Swiss Arms

Swiss Arms

Chapter 106

-VB-

Simon Zahringen

As a count, there was a level of grace and nobility he had to show. As a member of the House of Zahringen, he was a representative of the entire house in all dealings. He was already here on a backfoot because no noble worth his blood and house would be selling off a piece of his fief due to financial reasons.

But here he was.

Even if this baron was supposed to be a peasant raised to nobility, such a concept should be easily understood. More than that, he married a daughter of an Italian nobility; even if the Italians were rumored and known for their avarice, even they didn't sell off their land if they could help it.

So even if the letters had been neutral and respectful, he expected some level of hidden derision.

Sitting across the table from the baron in their first ever negotiation, he found the baron to … he wasn't sure. He was polite. He was calm.

He also possessed shard presence like that of old, veteran knights who saw many battlefields. Wasn't that exactly the case? The baron may be years younger than he was, but he also stepped onto battlefields that Simon himself would be hesitant to fight in. Rumors of the man working as a mercenary just a year before his ascension during Chur's time of turmoil meant that he had to have seen at least half a dozen battles.

Then there was that title.

The Count Killer.

The rurmored title may have been one of the reasons why he thought the baron might look down on him. After all, if he was a peasant with the tactical, strategical, and personal martial prowess who took down half a dozen counts, then wouldn't he also look down on the higher nobility?

Yet he saw none of that in the baron's posture and speech. In fact, he was doing his best to make himself affable.

He wondered if the baron was just that desperate to expand his territory.

Oh, he knew exactly how important Balliwick of Rheintal would be to the baron and his associates in the "Compact." It would physically connect the Compact to the Bodensee, which would increase the mercantile association's access to the rich city-states along its coast like Imperial City of Konstanz.

It would also increase the baron's personal standing. Hell, if he gained even one more such territory, then he might even have cause to elevate himself to the title of a graf with the same rank as the one Simon held as the Count of Heiligenberg.

But that probably wouldn't happen, so even greed probably wasn't driving the baron.

It irked him that he didn't understand his fellow man, because without even an inkling of that understanding, he knew that he couldn't find the best standing to get as much money out of the rich baron as he could to keep his fief running.

"I must ask," he began. "How did you react when my letter arrived at your castle?" he asked, taking care to say castle instead of town or fort. The latter two would be a statement of fact, yes, but saying castle would be placing the baron a bit higher on the nobility as not any baron would have a castle. After all, most barons only had a village manor, not even a town and never mind a fort, and Baron Fluelaberg raised up a castle and a rich town in under five years. To say anything but a castle when referring to him would be him looking down on the baron and thus starting the negotiation on a bad footing.

"A surprise for sure," the younger noble replied with a hum. "I … was under the impression that most of the nobles around were dismissive of me for having been born a commoner, if not outright hostile for my position and past acts."

Simon shrugged. "Personally, I think you might be overestimating the hostility," he replied before quickly speaking again to correct himself. "The lords of the mountains that you are in right now are not closely tied to Swabian or Bavarian nobles. The sole exception is the Count of Toggenburg, who everyone knows is tied to the Habsburgs, but exceptions do not make the rule. And even if you are not overestimating, the rumors say that all of the nobles - relevant nobles - in your fief and surrounding fiefs are either your ally or in truce. Is that not the case?"

"It is the case," he replied. "Duke of Tyrol is a cousin of my wife, Count of Toggenburg has taken over the lands of the Sargans, and the Count of Montfort is the only one who is not my ally but is in a truce with me and the Compact." Then he paused. "I have no idea what is going on with the Lords of Sax, Misox, and Belmont. The former two are brothers who are fighting to gain ownership of their father's full titles, and Barony of Belmont is a subject of Werdenberg, who is the Count of Montfort and thus at peace with me."

"And the prestigous House of Habsburgs are your ally's family."

"Yes, though I am not sure how much weight that holds."

Simon looked at the baron.

Not know how much weight that holds?

The current emperor was a Habsburg.

The biggest contiguous territory next to Bodensee was that of the Habsburgs.

The Habsburgs held a large share of the Salt Road in their grasp.

Merely being an ally of Habsburg's in-laws would be enough to gain favorable treatment.

He paused.

Would it be wise of him to remind the young baron of that? That might upset the negotiation by giving him far more power than he might think he had.

… No. Perhaps after the negotiation was over, but he wouldn't push the topic right now. That would be foolish of him.

"Very well. Let us get to the heart of this negotiation. Rheintal is a territory with just under two thousand people, and has no special product aside from animal products like leather, wool, and meat. The three towns in the territory - Rheineck, Altstatten, and Lustenau - each hold no more than four hundred people."

"Two thousand people, huh? That's a little under half of Fluelaberg's population."

Simon's mind froze and then shattered.

Four thousand people?

The young baron created a town - no, a city rivaling Lindau - in under five years?! Four thousand people? Where did they all come from?!

But … but that also meant that he must be collecting a lot of tax from them, especially since Fluelaberg was a city of industry. He might be able to get more than he thought.

"And how much do you think Rheintal is worth, milord?" Hans asked him.

Simon looked at the baron before leaning back. "Personally, I think thirty years of its tax income would suffice. That would be … a forty thousand silver pfennigs."

He felt a cold sweat run down his back. He knew that forty thousand was a significant sum, even for dukes and kings, especially for a piece of land that hadn't gotten him decent tax in the past five years.

"That is absurd," Hans frowned. "If I had a forty thousand pfennigs, then I would just hire every mercenary in the Forest Cantons and just conquer richer Bavarian lands or even my neighbors like the Werdenbergs and the Montforts," he scoffed. "Milord, you can't joke like that when we're doing a serious negotiation. Please be reasonable. How about ten thousand silver pfennigs?"

