Volume 3 Chapter 164 Traffic jam
When leaving the City Lord Manor, it was already close to noon.
Xu Yi looked at the sky and thought that since he had just come back, he had to go back to the Falling Star Manor today to enjoy lunch with Still. Since he didn’t have time to visit anyone, he got into his horse carriage and headed to the Falling Star Manor.
As he swayed with the horse carriage on the road, Xu Yi thought about the answer Seveni had just given him.
In theory, there were no limits to a noble’s private army because the parliament and the Royal Parliament didn’t put any limitations on this.
Because if one carefully analyzed the structure of the Lampuri Kingdom, they would find that the entire Lampuri Kingdom was just a group of large nobles.
As for the royal family, they were just the strongest noble family.
The army that the royal family had was the strongest in the kingdom, so the royal family controlled the largest influence in the kingdom and the head of the royal family was the one who was king.
If one day the royal family couldn’t keep this superiority, it was very likely they would be replaced by another large noble family and the ruler would change.
This wasn’t that different from the history of earth, but it wasn’t as open as it was in the Lampuri Kingdom.
On the Sines Continent, other than some small duchies and small countries, all the other countries, including the Candra and Marlow Empires all had this same system. So Xu Yi’s problem didn’t seem to be a problem for Seveni.
Of course, this only existed in theory.
First, the most important issue was cost.
To build an army, it wasn’t as simple as bringing men together to create a private army.
This army would be a motley crew without any strength.
If one wanted strength, they needed soldiers of a certain quality.
The Lampuri Kingdom didn’t have a high population and the living conditions have never been good, so there weren’t enough people physically capable of being soldiers, decreasing the quality of the Lampuri Kingdom’s armies. Even the strongest northern army had no more than thirty thousand people.
Second, there had to be enough supplies.
A single soldier other than their personal quality needed equipment to increase their battle strength.
To guarantee that a soldier always had this, one had to give corresponding supplies and at least let the soldier eat their fill.
The investment in this would be without a doubt very terrifying.
The Lampuri Kingdom’s royal army had less than fifty thousand people, but they spent over three hundred thousand gold coins in military expenses each year.
This investment was already considered very low.
Not only could it compare to the Sack Kingdom, it was even worse than the smaller countries like the Drake Duchy.
There was no other way since the Lampuri Kingdom was poor before.
So that meant that to have a limitless army, you had to have limitless funds to invest.
Of course this was impossible. So for the second strongest Stagg Family after the royal family, they only had three thousand people in their private army.
Of course, how many soldiers the Stagg Family really had was not an accurate answer.
But if one was bold with their calculations, it would be at most five thousand people.
Because even if the Stagg Family is willing to invest, there was another important question other than the costs which was suppression from the royal family.
Since the Lampuri Kingdom’s political system decided that the strongest family was the royal family, the royal family had to strictly limit the private armies of the other nobles.
Although through the unwritten rules among nobles and the customs of the Sines Continent, the royal family couldn’t force the Royal Parliament to make a decision and limit the amount of troops a noble had, as the family that had the most power in the kingdom, the royal family naturally had countless methods to achieve this.
For example, Lampuri Thirteenth once gave a decree on the grounds of protecting the kingdom that the large nobles had to send a certain amount of their private armies to the northern army, to defend against the Sack Kingdom.
The northern army had a high casualty rate, so if they sent a portion of their army, the bigger the private army, the higher the loss of the nobles.
So with the other methods of the royal family, the armies of the nobles in the Lampuri Kingdom were gradually stabilized.
For an army like the Stagg Family’s that had three thousand soldiers, it was already the kingdom’s highest standard.
The other nobles of the kingdom had around two thousand soldiers.
For a trivial viscount like Xu Yi……
Want to own a private army? Are you crazy?
Of course Xu Yi wasn’t crazy, naturally Seveni didn’t think this way.
She knew that Xu Yi’s meaning behind this question was, so after giving Xu Yi a detailed analysis of the kingdom’s noble armies, she gave him a suggestion.
It was best not to announce that he wanted a private army and he could hire several hundred guards for this territory.
Although this would attract the attention of countless people, it would at least be acceptable since many nobles in the kingdom used this method.
Xu Yi happily accepted Seveni’s suggestion, but only a few hundred people were far from enough in his eyes.
If he really needed them, several hundred people weren’t any use at all.
Not to mention that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn’t worry about investing like the other nobles and with the weapons they could manufacture, Xu Yi could easily build an army that was over several hundred people.
To avoid the suppression of the royal family, there were also many other methods.
Of course, he didn’t need to discuss this with Seveni.
The horse carriage slowed down after coming out the west gate of Banta City.
“What is it?” Xu Yi asked the driver in a confused voice.
“Sir chairman, it’s a traffic jam.”
“Traffic jam?” Hearing this word that was familiar on earth, but strange in this world, Xu Yi was surprised.
He opened the curtain to the horse carriage and found that the road was indeed blocked.
The road was eight meters wide and could hold four horse carriages, but now that there were Magic Cars that were heading to the Falling Rain Valley, it blocked up the road.
It seemed like there was an accident in front. He could see two horse carriages on the ground and could hear the sounds of arguing in front.
Seeing the anxious looks people had and hearing their discussions, Xu Yi couldn’t help smiling.
This scene really was a fond memory for him.
“Old Bell, are traffic jams normal?” Xu Yi asked Bell who was the driver of his personal horse carriage.
“There weren’t that many before, but there were more in the latter half of this year.” Old Bell replied before suddenly looking at Xu Yi with a strange gaze, “Sir chairman, to be honest, it only started after our company started selling Magic Cars and many people in traffic jams curse us.”
Xu Yi laughed, “They will adapt sooner or later.”
Looking up to see that the situation wasn’t improving and seeing that there were more and more vehicles, even extending to the city gates in the distance. Xu Yi remembered that there weren’t things like traffic police that could be sent to direct traffic.
After hesitating a bit, Xu Yi used his Wind Control Technique to fly over the blocked horse carriages and Magic Cars.
He flew up front to see that it was a Magic Car and two horse carriages that caused the accident.
The two horse carriages were on the ground and looked like they were about to break, clearly having been hit very hard.
That Magic Car was standing on the side, looking like it wasn’t damaged at all.
He looked over the people arguing and Xu Yi found an acquaintance.
“Old man Sarkozy, it’s you. What happened here?”
Old man Sarkozy looked at Xu Yi who had fallen down from the sky in surprise before revealing a happy look.
“Chairman Xu, why are you here as well? I was just transporting goods from Cramer City. Look, this car has goods from your Frestech Chamber of Commerce, it’s about to go to the Falling Rain Valley. I never thought that I would hit them here.”
Xu Yi looked at where old man Sarkozy was pointing and the people arguing with old man Sarkozy were small nobles of Banta City. It was no wonder they had these pretty good personal horse carriages.
Seeing Xu Yi look over, the several nobles began complaining.
“Chairman Xu, don’t listen to his nonsense! We were clearly heading along the road and he slammed into us. Look, our horse carriages are almost broken! We’re also injured, could it be that this is our fault?”
“Whose fault would it be if not yours? Who told your horse carriages to run all wild and run so fast? Are your horses crazy?” Old man Sarkozy immediately refuted.
The expression on the faces of the nobles froze before they roared back, “I think you’re crazy! Our horse carriage and horse have been in the family for over ten years, how could they be worse than this Magic Car that came out of nowhere? You……”
When the nobles said this, they remembered that Xu Yi was on the side. They had actually spoken ill of the Magic Cars in front of Xu Yi, wasn’t this seeking death?
Turning to see Xu Yi’s face sink, their hearts were filled with fear.