After enduring a life-and-death ordeal, Caesar, with tears still in his eyes, was carried home by Yumilia.
After being comforted for a while, Caesar actually fell asleep, and by the time he woke up again, it was already dusk outside the window.
He slept in his cradle, with the history book beside him, and Yumilia was not there.
Caesar sniffled, his eyes looking up at the ceiling in defiance.
It was too embarrassing, to be chased by a goose.
If word got out, all the Emperor's dignity would be gone!
He harbored resentment for a moment, then focused his attention on the history book beside him.
First, he had to get down to business.
He turned over and lay beside the history book.
He turned back to the chapter on the Empire.
The first line indicated the Empire's years of existence.
"Although I don't expect it to last for thousands of generations, it should at least last two or three hundred years!"
Caesar closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then continued reading.
【The Holy Eldaria Empire (0 AD - 51 AD)】
"51 years...."
Caesar did some mental math.
The year he entered the Returning Source Cocoon was 18 AD, and the Empire only existed for 51 years...
That meant, after he was gone, the country fell in 33 years...
Caesar fell silent.
Suppressing the feeling of loss in his heart, he continued reading.
The following sections described the rise of the Eldaria Kingdom, its expeditions, and various policies after unification.
Most of it was similar to what he knew, but between the lines, there was an air of arrogance from a later observer, commenting on the Empire's various actions with great insight, giving the impression of "If I were the Emperor, I definitely wouldn't have done this or that, and I would have done this or that instead."
This made Caesar, as the person involved, quite displeased.
For example, it mentioned a policy of Lien's to abolish the slave status of tens of thousands of Beastmen.
At that time, because Beastmen had low cultural levels and most tribes were uncivilized, coupled with their racial characteristics, they were all excellent laborers. Therefore, after conquering a tribe, various races would sell all the Beastmen as slaves.
Initially, to gain the support of the Beastmen tribes, he swore an oath that as long as they submitted to the Empire, all Beastmen slaves in territories the Empire reached would gain freedom.
Later, with the addition of the Beastmen tribes, the expeditionary army achieved continuous victories, capturing the Demon Capital of Gusleding in one fell swoop.
Lien also fulfilled his promise, liberating all Beastmen slaves in Gusleding.
However, the author commented: "In the early days of the Empire's establishment, with everything in ruins, directly abandoning hundreds of thousands of laborers was extremely unwise. These liberated Beastmen slaves did not participate in the Empire's construction afterward; instead, they resorted to theft and robbery to survive, further exacerbating social chaos."
This statement completely disregarded the situation at the time!
If he had kept tens of thousands of Beastmen slaves, not to mention the moral issues, the expeditionary army had just defeated the Demon Race and was severely weakened. The addition of tens of thousands of Beastmen would directly lead to an imbalance of racial power within the army, making it too easy for the Beastmen to take advantage and rebel.
After careful consideration, he released all the slaves, and through speeches and lobbying, increased the Beastmen's war-weariness, giving travel expenses to those who wanted to return home, and constantly monitoring the movements of the Beastmen army, eliminating internal dissent to prevent any group from thinking of rebellion.
Although it was later proven that these were all groundless fears, as Beastmen tribes had many factions and no sense of belonging to those not of their own tribe, they would not fight for such a cause, Caesar naturally dared not gamble before knowing the outcome.
But the author of this book, when evaluating these strategies, was full of the superiority of a later observer who knows everything, which was truly annoying!
"Li En. Tanding spent thirty years ending thousands of years of warfare, establishing the most extensive kingdom in history. He also created many pioneering things for today, such as the Eight Great Military Disciplines, the household registration system, the commandery and county system, a completely new official system, a talent education program, and the nation's population expanded to an unprecedented six hundred million within a certain period."
"But what was the cost?"
"Heavy taxes and numerous laws did not improve the lives of ordinary people who had escaped war. Forced deforestation and reclamation of wasteland destroyed the ecological environment, causing countless races to abandon their cultural characteristics and be forced to join his so-called unified Empire. Hundreds of thousands of laborers were conscripted to build wonders. We cannot know how many bones are buried beneath the foundations of the Wall of Despair, and how much flesh and blood are mixed into the stacked bricks... And in the end, all this only brought us a wonder building with only tourist sightseeing value."
Caesar was speechless. The earlier points were one thing, but the Wall of Despair was built to resist the Northern Blood Fiends, a race indistinguishable from wild beasts, whose behavior was no different from zombies, feeding on humans, invading southward every year to harm ordinary people, spreading plagues, and reproducing at an extremely fast rate, making several attempts at eradication unsuccessful.
For this, he conscripted hundreds of thousands of people to build a wall thousands of kilometers long, intercepting them in the far north.
But now it was said that the Great Wall only had tourist significance. Did that mean the Blood Fiends had been completely eradicated?
He continued to read.
"Overall, Li En. Tanding was not a capable ruler. The Eldaria Kingdom was built entirely on his pathological pursuit of war, his unprincipled wars of aggression, and his insane pursuit of territory, inadvertently achieving the unification of multiple races.
He tried to build an eternal empire through standardization, centralization, and dehumanization, but fell into the abyss due to a complete disregard for human nature and ethics. His mistakes were by no means accidental ruling errors, but the inevitable madness after power expanded infinitely.
Although he used the pretext of 'for some higher cause' to cover it up, and indeed achieved great historical achievements for his followers: the so-called first unified regime, it still cannot compensate for the surging crimes he committed."
After reading, Caesar only sighed in his heart.
He was not surprised by such an evaluation; he only felt a little disappointed.
Still, the same words: he was prepared to accept all evaluations.
Anyway, he was just a historical figure now, having done all he could. Right or wrong, even if not recognized now, he would naturally receive a fair judgment in the future.
This author was merely stating his own position, why bother getting angry with someone six hundred years his junior?
Thinking of this, he felt a little lighter and continued reading:
"Furthermore, one reason why Eldaria worshipers admire Li En. Tanding is his almost ascetic, romantic love story. They want to use Lien's devotion and lack of indulgence to prove the correctness of his actions and elevate his character, but in my opinion, this is very one-sided.
The public often points to Gleisa, a slave who accompanied Lien, learned to groom horses for him, risked danger to pick herbs to heal his wounds, warmed his bed on cold winter nights, and stayed by his side on the battlefield for over twenty years as an ordinary person, and Lien taking her as his only wife, to demonstrate the greatness of their romantic love.
However, please understand one thing: according to historical records, when they first met, Lien was already twenty-two years old, while Gleisa was only ten years old.
Therefore, I cannot help but suspect our great Emperor Lien's preferences in certain aspects, and his true opinion of Gleisa.
Look, he had an unusually strict discipline for the army, yet under the constraints of military discipline, he allowed a delicate young girl to exist in such a high-pressure military environment, serving him in every way.
Imagine, after a full day of slaughter, Lien, covered in blood, returned to the barracks and saw the young girl waiting for him. Would it be the romantic atmosphere of mutual respect depicted by those who praise love?
What it would be like, I believe I don't need to say more.
And Gleisa becoming the only empress was merely his final step for this pathological love.
In summary, the so-called beautiful and romantic love song in troubled times is merely a fabrication by some foolish people who do not understand human nature, combined with a bit of self-righteous filters. Li En. Tanding's pathological concept of love, I believe, should not be brought up for discussion."
Caesar read it and remained silent for a while, then turned the book to the title page and saw the author's name.
"Wendy Carroll."
He memorized that name in his heart.
He swore he'd kill this son of a bitch when he grew up!
