Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon.

Chapter 158 Guardianship of Stormland

Viserys discovered that judgment and reward were actually the biggest problems he faced.

In politics and normal practice, it is always the fastest way to win over one faction and attack another. First establish authority, then slowly try to win over more friends before ruling.

But the problem is that Stannis won this battle almost alone, and there were very few people on his side who made contributions, so there was no one to reward.

But in contrast, there are many people who need to be punished.

The Farings, Floods, Hopes, Songers, Whitewaters, Merrills and others who followed Stannis until death will have their titles, lands and territories stripped away and returned to the king.

In addition, there are people like Lomas Esmond of the House of Esmond. His son Andrew Esmond and several knights chose to die for Stannis. Therefore, even though the earl surrendered, he still had to be dealt with accordingly, including fines, deprivation of some land, and recovery of some knighthoods. Some even suggested that this noble family be demoted to a knight family, just like what Robert did to the Connington family. In addition, the Greenstone Castle of the House of Esmond had been captured by the Golden Group and presented to Viserys.

Another point is that the Estermond family is King Robert's cousin family. It was thanks to the War of the Usurper that they were promoted from a third-tier noble family to a second-tier noble family in Stormlands.

Viserys finally decided to deprive his family of the land and titles granted during Robert's reign, as well as the knights who served Stannis, in the name of the heirs of the House of Estermont rebelling on Stannis' behalf and stubbornly fighting against the king. He also had to pay a large tribute to take back the family castle Greenstone from Viserys - this was not Viserys robbing money, this was based on the ancestral law of Westeros. Their castle had actually been captured by the Golden Group and given to the king, and the king only needed a tribute to return the castle to them, which was an act of honor. Because according to the time, when they surrendered, Greenstone had already been captured, and they were completely exiled nobles who had lost their land when they surrendered.

Correspondingly, the Wilde family of Rainhouse City and the Morrigan family of Crow's Nest City should be treated in the same way.

The most troublesome place is Griffin's Roost, Jon Connington's hometown. Before it was captured, his nephew "Red Roland" was the owner of the castle. He was driven away and fled all the way to Storm's End. Now Jon Connington is in an awkward situation because "Aegon"'s identity has not been determined, and Viserys has to put it on hold. Anyway, the Clinton family is now just a knight family, Viserys first let them negotiate on their own, and finally Jon Connington asked Viserys to leave Griffin's Roost for him to return from the Wall, and as for the land and knighthood, they can be given to "Red Roland", and let "Red Roland" temporarily serve as the lord of the castle. Anyway, Jon Connington has no heirs at the moment, so this matter is put on hold.

The rest of the Stormlands families, such as Carron, Goyle, Buccle, Granderson, and Fell, surrendered with their entire armies. They had fought for Stannis before and had never confronted Viserys directly, so they were forgiven for their past and pardoned for following Renly and Stannis in the rebellion. Some people also suggested that some of these families were new nobles who were granted titles by Robert during the War of the Usurper, and Viserys could take the opportunity to restore their lands and titles to the time of King Aerys, which was reasonable.

Viserys did not accept this suggestion in the end. Once the punishment was extended to the War of the Usurper, it would be unclear. Viserys finally had to make a statement that the reason for the judgment and reward was only for this war and would not be expanded.

Although Shireen was made Duke of Storm's End and ruled the Stormlands, it was also true that Stannis was obsessed with fighting the king. Although Viserys has now become Shireen's guardian and actually ruled the Stormlands - according to the feudal system of this era, during the guardianship period until Shireen comes of age, all politics, military, and economy in the Stormlands will be directly under Viserys, including taxes. Because of this system, every time there is a war, the guardianship of the children of the nobles after the war is also a part of the pie.

But as a punishment, Viserys divided the land in the Stormlands, and assigned Felwood Castle, Hayhall, the River Wender, Summerhall outside the Kingswood, a large plain east of Hayhall and the entire Cape Marseille to the crown. In addition, there was a large fine imposed on Stannis, which Shireen was responsible for.

