Chapter 32: Rejection by the Church (for further reading)
Seeing Niang disappear accompanied by the soldiers, the disguised grief on Otto's face disappeared instantly, replaced by unconcealable excitement.
Great! The general trend of history has indeed not changed.
It seems that my little butterfly is too insignificant, so it cannot change the general trend of history. Then, I can still reap a lot of dividends brought by the information gap.
Otto knew that the speed with which he could obtain information was probably not the fastest in Switzerland, at least not as fast as that of the church. But he had made adequate preparations in advance for the day when Lothair II died.
Take advantage of this opportunity and get it in the Basel area.
In recent times, the expansion in the Bernier area has been extremely smooth.
In just over a month, Otto has harvested about four knightly lands.
According to this progress, it will not be a problem to eat the entire Bern area in less than two years.
Of course, this is just Otto's wishful thinking. Now the other party just doesn't respond. If we really want to expand on a large scale, the other party will definitely not be indifferent like this.
Speaking of which, I don't know what happened to Earl Bernier. He really didn't respond to his expansion at all.
Except for the symbolic struggle of the small nobles, who were not optimistic about the intervention of the main force of the Count, until now, I have not received even a little verbal warning from Count Bernier, seeming to acquiesce in his expansion.
What is this, medieval appeasement?
Otto shook his head, chuckled, and stopped thinking about the aging Earl of Bern. Even if his expansion in the Bern area was going smoothly now, he would have to suspend his expansion into the Bern area.
In any case, the priority of the Basel region must be higher than that of the Bern region.
Moreover, capturing the Basel region may only have a short window period, but capturing the Bern region may provide ample opportunities.
A strategic location that everyone values and a territory in a remote mountainous area are completely different concepts.
It's time to go to Emma Abbey, not to pray to the gods for Lothair II, but to reach a certain tacit understanding with the church.
Who knows that the most powerful force in the Basel area today is the church.
Now that his strength is still very weak, Otto does not want to have any unpleasantness with the church. This time, he wants to reach a certain tacit understanding with the church and tacitly allow him to extend his hands to the Basel area.
But apparently, the church disagrees.
"Oh, Otto, a devout believer in the moon god, I'm afraid I can't agree to your request.
The church in the Basel area belongs to the God of Life faction and has never been able to deal with our Moon God faction, so I'm afraid I can't help."
After hearing Bishop Lawrence's words, Otto's face turned ugly on the spot.
He knew very well that the other party simply did not want to help. The so-called faction was just a refusal. As the regional archbishop, even if the church in the Basel area belonged to the Apollinian faction, according to the organizational structure of the church, Lawrence would definitely be able to manage it if he wanted to.
But Otto didn't want to give up and wanted to give it one last try.
"Dear Bishop, even if I enter the Basel area, I will not harm the interests of the church. I will retain all the privileges originally owned by the church.
At the same time, I will also build new churches and monasteries in the Basel area to spread the gospel of the moon."
"You don't understand, Master Otto." Bishop Lawrence glanced at Otto with regret and shook his head gently. "This is not a question of how many monasteries and churches to build. Your army's behavior of robbing passing caravans in the Jura Mountains has already
This caused dissatisfaction among many people in the church.
Master Otto, if you build monasteries and churches in the Basel area this time, how many innocent believers of the gods will be massacred by your troops?
In order to spread the gospel of the gods, but kill the believers of the gods, what kind of behavior is this?"
Otto's face became even more ugly. He didn't think he could completely avoid suspicion for his actions against passing caravans several times. He was undoubtedly treating everyone as fools.
Nowadays, the outside world is rumored to be a private soldier of a certain nobleman in Switzerland disguised as a bandit, and the Aargau is naturally also within the scope of suspicion.
However, suspicion is always suspicion. Wade had made some disguises when he took action. Even the flag that "accidentally" dropped belonged to the Earl of Zurich. How did Lawrence confirm that the mastermind behind the scenes must be himself?
Who leaked the news? Those soldiers must be investigated strictly after returning.
Faced with such accusations that can greatly affect his reputation and image, Otto will definitely not admit it. It is one thing for others to guess, but it is another thing for him to admit it.
"Why don't I understand what the bishop said? Since I took over the heavy responsibility of Argau, I have been leading the army to suppress bandits. Now there are still many original bandits in the construction sites and farmland of Argau.
It's work.
It can be said that the trade routes around the Allgäu Territory are now so unhindered, which may be partly due to the contribution of our Allgäu Territory army.
Lord Bishop, don't say nonsense. If others hear this and spread some rumors, how can it be okay?
I wonder where, Bishop, you heard this rumor?"
"Haha." Faced with the implicit accusation in Otto's words, Bishop Lawrence didn't care. "It must be that the priests heard some rumors outside and said it randomly.
Since Master Otto has nothing else to do, I will take my leave first. I still have some church affairs to deal with.
May the moon god protect you!"
After saying that, Lawrence left without even giving time to wait for Otto to return the gift.
Otto looked at Lawrence's back with a cold look in his eyes.
Before coming, he had anticipated that it would not be that easy to gain the support of the church, no, it should be said that it was Bishop Lawrence who wanted to gain support for this trip.
Because Bishop Lawrence had visited him before when he was collecting commercial taxes in Aargauland. The purpose was naturally to get a share of the commercial taxes.
You must know that after Otto significantly reduced taxes on farmers in the directly-administered territories, the tithe collected by the church has become the heaviest tax on farmers. In the Argau Territory, many farmers have privately complained about the church
More greedy than the nobles.
Although this is the fact, the church still wants to save face.
As a last resort, the church had no choice but to come forward and reduce some taxes for the farmers in Argauland. The amount of tax reduction was not large, but it only made the taxes collected almost the same as Otto's.
But in this case, the church will naturally record this loss on Otto's head, and at the same time seek new compensation, commercial taxes, which is undoubtedly the goal of the church.
But how could Otto agree? Whether he asked the church to collect a "new tithe" from the caravans or to allocate money to the church from commercial taxes, Otto did not agree.
Commercial tax, which is almost the most stable and lucrative tax in the Argau Territory in the long run, how can the church get involved?
At that time, Otto faced Bishop Lawrence's request and just donated some money to the monastery in the territory as a token of appreciation.
Since he had rejected the church before, Otto could also expect that the church would make things difficult for him. When he came this time, he was even ready to bargain.
But what he didn't expect was that the other party had no intention of bargaining with him.
However, this was not beyond Otto's expectations. In the final analysis, Otto's capture of the Basel area still harmed the interests of the church on the whole.
Regardless of whether the church supports it or not, Otto is not ready to give up. Who knows how long he will have to wait if he misses this opportunity.
Then let's see where the army that you have spent so much hard work and money to support ranks in this Swiss region.