At the end of January, Archbishop Mainz suddenly issued a convening order, demanding the convening of the Wolms Empire. Marin happened to have some goals in advance at the Wolms Empire Conference, so he led a team of cavalry to the south.
In fact, this meeting was supposed to be held in autumn. However, as the initiator of the Wolms Empire Conference and the Grand Speaker of the Imperial Parliament, Archbishop Mainz, was in poor health last fall to winter. He did not recover until after the New Year. Therefore, the meeting, which was supposed to be held in autumn, was simply postponed until after the New Year.
The Imperial Conference is not held every year, and there is no fixed time. However, when encountering major events, everyone does have to face it.
Last spring, Marin joined forces with the head and deputy leader of the Hanseatic League to defeat the Danish Karma League, which was once on par with the Holy Roman Empire, and also seized the Principality of Schleswig and the Principality of Holstein.
This is definitely a major event that changes the European landscape, so Archbishop Mainz issued a convening order as early as last summer to discuss the matter and intend to mediate conflicts between the parties. However, before the Imperial Conference was held, Archbishop Mainz suddenly became ill and had not recovered for a long time. In desperation, Archbishop Mainz had to cancel the convening order again. It was not until the New Year that his health recovered, and he issued another convening order.
As an important protagonist at this meeting, Marin had to go there in person. Moreover, Marin took a large group of men and a lot of gold coins to the south on the day he was called.
As for why I went so early? Do you still need to ask? Of course, I was bribing those members of the Imperial Parliament...
Before, Marin had bribed some major princes, such as 5 of the seven electoral princes (Brandenburg electoral princes and Saxony electors do not count).
However, there are many members of the Imperial Parliament. How many? According to Marin's statistics, there are currently 7 general electoral emperors, 4 archbishops, 46 diocese bishops (bishops of the bishops), 21 German-speaking dukes, 2 non-German-speaking dukes (Savuy and Milan), 56 senior priests with seats (dean of the monastery), 11 female convents, 75 imperial cities, and 110 earls or dominions.
In total, the Imperial Parliament has up to 330 seats, which is 330 votes.
Of course, it does not mean that Marin needs to bribe these 330 voters. In that case, Marin will go bankrupt. According to convention, the bishops, bishops, senior priests, and female deans basically follow the three religious electors.
In other words, as long as the Archbishop of Mainz, Archbishop Trier and Archbishop of Cologne are settled, most religious members will be willing to vote for you. There are 120 votes for all religious members, and 210 votes for secular votes.
Among them, these 210 secular vote holders, 75 imperial cities have their own systems, and 21 Dukeli, Bavaria, Yulich, Cliver, Brunswick, Lorraine, Guedes, Anhalt and Henneberg have their own systems.
The other principalities have their own factions. For example, the Principality of Burgundy naturally belongs to the Austrian faction; the Principality of Saxony belongs to the Saxony Electoral faction; and Wurtemberg belongs to the Swabian League, which also belongs to the Austrian faction; Mecklenburg and Pomerania belong to the Brandenburg faction (actually oppressed by Brandenburg).
And those Bo Kingdoms and autonomous lords are basically dependent on the five secular elected emperors...
In short, Marin could not imagine the more than thirty votes attached to Brandenburg and Saxony's Elector. He could only start from other aspects.
The Bohemia king changed his attitude because of the relationship between Alexander, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and would support Marin with his younger brother. The Elector of Palatinate was also bribed by Marin.
In this way, what Marin still needs to buy is probably the nine principalities of its own system. Among them, the Principality of Cliff is its own ally and there is no need to buy it. Although the Principality of Gedes is not reliable, it is also an ally for the time being. Therefore, what Marin needs to buy is actually the remaining 7 principalities.
