Bagnia was flourishing.
Thanks to the wars surrounding the Founding War, and the complex but friendly relationship between the Kingdom of Bagnia and the Retalia Empire, no new war had broken out after Bagnia annexed Minisia.
The Bohemian Empire certainly wanted to intervene, but the Bagnian territory bordering it was a stretch of rugged mountains with difficult terrain, and the Retalia Empire had made no move.
In the end, the Bohemian Empire merely cut off its saltpeter smuggling with the Kingdom of Bagnia and did nothing more... Its restraint came from inability, not unwillingness.
So far, Bagnia's absorption of Minisia had gone reasonably smoothly.
Beneath that apparent calm, however, the undercurrents had never stopped swirling.
Rebellions like the one Street-Sweeper had dealt with were hardly rare. In fact, they were among the easier problems to handle.
For on Minisia's soil, there were other struggles that involved no gunfire, yet were far more deadly.
Things were somewhat better in towns of any size. The Royal Palace's civil servants might be exhausted by their work, encounter setbacks, or even face threats to their personal safety from hostile elements.
But after the Inquisitors commanded the Blue Banner Army through several campaigns in Minisia that left no rebels alive, almost no one dared murder these civil servants, derisively branded Chris's lackeys.
Civil servants in the more backward regions still faced threats to their safety, however. The illiterate old farmers simply could not see very far ahead. A little incitement from a local tyrant was enough to send them into open revolt.
Even so, that did not mean the Kingdom's civil servants stationed in towns had a much easier time. They had troubles of their own.
In towns of any size, the civil servants did indeed face fewer overt threats of blades and bloodshed, only