Meltdown 1538

The Austrasian Empire has been maintained for three hundred years by the "Covenant of the Iron Crown". Imperial power and religious power are interdependent, and the position of emperor is only passed down through the direct bloodline. However, Lothair I, who succeeded the old emperor Otto II after the death, was regarded as a mentally retarded waste, and the real power fell into the hands of the Queen Regent Adelaide. Adelaide is ambitious and unwilling to listen to politics behind the scenes, but is approaching the supreme power step by step. Using her childhood sweetheart's friendship as a weapon, she tricked the young northern Duke Conrad into leading the Black Hawk Knights to go south to serve the king, and used a knife to kill people to eliminate political opponents. After the deed was accomplished, she broke the knife with her own hands for the crime of "pretending to kill without permission." From relatives to imperial uncles, from powerful ministers to loyal ministers, everyone who stood in her way was ruthlessly purged. However, no one knew that the emperor Lothair, who was considered stupid, was secretly watching all this. He pretended to be crazy and stupid for twelve years, and when he was about to strike back, he discovered that the chess game of power was far more complicated than he imagined. The church's encouragement, the elector's civil war, and the northern barbarians' intrusion plunged the entire empire into a long catastrophe. Sixteen years of power struggle and melee resulted not in the victory of either party, but in the complete severance of the direct bloodline, the fall of the Iron Crown, and the dark age that enveloped the continent for three hundred years. In this feast of power, some people sacrificed family affection for ambition, some pretended to survive for half their lives, and some silently recorded everything in the ruins. And history ultimately proves that all those vying for the Iron Crown are not worthy of wearing it.