Lioncrest's movements didn't just stay behind closed doors. As soon as Ironhold Kingdom was liberated from the Vikings, and their King was arrested on charges of being a pedophile instead of conspiring with the Vikings as people assumed, the word quickly spread throughout the continent like a forest on fire.
On the one hand, people criticised Henry and his Kingdom for meddling in the affairs of other Kingdoms, but on the other hand, some praised his dedication to keeping the royalty and nobility in check.
But Lioncrest isn't the only one at the center of murmurs and rumors. Umber Kingdom had just declared war against Lioncrest, offering an alliance with the High King of the North.
According to Henry's spies, Umber Kingdom had just arranged for 700 warships to depart this afternoon the moment the defeat of the Vikings stationed in Cinder Kingdom was announced to the world.
Mind you, each warship can hold around 200 men. That's more than a hundred thousand men deployed to sail towards the Central Lands.
Unfortunately for them, they would be met with disappointment and frustration as Elsa and Ariel had just recently finished barricading the ocean between the Western and Central Lands.
Unless they have a powerhouse akin to Master Elias's level, they wouldn't be able to sail past the Great Wall of Lioncrest.
Meanwhile, there has been no movement yet from the Xingdu Dynasty, but there have been rumors that the blacksmiths are being forced to take hundreds of orders for their imperial monarch.
Honestly, Henry is more wary of the Xingdu Dynasty compared to the Umber Kingdom or the High King of the North.
Because unlike the latter two, the Xingdu Dynasty is in possession of something extremely dangerous especially in this current age.
The huǒyào or what Henry recognized as the infamous Gunpowder. Fortunately, as of now, they're still using gunpowders as part of their medicine and it is also serving as their entertainment for their fireworks and firecrackers.
However, there have been reports of new weapons being developed, real fire-breathing dragons, they say. This was enough of a rumor that Henry needed to realize that perhaps guns and rockets aren't that far in the future.
Either he let its development proceed as natural or he do what he could to prevent it. The invention of guns would destroy all strategy, training, and everything that medieval kingdoms used to stand for, ushering in an era where you wouldn't even realize that you were already dead.
"It's inevitable…" Henry sighed in defeat, "There's only one thing I can do at this point. I control where and when it would be released, which means I need to put the Xingdu Dynasty down and take the entire continent under Lioncrest."
At least that way, Henry would personally oversee the use of gunpowders as lethal weapons and he could delay it for as long as possible.
Giving him ample time to prepare the world for a new era.
"What's our next move, Your Grace? Our spies just told us that the High King has sent a large bulk of their Vikings to march to our lands and with the Umbers sailing with their ships, I suggest we fully engage in this war. Hundreds of thousands of men are under your command. Release the order and we'll push back these invaders!" General Darius slammed his fist on the table, showing his dedication to protect the interests of this Kingdom.
Henry sat behind the table with a calm expression, he raised his hand just before General Darius could add another angry comment, "Just pushing them out of our lands wouldn't do, General. If we do, they'll just come back stronger and more feral than before. I think it's time to take this entire continent under our control."
As soon as he finished his words, every single person in the war room blinked their eyes in disbelief.
The next second, a heated discussion broke out across the room, people like General Darius couldn't help but grin in delight, instantly giving the green light of approval.
On the other hand, his advisors quickly attempted to change his mind, "Your Grace, please allow me to be blunt but it is simply impossible to…to conquer the entire continent. The sheer size and people to manage are too much for a single person like you, no offense."
"Ludwig is right, Your Grace. Engaging in war is one thing but conquering an entire continent? I'm sorry to say this but it would be impossible."
"Not just the resources but we're talking about discontent among millions of people. Taking over the continent wouldn't last a month before an uprising attempts to overthrow your rule."
"I agree with you, Your Grace. It's time Lioncrest finally steps up and shows the world our might!"
"But the logic is—"
"Logic? What logic? We have people like Master Elias and Your Majesty. Just one of them alone is enough to take over an entire Kingdom by themselves!"
"You don't understand, you brute!"
While the knights and generals were hurling insults towards the wise-minded advisors who kept defending their logic, Henry simply watched them all in silence.
Eventually, one of them noticed his silent stare and went quiet. Another noticed and did the same, until everyone in the room was finally quiet.
"Y-Your Grace?"
"You all kept jumping to conclusions without waiting for me to explain. If you let me finish earlier, you wouldn't have wasted 30 minutes arguing with each other."
They all bowed their heads down in shame, realizing their mistakes. Henry then proceeded to continue where he was cut off.
