Axel
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Chapter 548: The Twenty-Two-Centime Campaign
🕑 Added 2025-07-06 15:08:00 +0000 UTCCharlot Mecklenburg did not linger on the front lines. Armed with an official decree from His Majesty the Emperor, he swiftly returned to Strasbourg.
By this time, Strasbourg was no longer a united front due to the assassination of Morgan Axel. The Axel family had fractured into several factions, each pushing back against the Emperor's appointed successor.
These so-called "Emperor Candidates" either ranked far down the line of succession—hundreds away—or had no legitimate claim to the throne at all.
To give a laughable example, Charlot Mecklenburg’s own line of succession was higher than some of these candidates, simply due to his impending marriage to Princess Annie.
Antonio was deeply troubled. As the youngest peak Saint rank in the Old Continent, his accomplishments rivaled even Zimourman Axel Robin’s. However, his extensive time spent in cultivation had left him politically inexperienced, and he was at a loss on how to address this crisis.
After all, Antonio himself carried the bloodline of the Axel family—a very legitimate one. His mother, Nannie Bretagne Axel, was a princess of the previous dynasty, making him the direct grandson of Emperor Julius VI. He truly did not know how to deal with the Axel family’s infighting.
Relieved by Charlot’s return with the personal decree from the Emperor of Bretagne, Antonio handed over all negotiation responsibilities to his brother-in-law. Antonio trusted Charlot completely.
Charlot, accepting this duty, wasted no time trying to contact the factions within Strasbourg. Instead, he gathered all his best scribes, even hiring additional personnel from the Mecklenburg Duchy, Cappadocia, and other regions. He transported a batch of printing presses and worked them around the clock.
Charlot understood that now was not the time for lengthy proclamations. Drawing upon his memories of modern online literature from Earth, he adopted attention-grabbing styles, such as "clickbait," sensationalized narratives, and deliberately absurd plots. The content didn't need to hold up—it just needed to be memorable.
The first book was titled One Mother, Nineteen Children: Wood Brandon's Pursuit of Love in the Temple Graveyard.
The second book followed with a rustic theme: Shocking! Wood Brandon Washes His Sister-in-Law’s Feet.
As for the third book... its title couldn't even be displayed on Earth’s internet without censorship.
These novels were absurd, filled with explosive openings, illogical plots, and shoddy endings. But they excelled at one thing: hooking readers with their titles. Once the content was read, though the story quality was scorned, it lingered in memory.
Nearly all of these novels subtly or overtly included the narrative of Wood Brandon assassinating Morgan Axel. Some accounts were blatant, while others used veiled metaphors. Charlot priced each book at twenty-two centimes, instructing his subordinates to sell to anyone willing to pay, no questions asked.
Every day, vast quantities of new novels were printed and secretly smuggled into Strasbourg, where they were sold en masse. To distance himself from the operation, Charlot used an old pen name: Freeman Simon Qing Martin. This pseudonym would later become a cultural icon across both the Old and New Continents, symbolizing the literary spirit of the Fars Empire.
What Charlot hadn’t anticipated was the sheer market demand. He had thought twenty-two centimes per book was expensive—it should have been eight books for one centime. But in practice, while some books sold at the listed price, the majority were resold at a markup. Each day, countless copper centimes flooded back to the Machubi Fortress.
A staggering fortune landed squarely on Charlot’s lap, leaving him utterly perplexed.
This strategy quickly bore fruit. Within days, rumors of Wood Brandon, the imperial chancellor, assassinating the former crown prince Morgan Axel spread like wildfire through Strasbourg. The novels offered dozens of speculative motives, and readers added their own imaginative twists. These included theories like Wood Brandon wanting Morgan to marry his widowed eldest daughter Winnie Mecklenburg so he could become the emperor’s father-in-law—only to be rejected. Others suggested a younger lover’s quarrel turned into a fatal grudge, or that Morgan was actually Wood Brandon’s illegitimate son who, unable to endure his father’s control, took his own life.
In short, the rumors grew so widespread that no one could suppress them.
Six days after the novels flooded Strasbourg, Wood Brandon angrily resigned from his position as imperial chancellor. Though he technically retained the title in the Bretagne monarchy, his resignation left him politically crippled. The elderly Emperor of Bretagne had once harbored hopes that Wood Brandon would support him, but even he had to admit defeat.
This unprecedented downfall was dubbed by later generations as the Twenty-Two-Centime Campaign. Through a barrage of trashy novels, Charlot Mecklenburg had forced a seasoned political veteran to resign.
The outcome shocked countless people. Even Charlot himself hadn’t expected his literary assault to achieve such monumental success.
When news of Wood Brandon’s resignation reached the front lines, even the Emperor of Bretagne couldn’t resist a jab: “Lord Mecklenburg certainly works hard when it comes to securing his marriage.”
With Wood Brandon gone, chaos erupted in Strasbourg. Without the stabilizing presence of the old chancellor, the Axel family factions engaged in frenzied power struggles, recruiting allies, attacking opponents, and even hiring assassins to eliminate rivals. The number of assassinations in Strasbourg reportedly increased sevenfold, and not even Asturias Axel could contain the disorder.
Following Wood Brandon’s resignation, Charlot shifted his strategy. He began reaching out to members of the Axel family, offering amnesty in exchange for their allegiance to the Emperor of Bretagne. All they needed to do was sign a declaration renouncing their royal titles and pledging support for the Emperor.
Surprisingly, many of Charlot’s envoys met little resistance. Dozens of signed declarations were soon delivered to Machubi Fortress. However, while the declarations piled up, few were willing to physically leave Strasbourg.
Charlot didn’t mind. He redirected his focus toward tracking Wood Brandon’s whereabouts. This former imperial chancellor was a major threat, and Charlot had no intention of letting him live.
Yet Wood Brandon’s disappearance proved enigmatic. No one could determine whether he was hiding in a remote corner of Strasbourg, had returned to his fief, or had vanished entirely.
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