Chapter 397 Chapter 364 Layout, ready to go!

In this world, I am afraid that there is nothing like "time" that cannot be retained. Although every day is precious to the Roland people, even though Du Wei has tried his best to use all means to prepare for all the "wars" that will be dealt with in the future. The 963rd year of the empire has just passed. At the end of this year, the last big event that affected the future of the Roland Empire happened. At the huge prayer ceremony held in the Temple of Light at the end of the year, Pope Paul XVI finally publicly announced his designated future successor to the Temple—the Cardinal, Maximus.

This designation did not cause any surprise. After all, as the chief cardinal, Maximus had already become the future pope in people's minds-it was just a matter of time. And during this year, the Mosas faction led by Maximos also suppressed the Yeni faction with all its strength.During this year, according to the resolution of the elders of the temple and the approval of the Pope himself, the archbishops of the three dioceses were replaced—all from Yeni sects to Mosas sects. However, Archbishop Maximus did something that surprised and amazed everyone. Currently the most popular figure in the empire, most appreciated by the regent, with many legendary stories and many honorable titles.For example, "Genius Young Magician", "Court Scholar", "Duke Tulip" and so on... After his almost crazy generosity donated almost equal to the empire's annual financial revenue to support the empire's military expenditure, people gave him A new nickname "the richest man in the mainland".

Duke Tulip, Duwe Dove... as his famous name is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, almost most people know that this noble gentleman is not a pious believer, he has not been baptized, and he does not believe in the goddess of light—— Even in his territory, the priests of the temple were treated unfairly when they preached the teachings. And according to some gossip, even news from the duke's mansion, it is said that the duke doesn't have much respect for the goddess.He even used an impolite term to describe those clergy in some private occasions - "magic stick", that's what His Excellency the Duke said.

It is such a lost lamb, a wild horse, who has been drifting away from the glory of the goddess, but was finally tamed by the great Bishop Maximus. On January 1 of this year, in the square in front of the Governor’s Mansion in Loulan City, the capital of the Desa Province, Duke Tulip held his own initiation ceremony, in front of tens of thousands of onlookers, After accepting the baptism ceremony of His Excellency Bishop Maximus, His Excellency Bishop Maximus personally completed the initiation ceremony for accepting the Duke of Tulip, and also awarded a "Medal of Outstanding Contribution" to the newly recruited Duke.Generally speaking, this kind of badge will only be awarded to believers who have made outstanding contributions to the church.

And when the Duke received this medal, it was less than five minutes before he became a believer. Just after Du Wei officially announced his conversion to Guangming God, Du Wei announced in public that the reason why he made such a choice was entirely due to the personal charm of Cardinal Maximus. After admiring the personality charm of the cardinal and how kind an old man he was, he also admired how devout he was to the faith and how much he taught him. Finally, he moved himself, convinced himself, and became the Goddess. embrace. There is no doubt that such an approach has made Cardinal Maximus famous.

Then Du Wei announced in a high-profile manner that his territory, Desa Province, officially became the new church and established a new parish.In addition, Rams, a close friend of Bishop Maximus and the former vicar of the North Central Diocese, will serve as the Archbishop of the Diocese of Desa Province. Moreover, Du Wei stated that he would fully support the construction of the religious institute in the diocese, and was willing to provide a good training ground for the Holy Knights of the Diocese of Desa province, and he also generously donated 500 horses war horse. On behalf of the church, Maximus announced a resolution. In order to express his sincere gratitude to Duke Tulip, the church decided to exempt all religious taxes in Desa Province within the next five years.At the same time, according to Du Wei's huge popularity in Desa Province, the church's elders made a resolution, stating that he would grant Du Wei the title of "Honorary Bishop" in the Diocese of Desa Province.

The title of this honorary bishop is not just a "honor". From a legal point of view, because Du Wei has the status of the bishop of the church, he can have immunity from any laws in the empire in the future.Although Du Wei didn't care much about this "legal immunity", because he already had the status of a magician and also belonged to the legal privileged class. However, the title of the honorary bishop has more functions than a magician: First of all, any hostile behavior against the honorary bishop will be regarded as hostility to the church!In other words, from the first minute Du Wei was awarded the title of honorary bishop, Du Wei's enemies were the enemies of the church.

The second point... Du Wei obtained the privilege of requesting an audience with the Pope at any time.And he also has his own seat in the church's internal bishop's meeting-of course, he is only an observer, and he has no voting rights yet. The third point is what Du Wei wants most.In order to show respect for the honorary bishop, the church made a resolution that Du Wei could draw out a cavalry force of 500 under his command, and the church would grant this cavalry the status of "Holy Knights"!Moreover, this cavalry is not dispatched by the diocese, but only obeys the honorary bishop.Of course, the premise is that this cavalry must ensure that each of them is a believer of the goddess.

Moreover, according to some legal loopholes, an official knight can have up to four followers, and these followers are not counted as the number of establishments.Therefore, Du Wei can expand the number of this "Holy Knights" that is completely his own to 2,500 people!Among them, 500 are official knights, while 2,000 exist in the name of "squires", and all of these are legal. "Killing a holy knight will soon be regarded as a full-scale declaration of war on the Temple of Light." According to the law of this scripture, Du Wei has his own "Holy Knights" squad, so in the future Northwest War, when facing the Northwest Army, this will be a very effective weapon.

No matter how arrogant the Northwest Legion is, it is not an easy task to declare war on the Temple of Light in the mainland.What's more, there are also many soldiers in the Northwest Army who are church believers themselves.When the enemy these soldiers face is the Holy Knights, it is hard to imagine how much morale these people can have left. After Du Wei got these preferential conditions, the price he paid was: he signed an agreement in private, expressing his willingness to make a promise to the future successor of the Pope, Cardinal Maximus, that he would Become a close comrade-in-arms of Bishop Maximus, and give him strong support in the face of any difficulties.

It is worth mentioning that Du Wei handed over his own "Holy Knights" to Hussein to lead.Hussein was born as a real holy knight. He is familiar with all the strict methods of holy knight training and knows how to lead such a knight order. Afterwards, Du Wei quickly announced his decision. He built a military fortress in his own territory, which is the eastern part of the Desa Province, at the junction with the Nurin Province, as the head of the Holy Knights of the diocese. The garrison, this is a complete military fortress - except that there is an extra religious place inside, which can be used by the knights to pray. Later, there were three military fortresses at the junction of Desa Province and Nulin Province. The first one is the recruit barracks jointly built by Du Wei and Governor Bohan of Nulin Province two years ago. After two years, two-thirds of Du Wei's troops have been stationed here. The second building was built last year to station the private army of the Tulip family. Now, there is a third seat. In this way, in terms of layout, Du Wei has already piled up more than 70,000 troops on the border between his territory and Nulin Province.Together with the 30,000 troops under Governor Bohan's command, a total of 100,000 troops, the territory of the Northwest Army was surrounded. What makes Du Wei a little strange is that the Northwest Army seems to have been very quiet this year... Lu Gao, what the hell is he thinking? Du Wei is waiting, and now the situation has entered the most critical moment, he is waiting for a signal, a signal from the imperial capital, and the arrival of that signal will announce the end of the peace period on the mainland! ! The footsteps of war are coming? No, no, it should be said: War is about to start!