"I didn't say anything about directly conquering the continent. The plan is to be discreet, to conquer them from behind the scenes."
"Behind the scenes?"
"How can one secretly conquer the world?"
Henry smiled at their confusion, "Ladies and gentlemen. Allow me to introduce Democracy, Central Bank, and Political Dynasties." He slammed a head-thick stack of paper on the table, catching everyone's eyes.
"Democracy?"
"Central Bank?"
"Political Dynasties?"
"We don't need a direct influence over each Great Kingdom. What we need is to secretly change how their system works. But before we can do all that, we need to access the black market. We need to gather every blackmail material we can get our hands on for every single noble in the continent, preferably we secretly take control of the black market."
"And use it to blackmail them?" One advisor asked as the stack of papers started to get distributed across the table.
"Yes but not immediately. First, we need to give the power to their people. Democracy is simple. Every single citizen will now vote for who they want to be their King, giving every noble, merchant, even a beggar on the streets, a chance to ascend to power. But of course I don't expect things to be simple so this stack of papers is my entire plan. Let me summarize it to some of you."
Henry leaned forward, "The first and hardest part is letting our enemies change their system from feudal monarchy to democracy. Leave this part to me, I can handle it myself." His confident words made them naturally accept it as it was.
Though some of them were curious as to how Henry would pull it off, they trusted their King enough not to ask questions.
As for Henry, his plan is simple for it is simple. He will establish a secret organization that only he and a few certain people know. This organization's purpose is simple: to infiltrate the ranks of nobility in each Great Kingdom, replace existing nobles, and use them to slowly push for Democracy.
To make the transition much smoother, Henry will apply the peer-pressure strategy. Once the common people start to realize the works of Democracy and how it benefits them greatly, they will be pushed to start an uprising against their rulers to change their ruling system.
To make this truly work, Henry will first use a small existing Kingdom as a testing ground. A Kingdom with the worst and borderline-dictatorial ruler and he had already set his eyes on Cinder Kingdom, which was just recently besieged and successfully taken over by General Liam and his troops.
By manipulating events behind the scenes, spreading rumors and such, the people of Cinder Kingdom will soon start revolting for a change, a change where they, as the citizens of Cinder Kingdom, get the right to choose their own leader.
That will then spread around like wildfire. When people of other Kingdoms noticed that the people of Cinder Kingdom held such power to choose their leader whereas each candidate, especially those who belonged to the nobles, was doing everything to appease the common people in exchange for their support, the common folk would envy them.
And envy breeds conflict, and conflict breeds a call for change. It's hard to stop someone who desires to have the same thing, and it's harder to stop several of them, and nearly impossible to stop hundreds of thousands to millions of them combined.
"Once we have successfully established democracy in several Kingdoms, we start a small business that lends gold to coin-strapped nobles and royalty in the form of debt with interest. To earn the support and goodwill of the people, these nobles will obviously spend as much coin as they can for propaganda and campaigns, and that's where our bank comes in. We give them the coin they need to spend, they pay us back with interest once they've accomplished their tasks."
"Debt is a leverage we use as legitimate blackmail material against those who are untouchably squeaky clean."
They all nodded their heads in unison, some already had their eyes widening as they read the paper in their hands while others were still registering his words.
Henry smirked and leaned back on his chair, "And finally, the trapdoor. These people will stop at nothing to claw their way to the throne. And to get that, they need the cleanest and biggest reputation they can build, the very same thing we can use to hold them hostage with the very same people they're trying to get support from would be our most effective weapon against them."
"If they want to remain in power for an indefinite amount of time, they have no choice but to appease us too lest we release the material that destroys the reputation they've painstakingly built for years."
"Once they do manage to sit on that throne with our help, so long as they continue to be under our grip, we will continue to support them or their children for the next election, effectively becoming a political dynasty. They cross us, we release the materials, and replace them with another noble house under the same condition."
"We introduce Democracy, which means we will destroy the stereotype that only people with certain blood in their veins can sit on those thrones."
"Now that the next Great War is brewing, this is the best time to change the system continent-wide at the same time before anyone catches on to our plan. And even if by chance they did, the plan would be too rooted in the ground for anyone to pull out."
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[I know some of you probably skimmed through all that or failed to understand what Henry was trying to pull, it's understandable, I'm just that bad at explaining complicated concepts and things. But I'll try to clarify it through actions and changes throughout the continent.
And some of you might even raise questions regarding loopholes and plot holes or any other holes in his plan, the plan isn't yet fully concrete, it'll get improvements by Henry as time goes on until it becomes foolproof and not something that shoots him in the foot.]