Swiss Arms-Chapter 140

Swiss Arms-Chapter 140

Swiss Arms
Chapter 140
-VB-
Henry of Bohemia
Weeks passed.
Votes came in and failed.
It was obvious that there were other factions who wanted their own candidates to succeed and neither party had managed to convince the other. Or come to him and Rudolf for their votes.
'Probably because neither candidate is what we want.'
Worse for them, the Dukes of Saxony weren't keen on seeing someone try to wage war on his neighboring fief, either. He'd confirmed as much when they dined together a week ago.
"So you aren't in support of House Luxembourg," Henry asked.
"No," Eric I von Ascania, the older of the two Saxon dukes, said. Though he and his brother ruled over the Duchy of Saux-Lauenberg rather than the whole duchy, these two had been the ones to come because all other dukes of House of Ascania were currently unavailable. "In fact, this is something all of Ascania - my brothers in Saxony and relatives in Brandenburg - agree on. We cannot have Luxembourg gaining Bohemia. Their current alliance with House Wettin would mean that our southern borders would be completely covered, and due to historical marriage ties, if they have the means to come after you, then they can do the same after us. We are in the same boat with you, though you might not have known."
"I see. Then that is four votes already against Henry."
"Indeed. As long as we hold the line, House of Luxembourg won't become the new emperor." A pause. "However, that leaves us with a problem."
"Who the new emperor should be."
"Indeed," the younger man sighed. "If we choose someone inept, then they will ruin the empire or set it down a path of decline. If we choose someone too competent, then they will inevitably seek to curb our powers."
That was the natural path. An emperor sought to consolidate while the electors and lesser nobles all sought to retain independence.
"Then we need someone who is neither inept nor too competent yet not overly ambitious and fiercely protective of the empire."
Unfortunately, such a person didn't exist, or if they did, then they never heard about them
.
Because of this, the election had been stalled. With only two votes for Count Henry of Luxembourg and five votes abstaining, no emperors were chosen.
In a way, this was perfectly fine with Henry of Bohemia. There was no overarching crisis at hand throughout the empire nor was there a general instability that needed to be solved which could only be handled by the authority of an emperor.
Normally, in a situation like this, this lack of a consensus would have resulted in the former emperor's heir getting the title and the crown.
However
.
Such a move was currently strictly against the former emperor's agreement with the pope in which the former agreed to not have his heir be crowned the emperor. The current head of the Habsburgs and the heir of the former emperor, Rudolf the Duke of Austria and Styria, was also an overly ambitious man who wanted Henry's Bohemian lands.
He sat quietly in the rented manor's study as he thought about the situation.
But then Henry had an idea.
Why not give it to someone who might be ambitious but lacked the strength to follow through?
He just needed to convince the duke of Upper Bavaria and the Ascanians.
Ascanians weren't content with what they had, but they weren't his enemies, so crowning them an emperor will definitely get him some nice favors.
Oh, and he should send a letter to all of his family members so that they know what to expect.
-VB-
After weeks of bickering with each other over every single detail and candidate brought forward, a coalition of four electors (Bavaria, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Bohemia) finally brought forth their own candidate and voted him to be the newest emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
And thus Emperor Albert III, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, came to be.
Alas, he would travel down to Italy to be crowned by the Pope and found himself rather enamored by the Italian ladies to return home to the empire.
He would catch some sort of a disease and die ignominiously on top of a stained, dirtied, and shit-covered toilet. According to some of the squires who had been with the emperor's convoy, he did
not
make it to the toilet before he started shitting himself to death.
Because of this, the last city he visited, Ferrara, came under a significant amount of scrutiny not just from the empire and their neighbors but also the pope.
-an account of Degenhard von Hellenstein, Prince-Bishop of Augsburg (1309)
-VB-
Hans von Fluelaberg
I looked down at the diagram in front of me.
Right now, agriculture was still my main problem that I was trying to solve, and I'd done some thinking. One of those thoughts involved how heat tended to gather in any place that was shaped like a bowl.
And I wondered if I could make that happen with the land itself.
Terrace farming was not going to work well in
my
valley because the slopes weren't dirt but rock and ice.
But.
The Landwasser Valley that Davos was in was large enough with enough gentle incline at the bottom and higher inclines towards the edges to make what I called "cauldron terrace" work.
Like its name suggested, I would be utilizing something called the "cauldron effect," the bowl-shaped heat retention I talked about. Hopefully, it will produce enough heat so that plants can grow even deep into fall.
What I didn't know was how I would retain the heat. Metal would be too expensive. Mirrors were even
more
expensive. Soil itself wasn't going to be enough.
I sighed and left my study.
I decided to take a walk down the streets of Fluelaberg. I watched the people going about their lives, though most of them stopped even momentarily to bow (from the newer migrants) and wave (from the older migrants).
Then I noticed something.
There was an old woman selling some kind of a pouch. I walked over to her and watched as she did her business.
"Sorry, what's that for?" I asked her
The old lady smiled. "It's for the cold. All you have to do is heat up a flat round stone and then drop it in the pocket."
I blinked.
I stared at the pocket.
And slowly, I realized something I needed about my cauldron terrace. The only terrace farms that I knew of were Southeast Asian because that's just what I knew from my past life. In those farms, all of the walls were made out of packed dirt.
So I never thought about using stones in terrace farming
.
But stone can
retain heat
!
What would happen if I were to build the terrace walls out of stone? And instead of following along the terrain, what if I built a bowl shape out of the terraces, built the walls up with stone, and the stones would absorb and radiate heat.
If I did it correctly, then I might even be able to extend the planting and growing seasons by as much as a month or two!
I reached into my pocket and gave the old lady a silver gulden. "Thank you."
"With what, milord?" she asked, slightly flabbergasted. She would be, considering that she had been selling those pockets at just six pfennigs a piece.
"You helped me figure something out."
Then I quickly left to design it.
Once the designing was done, then I can prototype it! Wait, I needed to find the locations that would be best suited for it, too.
And if the prototype did half as well as it could, then I would implement it
everywhere
!
I might have just mitigated the food problem, if not outright solve it!

Chapter 140