Let us consider the North's position. The road south was blocked by mountain ranges, and beyond lay the roaming nomadic tribes. To reach the far end of the continent, every last nomad would have to be subdued.
The path to the South was effectively sealed. There was one place — one corridor — but no one used it.
It simply took too long. The North had no proper ports, only rivers that froze solid in winter. There was therefore neither the means nor the need to use the Corridor.
In truth, I had never even considered using it myself. The river mouths froze easily, and sailing upstream was no pleasant affair.
A classic basin — isolated terrain with a single corridor as its only outlet. That was the North. And so the people who lived within it had no choice but to fight to the death.
Because no one wanted to die.
"So that's why you resorted to persuasion?"
"Yes, Your Highness. It seems Sir Leo Riward's efforts have finally borne fruit."
"Very good. But it's still dangerous. Even setting Leo aside, we need a mechanism to keep them firmly under control."
"What if we installed a Central Furnace on the steppe?"
"That's worth considering. For now, let's use this opportunity to survey the nomadic lands thoroughly."
That would be Zamuchin's task. He had spent years handling nomadic diplomacy. What lands they held, how vast they were — what mattered was whether we could keep the nomads reliably in check. The trouble was, pulling the Foreign Minister away at a time like this would be inconvenient.
"Can we expand the army's size?"
"Under current conditions, expansion to the scale Your Grace specified is feasible."
"Then do it. Move immediately — but don't recruit new soldiers. Draw the finest from existing legions and fill those vacancies with fresh conscripts."
"Understood, Your Highness."
"This matter — let's assign it to Leo."
Perhaps I was piling too much on Leo. But the first step was the most important.
He had more real combat experience than any other young commander, and above all, I judged that elite soldiers would rally far more readily under Leo's name.
The army was a long-term matter; we would take it one careful step at a time.
The two greatest problems remained. The first: how to spend the wealth accumulating in the North efficiently. Building a palace, erecting grand statues — these could burn through wealth in one stroke, but they were not good answers.
They could also balloon into construction projects of ruinous scale. That was a reliable path to ruin.
"We intend to pursue a policy led by private merchants, but there is a complication."
"What is it?"
"It may sound strange, my lord Grand Duke, but the value of Northern money and goods does not align with that of the South."
"What do you mean, Hexon?"
The problem of monetary structure. Gold coins were precious. Silver, less so. Copper was convenient for daily use. But how much of each currency circulated varied considerably by region.
A Northern gold coin was worth more than a Southern one. The same coin, yet what it could buy in the North and what it could buy in the South were entirely different.
Say one gold coin in the North could purchase a thousand loaves of bread. That same coin in the South might buy only a hundred.
In that case, even merchants with considerable purchasing power would find themselves at a loss the moment they came north. The value of their gold would keep declining.
In the end, even goods brought from the South — or goods sold to the South at a premium — would ultimately result in a net loss for the North if the value of the coin itself did not align.
"Until the value of money flowing from the North to the South equalizes, the North is structurally condemned to absorb losses. The merchants seem to be aware of this to some degree."
"I see. Then we need something to bridge the North and South."
"Indeed, Your Highness."
There was an institution designed for exactly that role. A central bank. The North Central Bank. Of course, until now we had been consumed with infrastructure and new construction — no one had given this much thought. But at this juncture, it was the most pressing need. The establishment of a central bank.
"We're about to step outside, after all."
"I will prepare and report back, Your Highness."
"As quickly as possible. We already have an agreement with House Barth in the South, so we must move swiftly."
Now, the second problem. In truth, it was the largest problem of all. Intertwined with the economic question was the matter of how to handle our relationship with the South. Until now, the North's position had been simple. The South relied on us to hold back the nomads and keep them in check.
If we opened our gates, the South's safety could not be guaranteed — so considerable care had always been required. That was how it had been in the past.
But at some point, the Empire had simply stopped caring about the North altogether. They repeated only that everything was entrusted to Wintergard. First the volume of support dwindled, and now it had ceased entirely.
