Chapter 660 Autonomous City-States
At night, in the hall of the mansion where the Lavati Commercial Guild is located, the long tables arranged neatly around the tables were filled with invited distinguished merchants and civilian representatives from the autonomous city-states of Lombardy.
As the actual rulers of autonomous city-states, these people wear gorgeous clothes that are almost equivalent to their status and wealth. In addition, benefiting from the free atmosphere and tolerance of foreign things in the autonomous city-state, they even made some small changes in their dressing style to highlight their unique taste and broad knowledge.
It is not uncommon to see the golden or red giant dragons and pairs of elephants raising their front hooves embroidered on their silk jackets, which represent Eastern totem culture, in the luxurious clothes of these people. Even the design of the clothing itself incorporates many foreign elements and is very exotic.
The Principality of Lombardy has many excellent ports on the southern coast. Coupled with their shrewd minds, the Lombards quickly stood out in the trade between the east and west and the north and south of Europe, and accumulated a lot of wealth. For hundreds of years, with the rapid growth of trade and the expansion of markets, more and more Lombards began to get involved in maritime trade, traveling between the East and the West. In addition to accumulating a large amount of wealth, the customs and customs of these foreign countries also had a profound impact on these sea coachmen.
Subsequently, a large number of foreign cultures were brought to Lombardy, where they continued to thrive and had a profound impact on all aspects of the clothing, food, housing and transportation of these free city-states established by big merchants.
Soon, material changes led to spiritual changes.
As merchants gained more wealth, they found that their influence also grew. Unlike those hereditary nobles who were enshrined by the court, they regarded the possession of land and the people on the land as a manifestation of their power. The emerging business class controlled the landless refugees who had lost their land. The people at the bottom have always been wandering between the powerful and the merchants..
When the lords' exploitation and oppression of the middle and lower poor peasants intensified, the landless peasant households had no choice but to flow into the cities and became cheap labor for the merchants, which to some extent strengthened the strength of the merchant class. With the increasing prosperity of business, the hereditary nobles suddenly discovered that the merchant class that was not valued by the world in the past was no longer as weak as before, but could compete with them.
When wealth expanded to a certain level, merchants and nobles from all over Lombardy began to unite to resist various taxes and rude demands issued by the court.
After decades of overt and covert fighting between the two sides, a new thing different from traditional cities emerged—autonomous city-states.
This was the product of a compromise between the Lombard court and merchants from various places. In return, the Duke of Lombardy received no less than one hundred thousand pounds of gold and silver from various autonomous city-states. The price was the loss of absolute rule over these city-states.
All of this is stipulated in a contract that stipulates the rights of both parties~
In many cases, the validity of a contract is only based on the equality of strength between the two parties. Even in Lombardy, which is based on integrity and honor, breaking a contract often only requires an unconvincing reason. Moreover, the treacherous party is often the court nobles and local lords who keep talking about honor and responsibility~
The rulers of the free city states would never have thought that a war involving foreign enemies would be used by the Lombard court as an excuse to violate the contract.
Since the Lombard army's successive defeats in the west and north, a sudden war has almost drained the treasury of the Principality of Lombardy. The war's financial consumption increased almost at a rate visible to the naked eye, emptying the originally full treasury, causing the Lombard court to borrow money everywhere to cope with this life-and-death crisis.
In order to solve the shortage of soldiers and food supplies on the front line, the Lombard court increased taxes in various places and scraped a large amount of money from the people at the bottom to recruit soldiers and purchase weapons, armor, and food and supplies.
Unfortunately, this amount of money is simply not enough to support the current war situation~
When some palace ministers proposed to impose high "war taxes" on the autonomous city-states in Lombardy, the Duke of Lombardy once again raised his hopes. After all, the wealth of the autonomous city-states was obvious to all, and the huge wealth in the hands of the merchants and nobles was really coveted.
Just by the Duke of Lombardy leading the cavalry to sack Lavati, they obtained enough food and supplies to recruit thousands of soldiers and feed thousands of people for more than a month.
However, there are also people who clearly oppose the imposition of high war taxes on autonomous city-states. First of all, once this practice was started, the Lombard Palace broke the contract signed by both parties, which would cause the Lombard Palace to lose credibility throughout Europe and even lose the help of many external allies.
Secondly, once the interests of merchants in autonomous city-states are harmed, it will inevitably lead to fierce resistance from them. As early as when Lavati was sacked by the Duke of Lombardy, various autonomous city-states came forward one after another to accuse the Lombard court of violating the contract, being dishonest, and lacking in integrity. He also strongly demanded that the palace return the huge amount of money it had previously borrowed from the autonomous city-state, and threatened to sever commercial ties with the Lombard court as support for Lavati's robbery.
The reason why autonomous city-states dare to make such a request largely stems from their own strength.
