The meeting

After having a breakfast together with his annoying Catalina and his sister, Virtya was guided towards the meeting room by two knights by his side.

One should know that the palace was a building of only two storeys high and both the throne room and the meeting room were in the ground floor while the dining room was on the top floor.

In this meeting, both Catalina and his sister would not be attending but Virtya was only having a discussion with the invited dukes and the ministers who had also attended.

The meeting room had two long tables inscribed with the royal insignia and chairs were placed around these two tables.

Clearly, more than a hundred chairs could fit beside the long tables while Virtya's seat was facing the two tables so that all the occupants of the chairs in the meeting could see him clearly. Behind Virtya's seat, a painting that depicted him and his sister could be seen.

On this day, almost all the chairs in the meeting were occupied and the occupants were murmuring, talking in a low voice to each other while waiting for Virtya to arrive.

"What could be the thing that made the king to call all of us to this meeting? Has our neighboring kingdoms finally decided to make a move on our kingdom?"

"I heard that the king did not just sent those letters to us alone, he has sent other letters to the rest of the dukes that are not here and his powerful friends from afar."

"I knew the war will come upon us someday but I didn't knew it would come this earlier, what do you think Mr Merchison? Should we escape with our forces? This is not a war that we should engage in, all our neighbors are powerful and we can not compete with them. It is a loosing battle."

"Guys... I heard that the king is planning to sell this kingdom to king Brisbois just because of that little girl. This is crazy..."

"SILENCE!" Alexandre banged his fist onto the table thus silencing the low murmurs. He didn't like the way these despicable dukes were disdaining the king, if not that the king needed them and he could not just uproot them because of how weak the kingdom was, Alexandre would have already acted by severing the heads of some of them. One should know that Alexandre was a 17 years old teenager but his robust body made it look like he was a mature man.

"King Virtya is here. Everyone rise up in the presence of the king!" Tanya's beautiful voice was heard as she matched towards her seat which was closer to Virtya's. Opposite Tanya's seat sat Alexandre.

No one dared to defy Tanya's orders, they shivered as they stood up impassively and firm.

"Long live your Eminence! Long live your Eminence! Long live your Eminence!"

All the attendees beat their chests with their heads lowered as they uttered the catchphrase.

Slowly by slowly, Virtya walked towards his chair and sat down.

"You can sit down." Virtya said expressionlessly.

Virtya darted a glance in the whole meeting room and then nodded his head. All the needed individuals had shown up already, so it was time to start the meeting.

In the throne room, there were only six dukes who turned up because their territories were nearest to the capital and as for the other dukes, their territories were quite or very far away from the capital in that they would need some days or months to reach to the capital, however, Virtya was on the race and he could not wait for the ones who were not here.

Virtya had already sent the messengers to deliver his message to those dukes who didn't manage to turn up but there would not be a second meeting of him with the dukes regarding the same topic, the dukes who didn't manage to be in this meeting will have to be told what to do by the ministry that Virtya was going to allocate to do what was going to be proposed in this meeting.

The six dukes who had attended were Dimitri Babin who was the duke of Weskesh, Merchison Kuznetsov who was the duke of Whilona, Vikenti Ostrovsky who was the duke of Rotdunn, Sasha Petrov who was the duke of Rotpool, Stas Bensky who was the duke of Mudrir and Alek Romanoff who was the duke of Lithao.

There were also other officials of the kingdom which included Tanya Belinsky, Vlad Levitsky, Eugene Perrin, Alexandre Daviau and other minor officials

"I called you here hastily because what I want to tell you can not wait any longer." When the people who were in the meeting heard this, their shoulders fell as they thought that just as they had predicted, this was going to be a call for  war.

Phew! Virtya took in a deep breath as he could clearly tell what was going on in their minds, so before their minds could wander away even further, he continued,

"I want to form three more ministries under my rule, these ministries will only be partaking and controlling the departments assigned to them. The head of these ministries will have more power than the dukes. And what are the ministries that I want to create, these are agriculture ministry, manufacturing and industrialization ministry and education ministry. The purpose of these ministries is to help me with the duties regarding the said departments so that this kingdom could be pushed to greater heights." 

Silence! 

Everyone's jaws fell to the floor, what they had just heard was not what they had anticipated. They didn't even found any word to add on what Virtya had just said because this was not a topic that Virtya usually talked about, so they were caught off guard.

"Impossible! No one can have more power than us, the dukes, except the king. Fuck the ministers! I will eat shit if the ministers became greater than us! Who are they? Useless shit!" Alek Romanoff banged his fists on the table while disregarding the presence of king Virtya. One should know that among the dukes who had attended this meeting, the duke of Lithao was the audacious and ruthless of them all, others might be opposing the king but they wouldn't dare to say it on his face, however, Alek Romanoff was different just because he had the strongest force behind him as compared to the other dukes in Azuhai.

Alek Romanoff looked at his fellow dukes and they all nodded their heads albeit unwillingly. It was only the duke of Weskesh who didn't join them which made Alek to give him a cold stare but Dimitri was indifferent.

"If the great king Virtya doesn't mind me asking, why are these ministries required? The royalty should not be taking part in silly stuffs like agriculture and education, there are people out there who do these things and we have not yet encountered a decrease in supply of these stuffs to force Whiddiff palace to act. Not to mention that only the children of the noble families are the only one who have the privilege to learn, these noble children already have their own tutor whom we are contented with, we don't have to introduce these ministry things for certain." The chubby duke of Whilona chimed in  indignantly. Having some silly administrators who would be more powerful than the dukes was certainly a form of condensation towards them and the chubby duke could not accept that.

"Well, I think you have not walked around the city especially in Polkok district and glanced at the state of the people out there, food is truly a problem in not only Whiddiff city but also the entire Azuhai kingdom. I plan to provide enough food for everyone." Virtya said expressionlessly. The chubby duke was ignorant or he might just be indifferent of the welfare of the peasants because he was rich, he could get anything that he wanted so he thought that investing in agriculture was something downgrading and unbecoming.

Virtya vowed to look into the leadership of the entire Azuhai kingdom, he only wanted to have people who would put the welfare of everyone on the table, a selfish person like this chubby duke was a disgrace. A replacement needed to be done.

Indifferently, Virtya continued, he had decided to disregard these dukes and he would initiate his plan of bringing this kingdom to prosperity even if he was opposed by everyone. Even if it would require to use force, Virtya would do so, so that no obstacle would impede his plans.

After all, it seemed like these dukes had forgotten that he was the king of Azuhai. His predecessor was certainly soft towards them.

'I will take away all the powers of these old men and concentrate it to Whiddiff palace. No one should be allowed to form their forces that is not considered by the Whiddiff palace. That would be a criminal offence. Just you wait.' Virtya declared in his heart. He would not act right now as he needed to stabilize his kingdom first and then fix the problem that he had with these dukes, he was sure they would not like this change but so what!