I was a knight in the Middle Ages

Chapter 169 The battle of ideas

"Are you Voltaire?" Alpha was surprised, because Voltaire is a historical celebrity.

Although Alpha couldn't remember the exact time, Voltaire was the leader of the French Revolution and was active in the 18th century. However, Cromwell and Voltaire would not overlap according to the original history, but the current fighting magic is different from the original historical trajectory, and the original historical concepts can no longer be used to define the current historical development.

"What's wrong, Captain Apollo, do you know me?" Altai is just a twenty-year-old young man with some fame, and it is unlikely that Apollo knows him.

"No, it's just that I know someone with the same name as yours in France!" Alpha said. Even if the other person was really a historical celebrity, he was just a small figure now.

"France, my ancestral home is also France. If I have a chance, I would also like to meet the celebrity mentioned by Captain Apollo. He has the same name as me." Altai was very curious.

"I wonder what Mr. Altai wants to talk to me about?" Alpha asked knowingly. If he said it out loud, the price would be lowered. Alpha did not come here to liberate the European people. The liberation he wanted was to liberate the people in the East.

"Captain Apollo, you are mercenaries, so of course we are here to hire you." Altai just wanted Apollo to send troops to help Rimuru out. As for the chips, they would talk about it later, and Altai didn't want to give them.

"Mr. Altai, what do you want to use to hire us? Besides, you are now called the rebels, and we help you in the name of rebellion." Now this is not only a job, but also the meaning of this riot.

"Of course it's money. Can't you carry out the mission as long as you have money?" Alpha is not interested in the commission now.

"So you are talking about the Black Dragon Mercenary Group! They are right next door to here, and we just had a small friction with them. You can go find them." Alpha was not optimistic about this riot.

"We are rising up for revolution and to defeat the aristocracy that oppresses us. How can this be called a riot?" Barbara pointed at Alpha and roared angrily.

"Whether it is a revolution or a riot, it depends on the final result. Only the victor can write everything." Alpha pretended to be profound.

"So you mean you don't believe that we can eventually defeat Rimuru?" Altai knew that the other party looked down on him, but Altai knew that he just didn't want more people to die.

"Are you talking about Rimuru? Even without our help, you can definitely take down Rimuru in ten days or half a month at most. But can you hold on to the final fruits of victory?" Alpha laughed.

"Once we occupy Rimuru, we will be the ultimate winners, and no one will be able to defeat us." Barbara's goal is to occupy Rimuru, then divide the land, overthrow the aristocracy, and share the fruits of victory together.

"Captain Apollo, what do you mean? Don't you think highly of our action?" Alpha thought long-term. After occupying Rimuru, he had money, food, and equipment, so it would be easy for him to hold on to Rimuru.

"After you occupy Rimuru, you can temporarily obtain everything you desire, and then divide the land and food, seize the wealth of the nobles and the rich, and let everyone live like civilians. However, when the surrounding nobles learn of this, they will definitely come to attack you. Then, what will you use to resist?" Alpha knew that these people were just acting on impulse.

"After going through great pains to distribute the food and land, everyone is now able to grow crops on their own farms, and a better life is just around the corner." However, Barbara didn't care about Alpha's speculation.

Alpha continued to persuade him: "You are surrounded by noble soldiers. How can you resist? How can you grow crops? Even if the enemy does not attack you, you will be doomed to failure if you just sit back and eat up all the crops."

Barbara, however, firmly believed, "The nobles are unwilling to help Rimuru now. Once we occupy Rimuru, they will have even less reason to support them and attack us."

Alpha retorted: "That's only because Rimuru still has a master. If Rimuru becomes a land without a master, the nobles will certainly be jealous. Perhaps Rimuru will also ask other countries for help. By then, you will be powerless to resist."

Barbara still held out hope: "We can still spend money to buy food supplies. I will definitely be able to break the deadlock."

Alpha shook his head and said, "If you really strike down the nobles, the rich, and the businessmen, how could these people possibly side with you?"

"Captain Apollo, what do you think?" Suddenly Altai looked at Alpha curiously.

"That depends on your purpose. Do you want to create a little living space for the lower-class people, or do you want to overthrow everything and start over?" Alpha pushed the question to the other party.

Altai's eyes were deep. He had thought deeply about these issues. The contradiction between the nobles and the common people was irreconcilable. The nobles occupied absolute resources and power, while the common people could only struggle to make ends meet.

However, suddenly one night, Altai woke up. Before he woke up, he was like other poor people, thinking that people's status was determined by nature. But when he awakened to the concept of freedom and equality, he knew the true face of the world.

