"What a king should do?" VanCleef was even more puzzled. "What does that have to do with me? I'm not a king. Besides, even if we really do overthrow Stormwind City and wipe out those nobles someday, I have no intention of becoming a king."
A smile appeared on VanCleef's face. He was clearly lost in endless, beautiful reveries. "If we succeed, I'd rather be an architect, building city after city and millions of homes, so everyone has a house to live in."
"But our enemy is a king. We need to know what he and his government are doing."
"All right, let me think," VanCleef said, hazarding a guess. "It should be protecting the kingdom's common people through combat."
"That is what generals, warriors, and even the Guardian of Tirisfal should do, not a king. Besides, according to the view you just proposed, King Terenas of Lordaeron would be utterly useless, because he has no particularly powerful combat abilities." Felix used reductio ad absurdum to point out the flaw in VanCleef's logic.
The guild leader, who had fought in the war against the orcs, could clearly recognize the important role Terenas had played in the Second War, so he pressed further. "Then tell me, what should a king do?"
"It's simple. A king's role in a country is to put the right people and the right things to the right tasks. Simply put, it's allocating resources."
"For example, when a natural disaster strikes, someone needs to lead the relief efforts; when humans are attacked by gnolls or trolls, someone needs to organize everyone to fight those attackers; when people need homes, someone needs to direct everyone and assign specific tasks... that was the king's original role."
"But guild leader, this 'original role' is extremely primitive and inefficient. The king himself cannot possibly know how to do everything. He cannot be skilled at disaster relief, military command, and construction all at once. At that point-"
"At that point, he needs a group of people to do the work for him?" VanCleef asked.
"Exactly. Those people are the officials serving under the king, as well as the people he hires. Now, guild leader, by what means do the king and those officials allocate resources effectively?"
Felix gave VanCleef some time to think, then revealed the answer before he could speak. "Through taxation. The king and his officials need to collect taxes from the people, then allocate that tax money where it belongs. For example, they can pay generals and soldiers to fulfill their duty of protecting the people; they can also pay the Stonemasons' Guild wages so that the guild takes responsibility for building cities and constructing homes."
"But the Kingdom of Stormwind never paid us." VanCleef immediately began cursing in anger. "Those damned-"
"That means Varian failed to do what a king should do." Felix had no desire to listen to VanCleef vent his emotions and cut him off directly. "In short, a government's function is to collect money and goods, then distribute them again, allowing those resources to flow as much as possible to the places that need them most. By allocating resources reasonably, it keeps society running."
"In short, a government fulfills its functions through taxation and fiscal spending. Without taxation, there is no government." Felix shifted his point. "In other words, if we can fulfill those functions, then-"
"Then there's no need for the king and the nobles?"
"Exactly."
If the Brotherhood intended to openly become rebels, it clearly could not rely on robbery for income over the long term, even if it robbed nobles.
There was no unbridgeable gulf between bandits and a government, only a difference in degree. If bandits actively improved their reputation and legitimacy, they might develop into a legitimate government.
At that stage, what the Brotherhood needed to do was establish its own grassroots government at every farm in Westfall and Elwynn Forest, providing protection to the farmers on the one hand and collecting taxes from them on the other.
However-
"That's impossible, Felix." The light in VanCleef's eyes dimmed. "They won't willingly hand money over to us. In all fairness, if I were a farmer in Westfall, I certainly wouldn't want to pay a bunch of people who had shown up here out of nowhere."
"But right now, they're dutifully paying that money to the nobles of Stormwind City," Felix replied. "That's only because they've grown accustomed to doing so over these past few centuries. It's become a tradition."
He looked directly at the Brotherhood leader before him. "If we can prove to people that Stormwind City cannot protect them, while we can fulfill the functions of government better, and the amount of tax we need is lower than what Stormwind City and those noble lords demand, then people will slowly change their attitudes and turn to us."
Felix grew more excited as he spoke. "To achieve that, all we need to do first is take the land in Westfall from those farm owners-"
Then Felix found himself unable to continue.
Because he suddenly remembered that there seemed to be an "Alexston Farmstead" on the map of Westfall, and VanCleef's excellent student, the chief architect of Stormwind City in World of Warcraft, seemed to be named Baros Alexston.
Back then, he had even accepted a quest from Baros to go to that farm and retrieve his compass for him.
So, uh...
Now, even if Baros did not want to join SI:7, Felix could only find a way to force him to betray them. Only then could VanCleef strike at Baros's farm with a clear conscience.
Before the revolutions of 1917 and 1927, the two countries of Russia and Seres had undergone a long period of preparation: the 1905 Revolution, the workers' movement, the 1911 Revolution, the peasant movement, and so on. Both had a certain foundation.
But now, all Felix and the Defias Brotherhood faced was a group of farmers who had been ruled by nobles and lords for centuries without ever resisting.
They were different from the stonemasons. They had no guild organization and were all atomized individuals. They might even have relationships of personal dependence on their lords, making the situation extremely complicated to handle.
Therefore, forcing those farm owners into a position where they were the common enemies of both the farmers and the Brotherhood, and getting the farmers to support the Brotherhood from the heart, was a systematic undertaking that could never be accomplished in one stroke.
Felix's long-term plan truly could only be approached with careful, long-term deliberation.
For now, he should pay more attention to what could be done in the short and medium term.
"Guild leader VanCleef, I hope you can teach me and the other brothers more assassin techniques, such as sustained stealth. As I said earlier, this is very important to our cause."
Before you continue