"Your Majesty Irene, things are a bit beyond our expectations. The news spread quickly and the effect was very good." Sophia reported.
"Really?" Irene originally thought that it would take a certain amount of time and deal with the church to achieve the results he wanted, but he didn't expect that things would progress so smoothly.
"Is the church such a waste?" Irene asked without any concealment. In her impression, the church had always been a behemoth.
Sophia smiled and replied, "No, it was Claire who also took action to help us expand the matter and speed up the spread of the news."
"The news spread too fast, and there were so many incidents that broke out that the church didn't have time to react. Once things started to ferment later, it was useless no matter how hard they tried to block it."
"Claire..." Irene was in a daze when she heard the name, and the face that always had a smile seemed to appear in her eyes again.
When you have time, go to Nafu City. I miss him a little.
Sophia suddenly said, "Oh, by the way, he also took this opportunity to get a border count into the dungeon. I think he must have the intention of annexing that territory."
"I know this." Irene then showed a smile and said with a smile, "He is not here anymore, but he is still teaching me how to do things."
"Huh?" Sophia didn't understand the meaning of Irene's words.
"Go ahead and learn to use this excuse to suppress the nobles who have recently had ideas, and exterminate the nobles who were close to the church before."
Sophia nodded suddenly. This excuse was indeed very useful. Except for some nobles who were at odds with the church, the other nobles had more or less connections with the church.
At this time, using this excuse is basically a sure thing. As long as the big nobles are not moved and the small nobles who are inferior to them are removed, they will have to bear this loss.
Although Irene successfully came to power, the entire kingdom is not monolithic, nor can she do whatever she wants. For example, some nobles with interests tied up are an interest group. If one of them is touched, it may cause the entire interest group to counterattack, such as not following orders or violating them in disguise.
Also like those nobles who rely on Six Archmages, Five Sword Saint Families, and the noble families themselves. There is also competition among them, and resources are fixed. Only by competing can they obtain more benefits for themselves.
Currently, Augusta Family, one of Six Archmages, and Sword Saint Hubron are among Irene's cronies.
Except for the Merlin Family, the father of Archmage, who does not have to fight for Edith, there are four Archmage families and four Juggernaut families.
They all need to seek benefits for their families. It is impossible to just rely on Irene to say what they say. It all requires gaming.
So this is why Claire succeeded in taking over Irene, and became one of the largest forces in the kingdom, and had to use various means to annex other territories.
These are the rules. If you want to play, you have to play according to the rules. If you don't want to play anymore and plan to overturn the table, then you have to see if you have the strength.
To fight against the entire kingdom's aristocracy alone, Claire feels that he doesn't have the ability yet.
These interest groups gather together to seek more benefits for themselves. But resources are limited. If they want to obtain more benefits, they have to seize resources from others.
But after they seize resources, they will grow stronger. When one goes off and the other goes off, the balance will be broken. When the balance is broken, chaos will usher in, waiting for the next new balance to arrive.
As the King of the kingdom, Irene is the one who controls the balance of the country. Only when all the forces in the country are balanced can this huge machine continue to operate, the country will not be turbulent, and the civilians can continue to live their own stable lives.
And now the reason of this church can just give her an excuse to beat other forces. The other forces also know that this is an excuse, but the excuse is too good, and the environment is like this, she can only accept the beating.
"Sir Randolph! We can't suppress the matter anymore." A cardinal said with an ugly face. The church where he was located had been thrown rotten eggs more than once.
Randolph's expression was also very ugly. After the Pope was captured, he, the cardinal who came down from Holy See, naturally became the acting pope of Church of Light in this country.
There is only one person from Holy See to accept his fate from the official position of Pope. If nothing else happens, he will be the next Pope.
But Randolph doesn't want to be a bullshit pope here. This is completely leaving the mess to his own hands. How can he save the situation?
He himself didn't know that these priests and bishops had so many dirty things, and now he had to wipe the butt of those people.
If things continue to develop like this, the church's reputation in this country will be ruined!
But there really wasn't much he could do. The previous pope's conspiracy with Second Prince was caught red-handed. They are at a disadvantage, otherwise they would have used the power of the church to confront Irene and the others.
But in the case of a loss, if you really go to fight, is it really the same as what Claire said before, and is he planning to launch a second Holy War?
The previous time Holy War had already drawn clear boundaries. They were not allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and those kingdoms were not allowed to allow them to preach.
Now that they are in the wrong and have been caught interfering in internal affairs, they can only admit it and passively defend themselves while being beaten. If they take the initiative to fight back, worse things may happen.
"How about we ask the lords to prohibit the spread of news in their territories?" a later cardinal suggested.
As soon as the words came out, they were opposed by another bishop.
"Now those nobles are unable to protect themselves. Several nobles have been arrested and thrown into the dungeon. Are we asking them to help us? They don't even dare to contact us."
Randolph sighed when he heard this, and he felt that the tree fell and the monkeys scattered.
"Then let's kill those people who spread the word. This can also reduce the speed of spread."
Randolph immediately rolled his eyes, what a stupid person to say.
"There are so many people who know about this, are you going to kill them all? It's because you have this kind of thinking that so many bad things happen!" Randolph cursed.
"What should we do?" None of the cardinals present dared to raise their heads.
"Talch the source first."
"Source?"
"Well, Irene, Your Majesty."
"Assassinate her? But now that she is King, it is too difficult."
Randolph was so angry that he stood up, pointed at the bishop who was speaking and yelled, "What is going on in your mind! Have you been thinking about killing people all day long?"
The cardinal shrank his neck and said aggrievedly, "Then you can do whatever you say, Mr. Pope."
"The previous peace talks with her were not concluded. As long as the matter is settled and the source and the person who promoted the spread of the news are eliminated, the subsequent matters will be easily solved."
It's really easy to solve it. I pulled out a few iconic priests and bishops in the news and killed them to calm the public's anger first. Then some other smoky news will be released to blur the previous negative news.
Finally, I will take out a few specific cases to confuse right and wrong, and package the church as the victim of public opinion, and then come up with some painful reflections, accuse myself, and pull out a few unimportant figures to be beheaded. As long as those incidents are profound enough, the reputation of the church can be initially restored in this black and white incident.
As for the future, let's slowly get back to business. This is what they do, and they are very skilled at it.