As the second largest creditor of the Lombard court, autonomous city-states with large amounts of wealth influenced the decision-making of the Lombard court in many ways.
Although the Principality of Lombardy is rich, it is obviously not enough for the palace to rely only on the taxes paid by the autonomous city-states in the territory. As a result, shrewd autonomous city-state merchants took the initiative and expressed their willingness to borrow debts from the palace to maintain the palace's financial expenses.
As a businessman, it is naturally impossible for someone to take away the gold coins in his pocket for nothing, even if this person is the ruler of the Principality of Lombardy~
Therefore, in return, they asked the Lombard court to grant lower tax rates to autonomous city-states, and hoped that the palace would contract the purchase of certain materials and weapons to various business guilds. In addition, autonomous city-states can freely travel through every castle in the principality without hindrance, and the lords are not allowed to rudely demand additional taxes from these caravans.
In the eyes of outsiders, these demands were really unacceptable, but unexpectedly, the Duke of Lombardy agreed to these demands the next day and signed a contract with the autonomous city-states within the territory that afternoon. Because the palace finances were no longer able to support expenditures,
there was an urgent need for a large amount of money to replenish the national treasury.
Since then, the autonomous city-states have ushered in unprecedented prosperity. In addition to the continuous flow of gold coins into the pockets of merchants, the autonomous city-states also gained an unprecedented status in the Lombard court, influencing the policies of the Lombard court in terms of taxation and other aspects.
For a time, the scenery is infinite.
But these wealthy businessmen would never have thought that the huge wealth they had accumulated over the past decades would bring them endless disasters one day in the future. In fact, since the Duke of Lombardy fled back to Milan, he has been plotting to use reasonable excuses to extract a large amount of gold coins from various autonomous city-states that would be enough to support the Lombard army in driving the invaders out of the country.
Judging from the current war, if the Principality of Lombardy still does not receive replenishment of military resources and supplies, it will completely fall into a prison of death.
Seeing that the foundation built by the family for generations would be destroyed in his own hands, the Duke of Lombardy planned to fight to the death.
At this time, in the eyes of the Duke of Lombardy, the interests of several autonomous city-states and the vain honor on their heads were not worth mentioning in the face of the survival of the family legacy.
A few days later, the Duke of Lombardy attacked a free city-state near Milan. The reason is simple. A large number of members of the city-state's commercial guilds secretly colluded with the Burgundy people to transport grain and supplies and a large amount of ordnance to the enemy in an attempt to commit treason.
In addition, the palace guards also found several secret letters from the commander of the Burgundy Guards, Ater, in the home of the head of the commercial guild. The letters clearly recorded the conspiracy of both parties to unite to overthrow the rule of the Duke of Lombardy.
As punishment for the traitors, the Duke of Lombardy did not hesitate to order the merchants involved and their families to be hanged on charges of treason, and confiscated all the money and land of these traitors. What is even more unexpected is that the Duke of Lombardy ordered the dissolution of the commercial houses of the autonomous city-state. They met, and sent troops to surround the entire city-state, and then searched the merchants in the city house-to-house on charges of collaborating with the enemy, sweeping away all the property they could take away. Once word spread, this incident caused an uproar in the Principality of Lombardy, making the merchants and nobles of other autonomous city-states furious.
As a result, the conflict between the autonomous city-states and the Lombard court began to escalate, and the merchants began to escalate from secret fighting to outright resistance. Unexpectedly, the response of the autonomous city-states was exactly what the Duke of Lombardy expected.
Hence, the Duke of Lombardy began to reach out to other autonomous city-states and decided to take out the last copper coins from these greedy guys.
A few days later, three more autonomous city-states were surrounded by the Lombard palace troops on charges of collaborating with the enemy, treason, and gathering a crowd to rebel. Without exception, the merchants in the city suffered the same bad luck as those in the previous autonomous city-states.
For a time, the other autonomous city-states were deeply worried about the tyranny and injustice shown by the Duke of Lombardy.
· Just when the merchants of various autonomous city-states were helpless in the face of the "purge" by the Duke of Lombardy, a secret letter from Lavati gave them a glimmer of hope.
· As the first autonomous city-state to be sacked by the Duke of Lombardy, and as the largest commercial city in the northern border of Lombardy, Lavati naturally enjoys a high reputation among many autonomous city-states.
Lavarti first complained to the autonomous city-states and denounced the tyranny of the Duke of Lombardy. Immediately afterwards, he slowly told the story of Lavati being treated favorably by the Earl of Southern Border of Burgundy. Finally, Lavati hoped that in order to prevent the wealth and status of the autonomous city-states from being completely destroyed by the Duke of Lombardy, he proposed that the autonomous city-states gather in Lavati and hold a city autonomy conference to discuss uniting against the rule of the Lombard palace.
Hence, the desperate autonomous city-states immediately responded and decided to go to Rawati, hoping to find a way to save the fate of the autonomous city-states·