Berserk, Total War: Second Son of Nobles

After a long discussion with Bishop Sibaldon, the two of them reached the following agreement:

First, the collection of tithes in the West Balden region was stopped.

Second, the land of the church. Except for the land used by the church, the other land will be purchased by the Governor of Midland Forest at 1 gold coin per acre.

Third, the appointment and removal of church clergy requires the approval of not only Bishop Sibalden but also the Governor of the Forest.

Fourth, the salaries of church clergy were paid by the Forest Governor.

After reaching these treaties, John had his own small piece of the pie of interests in the power of the King's Hall. In the future, he would be considered someone who could have a say in the King's Hall, but he was just relatively far away.

After finishing all this, John was about to return to the castle to continue sleeping, but suddenly he heard the sound of a bell not far away. At the same time, a large number of people began to gather there, even street vendors.

John was puzzled and dismounted to stop a man who was heading there and said, "Let me ask you, what does that bell sound mean? Why are you going there? Even if you are going to worship, you are not going in this direction."

After being stopped, the man turned around and saw that it was a Midland soldier. He immediately trembled and was terrified, and could not utter a word for a long time.

The knight next to John then said, "The governor is asking you a question, so tell me what you are doing there."

The man finally understood what John was asking and quickly said, "Sir, we are going to watch the court judge a case. The court is only open on Sundays. If we go too late, we won't be able to find a good place."

In fact, courts exist everywhere. Courts in noble territories are led by nobles, and courts in free cities are led by parliament. All courts make judgments based on national laws.

So John and his group hurried along the way to eat the watermelons. When they arrived at the courthouse, it was already packed with people and there was no room left. There was a group of people selling local snacks and drinks outside. John saw that there was no room left so he could only sit next to them.

Seeing that John, their lord, could not get in, the knights under them also thought of a way out. Suddenly, a knight turned the corner and went straight to the guard of the court. The guard saw a knight in Midlan armor coming over, and hurriedly nodded and bowed to ask. After knowing the whole story, he immediately volunteered to clear the way for John.

John was eating snacks at a nearby food stall. When he heard that there was a vacant seat in the court, he quickly paid and went straight to the court. Guards on the scene immediately drove the crowd away and cleared a path. From time to time, people cursed the guards, saying that they were Midland's running dogs.

"Who said that? Who said that! If you keep talking nonsense here, go directly to the court and experience it. Don't you want to join in the fun? I'll bring you to the stage and let the nobles judge you." The guard didn't waste any words. He stood in front and whipped the crowd with a whip, telling them to shut up. The guard also knew that those who gathered at the door of the court were all ordinary people, and the really rich ones had already paid to go in and watch the show.

When John arrived at the court, the judge and the nobles who came to watch the show stood up to welcome John. John raised his hand in response and chose a place with fewer people to sit. Yes, this place was not full because the tickets were too expensive, 10 gold coins per seat, and the front seats were more expensive, but John could sit anywhere, it was free.

Actually, John came here for another purpose. He wanted to take a look at the procedures of the judicial system in medieval countries. Since they are all countries with the same faith, they should be similar. He could also receive some training in the territory at that time.

In addition to the judge, guards, and jury composed of nobles, the court also has a priest. If someone is sentenced to death, he has the opportunity to ask the priest to say the last prayer before executing the death penalty, which shows humanity.

After the judge announced the opening of the court, the first batch of plaintiffs and defendants were led to their respective seats by the guards. However, John was soon disappointed because the process was too fast. In many cases, the evidence was simply presented and the defendants admitted their guilt. The judge followed the law and directly judged the next person after the first trial. There was basically no defense, as if they had been rehearsed for a long time.

John watched for a long time but found it boring. He yawned and wanted to go back to sleep. Just as he was about to leave, he saw the guard bringing a dozen plaintiffs, both men and women. One of them had red eyes from crying. On the other hand, the defendant next to him was a woman who also had red eyes from crying and was holding a child. Now there was something to watch, so John quickly sat back and watched the show.

First, the plaintiff, the woman, cried when the court was opened and the plaintiff spoke: "Your Honor, you must make a decision for me. I was shopping with my child this morning and that woman snatched my child away without any explanation. Do you think this is possible?"

"Where is the evidence? Is there any witness?" asked the judge.

"We are all witnesses. We saw it all. That woman took the girl's child away without any explanation." The person next to the plaintiff spoke quickly, and several people following behind him also responded.

"Does the defendant have anything to say?" the judge then asked the defendant.

The defendant quickly said, "Your Honor, I am innocent. He framed a good person. It was obvious that she and that group of people stole my child. I cried for help, but they accused me of stealing her child. If you send someone to investigate, you will know. There is someone there who can testify for me."

