144: Implementing the decisions of the morning assembly

First, the servants and butler from Initial City were transferred to the royal palace because they were more familiar with Arthur's habits and could serve him better.

As for the army in Initial City, the twenty thousand gale repeating crossbow soldiers were actually enough for defense!

However, Arthur still kept an extra Golden Sharp Lion squadron, which was a hundred golden sharp lion cavalry led by an Earth Knight.

The others, the two Mountain Giants, Zog and Zoffy, as well as the two Two-Headed Wyverns, including Andel, and the remaining two hundred golden sharp lion cavalry, were all recalled to the royal capital by Arthur.

Those two hundred elite golden sharp lion cavalry could just replace some of the guards in the royal palace.

As for the Mountain Giants and Two-Headed Wyverns, it was because Arthur had grown familiar with them and wanted to keep them by his side.

After the personnel transfer in Initial City was completed, Arthur began to implement the promotion of titles for his father Abergh, his elder brother Art, and his second sister Arina.

Since the royal nobles of Munsstan Province had been completely eliminated, this territory transfer did not cause much trouble and was completed smoothly.

Next were the ennoblement ceremonies for Karona and Olivia as royal consorts, and Doria as a princess. Arthur held a grand celebration in the royal capital for this.

Of course, while doing these things, Arthur also acted according to what was discussed in the court assembly earlier.

He immediately dispatched six Sky Knights to serve as governors in the six major provinces of the kingdom.

Subsequently, with the governor's mansions of the six major provinces as the center, he began to dispatch city lords of corresponding strength to the surrounding cities, gradually encroaching upon the power of the nobles.

If the noble in charge of a city was a Gold Knight, a Gold Knight city lord would be dispatched. If the noble in charge of a city was an Earth Knight, an Earth Knight-level city lord would be dispatched.

As for the two Grand Dukes who possessed Sky Knights, Arthur's approach was to establish the governor's mansion right next to their main cities.

This way, the governor with Sky Knight strength could directly monitor the two Grand Dukes.

Then, a city lord with Earth Knight strength would be sent to the main cities of the Grand Dukes who possessed Sky Knights!

This not only saved one Sky Knight but also allowed Arthur's management plan to be perfectly executed!

After all, one Sky Knight cost Arthur ten million gold coins; it had to be saved where possible!

And where did those Gold and Earth Knight powerhouses sent to serve as city lords come from? Naturally, Arthur exchanged them one by one from the Portable Shop.

According to Arthur's investigation, there are currently about three hundred and fifty cities with a population of over thirty thousand in the Lionheart Kingdom.

Although there were only a little over two hundred nobles above the Viscount rank in total, meaning there were only a little over two hundred main cities belonging to nobles.

However, in the territories of nobles with the strength of an Earl or higher, besides their main cities having populations of tens, or even hundreds of thousands.

Other cities under their command certainly had populations of over thirty thousand, so there were approximately three hundred and fifty cities in the Lionheart Kingdom that met the criteria for establishing a city lord.

Among them, eighty cities had Earth Knights stationed, while the others were small cities of tens or hundreds of thousands of people with only Gold Knights stationed.

Therefore, for Arthur to complete this city lord's mansion plan, he needed to dispatch eighty Earth Knights and two hundred and seventy Gold Knights.

Such a large number of powerhouses required an astonishing amount of gold coins.

Eighty Earth Knights alone would cost eighty million gold coins.

The remaining two hundred and seventy Gold Knights would require twenty-seven million gold coins, totaling one hundred and seven million gold coins.

This was just for the powerhouses needed as city lords; city lords also needed some subordinates!

That's another tens of millions of gold coins at least!

Fortunately, after receiving 1.6 billion gold coins in cash from the royal family, Arthur had a total of 2.7 billion gold coins, so spending two hundred million was still affordable for him.

It seemed like a hefty price, but considering that once this system was fully implemented, the entire kingdom would essentially be under Arthur's control, the cost was acceptable.

As long as Arthur could completely control the kingdom, it meant that no matter what policies he implemented in the future, they could be executed at the fastest speed.

The value contained within that was unimaginable!

Of course, although Arthur was willing to pay the price and the plan looked promising, the execution process was not so smooth.

Initially, cities near the governor's mansions, which had Sky Knight strength stationed, were fine.

However, the further away the established city lord's mansions were from the governor's mansion, the more restless the nobles whose powers were being divided became.

They began to try every means to obstruct the establishment of city lord's mansions in their cities.

For example, secretly issuing threatening remarks, forbidding people in their cities from joining the city lord's mansion.

They also secretly obstructed the construction of the city lord's mansion, preventing it from being built.

All these were ways to make things difficult.

If it were an ordinary person, they might indeed have been stumped, because a strong dragon does not oppress a local snake.

Moreover, the city lord's mansion represented the royal family and had to abide by the law, making it difficult to act secretly as before.

Because that would not convince others; instead, it would make the people below think the royal family was cruel.

However, Arthur had long prepared for this: the clone spies he had sent to various noble families over two months ago.

Now was their time to shine!

Since those spies were directly accountable to Arthur, under Arthur's command.

Those spies secretly handed over evidence of the nobles obstructing the construction of the city lord's mansion to the city lords in various places.

This gave the city lords reason to call for support and swiftly annihilated over twenty noble families.

Since evidence was provided, other nobles had nothing to say about the annihilation of these dozens of noble families.

After such a deterrent, the nobles dared not resort to petty tricks anymore!

They were thoroughly intimidated by Arthur, the new king, not knowing how he could conjure so many powerhouses to establish city lord's mansions.

At the same time, he could silently obtain incriminating evidence against the previously annihilated nobles.

Therefore, many nobles began to purge suspicious individuals around them.

Because they were also intelligent people, they knew that the exposure of the plan was due to hidden agents among the previously annihilated nobles' entourages.

Were there such people around them too?

If so, it would be terrifying!

With this thought, many nobles subsequently lost the will to obstruct Arthur's establishment of city lord's mansions and instead began a vigorous investigation into internal traitors around them!

Such a large-scale purge of dissidents caused the entire Lionheart Kingdom to feel precarious once again!

Arthur's clones had perfectly replicated the appearances of those noble's subordinates and had never shown any flaws in their daily lives.

Only when Arthur activated them would they hand over the evidence they had already collected.

Therefore, those nobles were destined to return empty-handed, at most coincidentally catching a few!

More often, it was innocent people who suffered undeserved misfortune, being purged as traitors!