"That is an insult to my management if you think you can only get ten thousand silver pfennigs from Rheintal over the course of thirty years."

"Considering the state of that land that I saw as I passed through it, I am not sure if I can recoup five thousand over the course of thirty years."

"It isn't just about the silvers you gain from tax. It's roughly around five hundred able-bodied men you can call up as levies. How does thirty thousand pfennigs sound?"

"That is still men I would have to feed, house, and pay, milord. If anything, untrained levies are a burden to how I operate my army and the … lacking state of Rheintal might see bandits rising up from hungry villages. I've had to deal with a couple on the way here. I am willing to offer fourteen thousand pfennigs."

Simon glared at the young man. He drove a hard bargain.

"Fifteen thousand and no lower," he laid down his final card. Fifteen thousand was what he thought he might get at maximum before this meeting, but now, it was too low for his taste. Yet he couldn't deny that the baron raised concerns and valid points about Rheintal. He didn't think that the baron had already inspected the land on his way, which made sense. But to accuse him of mismanagement that already caused banditry? "Bad harvest is not something a mortal man can change."

The baron tapped his finger on the table, obviously contemplating his final offer. "... Very well. I will accept fifteen thousand," he sighed.

… Really?

Simon felt a smile break out. Fifteen thousand pfennigs from a territory that hasn't paid any substantial sum of tax in the past five years was great.

"You've made a great choice in accepting the offer, baron," he said as he stood up and extended a hand. The baron stood up and shook his hand, and he almost winced at how strong the younger man was. "Let us invite the lord mayor into the room so that he may witness the transfer of territory."

The baron nodded and stood up to get the mayor.

Within moments, the mayor was in the room with them and both the baron and Simon drafted up the agreement for the transfer.

-VB-

On November 15th, 1304, Count Simon Zahringen of Heiligenberg sold the Balliwick of Rheintal to Baron Hans von Fluelaberg of the Compact for fifteen thousand pfennigs. At the time of the signing, a gold guelder used within the Compact was worth seventeen pfennigs from Straousborg or Konstanz. Another common conversion was one Compact guelder - sometimes called Fluelaguelder - to thirteen groschen from Merano. This made the value of Rheintal, as determined by Count of Heiligenberg and Baron of Fluelaberg to be 883 gold fluelaguelders.

It is the opinion of this author that the baron paid nearly twice the value of the territory. However, as an increasingly powerful polity, the speedy acquisition of land and territory is probably the better …

-Excerpt from Treatise on the Rise of the Compact by Arnold ***** from the University of *****, 1744.

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

I sat up awake at midnight with Isabella sleeping quietly next to me. But despite the lack of light, I could clearly see the Quest screen in front of me.

[One's Desperate Measure is Your Opportunity]

-Territorial Quest-

Objective:

Successfully gain the Bailiwick of Rheintal (Vogtei Rheintal)

Bonus (Failed)

*Purchase Rheintal for under 500 gold guelders or equivalent

Reward (Choose One):

*Title of Count

*1 Critical Intel (Foreign)

*1 Critical Intel (Domestic)

Nice. The mission was a success, and even though I didn't manage to achieve the Bonus objective because the count started with an absurd price and I couldn't exactly give a better excuse to drop the price down to below 500 guelders, I was fine with the outcome.

As for the reward…

The title of a count wouldn't help me. Sure, being a baron was essentially being a bottom bitch on the nobility hierarchy. There were only three titles below the baron: landed knight, free knight, and untitled nobles. Legally, I was at the bottom. But then again, I knew better than to think that titles meant a lot, didn't I? I've killed counts and defeated dukes. My title of a baron was the least of my problems should someone really want to fight me.

Which meant my choice came down to a "critical" intel between foreign and domestic issues.

… Personally, I wanted to go for a domestic intel because I wanted to know what serious problem the Compact may have. At the same time, I was more or less blind to the foreign affairs of the states surrounding me. A good example of that was the Bishop of Como and the Lordship of Milan. The two powers to the south of Abbey of Disentis. Como controlled - or at least influenced - all of the valleys between itself and Disentis Abbey. Milan, on the other hand, was a very powerful city that would, in the future, become a powerhouse of the Po Valley.

They were important to me because Como controlled the trade route in and out of the mountains to the rich Italian city-states and Milan, well, Milan was the trade hub. They weren't as important as Venice right now, but that was like saying Sacramento was not important because it wasn't San Francisco or Los Angelos, or that Konstanz wasn't important because it wasn't Aachen or Zurich.

But Como and Milan weren't my immediate foreign concerns. That was Upper Bavaria and the House of Wittelbachs.

My current cloak and dagger operation in their lands trudged on, and I expected a measurable inflation in their economy within the next five years. Hell, it wasn't even hard. Sure, while a normal person might take longer and fail more often to copy a coin's design, I, with my superior strength, control, and knowledge, just made a multiple stamps with the engravings of the Munich pfennig designs. Combined with a water wheel, viola~!, I had a foundry pumping out Munich pfennig by the ton every day which was not made out of silver but mixed heavily with crap metals.

So unless someone squealed, there shouldn't be an issue there, either.

But that's the problem with problems, wasn't it? They often popped up where you don't expect them.

Domestic issues could be easily solved.

Foreign ones couldn't.

With that rational in mind, I chose Critical Intel (Foreign) as my reward.

The Quest screen disappeared. In its place, a small screen floated in front of me.

I looked at the words on the screen.

My eyes widened.

I read it again.

I dismissed the screen and closed my eyes. I sat there on the bed for a while before laying down.

'I'll deal with that tomorrow.'

Because I didn't want to think about my middle-aged ally and in-law getting married to a fourteen year old.