A Debate About Kings

The Prince was not very long—just over sixty thousand words in total—but its contents were all-encompassing.

It offered a profound analysis and summary, from beginning to end, of what a monarch of a feudal state should and should not do.

That was why later dictators such as Napoleon, Hitler, and Mussolini all regarded this book as a sacred Bible.

As long as one understood the contents of this book and grasped the ideas Niccolò Machiavelli sought to expound, controlling a country would be effortless, even if that country had entered modern society.

Italy and Germany during WWII were the most typical examples.

What was more, the three before them came respectively from ancient Mesopotamia four thousand years ago, Macedonia over two thousand three hundred years ago, and Ancient Britain fifteen hundred years ago.

In their respective eras, philosophy, thought, and politics were all still at a relatively primitive and ignorant stage.

Moreover, books and knowledge were unquestionably scarce resources. Even kings could not obtain much of them.

So when Rider, the most learned among them, finished reading the entirety of The Prince, he immediately praised it in wild delight. "This scholar called Niccolò Machiavelli truly is an absolute genius! To describe power and rule with such precision and accuracy... If he had been born in my era, I would certainly have promoted him to help me rule the entire empire."

"After reading this book, has your understanding of kings been shaken? Or, to put it another way, do you still insist that nothing you did in the past was wrong?" Allen asked a deeply probing question, his words laden with meaning.

"No! A King would never deny his past self. Isn't that right, Archer?" Rider said with a smile, glancing at Gilgamesh, who had just closed the book.

"That's right!