In addition, Marin doesn't have to worry about the 75 imperial cities. If it were the past, Marin might have been worried. However, since he held Lubeck's thigh, these imperial cities have been easy to communicate. Because these 75 imperial cities all started with business. Since they want to engage in business, they must be inseparable from the support of the Hanseatic Alliance. Therefore, for the leader Lubeck, these imperial cities have to give face. Even if there are no eyes, there will not be many, and most of them have to give face to Lubeck.
Not only that, even the lords owed money from the Hanseatic League. As long as the opinions put forward by Lubeck did not infringe on their own interests, they would not dare to easily refute them.
Therefore, it was indeed a very wise decision to choose to form an alliance with Lubeck. At least, those imperial cities in the Imperial Parliament would not make things difficult for him.
However, what surprised Marin was that Hamburg, the deputy leader of the Hanseatic League, was not an imperial city...
But after thinking about it, Marin understood. Why? No matter how powerful Lübeck is, it is mainly targeting those imperial cities and some nobles who owed money to the Hanseatic League. However, the total number of imperial cities is only 75. The Imperial Parliament has 330 seats.
In other words, in the Imperial Parliament, imperial cities account for a minority and cannot control the overall situation. Only those seven electoral emperors and form alliances can they gain an overwhelming advantage.
Therefore, it is not easy for Hamburg City to join the Imperial Parliament.
After coming to Wolms City, Marin met with Speaker of the Grand Speaker of Lübeck, Tagfacht and Speaker of the Grand Speaker of Hamburg. This time, Lübeck and Hamburg came to attend the Imperial Conference, with two main goals - the first is to make everyone recognize the actual occupation of Lübeck and Hamburg over the Principality of Holstein; the second is to let Hamburg join the Imperial Parliament and become an imperial city with voting rights.
Marin wanted to ask Lübeck to help convince the imperial cities, but Lübeck in turn asked for Marin. What did Lübeck ask for Marin? It turned out that Lübeck wanted Marin as an intermediary to introduce them to Emperor Maximilian I.
For a long time, although Lubeck controlled the imperial city and some nobles who wanted to borrow money in the Imperial Parliament, the number of votes he received could never exceed half. Therefore, Lubeck believed that he needed to find an alliance with a relatively large number of votes.
Originally, Lubeck wanted to contact the seven electoral emperors. Because the alliance formed by these seven electoral emperors had more than half of the votes. If they could form an alliance with them, Lubeck's say at the Imperial Conference would be very big.
However, the Seven Electors believed that the Hanseatic League led by Lubeck was already very powerful in economic terms. If they gain political voice, they would become a super powerful force no less than the Electors. Therefore, the Seven Electors reached an agreement, that is, they would never agree to cooperate with Lubeck and maintain political suppression of the Hanseatic League.
In desperation, Lübeck thought of Austria, which was also unfavorable to the Seven Electoral Emperors. Under the command of Maximilian I, there were many votes. Not to mention the votes of the Austrian and Burgundian lords, the number of votes in the Swabian League was also very large.
This is also why Lubeck and Hamburg were willing to form an alliance with Marin when they launched a war against Denmark.
If Marin had no use value, Lubeck and Denmark would not pay attention to Marin. After coming to Wolms, Lubeck and the two major speakers of Hamburg asked Marin to help introduce them to Maximilian I to reach a political alliance with Austria.
Maximilian I was different from those elected emperors. As an emperor, he was born to be opposed to the princes. The reason why the Holy Roman Empire had 75 imperial cities independent of the princes was that they appeared with the support of previous emperors. These cities were originally money trees for each prince. However, with the support of the emperor, they broke away from the control of each prince and were also hostile to the princes.
Therefore, Maximilian I and those imperial cities were both opposite to the princes. Before, the Hanseatic League was busy doing business and did not care about political appeals.
However, this time, Lubeck needed to legally occupy the eastern half of the Principality of Holstein. Hamburg required to become an imperial city and also legally occupy the western half of the Principality of Holstein. In this way, they had to gain allies. The emperor Maximilian I, who had a large number of votes and was willing to find partners, became the first choice for the Hanseatic League.
Chapter completed!