At the founding of the Empire, three dukes were granted, along with a large number of marquises and counts.
After that, Emperor Andre deliberately kept the number of territorial nobles under control.
Back then, the territorial nobles were all quite well-behaved. Under Emperor Andre's leadership, the entire nation flourished in prosperity.
The next explosive growth in territorial nobles did not come until Andre II invaded the Dwarf Race.
Having only recently inherited the throne, Andre II lacked prestige among the old nobles and found it difficult to rally an army of sufficient strength.
So he used territorial noble titles as rewards, attracting a great many rising talents who would later receive only noble titles but fail to gain the rank of territorial nobility.
With such a force, he attacked the Dwarf Race and, catching his opponents unprepared, crippled two Dwarf royal clans in one stroke.
But the old nobles' faction stubbornly refused to send aid, the front lines had crossed the Dastney River, and the three Dwarf royal clans united their strength to lead the entire Dwarf Race in resistance.
As a result, the human forces suffered defeat after defeat in the later stages, even losing a vast stretch of the Southern Frontier north of the Dastney River for a time.
Afterward, Andre II had to surrender a large amount of territory and even create another Duke of the Western Frontier before he could secure military support from the older generation of nobles and barely reclaim the lost lands.
Yet because of this, Andre II's prestige essentially plunged to rock bottom.
For the following decades of Andre II's reign, he exhausted every means to reduce the number of territorial nobles and, through all manner of methods, strengthen the overall power of the Empire's military command.
And under this policy, the