Because almost no one made any contribution in this battle, Viserys could only reward the first group of people who pledged allegiance to him. The Lambton brothers were knights without any fiefdoms before, so Viserys gave them the fertile land along the banks of the River Wender.

In addition, he gave his knight Grolai the seal of the Wende River estuary. Viserys hoped that Grolai would expand the existing small docks of several fishing villages at the Wende River estuary in the future and build a new port at the Wende River estuary. This is of course not something that can be done overnight, and it may take several generations to develop slowly.

There is also Earl Gunther's younger brother Arthur. Earl Gunther has no heirs, so Viserys can only extend the reward to his younger brother and grant Arthur a piece of land.

There is also the issue of guardianship.

Although the Selmy family of Barristan's Harvest Hall did nothing in the war, they were granted additional lands and the right to raise several minor noble children because of Barristan. In addition, there are more.
Before Viserys came to the Stormlands, Stannis had suffered heavy losses in the Battle of the Blackwater, leaving many of the noble castles with widows and orphans, and many of the knights' lords without heirs - their towers and lands in the towns and villages had become ownerless.

These are all troublesome to deal with.

But the benefits are really considerable, no wonder the people of Westeros always think that war is an economic account, the winner will get a lot of castles, villages, land, rivers, forests and the right to raise the children of minor nobles. The fruits left behind by each war are very rich, with a large number of castles and orphans waiting to be distributed.

Even the fruits of the Stormlands Battle of the Blackwater, the lands of dozens of Stormlands lords and hundreds of knights who died fell into Viserys' hands. King's Landing declared these people traitors, their descendants' inheritance rights were deprived, and the lands and castles were waiting to be distributed.

Now that the Stormlands were in Viserys' hands, he could ignore the Deprivation of King's Landing and simply return the castles with heirs to these orphans and widows, thus winning over a large number of minor nobles. In addition, there were a large number of ownerless knights.
For the first time, Viserys discovered that a war without enough people to reward was also a problem, because in this way many orphans and knights would be directly handed over to the feudal lords and the king, and neither the king nor Shireen could eat so much land and raise so many orphans.
Viserys had gathered the scions of many of the houses to Storm's End and had them serve as squires to his sworn knights.

In addition, the first group of people who were loyal to Shireen also had a share. A group of knights of the Florent family led by Arend Florent and several Storm Knights rescued in Blackwater Bay led by Onion Knight Davos became the recipients of the pie in the sky. They were loyal to Stannis and guarded Dragonstone or fought Blackwater Bay for him, but were later captured by the king. In order to support Shireen, Viserys asked these people to switch to Shireen, and thus they became the first group of people Viserys needed to support. Arend Florent and other knights who originally had no fiefdoms were assigned the ownerless knights of the Stormland by Viserys. Arend was made a small noble of the Stormland and separated from the Florent family. Onion Knight Davos was promoted to Earl of Rainwood in the name of Shireen just because he served as a representative of the Storm Knights among the captives on Dragonstone and offered advice to Shireen. He also became a small noble from a knight.

Viserys was determined to support the new nobles and planned to let Ser Davos be the steward of Storm's End, in charge of land and corvée, and Ser Arland be the treasury manager, in charge of finance, taxes, and accounts. Anyway, the managers were just figures in name only, so Viserys planned to send a group of stewards to start trying to extend the system of stewards for taxation in the Stormlands.

After holding the two lifelines, the acting lord used the Cullen family. Although it was said that he would not expand it, it was because during the War of the Usurper, Earl Bryce Cullen insisted on not kneeling until Robert sat on the Iron Throne before swearing allegiance. Therefore, the current Earl of Nightsong, Roland Storm, who was the illegitimate son of the previous Earl of Nightsong, but Bryce Cullen died in the Blackwater River, and the illegitimate son was made legitimate by his brother's will, was appointed as the acting lord of Storm's End.

The umpire was handed over to Bruce Buckler - this was the king's willfulness. The reason why he chose Ser Bruce as the umpire of Stormlands was purely because Viserys felt that the name Bruce was very suitable for the umpire.

Then there is the military.

