Swiss Arms 189 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 189

-VB-

Hans

1311

The first of my new vassals I chose to visit ended up being the Count of Kyburg of the Neu-Kyburg Family. Count Hartmann the Second was not a happy man. Why would he be? The last time we met each other, I had torn his outer wall apart before leaving to put his peers to siege. At the same time, he was more accepting of his new status, especially I offered to give him tax exemption until his outer wall for his main castle was repaired or five years passed, whichever came first. He graciously accepted it and swore fealty. 

The second was the Lord of Greifensee Castle, Hermann the Fourth of the Landenberg Family. Totally different family and lineage, just the same first name. He had surrendered pretty quickly after seeing my army, so I hadn’t needed to put him to siege but I did tear down the outer wall of his castle. He got a more generous offer from me, a flat ten year tax exemption. 

The third was Bremgarten, the city that I burned. I didn’t stay there. I just noted that, yes, the city was still gone, and moved on. 

My journey continued on toward the north and west where some of my new holdings were. The County of Laufenberg was the biggest of the holdings and so I took the time to visit the town of Laufenberg and the people who currently held the castle there in my name.

---

The town of Laufenberg was … normal. It hugged the southern coast of the Rhine River and had expanded around a small hill that the Castle Laufenberg had been built on top of and more of the town on the other side of the river. The county had possessions on the other side of the river beyond the immediate northern half of the town as well and a wooden bridge that connected the two halves of the town. 

It was, as far as I could tell, a normal Germanic town.

The town came out to greet me, too. 

Unlike my new vassals, they had not been burnt in my campaign and were naturally curious about the person who beat the shit out of their former overlord. 

The interesting thing about the town was that it was ruled by a branch line of the Habsburgs, the Habsburg-Laufenbergs. It was, that was. Now, it was mine to rule and the last count of Habsburg-Laufenberg stood at the head of the townspeople, resigned to his faith as the lord who lost his land for something he didn’t even do. The unfortunate thing about him was that he was third- or fourth-cousin to Albert I, the first emperor I swore my allegiance to, which made him fourth- or fifth-cousin to the current Habsburg dukes. 

In other words, mostly unrelated and, from what I heard from my rangers, had been content to live his noble life as a semi-decent administrator of the County of Laufenberg. 

Unfortunately, he was a Habsburg at the end of the day, and I could not keep him around.

“Herr von Laufenberg,” I greeted the man. 

“Graf von Fluelaberg,” he greeted me back with a nod. A bit on the short side but who made up for it with a magnificent walrus moustache. “Or should it be herzog now?” 

“I’m not interested in the title,” I shrugged. “If I wanted to become a duke, then I would be politicking something fierce instead of making enemies.”

“Ah. then you do know that you are making enemies,” he hummed. 

Neither of us cared that we were talking about the realities of feudal politics in front of the townspeople; I was unlikely to spend a lot of time with them, he was about to leave, and Laufenberg was simply not important enough to warrant watching my words. 

“They were already my enemies,” I drawled. “The question is whether or not they are smart enough to leave me alone when I clearly want to fiddle with money instead of land.”

He chortled. “I suppose there is some truth in that. The dowager empress had been very clear with her sons the last time the Habsburgs gathered and yet they did this anyway,” he said and, towards the end, grimaced with some resentment. 

I raised an eyebrow. He was with her when the main Habsburg family talked? Or rather discussed family strategy? That meant that either he was an eavesdropper or someone with at least pull inside the Habsburg family. 

… Well, I supposed that he had been a count and a count of a semi-important holding at that. For all that I might dismiss Laufenberg partially because of how far it was from my main city of Fluelaberg, it had more farmland than Davos, Rheintal, and Fluelaberg combined, even after the usage of cauldron terraces. On top of that, situated on the Rhine River, it had easy access to the Rhine Valley further down the river, which was one of the “gravities” of the empire along with Bohemia. 

In a sense, I should be making this place my new capital and figuring out expansion, territorial or trade, from here… but no, I was too stubborn and attached to Fluelaberg to leave it. 

Do you know how much work I put into that mountain fortress-city?! 

If I had to move, then I would move to Rheintal.

Still, this was too good of a location for me to outright ignore. 

“You were there at the meeting? The dowager empress did tell me that she tried to get her sons to stop.”

The Habsburg-Laufenberg man snorted. “Try? She begged them not to do it. And she turned out to be right like mothers often are.” He took a deep breath in. “If I’d known exactly what you were capable of, then I might have thrown my lot in with you.”

“Hindsight is a twenty-twenty,” I replied without thinking about it.

“Twenty-twenty?”

I paused. Right, visual tests weren’t a thing at this time. 

“Standard testing for visual deviation. Being able to see objects clearly at twenty feet with both eyes would be considered normal. So when I say hindsight is twenty-twenty, it is only after we see the result that it is clear to us.”

“... Huh,” he hummed. “You test people’s eyes?”

I snorted. “I would be a fool not to. My rangers,” I gestured to my green cloaked men. “Are the pride of my military, and all of them must know how to shoot their bows and crossbows.”

He didn’t have much to say after that, and left within the week.

---

My travels then took me south where I met more of my new vassals. Most of them were too small and weak to be a problem for me, and I gave those who surrendered before a generous tax exemption while those who resisted got stingy ones or none at all.

And then I arrived in Lucerne. 

The people there greeted me as well, though they were less amiable and friendly than the people of Laufenberg. Why would they be? I tore down their city’s walls and then caused a refugee and grain crisis. 

Because of this, the previously 3,200 people of the city had shrunk down to 2,800, which was their population in the 1250’s; I had wiped out fifty year’s worth of growth directly and indirectly. 

The people felt this keenly as well. The lack of a wall had diminished their authority in the area. 

Good. 

I didn’t need a city to feel like they had power because they had some money and a wall to keep them safe. 

Despite this, the people of Lucerne and its leaders swore fealty rather easily. Because, as I learned, their fear of me was greater than their resentment. 

Like the other vassals who fought against me during the war, I gave them a stringent tax exemption. 

And there was a good reason for this. Lucerne was still a very taxable city, but if it wasn’t safe, then people would be less likely to move into the city and help it grow. I still wanted the city to grow because it was now mine, but a wall-less city was one bad siege away from becoming nothing, just like the other castles and towns that I have given tax exemptions to. 

Now that they were mine, they needed to be reinforced. And if need be, then I can tear them down again and get them to pay and build it at their expense. 

By giving them tax exemptions, I was also trying to ease some of the resentment they might have for the rampage I did. And if they weren’t willing to look over that, then I knew who I would need to scheme to replace, remove, or outright kill. Reducing their resentment would also improve their willingness to follow my rule and law, which would improve cohesion and more and that can be put to use improving everyone’s lives. 

---

After Lucerne was the town of Zug, which was not a city and thus under my direct control.

After Zug was the Abbey of Einsiedeln, which was next to Zug, Hofe, and March. It was the last stop before I visited Glarus, the second largest holding.

And that’s when I ran into real trouble.

“What?” I said loudly as I glared at the Abbess of Einsideln, Johannes von Schwanden. She was a woman in her forties, which was fairly young to be for an abbess when most abbesses I’ve met were in their fifties at the minimum. 

“You are an evil lord who refused a child of God his last rites over secular matters,” she replied with her chin held high and attempting to look down on me. But I was too tall compared to her for that. “As such, until you are forgiven of your sin by an unrelated bishop or those above, I will not acknowledge your authority over my abbey.”

… Yeah, I supposed that my last rite-less execution of Baron von Bruneck had finally come to bite my ass.