Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 718 - 671 The Conservative Aristocracy

"Count, welcome to your esteemed presence! Your arrival is truly an honor!" A nobleman dressed in traditional attire stood before Perfikot, expressing his welcome.

Behind this nobleman stood a factory awaiting its ribbon-cutting ceremony.

This was the first factory inaugurated for the airship project, and also the first completed project in the five-year economic development plan. Naturally, Perfikot had to personally attend its ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Because of Perfikot's presence, the supporters behind the factory personally came to the scene, not only to welcome Perfikot, but also to express their emphasis on this project.

For this 'respectable person' who leans towards tradition, attending a factory's ribbon-cutting ceremony in person was not a common habit.

Generally speaking, for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of such industries under his name, he would send a steward or a descendant from his family, as he would consider it beneath his dignity to attend in person.

This cannot be said to be an old noble's bad habit, after all, this noble held the real power as a baron with a fief, even if his fief was far within the Empire's homeland.

For Victor, a baron was already a significant title. Although it was at the bottom of Victor's five ranks of nobility, in the era when Victor was still called a kingdom, barons were the main noble class in all of Victor.

At that time, there were only a few counts in the entire kingdom, and most of the nobles loyal to the king were barons.

Below the rank of baron were the knights, who made up the main military force of the Empire. They typically pledged allegiance directly to the baron rather than the king himself.

Because of this, barons generally wielded formidable armed forces. Depending on their fief's size and wealth disparity, a baron could typically have anywhere from a dozen to over twenty knights.

Thus, in an era when titles were linked to military might, the banner captain of the Knight Order was usually a baron, while the Knight Order was often composed of several barons from the same area, forming an armed and political group.

Usually, the head of the Knight Order would be the most esteemed baron in the area, or if there was a count present, the count could also serve.

However, it was quite rare for a count to serve as the head of the Knight Order in Victor at that time.

As barons directly controlled the kingdom's most critical military power, it inevitably led to power struggles and political conflicts between the noble class and the king.

The two barons' wars in Victor's history laid the foundation and legitimacy for today's Noble Council, which has now been reformed into the National Assembly.

Back then, the barons, dissatisfied with the king, formed a military alliance, defeated the king's army, and overthrew the reigning king. In addition, they enacted a great charter, establishing a council composed of several barons with the right to seize rule over the kingdom from the king.

In simple terms, it meant that the nobles had the right to depose the king.

Hence, for Victor's old nobility, the baron was indeed a weighty title, especially for fief-holding barons. Some of them came from families that had existed for centuries, genuinely participating in barons' wars and dethroning kings.

For them, factory inaugurations and such were hardly significant events.

Of course, after Victor transformed from a kingdom into an empire, and the king became an emperor, the power of barons was no longer what it once was.

Particularly with the development of the industrial revolution, the Empire's military power shifted from the knights and attendants under feudal lords to today's professional army, making barons lose the leverage they once had against the king.

After the industrial revolution, the Empire gradually reclaimed power from the barons, leaving most of them with only titular titles and fiefs 'entrusted' to the Empire.

Such was the case with the former Brandelis family, owning only a baron title and a fief from which they could enjoy profits.

Of course, the Brandelis family obtained the baron title in Perfikot's grandfather's generation, which greatly differed from those well-established baron families; they were not comparable to 'nouveau riche' families like Brandelis.

Some of them owned several castles and had, over hundreds of years, built intricate networks through marriage and a series of political means.

Although he might seem like just a baron, if his network connected seven or eight nearby barons as relatives, the influence and power he could wield could even surpass that of a count, which was a common phenomenon in Victor's noble circles.

The Adams baron in front of Perfikot was such a baron.

The Adams family had been a baron family since the establishment of the Victor kingdom, with a long history and marital ties with many noble lineages of the Empire, considered a backbone in the Empire's noble class.

However, the Adams family did not have significant political achievements and did not even seek a seat in the Noble Council.

Most of the family's bloodline lived a quite traditional noble life on their family fief, not embracing the so-called 'modern civilization' after industrialization.

There were even rumors claiming that the descendants of their family still lived in a lifestyle from two hundred years ago, asserting it was to temper their will and for knight attendant training.

Perfikot did not know how effective this so-called 'training' truly was, but the Adams family indeed had quite a number of knights.

And because of this, the Adams family held certain influence in the military.

After moving to the Northern Territory, the Adams family leveraged this influence to become a member of the Royalist Party, marking their entry into the political arena.

This was also one of the reasons they were able to secure the current factory project, as they were now a backbone force within the Royalist Party, and surely had to be granted some benefits.

However, the Adams baron himself harbored no animosity or opposing sentiments toward Perfikot; on the contrary, he had a profound admiration and respect for Perfikot.

This was because the Adams baron believed that Perfikot's actions truly embodied the conduct of a traditional Victor noble.

They were just liege vassals of their lord, rather than subjects under the emperor's rule.

Nobles should enjoy sufficient autonomy within their fiefs, and this right was sacred and inviolable, and nobles must have the force to guarantee this right. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Perfikot was initially unaware of this, but after understanding the Adams family's political inclination, Perfikot could only say that their family was somewhat overly conservative.