And then the Wintergard Rebellion — the clash between my uncle and my father over the seat of Grand Duke — after that, the South abandoned any interest in the North whatsoever. It was, in effect, a forced independence.
There was occasional communication, but neither the North nor the South had any great desire to improve things. Simply put, the atmosphere was: you do your part, I'll do mine — just make sure you hold up your end.
"Even so, this is unforgivable, Your Grace!"
A decade had passed. The hollow pretense of loyalty to the Empire had long since been forgotten. Even the older nobles had settled into an attitude of: *why bother?*
"How dare they show such insolence toward Your Grace?"
Even Hexon, whom I had considered the most level-headed among them, was raising his voice. The other ministers were no different. The mood was unmistakable — the Empire and the North were already entirely separate nations. Though nominally, the Grand Duke of the North remained a subject of the Emperor.
"Your Grace! Give me a thousand soldiers from House de Wintergard, and I will teach those wretched Southerners some manners!"
"Don't."
"G-Grand Duke, then — p-please entrust three thousand to me, Leo Riward. That should be enough to show the South the strength of the North..."
I had expected it to go this way. The moment someone raised the idea of war, several ministers nodded along. This was not the direction I wanted. Of course, war was an option — the roads south were well laid, and an invasion could be launched quickly enough.
But I wanted to keep that as a last resort. And a war fought before we were ready was a war we would lose. If we ever did invade the South, it would be one of the most extreme choices available to us.
"War is still far down the list of options. We need to find something else."
"What about an assassin..."
Was he serious?
"We can't resort to such tricks. The North has its honor — if we must strike, we do it with a blade in hand. Not like that."
"Then what about applying pressure?"
"What kind of pressure?"
"I have thought of a stratagem, Your Grace."
It was Vice Minister Hergel, who had served under Zamuchin for many years. Where Zamuchin excelled at managing the nomads, Vice Minister Hergel was the man who had steadfastly held the Foreign Ministry together whenever Zamuchin was away.
Hergel's stratagem was straightforward. The Grand Duke of the North would formally petition the Empire for full autonomy. The North was already effectively independent, but on paper, tiresome loyalty documents still had to be sent.
These loyalty documents served no practical purpose — they were little more than certificates confirming that the North remained part of the Empire. Not for our benefit, but for those within the Empire.
"You want to change the pretext?"
"Precisely. The current situation — where the North is nominally incorporated into the Empire yet in practice is not — is something we must account for, I believe."
"But the Emperor is unlikely to accept something as minor as this."
For them, the fact that the North remained within the Empire was a tremendous reassurance. We were the shield holding back the nomadic tide from the south.
What Hergel proposed was a change of name. Not the Empire's North, but something more akin to a principality of the North.
"Become the Principality of Wintergard?"
"I believe there is sentiment within the Empire that would support such a change, Your Highness. After all, what they want is protection from nomads who never actually come — and we are the only ones doing that job properly, are we not?"
He was right. Imperial support had been cut off long ago. There was no one left who paid genuine tribute to the Empire. The older nobles had lost interest in the Empire since the Wintergard Rebellion.
Geographically, it was the same story. Short of crossing the Corridor, the only connection to the North was a mountain range that even birds struggled to cross.
"The Empire would also be rid of even the nominal support they still maintain, and they would gain the pretext of having appointed a Grand Duke while granting full autonomy."
"Would the Emperor accept that? What do they want?"
"We need only give them the impression that the North's anger has been appeased, Your Highness."
"Then I suppose I'll have to put on a performance."
The ministers stirred. Normally, when talk like this arose, the Grand Duke would be the first to refuse — he was, nominally, a subject of the Empire, after all. But his thinking had changed. At least for now.
"Then... let it be so."
Hergel bowed his head. Every minister bowed their head. The Principality of Wintergard.
It was the moment the North's preparations for independence began, quietly and carefully.