Because he knew that everything was false. For thousands of years, the common people could be said to be livestock fed by the nobles, but even knowing this, the common people still had no way to resist.

And now, does he have any other choice?

"Of course, we should overthrow everything and start over again! I just want to say one thing to those nobles: Are kings, princes, generals, and ministers born with different species?" Having said that, Altai swung his fist at the stone table in front of him, and the stone table instantly turned into pieces.

“Only by truly destroying the power and wealth that exploit them and pulling the hypocritical privileged class off the altar, can the common people step out, break the shackles that have bound them for thousands of years, and embrace their own tomorrow!” Altai’s words were so impassioned and passionate that everyone present couldn’t help but feel excited.

Alpha also echoed, "That's right, it's precisely to break down that ridiculous class barrier, so that everyone, regardless of their status, can live freely, equally and happily. But I don't think you can succeed. Overthrowing means rebuilding, rebuilding a new order. You have distributed all the land assets to the people, and everyone is free and equal, but how do you protect them? You have to build an army, and then how do you feed them? Now that the people have survived, how do you deal with the excess food? This requires merchants, and now you are attacking merchants again? All this is just a repetition of history."

Alpha just said a few things casually to make Barbara shut up and Altai stop being passionate. Alpha's words easily broke the tense atmosphere just now.

Barbara looked at Alpha in surprise, and Altai also fell into deep thought. "Captain Apollo, if you were me, how would you handle this matter?"

"First of all, I think it's impossible to overthrow everything and rebuild, at least not at the moment." Alpha analyzed calmly, "Because many things are closely related to us, even if you overthrow them, you have to rebuild them later, such as business and the army. Therefore, we might as well change them little by little. It's a good idea to change the living space of the lower-class people first. If the current nobles reduce taxes to 50%, most people will be able to survive, 40% will be able to face natural disasters and man-made disasters, and 30% will gradually become wealthy."

"Impossible. They will not give up the high taxes they impose on us. Not to mention 50%, they may even give up 60% or 70%," Abbarara retorted.

Alpha wanted to change Altai's extreme thinking, otherwise Alpha would give up cooperation and choose to go along with the nobles: "Most of the nobles have raised taxes to 60% or 70%, and the people really have no way to survive, so you rose up to resist, but we cannot deny that a few nobles have lowered taxes, and 40% is also possible. Therefore, you can't kill everyone with one stick, doing so will only make more people stand against you. So the next question is, who is your enemy?"

"Of course it's those damn nobles, businessmen and rich people." Barbara shouted excitedly.

"That's right and wrong." Alpha shook his head. "The nobles are hateful, but there are also advanced and enlightened people among them. The merchants are hateful, but you don't have to buy their stuff. As for the rich, isn't your goal to make the people rich? In the end, do you want to bring down your own people too?"

"Barbara, let Captain Apollo continue!" Altai looked at Alpha expectantly, and many immature doubts in his heart slowly disappeared. At this moment, he seemed to have a feeling of sudden enlightenment.

"Then the next thing is what I just said about who our real enemy is. The merchants are driving up prices and leaving us with no way out. That's because the nobles have raised taxes and issued decrees that you must buy. If there weren't such decrees, you probably wouldn't buy these goods. So the root cause is still those hateful nobles. There are also enlightened nobles among the nobles, so we have to distinguish between them. In this way, our real enemies are the parasites among the nobles. Isn't the number of enemies reduced a lot at once?" Alpha's words made Altai's mind suddenly clear.

"But it's impossible to ask them to lower taxes themselves?" Barbara's tone suddenly weakened. After all, what Alpha said made sense.

"Of course it's impossible, just like it's impossible to completely abolish taxes. We need to protect ourselves and make ourselves stronger. We need businessmen and soldiers. Even if you establish a new country, it's impossible to abolish taxes." Alpha's words made Barbara understand something.

"So we have to establish a new regime, a system in which the emerging aristocracy, merchant capitalists and the grassroots people are in power together." Alpha continued.

"Mr. Alpha, your idea does make sense, but in my opinion, it is too idealistic." Altai took a sip of wine and continued, "The system you mentioned where the emerging aristocracy, business capitalists and the lower-class people are in power together is, in my opinion, a political compromise, and this compromise is not conducive to the development of our revolution. We need to think more deeply about how to break the existing political order and let the people truly hold power."

"Indeed, Mr. Altai is right." Alpha smiled and said, "We need more radical revolutionary ideas and actions to break the aristocracy's monopoly on power and achieve true political equality."

"But we also have to take into account the practical situation."