The fortress castle room was much more spacious than the town office. Tall cabinets occupied both the left and right walls, their edges inlaid with gilded metal trim, filled with all kinds of books. From anecdotal epics to historical travelogues, they had everything. To facilitate access to the books on the top shelf, a wooden ladder was placed beside the cabinet.

Probably for security reasons, the only window in the room was only half a person's height and had iron bars installed on the outside. When light shone into the room from outside, a narrow beam of light could be clearly seen sprinkling on the old velvet carpet, giving it a sense of being isolated from the world.

If it were Anna, she would definitely like this place, Roland couldn't help but think, but for him, he still preferred the town office with floor-to-ceiling windows and a room that was always bright. Even though it was small, it was full of comfort.

As for Nightingale, the way she often leaned against the fireplace dozing off showed how much she disliked this place.

At this moment, there was a knock on the door outside.

"Come in," Roland put the "Secret History of the Western Region" back into the cabinet.

"Your Highness," Barovs Hermon walked into the room and placed a stack of white paper on the table, "The statistics you asked me to do have been completed."

Roland returned to the table and carefully looked through the list of nobles that he handed over. "These are all the remaining nobles in the Western Region, right?"

"Yes," Barovs explained briefly, "I divided them into two categories: guilty and innocent, and then sorted them by family name. There are a total of sixty-four guilty nobles, and one hundred and thirty-seven who refused to participate in the rebellion or were completely unaware of it. The latter are mostly free knights, knights, and small nobles."

Roland opened the first page of the list. Listed at the top was Earl of Maple Leaf, Roman Candy. According to Iron Axe's report, this great nobleman hid in a wine barrel in the basement after the mansion was breached. When the First Army soldiers found him, his pants were wet with fear. He was also the highest-ranking rebel captured in this war of unification.

The next whole page was filled with the Maple Leaf family's nobles, such as two sons, other relatives, and knights enfeoffed to them.

Roland quickly flipped to the end, then folded the statistical table with satisfaction. "Well done."

In general, the six major families of the Western Region had become history—the Lion, Maple Leaf, Running Wolf, and Wild Rose families could no longer have a chance to turn over. Although Honeysuckle and Elk survived, they were no longer feudal nobles in the past sense. All the power in the Western Region would belong to him alone.

"Your Highness..." Barovs hesitated for a moment before saying, "The guilty and innocent rulings on the list were all provided to me by Mr. Iron Axe. Could there be... a misjudgment?"

Roland couldn't help but chuckle twice. "He is very good at interrogation, and he didn't use torture, so I think the final verdict can still be believed."

In fact, this was just a pretense. After all the captured nobles were imprisoned in the dungeon, Nightingale was responsible for identifying them all—by asking a few simple questions, she could clearly determine whether the other party had participated in the rebellion. This was also the reason why Roland dared to clean up the nobles so heavily. With Nightingale's assistance, he could truly ensure that no bad person was let go, and no good person was wronged. He neither played the game of implicating relatives, nor pretended to be enlightened and let the troublemakers go.

"Then... what do you plan to do with these guilty nobles?"

"What's wrong," Roland looked up and glanced at Barovs, "Are there any of your friends in there?"

"No, Your Highness," the latter shook his head, "I just think that if you execute them all, it may be detrimental to your future rule."

"You demanded blood for blood a week ago," the prince raised his eyebrows with interest, "Now you want to let them go?"

"I really want these people to go to hell, but even if I personally strangle them one by one, I can't save anything... Instead, it may arouse other nobles' resentment towards Honeysuckle. Moreover, if the reputation of executing nobles on a large scale spreads, other cities may also set off a wave of opposition to your rule."

Hearing these words, Roland was quite surprised. This kind of thinking was indeed the way of thinking of a mature politician, setting aside personal emotions and measuring interests more... It seemed that this change had not made him more disgusted with fighting, but had made him mature.

"It's okay to tell you in advance," he stood up and walked to the small window, "I will announce the whole story to everyone, and then publicly sentence all the rebels in the square, including nobles, guards, attendants, and mercenaries... The chief culprits, that is, the direct instigators of the rebellion, and the evildoers who have blood of the people on their hands, will be sentenced to hanging, while accomplices will be deprived of their titles and sent to the North Slope mines for labor reform."

"According to this disposal method, only five or six nobles will be hanged. Earl of Elk and Viscount Running Wolf have already died on the battlefield on the spot, and the rest are equivalent to saving a life with their titles. After the news spreads, I don't think anyone will think that this sentence is too harsh—after all, betraying the royal family is a serious crime in itself."

Barovs breathed a sigh of relief, "Your Highness is benevolent."

After the eldest son of the Honeysuckle family left, Roland felt an unprecedented sense of fulfillment.

This operation completely cleared the obstacles for him to integrate the Western Region. In the future, whether it is formulating laws or promulgating policies, it will be unimpeded on this vast land.

More importantly, he has gained the support of a large number of people and nobles - after removing the opponents, the rest are naturally potential supporters.

Especially the nobles - after losing the power of enfeoffment and the power of the territorial legal system, if they want to live a comfortable life, they must closely follow his policies and spare no effort to promote them. Since the resources in the hands of the nobles are far more than those of the common people, as long as they use their brains a little, it is not difficult to obtain benefits from them.

And once they taste the sweetness, they will never want to go back to the kind of hard life they used to live - after all, these small nobles have not enjoyed much of the benefits brought to them by the territory. If the operation is not good, they have to pay for it themselves. Soon they will realize that they can easily live a life they never imagined before, as long as they play chess according to the rules.

There is no doubt that the city construction plan has taken another big step forward.

Roland wiped off the condensed water on the window and looked out through the blurred window at the city shrouded in皑皑白雪 - since he was going to stay here for a while, and he would often come to Longsong Fortress to handle government affairs in the future, he might as well transform this room into an office exclusively for the prince according to his own preferences.

For example... start with floor-to-ceiling windows. (。)