The governor's authority in Northwind Province was currently in Ryan's hands.
Naturally, the news he received came directly from the emperor's decree, which required a complete inventory and report of all imperial holdings in Northwind Province. "So, after half a month of chaos in the Imperial Capital and another half month among the nobles across the country, Grand Duke Fleming ended up shooting himself in the foot?"
Ryan set down the emperor's decree and began calculating how much of Northwind Province belonged to the Empire.
Northwind Province had only been imperial territory for a little over thirty years, so there were not too many troublesome disputes.
There was Northwind City, the largest city, and everything within it, along with several county seats. Zero Crossing City, of course, was not among them.
Zero Crossing City, the seat of Zero Crossing Prefecture, belonged to Viscount Miles's fief. The interesting distinction was that the city belonged to the Empire, while the land beneath it belonged to Viscount Miles.
Apart from these county seats and their populations, the remaining holdings were desolate mountains and wilderness. When Grand Duke Mayers occupied this region, many of its iron ore veins had yet to be developed. The only imperial holding was the Fragrant Mountain Plains.
"The Fragrant Mountain Plains..."
The county seats were straightforward, and there was nothing to discuss: the Empire was the emperor's property. Yet even the emperor could hardly change the rule that only the local nobles serving as county governors could administer their county seats. He could not distribute them to nobles from the South even if he wanted to.
That left only the Fragrant Mountain Plains.
To the southern nobles, the Fragrant Mountain Plains might seem like an undesirable, impoverished place. As a frontier fortress, it was somewhere no one wanted to