Because the appearance of the Golden Company was unexpected, Viserys had to arrange most of their troops to station at Summerhall and pay them as mercenaries. Summerhall is located on a plain, and behind it are the Red Mountains of Dorne's borderland, which can connect the Stormlands and Dorne, and can be used for attack or defense.

It would surely not be easy for either King's Landing or the Reach to station a large army there.

To everyone's surprise, Viserys actually did not intend to directly attack King's Landing with the momentum of regaining the Stormlands. Instead, he did as he had said before and dismissed most of the conscripted peasant armies of the various lords, retaining only the salaried guard army and the retired knights and sergeants to serve as a reserve force to prevent emergencies - this was a team of only more than 3,000 soldiers, of which more than 1,000 were from the Florent family who could not return to Brightwater in the Riverlands.

And just as Viserys's political propaganda had shown, he began to recall the farmers who had been displaced by the war and the Stormlands Brotherhood who had become "bandits" because they had no way to make a living, and began to work on the restoration and reconstruction of the Stormlands, as if he had no intention of fighting in the near future.

In addition, the most outrageous thing is that Viserys issued an order in the name of the king to the entire territory he ruled, including Dragonstone, Stormlands, and even the Dornish lords. Every family castle and walled town must build a granary specifically for storing the king's grain, and each castle must arrange special people to manage it - the salary will be paid by the king to deal with emergencies.

The king stipulated that a portion of the local taxes payable would be converted into grain at a certain ratio and stored in the granary.

What's more, what is even more unexpected is that Viserys is really planning to send people to Tyrosh to purchase food by merchant ships - although there was no major battle to retake the Stormlands this time, Viserys's treasury received a large amount of funds at once, and the finance minister who borrowed the money will be back soon, although it will take time to get the money in his hands.

Viserys planned to fill the purchased grain into the granaries of several large castles in stages, such as Dragonstone, Storm's End, and Sunspear as the first stage, and then the granaries in the second-tier noble castles as the second stage.
This was beyond everyone's expectations, because even though it was already autumn, stockpiling food had no benefit at all in the eyes of the world who had experienced ten years of summer, especially since the entire Dorne, the rainforests of the Stormlands, and Cape Wrath were located in the south and had never been greatly affected by the winter.

But the king only needed to build granaries in each castle, and the king would pay for the grain and hire managers. This order was not a difficult task, so no one objected. Except for the financial affairs officer, no one would be bothered by this, so the policy was implemented according to the king's plan.

Government affairs are always the most troublesome. At Storm's End, Viserys only issues orders and arranges policies, but he doesn't know what will happen during the actual implementation phase. He can only wait for his policies to bear fruit.

Dealing with various matters was just the beginning. Seeing that the wedding date of Viserys and Daenerys was approaching, Viserys didn't even have time to explore the 'Sea God' cult in the Stormlands. He had to bring a large number of Stormlands nobles back to Dragonstone to attend his wedding.

By the way, there's a report from the Golden Group that they had two troop transports that were supposed to be used for the sea attack when they planned to siege Storm's End. They were supposed to set out from Rain House and head for Storm's End from Shipbreaker Bay, but to this day, there is still no news of the two ships.

There are also many rumors that there have been frequent and fierce storms and turbulence on the sea in Poshan Bay recently, and many merchant ships have been lost at sea.

It is said that the northern part of the rainforest, the eastern part of Storm's End, and the northeastern part of Eagle's Nest have been experiencing continuous rain since the beginning of autumn. Many areas have been completely destroyed by floods and mudslides caused by days of rain, and countless local people have suffered casualties.

As the nobles were busy fighting and there was no one to manage the situation, many survivors had to migrate to inland villages and towns.

As the rainy season continued, more and more villages and towns were affected. As refugees poured into the inland and undamaged towns, more and more places began to become chaotic, and crimes emerged one after another. It was even heard that slave ships secretly bought people and sold them to Essos.
Viserys secretly felt that the autumn rainy season in the Stormlands was very abnormal. After the marriage, the disaster-stricken areas in the Stormlands would be the areas where he would focus his inspections.

He had a vague feeling that his lightning power might have fallen on this place.

(End of this chapter)