"Go and take a look, and tell me what happened later." The judge ordered a guard to check it out quickly.

"Follow this guard and see if he goes or not." John said to the knight beside him, because this scene sounded very familiar to him.

Half an hour later, the guard came and gave the judge a testimony from the people at the scene. After reading it, the judge was furious and pointed at the defendant and said, "You vicious woman, you were the first to snatch the child, and you framed others. Human traffickers like you should be brought to justice."

At the same time, John's knight came back and whispered in John's ear: "The guard didn't leave the court too far. He kept circling around, then took out a piece of paper from somewhere and returned to the court."

John understood immediately that this was an organized and premeditated crime. The officials and bandits protected each other and did not allow the victims to speak. Although John could ignore this matter, he had always been disgusted by human traffickers since he was a child, so he was going to deal with this today.

"The jury has now sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment, to be executed immediately!" The judge was about to end the trial. At the moment when the gavel fell, John raised his hand: "I have a question." All eyes were focused on John. John quickly ordered his men to call a team of soldiers to surround the court, and then came to the center of the court under the protection of the knights.

"I think there are problems with this case. I want a retrial." John said this directly without beating around the bush.

"Well, the case has already been judged. If you try to have a new trial, your Excellency, it would be an injustice to the judiciary," the judge said quickly. He didn't understand what this child governor was trying to do.

"I am the law enforcer of this city. I have the power to question every case." John came up with the attitude of a lord, making everyone present feel like they were facing a little devil.

"Let me see the testimony!" John snatched the testimony from the judge. The testimony was written carefully, and one could tell the tones of several people.

"The ink on your testimony dried very quickly..." John handed the testimony to the judge.

The judge also felt that something was wrong with the testimony. Indeed, the ink dried too quickly, so he said, "Then what do you want to do? Should we reopen the trial?"

"Go away and watch me." John asked the judge to sit aside and sat on the judge's chair. Then he said to the plaintiff: "You said this child is yours, so let me ask you, what is the child's name, when was he born, and what is the name of the priest who baptized him."

The female plaintiff quickly said: "The child's name is Hunter. He was born at the end of January. The pastor who baptized him was Father Wall. He has a mole on the left side of his buttocks..." The plaintiff not only told John what he asked, but also some other information.

John whispered to several knights to go to the scene to find witnesses and evidence, as well as Father Wall, and then interrupted her:

"Alright, alright, why are you talking so much? Just answer whatever I ask you. Hey, defendant, what do you say?"

When the defendant heard that there was still hope, he quickly said, "Sir, please help me. I live near Church Road. If you ask around, I'm sure there will be someone willing to testify for me."

John then signaled with his eyes to the knight standing guard in the corridor, and after the knight sneaked away, he said:

"You all sound more reasonable than the other. I feel annoyed just listening to you. How about this, each of you grabs one of the children's hands and starts a tug-of-war. Whoever wins gets it."

After hearing this, the plaintiff said directly: "Sir, I agree. I will also go to tug-of-war for the sake of my child." The defendant was very reluctant when he heard this. John urged him for a long time before he reluctantly agreed. The nobles around him couldn't help but despise him. Did this governor get to power through the back door with his father? How could he be so brainless? There is no such thing as tug-of-war to decide who the child belongs to.

So both sides started tug-of-war over the child. As John started, both sides pulled the child hard. Even though it was two women pulling the child, they were very strong. A baby could not bear it. The sudden pain made the baby cry. Hearing the baby crying, the defendant let go without a second thought and sat on the ground in pain. The plaintiff hugged the child in his arms, but the child was still crying. At this time John almost knew the truth. It felt so right. It was basically an old plot that you could tell by just doing it.

"Let me say this first," John said, "When I say win, I don't mean whoever gets the child wins, but whoever lets go first is the real winner, so the child should be awarded to the defendant." Following John's order, a knight snatched the child from the plaintiff and handed it to the confused defendant.

John then said to the crowd: "You are all famous local nobles. You should have read the Bible to some extent. The Bible says at the beginning that God loves the world. However, the plaintiff agreed to the tug-of-war because he could get the child without caring whether the child would be hurt. Is this loving the child or harming the child?"

Everyone agreed that it made sense. Indeed, if she was really his mother, she would not agree to such a ridiculous bet. They also had a different opinion of John.

At the same time, the two groups of knights also brought their own witnesses. The first one was Father Wall. He knew what happened, so he said directly: "Governor, Ms. Liliana's child was born at the end of January. I baptized her child. You must not believe the rumors of the plaintiff." Next came Liliana's neighbors. After knowing this, the neighbors also understood that the governor wanted them to tell the truth, so they testified for the defendant and accused the plaintiffs at the same time. Finally, the small vendors at the scene of the incident said directly that the plaintiff was a famous local madam who specialized in human trafficking, especially the trafficking of decent women. Those people were also local gangsters. They even threatened them, saying that they had people in the Midland army and local nobles, and if they dared to sue them, they would be put in jail.

