Chapter 618: Politics of the Northern Province

After another slightly stomach-turning flight, Braden landed at the headquarters of the Towering Mountain Legion, the fortress city of Valley’s End.

This was actually Braden’s first time in the capital of the Northern Province, the home base of the Eashan Marquess Family, but after having experienced both Rockwell City and Misty City, he had to say he was a bit disappointed.

Valley’s End was smaller, by a wide margin, and was clearly less well off, which came as a bit of a surprise to the young man.

Braden, as the son of a baron, was naturally a bit ignorant of the circumstances, but those in-the-know all understood that this was not just a coincidence.

The Eashan Marquess Family was technically the fourth most powerful noble house in the Rockwell Kingdom, right behind the Balfours, but the difference between the two was quite vast.

Why?

Because the Eashans were not one of the noble houses that had fled to this land from the Black Tiger Kingdom along with the Rockwell Family all those centuries ago; they were natives of this land.

Before the Rockwell Kingdom existed, a loose coalition of 8 families ruled over a large part of the territory covering parts of what would eventually become the North, North-East, West, and Royal Provinces.

Among these 8 families, the Eashans were the biggest and most influential.

This coalition wasn’t strong enough or big enough to officially be classified as a kingdom by the Rising Sun Empire, but they had sufficient power and size to be considered a serious issue when the Rockwell Family first arrived.

During the decades that followed, leading up to the Rockwell Kingdom’s founding, and even several decades into its establishment, friction between the newcomers and the natives of the land naturally occurred, with fights breaking out on several occasions.

Unfortunately for the native coalitions, they were far weaker and less united than the noble houses led by the Rockwell Family, so it wasn’t long before these small, fiercely independent tribes, were all basically beaten into submission.

At the time, numerous voices called for these 8 families and their followers to be expelled, or even purged, but Fredrick Rockwell was weary of war by then.

The whole reason he had led an exodus from the Black Tiger Kingdom was to escape the constant wars that plagued that Large-Sized Nation, so the last thing he wanted to do was plunge his new kingdom into another endless cycle of violence.

Ariana, Fredrick’s chosen successor, also argued strongly that such a campaign would be a huge waste of resources, resources that could otherwise be used to build up the young Rockwell Kingdom.

The debate dragged on for several years with no resolution in sight, until signs of aggression from the Darr Kingdom began to appear.

Members of the Rockwell Kingdom’s original Royal Council realized that trying to fight both an internal and external war at the same time would only result in the total collapse of their new nation, so a deal was struck.

The Eashan Family, which was still the most powerful of the native forces at the time, was granted a Marquess title as well as governance over the Northern Province. The Royal Family and Rockwell Kingdom would also provide these rather backwards tribes with better cultivation resources and techniques, more advanced smelting and construction technology, access to wider trade routes, and certain security guarantees

In exchange, the Eashan Family and the remaining members of the defeated native coalition formally swore allegiance to the Rockwell Kingdom, agreed to follow its laws and traditions, and also pledged to defend its northern border.

On its face, this deal sounded quite favourable to the Eashans and their allies, but the attitude of the Tarnath Dynasty at the time was far less friendly than it was today, and seeing how the Tarnaths were the most powerful nation in the South-Central Region back then and even now, it actually put a lot of immediate pressure on the natives while providing very few up-front benefits.

Still, four centuries ago, most people, the natives included, felt the Eashans had come out on top in the negotiations.

What they didn’t realize was that there was a hidden catch to this deal: the Campbell Family would also be granted an earlship in the Northern Province and enfeoffed a vast dominion within its borders.

The Campbells were one of the strongest and most loyal allies that had fled the Black Tiger Kingdom along with the Rockwells, they had significant military and economic strength, and had been the ones mostly responsible for ’pacifying’ the native coalition before the peace treaty was signed.

As such, no one raised any questions when they were allowed to settle in the Northern Province.

On paper, the Eashans were in charge, but in every way that mattered, the Campbells were basically their equals. This resulted in the wealth and power of the North Province being split between the two groups.

When it was first being built, the Campbell Family’s capital city, Fardan, was even nicknamed the ’Second Northern Fortress’, a not-so-subtle hint that the Eashans, who were supposedly the guardians of the northern border, were not entirely trusted by the Royal Council.

It didn’t take long for the Eashan Family to realize that they weren’t really in charge of the Northern Province and at most, were co-governing it with the Campbells; however, they had already signed the deal, so it was too late to back out now.

Even if they had thrown caution to the wind and rebelled, the Eashans knew they wouldn’t be able to gather much support as their people had already begun to integrate into the new kingdom and reap benefits from it.

To make matters worse, they were no match for the Rockwells and their allies before signing the treaty, and they had only gotten weaker relative to them over the years, so it was fairly obvious they would suffer a disastrous defeat if they tried anything untowards.

Thus, for the next 400 or so years, the Eashan and Campbell Families continued to compete with one another for all the resources and opportunities in the Northern Province.

Of course, they also cooperated when necessary, and after so much time, everything from trade agreements to marital ties had been formed between them, but the subtle competition had never really ceased.

That was why, despite being the same noble rank as the Balfours, the Eashans were far less wealthy and powerful than the former.

Braden, as a young man born in the North Province, has naturally heard a little bit about this, but he certainly didn’t know the in-depth details or history of the power struggle between the Eashans and the Campbells.

Not that it really mattered to him, or to the vast majority of the North Province’s citizens.

Lower nobles typically obeyed the orders of higher nobles, and the lower on the ladder you were, the less you cared about who was at the top as no matter what, nothing much would change for you.

Perhaps if you were particularly ambitious or scheming, knowing who was directly above you in the social or political hierarchy would be important, but most barons wouldn’t even dream about trying to challenge counts, while viscounts trembled in fear when they heard an earl would be visiting their territory.

As for the massive throngs of commoners, they cared even less who their rulers were as the vast majority of them were too busy just trying to get through the day.

Why should they bother knowing who their lord’s lord’s lord was when their children were screaming that they were hungry?