Ch.291Side Story) Who is Sunggoje? (1)

# Today, there are many nations that can be called superpowers. The Russian Federal Republic, which possesses the largest territory and once formed a pillar of the world order; the Eastern Constitutional Empire, which has reigned as a dominant power across three continents for 2,500 years; and Sina, which has the largest population and dominates the world’s low-cost goods market.

However, there can only be one nation that deserves to be called the strongest superpower, the superpower among superpowers. Even the citizens of the other superpowers listed above would not disagree.

That is the Lotharing Empire.

This nation, which inherited the name of the Old Lotharing Kingdom that existed from 400 to 800 CE, has been at the center of countless controversies and incidents since before its birth—that is, since the reign of Duke Philippe the Valiant, who established the Burgundian Independent Duchy, the predecessor of the Lotharing Empire. Philippe, who suddenly declared a war of independence against the Carolingian Kingdom, his former liege lord, claiming that living as someone’s vassal was unmanly, displayed brilliant military tactics, utterly decimating the Carolingian armies, and executed the captured Carolingian nobles without hesitation.

Both by the standards of that era and today, it would have been normal to keep high-ranking enemy prisoners like nobles alive to gain leverage in post-war negotiations, but Philippe did not do so, which naturally provoked tremendous backlash from the Carolingian Kingdom. Some say that one of the captured nobles insulted Philippe, while others claim it was Philippe’s ploy to weaken Carolingian power by eliminating their nobility en masse, but Philippe’s true motives were never properly revealed.

Philippe’s actions shocked the Carolingian Kingdom and the Holy Empire, where noble rule was considered the natural order of the world, resulting in decades of constant opposition that caused the Burgundian Duchy to wither. Had his grandson not appeared, had his grandson not been adopted into the Burgundian family, had his grandson not inherited the Burgundian ducal title, Philippe would have remained just another short-sighted monarch commonly found throughout history.

Many readers who revere Philippe as the Knight King might be angered by this assessment, but unfortunately, this view dominates academic opinion. Although his strong military development greatly benefited his grandson, the fact that he neglected the welfare of Burgundy’s people, failed to improve relations with neighboring countries and vassals, and focused solely on building up the military is difficult for anyone to view positively.

The reason he is regarded today as a valiant and gallant Knight King is purely due to his grandson, the Sublime Emperor, who used the military—Philippe’s only legacy—to launch various conquests. I can assert that Philippe is one of the individuals who benefited most from the Sublime Emperor’s existence.

Who was Sublime Emperor Claude I?

The greatest figure produced by Lotharing, bearer of the most popular name in Lotharing, and one of history’s most remarkable individuals, he received generally favorable evaluations today. However, at the time of his accession—that is, when he became Duke of Burgundy rather than Emperor—his reputation was extremely poor.

Because he was a bastard.

Today, a bastard refers to a child born outside the law, but in the past, “outside the law” referred not to human law but to divine law, meaning a child born without God’s permission. After the reign of the Sublime Emperor, when religious influence had significantly weakened, this was no longer the case, but at that time, religious beliefs literally ruled the world, imposing a tremendous penalty on the Sublime Emperor due to his illegitimate birth.

Only after the Sublime Emperor achieved various accomplishments to win public support and sent everyone who insulted him as a bastard to the guillotine did the practice of openly disparaging him as a bastard disappear. Of course, this didn’t prevent neighboring Albion or the Holy Empire from continuing their insults.

Certainly, being born a bastard wasn’t the only reason for the Sublime Emperor’s poor reputation. The controversial succession was another factor.

From the time of his accession as Duke of Burgundy—not as Emperor—rumors followed the Sublime Emperor that he had massacred the Burgundian ducal family and usurped the ducal title. Even in modern times, opinions occasionally surface suggesting that the Sublime Emperor, who was fond of assassination, might have massacred the Burgundian ducal family. How much worse must it have been for people who lived through those events? Moreover, given the social context of the time where bastards, even if adopted, were considered outsiders to the family, this led the Carolingian Kingdom, which had long coveted the Burgundian Duchy, and his two uncles, who could not accept a bastard’s succession, to resort to force.

However, the Sublime Emperor defeated all these threats. Neglecting all other domestic and foreign affairs, he utilized Philippe’s legacy of strengthened military power to defeat the Carolingian forces head-on and dealt with his two uncles’ rebellion through his specialty: assassination. Having ascended to power through the extraordinary event of the ducal family’s annihilation, the Sublime Emperor demonstrated that his abilities were equally extraordinary.

Yet neighboring monarchs misjudged the Sublime Emperor’s achievements despite his accomplishments. To these noble and authoritative rulers, he was merely a fleeting bastard upstart.

This misjudgment provided the Sublime Emperor with an environment where he could freely exercise his abilities, and he took maximum advantage of this to develop the Burgundian Duchy. The various administrative and social reforms implemented by the Sublime Emperor enabled Burgundy to utilize 100% of its national power, and using this strengthened power, he pressured the Holy Empire, which was engaged in a crusade, to cede the Lotharing crown. Thus, a bastard who wasn’t even listed in the family register suddenly became king.

Of course, readers of this column know that the Sublime Emperor would not stop at merely being a king, but at that time, this alone was an enormous shock. A bastard not even registered in the family records suddenly became a duke and then, within a few years, a king? This steep social ascent, similar to a dragon soaring into the sky, became the basis for various literary works and legends, naturally improving the Sublime Emperor’s image among the common people. The nobility, however, continued to look down on him for his lowly origins, but before long, the Sublime Emperor secured a position where he could ignore all other nobles.

This was due to the Carolingian Succession War, or more precisely, due to a new weapon that appeared during this war: gunpowder.

How the Sublime Emperor learned the method of manufacturing gunpowder, which was previously used only in the Eastern Empire and beyond, remains a mystery, but it is an undeniable fact that he was the first to introduce gunpowder to Lotharing. The Sublime Emperor used various gunpowder weapons, including bronze cannons, to achieve an overwhelming victory in the Carolingian Succession War, which brought him tremendous authority. Even the nobles who had previously looked down on him began to tread carefully.

Of course, the Sublime Emperor’s absolute position within Lotharing wasn’t secured by authority alone.

While the numerous assassinations he had carried out during and before the Carolingian Succession War certainly instilled fear in the nobles’ minds, the most important factor was his monopoly on force.

With the advent of gunpowder, the Sublime Emperor suddenly possessed enough power to demolish castles, which he used to intimidate domestic nobles while simultaneously kidnapping them to strip them of their private armies. To nobles who lived by appearances, procedures, and dignity, such actions by the Sublime Emperor were so heinous as to be considered barbaric, uncivilized, and cruel, but the Sublime Emperor, who regarded all existing cultural practices as mere ceremony, simply laughed off their attitudes. This was despite the fact that many of these nobles had been sincerely loyal to him.

Imagine if someone with the Sublime Emperor’s personality were your superior at work—a boss who views subordinates as expendable and is willing to sacrifice them at any time for his own power and achievements.

Wouldn’t that make your skin crawl? No matter how difficult the job market, you’d probably want to move to a different workplace.

But the nobles, shackled to their domains, couldn’t do that. Having lost their private armies and with their governing authority over their domains fragmented, all that remained for these nobles was to obey the words of their tyrannical boss and pick up whatever scraps he left behind.

However, this turned out to be a great blessing for the common people and for later generations of Lotharing citizens reading this column.

For the nobles were not innocent employees but tyrants who wielded extralegal authority and ruled over the people, while the “tyrannical boss” was a great and benevolent ruler who transcended time and history.

Dijon Monthly: Who Was the Sublime Emperor? (1/3)