The plaintiffs were completely confused by the successive pieces of evidence. They couldn't understand why they had arranged everything well, but it was messed up by this little brat governor. A few smart ones ran to the back door of the court, but were quickly caught by the soldiers surrounding the court and tied up and brought in front of John.

At this point, the plaintiff could only tell the truth. Her boss colluded with some guards in the local court to let women like her kidnap, and then let the guards give false testimony, and then find a group of thugs to serve as witnesses, which usually succeeded. But recently due to the war in Pensai, she stopped doing it. She only continued to do it after her boss talked to the people above Midland. Unexpectedly, the first order failed.

"Very good," John said, and then announced his verdict:

"Burning by the fire, execute immediately!"

This really scared the plaintiffs, because according to the Baldung law, the most they could be sentenced to was life hard labor, and there was no direct death sentence, but rather this kind of burning at the stake.

The priest next to him said quickly: "Governor, burning at the stake is used to punish heretics who have committed religious crimes. This kind of person cannot be burned at the stake."

"I asked you how you read the scriptures. Who in the scriptures would use human lives to gain benefits?" John asked.

"According to the Bible, the devil sacrificed the names of 10 people..." The priest could only reply to John according to what the Bible said.

"This is incredible. Human traffickers make huge profits from human trafficking. What's the difference between this and offering sacrifices to the devil?" John pointed and said, "So, I have very good reasons to believe that the devil has corrupted their souls. Therefore, I can conclude that they are definitely heretics."

The priest was also confused. After reading scriptures for so many years, he didn't know if this was the right sentence. So he looked at the judge. When the judge saw the priest looking at him, he knew how to make a sentence. He could only let John make the sentence and asked someone to notify the bishop to build a stake in the square.

When the plaintiff saw that the judge was really going to do it, she immediately knelt down in front of John and begged him to spare her life.

John thought about it and said, "If you can tell me about your accomplices and your superiors, you can get a certain reduction in your sentence."

When they heard that there was still hope, everyone quickly said they were willing to cooperate with the Governor. So John asked someone to get paper and pen and asked them to write down the names and addresses, and then he went in to arrest the people according to the list.

For a while, the whole Binsey was in chaos because of John's actions. Soldiers were everywhere arresting people. After half a day of arresting, except for a few who were still at large, almost all the people who could be arrested were arrested.

"Hmph... I knew there were nobles backing this place up." John glanced at the list of people. Basically, most of them were nobles, with a small number of businessmen, which could be seen from where they lived. The others were probably gang leaders or something like that. It seemed necessary to build a prison.

John knew that killing only the small fish and shrimp would not be enough to effectively control human trafficking. The biggest ones must be killed without a single one left, and the small fish and shrimp must be put in jail. These criminals must know the consequences of being human traffickers, and only then strict laws can be enacted. Only in this way can human trafficking be reduced to the greatest extent possible.

"Governor, the people on the list have been captured, but some tried to resist and were injured by the soldiers."

"Our soldiers are not injured, right?"

“No, the soldiers are fine.”

"That's fine, take me to see those people."

There was a row of people kneeling in the square, including men, women, young and old. Among them, a fat man was very conspicuous. He was surrounded by a group of spectators. They had all heard about John's trial and wanted to see how John would treat these people.

John sat on the chair, took a look at the list and said, "Which one is Yuston?"

The fat man quickly said, "It's me, the Governor. I think there might be some misunderstanding. I am a law-abiding citizen and would never do such a thing. Governor, please come closer."

John held the hilt of the sword with one hand and approached Euston. He could not bear it if he was hit by him. When he was close to Euston, he said: "I am Count Milo's man. I just paid Count Milo a few days ago and forgot to pay you. I am so sorry. No matter how much you want, I will never default on your payment."

When John heard this, he thought, okay, it’s Count Milo’s old man again, but this time he can’t be allowed to do whatever he wants.

So John returned to his chair and began the trial.

"Youston, you are guilty of human trafficking, heresy, slander, armed rebellion, etc. You are to be burned at the stake immediately!"

After hearing this, Youston broke out in a cold sweat. This was different from what he had expected. He quickly said, "Sir, I... wuwuwuwu." Before he could finish his words, a rag was stuffed into his mouth by the soldiers, and he was carried to the stake, with his legs and waist tied to the stake with thick ropes.

"Execute!" John ordered, and the executioner immediately lit the hay pile under the stake, and the fire instantly spread to the stake.

At the stake, John announced to the residents of Binsay: "I am John, Governor of Midland, your current ruler."