Fear crept into the Administrative Minister’s expression.
The nobles of the ministerial houses, who could be called the pinnacle of court nobility, are fundamentally different politicians from the princes, so they regard having their inner thoughts laid bare as deeply unsettling.
In this place where every kind of intrigue and scheme ran rampant, having your inner thoughts seen through was like sticking out your neck and waiting for death. The one thing that gave the Administrative Minister some comfort was that I was a lord, not a court noble.
"It seems the Judicial Department’s attacks have grown fierce."
"They’re the sort who take pleasure in hauling off the administrators I appointed and torturing them."
"Really? I’d thought the Judicial Minister was a reasonable man, at least."
"With the Judicial Department seizing power for the first time, do you call it reasonable that they haul people off citing all manner of legal violations? They’re nothing but a band of petty men who’ve been pretending to be righteous all this time."
The Judicial Minister, Count Luke, was a noble with an opportunistic streak, and since I had become the son-in-law of the Military Department—which was on poor terms with the Finance Department—he’d tried to use me to keep the Finance Department in check.
Did the Judicial Minister act friendly because he genuinely liked me as a noble?
Naturally, it was because of my background as the War Minister’s son-in-law.
A political noble’s goodwill served that kind of purpose.
He’d intended to use me as a shield to keep the Finance Department from attacking the Judicial Department, but then something unexpected happened. The truth is, no one had foreseen it.
The Administrative and Finance Departments fundamentally disregarded the Judicial Department, so they offered no cooperation whatsoever in arresting violent criminals who had crossed over from other regions. That’s why judicial authority had been granted to a figure the Administrative and Finance Departments found distasteful, and yet...
Without meaning to, I ended up wrecking the Administrative and Finance Departments.
All I’d done was shake down the bastards who’d been playing tiger in my own territory.
At first the Judicial Department must have been very flustered too, but the Judicial Minister, seizing on it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, arrested administrative and finance officials on a grand scale and launched an investigation, uncovering the royal tax embezzlement case.
So now the Administrative and Finance Departments were in deep trouble.
But when the scales of power tip too far, harm naturally follows.
Because of the Judicial Department, administrative functions had ground to a crawl, so the Administrative Minister needed a way out, but, as it happened, I was the only figure capable of checking the Judicial Department. The Military Department? They wouldn’t even pay it any mind.
"The Judicial Minister and I are still on friendly terms, though?"
"For now, perhaps. But once the Judicial Department seizes central power, what do you think will happen? Won’t they start lecturing the provincial lords about law and order? That’s by no means a good thing for you either."
"If they did that, the provinces and the center would fight tooth and nail. Wouldn’t His Highness mediate?"
"Mediate? Do you not know His Highness’s character? He’d more likely fan the flames."
Hmm, having become allies while digging into the royal conspiracy, I’d briefly forgotten, but fundamentally Grand Duke Karlus is a man who very much enjoys pitting political factions against each other.
As if a man like that would mediate.
I’d been laboring under a huge misconception.
What the Administrative Minister was asking of me was a proposal that we join hands to keep the Judicial Department from seizing the center and, by checking them appropriately, prevent a monopoly on power.
"But if I were to join hands with you, Minister, wouldn’t my influence at the center grow in one way or another? That would be problematic in itself, wouldn’t it?"
And fundamentally I’m a Military Department man. No matter how indifferent my father-in-law is to politics aside from wrecking the Finance Department, the Military Department’s sway growing too large is also a problem.
"Growing your influence is far better than the Judicial Department monopolizing power. Above all, aren’t you the core of the pro-Grand-Duke faction?"
The core of the pro-Grand-Duke faction.
Was my influence really that large? Then again, come to think of it, the Marquis Offenburg’s house and the Western lords had been friendly to me from the start. Even though, in terms of faction strength, I was the most insignificant of all.
"Very well. I accept your proposal, Minister. However, I won’t play favorites with either side. Don’t forget that the Judicial Department is still friendly with me."
"Don’t you forget either. The Judicial Department isn’t the sort worth trusting too deeply."
So we’d developed into a relationship where we even warned each other?
With this, I’d built a network with a tentacle in every central political faction.
The Military Department a blood alliance, the Finance Department a transaction, the Judicial Department goodwill, and the Administrative Department... cooperation, I suppose? The Administrative Minister, who had been so stubbornly opposed, opened the royal armory all too easily.
The cooperation the Administrative Minister asked for was simple.
That he share in the military merit of the civil war alongside me.
It didn’t mean he’d dispatch manpower, but rather that he’d actively support whatever I requested while creating the impression that the Administrative Department’s wholehearted cooperation had led the battle to victory.
To put it simply, building up justifications.
Because the most important thing in the world of nobles is justification.
I got to secure the practical gains, which was good for me, and the Administrative Department gained justification to use as a stepping stone for its recovery. That’s why we could become cooperating partners.
Could the saying that yesterday’s enemy is today’s ally ever fit so well?
The royal armory was under the management of the Karlstadt royal palace gatekeeper, who lamented that, under pressure from the Administrative Minister and the palace administrators, he had no choice but to open the armory doors.
It was something he could never normally permit, but with the Grand Duke absent, the crown prince’s certificate, the Administrative Minister’s guarantee, and the special circumstance of a civil war, it wasn’t a matter the gatekeeper could resist indefinitely.
"Don’t worry. I have no interest in anything but the cannons."
There were all sorts of weapons on display, so honestly my eyes were drawn to them, but I forced myself to ignore them. I had no confidence I could escape the gaze of the gatekeeper, who was hauling his old frame around, his eyes blazing like a volcano as he watched my every move.
"Don’t lay a finger on anything but the cannons! If even one goes missing...!"
"If you’re worried, you’re welcome to search me. So let’s get to work now, please."
From the Lydia incident in Vintenheim to the attempted assassination among the royals, it seemed I’d done nothing but hammer nails into the heart of this loyal old gatekeeper without meaning to, so I felt a little sorry.
