Chapter 111
Sebastian immediately called Chris who was in my room and asked:
"What kind of information did you obtain exactly?"
"Well, it hasn't surfaced outwardly yet. But Baron Olbia of the Sforza Duke faction was preparing some cute tricks."
Politicians are also warriors living in endless struggle.
That's why some people jokingly say that to become a politician, you need to have a ruined personality as a basic requirement.
Reporters around them are praying to catch just one politician, and even members of the same party will try to stab each other if they're from different factions except during election season.
Our Tuscan Empire is an absolute monarchy, so it's very far from democracy.
Even if the times and ideologies change, human nature doesn't change.
Although the Emperor and Duke favor me, there's no way there wouldn't be checks from those targeting me.
'When I was a viscount, they didn't touch me because I was still below the stage.'
Now that I've come up to the same stage, they're pointing knives.
They're trying to trample me in advance because their rice bowls might be taken by me.
"They're trying to spread rumors questioning my faith based on the fact that I'm buying coffee from the Alsini family, and to slander me as an evil person who would join hands even with infidels for profit."
The fact that I was possessed or reincarnated in the first place is something that can't be explained by science.
So it's not that I don't believe in Deus.
I don't think that not believing in Deus means even good people like Schweitzer of South Sudan will unconditionally fall to hell, or that believing in Deus means even serial killers or rapists will unconditionally go to heaven.
But here, the moment you utter words doubting that, you could be executed like North Koreans who refuted 'Juche ideology', branded as an unbeliever.
'Well, my position isn't weak enough to be executed just for having my faith questioned.'
The problem is that if I take one proper hit from that, I might have to pay half of my publicly revealed entire fortune as atonement money to the church in one lump sum.
It would take at least 1-2 years of crawling to recover lost political influence.
Who really said nobles fight elegantly?
"If Baron Olbia alone or gathering other nobles said such things, the credibility would be low. So they say he bribed a church law researcher at Florence Cathedral."
When bribing, since they don't have money, they promised to appoint the church law researcher's nephew (illegitimate child) as a vassal knight of our family?
These Deus religion guys will really be selling indulgences before long.
I don't think I could handle that either.
Hearing this ridiculous story, Chris questioned:
"But is that information reliable? The spies currently belonging to the Rothschild family are only in the lower ranks of various guilds, trading companies, and noble families, aren't they?"
Honestly, it hasn't even been a month since they were deployed, how on earth could they infiltrate key positions?
No matter how hard I try, it would take at least decades to raise them to key positions.
'But when the range of what you can see widens, weaknesses become more visible too.'
"As you say, our spies are just low-level employees and servants. But aren't they much more trustworthy than thieves who just go around gathering rumors? The amount of information they can obtain is much greater too."
We commonly say that to be able to leak technology or secrets that could cause hundreds of billions or trillions of won in losses in large companies, you need to be at least at the manager level.
The minimum mentioned here is the 'theoretical minimum', and in reality it's said to be at the department head or executive level.
If you go in as an insider, you can observe which of these guys urgently needs money, who has unnecessarily excessive greed.
'Guys who urgently need money will generally open their mouths if you just fill them with money.'
In my experience, they give about 20 times more accurate information, documents, and evidence than torture that forcibly extracts confessions by inflicting pain.
Because they're desperate to receive more money.
"So I gathered all sorts of trivial 'information' that could be helpful, and among them were some retainers who were quite short on money."
Except for the Medici baron family where Albert is baron and my Rothschild baron family, you can consider that there's virtually no noble family in the Tuscan Empire without debt.
If titles and real power are maintained to some extent, even merchants give loans considering it as bribing when lending money, so there's almost no dunning.
If you just pay 10% of the loaned amount annually, they don't demand additional principal repayment on top of the nominal annual interest of 50-100%.
But what if this starts to shake a little?
'The pressure to pay back money gradually intensifies.'
Even when paying just 10% of the principal annually, 'dignity maintenance costs' are so high that you need additional loans, but what if principal demands increase to just 15%?
What would happen if additional loans (bribes) are cut off on top of that?
You gradually get pushed into a corner because you don't have money to maintain power, and the more you get pushed into a corner, the more intense the repayment demands for money borrowed so far become.
Eventually, it's common for territories or whatever to be practically all sold off with only the name remaining.
'There are even merchants who practically buy noble families' young ladies who've gone bankrupt.'
On the surface they're official wives, but if you think about it, they're just extremely high-class playthings.
It's similar to things like Lamborghinis or Ferraris.
"Then we send information guild members to guys who are short on money and ask if they have any interesting information. If they tell stories, we pay them quite generously."
Anyone naturally wants to live rather than dying along with their families because they have no money.
Of course, not a few retainers of noble families have had loyalty practically injected into them since childhood, so they'd rather die than.
There are those who won't sell their lord's secrets, but.
When a knife is actually held to their necks, many can't help but try to live even if it means abandoning their lord.
'It was said that if there are many loyal subjects in this world, they can't even receive praise for being loyal.'
It's the same for Joseon, and probably the same for the Tuscan Empire.
"And if we obtain information with real value like this time. If the total debt isn't too enormous, we secretly repay that debt on their behalf. The important thing here is that we hold onto the bonds."
Tearing up the bonds would be like throwing away the iron chains we've filled.
If we spend money, we should squeeze out every last drop of soup.
"Afterwards, if they keep providing information, we absolutely don't pressure them for repayment, and we give them money moderately so that tails aren't stepped on. Then we can plant spies in specific families without much effort."
Hearing my words, Chris's mouth fell open.
Then she covered her mouth with her hand and said:
"...... It's really a method no one else could think of. Planting members in lower ranks and then selecting 'people who lack money' based on the information they obtain to persuade them... What do you think, Head Butler?"
"Isn't he someone who became a baron in just 3 years after coming of age? So we shouldn't try to understand with the common sense of ordinary people like us. And most noble gentlemen are ordinary people..."
The standard of ordinariness spoken of here would be a bit different from what we think.
It would feel similar to this.
Even if you gather all Nobel Prize winners in physics, people like Einstein or von Neumann are on a different level from them.
They say von Neumann understood and solved problems that dozens of geniuses put their heads together and agonized over for just 2 hours during the Manhattan Project.
I'm probably ordinary among nobles too, honestly.
But as Newton said, I have the lessons and knowledge that true geniuses of the earth left behind written in blood, and thanks to that I was able to come this far.
"It's just a conclusion I reached by thinking a bit more than others."
Chris and Sebastian said in unison:
"I heard geniuses don't understand the thoughts of ordinary people well..."
"Baron, you seem to be evaluating yourself too lowly."
Those two saying that aren't ordinary either, actually.
But time is too precious to be thinking such thoughts now.
I decided to turn the topic of conversation to something else.
"I've already prepared countermeasures."
"What countermeasures have you thought of? Are you planning to go out directly this time too?"
Even if someone dislikes them and is preparing to do something, good nobles don't directly get their hands bloody over it.
I'm like that too, so I have no intention of directly stepping forward just because our Baron did some trickery.
The most important thing is that I won't leave any traces of me stepping forward outwardly.
'I need to make it so even the Duke and Emperor can't grasp it.'
"I'm going to compete fairly with agitation and fabrication."
Like making the Sultanate and Kingdom of Granada fight, isn't making two nobles in the opposing faction fight each other the right thing to do?