Chapter 15: CH 14.2

Translator: Nisarah   Editor:Nisarah

As I said before, this rank is given to a son of marquis or a count. It’s a symbol of an acknowledgement as the official heir of the house from the royal family. For a case like mine, whose father is a minister that often stayed in the capital, the job of managing the territory comes as a packaged deal with this rank.

The huge problem that I was talking about is not the matter of heir. If my brother was alive, me given this rank by the royal family would lead to a full-blown successor war, but since my brother died and I become the count’s only son, I’m automatically the heir without being given this rank.

The huge problem lay in the ‘managing the territory’ bit. As the person who manages the territory, I also must protect the territory. It means I will be the one who will lead the knights and the army at the frontline in case of any battle.

Basically, the king is telling me this ‘your father is a court minister, so he won’t be able to go to a battlefield. You go in his stead.’

The ‘managing the territory’ bit had also brought heated argument among the others noble about ‘who’s higher a deputy count or a viscount?’

One common argument goes like this. The deputy count is only their father’s helper. Of course, a viscount with their territory and political influence as a high officer in the central government that managed finance or administration is higher.

The opposing argument then goes like this. But, if the deputy count is a son of a marquis who is also a court minister, then as a manager of a marquis territory, isn’t it obvious that the deputy count is higher than a viscount?

… and so on so on. The debate finally calmed down when the king decided to make the rank viscount and deputy count equal. The official document will keep the name’ deputy count’ while his official position and the way other nobles call him will be ‘viscount.’

Though it had calmed down, it doesn’t mean the debate had completely disappeared. The debate used to be heated again at a royal banquet. The order of sitting in a royal banquet is decided by the person’s political achievements, position in the society, the parent’s position, the position of the in-law family, and age. The heated debate often arose about the order of sitting of the viscounts and deputy counts.

Maybe that’s why only nobles with a rank of count and above can attend a banquet nowadays. Baron too, but many feel that the viscount didn’t appreciate their rank.

The next rank of nobility is the count rank. This rank is divided into 3. There are ‘town count’, ‘rural count’, and ‘court count’. All type of count had their territory.

Some count had nothing but ruined land as their territory, but the fault lay with that count’s father or grandfather for always playing around and never doing their job properly.

The first type of count is ‘town count’. They are counts who had a large town as their territory. Their territory may also have farmland, but it’s small, so their primary income comes from taxes, paid either by the town’s residents and merchants or from export and import tariff.

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It may look like they are not earning that much, but for a counts who had a harbour town as his territory, the amount they make can be ridiculous to the point they can buy a personal warship. Yes, this kind of count existed in the kingdom. Then, for a town count that had a territory near a mine, he had an excellent connection to the kingdom’s engineer, so pissing him will bring endless trouble. 

Even if the town count’s territory location is not special, every town count also had other benefits like a great war potential of their territory. A town is where adventurers and aspiring mercenaries gather, after all. Then, they also had a solid connection to the merchant, causing them to be well informed about the flow of goods.

A hidden power will describe a town count the best.

This is different from my previous life. In my previous life, a ‘town count’ or ‘landed gentry’ was a position that was even lower than a viscount.

The second type of count is known as ‘rural count’ This type of count has a territory composed of mainly farmer villages and farmland. Their primary income comes from corps, livestock, and forestry.

The main benefit that a rural count has is the number of people they have in their territories. Like in my previous life, most people in this kingdom live in farmer villages because It’s natural for people to build settlements near farmland. Plus, because of how large the amount of labour is needed for farming, people still choose to stay in the village to help their family farm.

I don’t know if, in the future, this world will also have an industrial revolution that will lead to the creation of tractors moved by magic. For now, most of the kingdom’s citizens lived in farming villages.

This benefit is the primary source of a rural count’s influence. They could move a large number of people if they wanted. Not to mention they also controlled the kingdom’s food.

A large number of citizens translated directly to a large amount of potential labour force. A rural count may not have any military power, but they influence military supply transportation. After all, who can transport goods if not people? Another sector that desperately needs a labour force is road building. Road building also happens in this world, even if they have magic.

A Simple way to describe a rural count is a noble who have an obvious power.

The last type of count is ‘court count’. Like its name, it’s a count that worked in the royal court. They also had their territory. The title count is given to a noble that had territory in the provincial region.

Just while other counts spend the most time in the province to manage their territory, the court count spends most of their time working in the royal court in the central region. People often associated this count with an image of an intelligent person adept in politics. I don’t know if my father is adept in politics, though.

Among the three counts, the rural count had the weakest influence. It’s quite different from my past life, where a noble with vast farmland as their territory usually have a strong influence. Some can rival a duke. But in this kingdom, the position of a rural count can be pretty shaky.

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