Rebels

Elizabeth ordered her subordinates to choose the supervisors quickly.

They did as she told, and soon, 1,000 people were chosen.

She had been preparing for this for a while.

She had been hiring qualified commoners for these kinds of jobs since the beginning days when she became the king; she knew she would need them.

She didn't discriminate against nobles; if they were qualified and cared about commoners, she would also hire them. But if they looked down on commoners, she wouldn't hire them.

Her core subordinates were those gathered by her father. Her strongest overall helper has been her father, who has been recommending qualified subordinates. Fortunately, her father is completely aligned with her worldview.

As a result, her core subordinates have been very trustworthy; those they hired are all qualified and aligned with her.

There are far fewer nobles than commoners, so even if she doesn't discriminate against them, she still ends up with subordinates overwhelmingly from commoners.

That is not abnormal by itself; most nobles are like this. What is different for her is their role.

The commoners she hired had high positions, not only simple soldiers.

Other nobles only filled their bottom ranks with commoners, with no way to advance. At most, if they truly liked a commoner, they would grant that person a knight's rank, making them a noble, and then they would promote them.

A knight is the lowest noble rank that lasts as long as the noble who grants it prescribes. It's a time-limited nobility status. Most nobles grant 10-year knighthoods, with some granting 99 years, and some more generous nobles may grant 1,000 years, which means it will be inherited by the most senior child after the death of the original titleholder.

A knight's title can be extremely valuable, even though it doesn't have a fief. In the Blue Blood Kingdom, a title can solve many issues.

Elizabeth sent the 200 people to Marquis Swordland.

As for the remaining 800, Elizabeth plans to send them to supervise many other areas.

As promised, Marquis Swordland added 200 of his supervisors and sent them all to the southern land, along with the 200 sent by Elizabeth.

Of course, they didn't go alone; he also sent 3,000 soldiers as guards. The south is much less safe than the area near the capital, and there is even a big rebel leader there, so they have to be careful.

The supervisors go there first and look at the severity of the situation, then request whatever amount of food is required to fix it.

This is the best way to go about it, as the capital is unaware of how bad the situation is.

The only thing that capital wants from nobles is a certain amount of tax, and nothing else; up to now, there has been no agent from the king in any of the nobles' land. Technically, these 400 are not agents of the king; they are from the chief of the nobles' faction.

The 200 people sent by Elizabeth were mostly men.

Her core subordinates strongly suggested not sending any women. The southern nobles looked down on women, and sending women would defeat the purpose of deterring them from trying to obstruct things.

But, as always, her commitment to equality meant that she hated any gender discrimination. Therefore, she ordered them to only look at qualifications, not gender.

Still, even looking only at qualifications, few women managed to get in because her core subordinates set many harsh physical conditions, such as being able to run x meters in x seconds.

Honestly, they didn't directly use gender, but they may as well have been; everyone knows, in general, women are weaker physically, so setting a high physical bar means women can't compete fairly.

As a result, only a few women with exceptional physical abilities got in.

Elizabeth was conflicted about this.

No matter how much she disliked it, the physical abilities of men and women are different.

Institutions such as the royal army and city guards have physical requirements, which means women would have a harder time entering them.

Still, she didn't order them to lower physical requirements for women. That would be discrimination and defeat the purpose of those institutions.

Why do the army and city guards have physical requirements? Soldiers and guards require at least certain physical power to do their jobs. Allowing less qualified women to enter would lower the quality of those important institutions.

However, she ordered them to lower or remove the physical requirements for positions within the army that didn't need them.

For example, an army physician is responsible for treating people, not fighting, so why would one need a strong physique for this job?

Other positions, such as commanders and captains, also have lower physical requirements. Scenes of commanders fighting on the front lines are mostly limited to fiction; in reality, commanders usually never fight and lead their troops from behind.

In any case, many other institutions are biased toward women.

Girls mature sooner, which means they have an advantage over boys in schools; their grades are nearly always higher than boys. They may have a higher chance of admission into universities.

The difference is apparent among commoners only. Among nobles, boys still have an advantage, as they are educated from birth by their families, while noble girls are not educated on those important topics.

Nobody gets educated on anything among commoners, so boys and girls start from an equal ground. Elizabeth already looked at the preliminary results of the schools; girls indeed have much higher grades.

One reason may be that many boys have outside jobs besides school, while girls usually work at home. This is because the capital is rich; otherwise, girls must also work.

Elizabeth hated it. She believed that childhood is very precious, and forcing children to work was extremely wasteful. That time could have been used for education.

That is a great investment; on average, one educated person is much more productive than one uneducated person.

She plans on trying to fix it. She needs astonishing amounts of money, many schools and teachers, and new laws.

She can pass those new laws by herself, as the royal capital is under her control. But passing those in the whole country would be impossible at the moment.

She can pass a decree and wait for the House of Blue Blood to repeal it, but that is not the right approach. Nobles despised that method, and they would do everything to disrupt her.

She has plans and infinite time to implement them, so she is not worried.

