Chapter 336 — The Reformer
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 3
What left Gaoyang somewhat awkward, however, was that facing Roman Glan's portrait hung another painting—of him, bearing the Pioneer's Sword and the Guardian's Shield, standing on a high hill and gazing ahead with an air of dignity. It was the most widely circulated image of Gaoyang Cecil.
Amber at once poked him in the waist from behind. "Hey, hey, look, you're hanging on the wall!"
Gaoyang silently dodged Amber's finger and spoke with some embarrassment. "I'd assumed that after I 'rose,' everyone would have taken my portraits down from the walls..."
"My husband regarded you as an idol," Viscountess Ropenny said flatly. "After he passed, this study has always kept its original furnishings."
Gaoyang nodded silently and strolled to the desk, tapping its surface lightly. "So this is where he wrote the Free Civil Code back then?"
"I told you, that is already the product of failure and error. Later events proved everything," Ropenny said coldly. "So is this your true purpose in coming here? Not to see your new neighbor, not to discuss business, but to talk about the mistakes my husband made in his lifetime?"
"No. My original purpose in coming here really was just a visit. And after learning a few things about Viscount Roman Glan, I developed some interest in his life. But I don't think everything he was can be summed up with the simple word 'mistake.'"
Gaoyang spoke unhurriedly, and in his mind the deeds of Viscount Roman Glan, investigated by Amber, slowly pieced themselves together—and once the parts deliberately distorted and misconstrued by the ignorant world were wiped away, the image of a pioneer of reform gradually emerged in his mind.
"He banned all slave trading and freed every serf and slave in the domain into free citizens. He resurveyed the land, confiscated all land held beyond the permitted limits, unjustly acquired, or unregistered, and distributed it to the new free citizens. He permitted anyone to trade, to work, to hunt, to cultivate, and abolished the 'Untouchables Restriction Act' within the domain, allowing freed slaves to learn a trade and become artisans. He abolished the privilege of noble sons to become knights, so that commoners and noble sons alike could undergo the knight-apprentice selection..."
Gaoyang recounted them one by one, watching Ropenny Glan's expression darken by degrees, and at last he shook his head. "They were all great ideas."
Yes—this was the intelligence on Viscount Roman Glan that Gaoyang had come to possess through the Military Intelligence Bureau's investigation and collation.
A pioneer who had stood up before Gaoyang ever rose from his coffin, striving to change this age.
Ten years ago, a young noble of the Southern Region had awakened. With eyes unlike other men's, he saw the dark filth hidden beneath the prosperity; he recognized the backwardness of Ansu's current system, the constraints the noble hierarchy placed on this society, the groundless oppression the various traditional laws inflicted on commoners, and the productive forces wasted in the course of that oppression. He may even have recognized the power of the people—or at least their "value."
And then he launched his reforms—launched them with a young man's dash.
In the beginning, the lord's forceful authority and the old noble system's sluggish clumsiness let his reforms begin smoothly. He implemented new statutes across part of his domain and reaped some results...
But that initial stage was extraordinarily brief.
The backlash was ferocious beyond measure. Almost no one understood what this young noble was doing. He was branded "deranged," "heretical," "with his mind bewitched by devils," and in what seemed the blink of an eye, the promising young viscount became the very face of sin—the destroyer of the kingdom's order and the corrupter of noble propriety. Nearly half the Southern Region railed against him.