…

Lara sat in her tent along with a few colleagues.

She is one of the 18 women who were chosen as supervisors.

Looking at her figure, it is not surprising that she passed the physical test. She is 1.9 meters tall and has a quite muscular, not-so-feminine figure.

She was working in a blacksmith shop before coming here.

Her father was a famous blacksmith who let her work as a blacksmith long before Elizabeth passed her decrees. It can be seen her father was quite open-minded.

Lara is grateful to her father.

He also taught her how to read and bought many books for her. Blacksmiths are quite rich, especially if they get famous, so Lara never had a problem eating.

A few months ago, some people claiming to be subordinates to the queen came and looked for 'supervisors.' They tested her physically, intellectually, and knowledge-wise.

She passed all of them.

As a result, she was hired and sent as a supervisor to the southern lands.

Her father was against it, as the South is dangerous, but she was excited.

The potential of this job was immense; if she could become a subordinate to the king, she could one day become a big shot in the kingdom. Before, this road was closed to women, but now, it is wide open.

She joined. Now, after 2 months on the road, she is halfway there and resting in a tent.

…

Tents are gender-segregated, so all five people present are women with strong physiques.

Elizabeth is generally opposed to gender discrimination at any level. If it were her, she probably wouldn't have segregated the tents by gender.

She is quite radical about it.

However, her subordinates had more common sense in this area, so the one in charge of this group ordered women and men to be placed in different tents.

That was for their own comfort.

It is common sense that allowing a man in a group of women would make the women unable to be completely comfortable, like having whatever clothes they want.

That is true for this medieval kingdom; as for what modern cultures are, who knows.

The opposite is true for men too; allowing a woman in a group of men would be disruptive.

As a result, the chief supervisor, James, segregated them.

Looking at her four colleagues, Lara frowned.

None was talking; everyone looked stone-faced. Obviously, none of these people were social people who broke the ice in such a situation.

Unfortunately, Lara also was not such a person either. So, while laughter sounded from the nearby tent, the five just lay down and rested without saying a word.

…

Lara woke up.

There were sounds of metal clashing from far away.

"What is that?" she looked out for someone to ask.

She didn't dare go out. It was pitch black. Obviously, the guards intentionally put out the fire.

"Someone attacked!" she thought.

It was not difficult to realize this.

The other four also woke up and finally started talking among themselves.

"Don't worry! We have 3,000 soldiers from the elite of the national army with us! No bandit can defeat us!"

"Why did they attack despite knowing we have that many guards?"

"Maybe they were idiot bandits who didn't know better?"

Lara said, "Maybe they thought we were an invading army?"

Everyone went quiet.

This was the most probable.

Who thinks an army of 3,000 is just for guarding the supervisors?

"That means the attackers are the rebels!" Everyone trembled!

Bandits are one thing, rebels are another.

Their cruel nature is known to all.

It is said that rebels have killed some nobles and occupied their lands. They have armies tens of thousands strong! If it is rebels, they are in danger.

…

Soon, the sun came out.

The metal clashing sounds had stopped a while ago.

Lara saw guards walking slowly. It means the situation is no longer urgent.

Looking out, Lara saw a familiar face. It was a man with a short brown beard and quite tall. Of course, compared to her, he was shorter.

He was the chief of supervisors in this group. He shouted, "Get ready! We are moving back to the royal capital!"

Lara was extremely surprised! They were supposed to go to the southern nobles, but they decided to head back after the attack.

What does that mean? It means the 3,000 guards may not be enough!

…

James was quite worried.

He was the leader of this group of supervisors and also the leader of the soldiers.

Last night, a group of 1,000 rebels attacked the camp. The guards defeated them but found astonishing news.

On the way to the southern nobles, they must pass through the land of Count Highlands.

But after interrogating some of the rebels, they discovered that the count had defected to them!

If that is true, the situation would be extremely dangerous. A count would have armies of tens or even hundreds of thousands.

If the count really defected, returning this news to the royal capital is the most important thing. He already sent a few people with horses to deliver the news.

They must also get back. Who knows how many other nobles defected?

He doesn't understand how such news never reached the royal capital.

How is it even possible for a count to defect without anyone knowing?

James had other options, like asking for help from other local nobles.

But, they didn't; he could trust them either.

It's best to return to the royal capital first, then think of another route.

In any case, the situation of feeding children is no longer urgent, as the most important matter now is suppressing the rebels.

Even though rebels have always existed, there has rarely been a count defecting to them.

James isn't completely sure that the count really defected, but with his 3,000, he doesn't dare investigate.

In any event, now, they are on the border of the count highlands and viscount highland's fiefs.

That means, at least, they allow rebels to inhibit their lands or send rebels to attack them.

James doesn't believe rebels can be on a count as strong as the Highlands family's land without their knowledge.

Nobles of the highlands family control all of the surrounding areas.

The one thing he doesn't understand is why only 1,000 people attacked them.

Just as when he was thinking of this, a guard came running, shouting, "Commander! We are surrounded in all directions!"