170 Debate about the future

19th May 1574

"So, what did you want to talk about?"

While those few words that the magistrate used in order to convince me that he had good intentions were fairly dependable, it was way from being enough to fully convince me.

"As I said, I don't think that our current king will remain in his position for long. The problem that we, as the nobles, should put before us, is who will be a good fit to replace him?"

Hearing this question, I couldn't help but think about the incoming civil-war. In the original timeline, nobles would originally choose Max Habsburg for the king, but he would never bother to make any of the moves necessary to take the role, ultimately opening a window of opportunity for one of the greatest elected kings that commonwealth ever had, Stephan Batory, to use this opportunity and claim the throne for himself. 

The fact that I was already aiming to push my development in a way that could not only bring the benefits for me and me alone but also quite likely bring me closer to the lands already owned by the Bathory family was nothing but a clear declaration of what stance I would take later on!

As Batory was considered the source of the greatest time that elective Commonwealth ever had, the history of his rule was something fairly close to my heart. That's why I knew that as long as I would be able to support him financially to a satisfactory degree, all the disastrous in the long term decisions that he took, from allowing Brandenbugian prince of the Hohenzollern line to take over the regency over the mentally ill prince of the Royal Prussia or even caving in for the Gdanskian demands when they refused to accept him as the king leading to the war with Russia caused by the destabilisation of the country… 

All of those decisions were made in order to fulfil the promise he made while signing pacta conventa. To recover the lands lost to Russia! But such a great campaign required more money than he could procure in normal means, despite how great of a king he was, making him make those decisions for the sake of obtaining said money! 

"I don't want to be as direct, but I'm worried that after the last election, the Habsburg house might want to take over the country. And if I were to be completely honest, I'm not that sure if I want a german emperor on the Commonwealth throne!"

"While I'm won't be happy to have him win the elections, I don't really see any other possible candidate. Looking around, who else could be available? Russian Tsar? That sounds more like a joke on par with joining Commonwealth and Ottoman Empire with a personal union. To the west, only Maximilian is available. Maybe someone from Waza's dynasty in Sweden… Outside of that, only picking one of the local princes seems to have any sense!"

Seeing how frustrated this man turned while speaking those words, I was really keen to just speak about Stephan… But wouldn't that be too early? Heck, what would be wrong if my loose suggestion turned out to be akin to prophesy?!

"While it's not as great figure as you might want, what about Stephan from the Transylvania? While he is a prince under the Ottoman rule if he would be elected as the king, wouldn't that give us a great opportunity to calm down our southern border? Considering how he managed to become the prince with the Ottoman support, then as long as we could find a way to turn cossack attention more towards the east rather than the south, we could gain quite a bit!"

In fact, with my deal with Michal of Cherrie family, I was quite sure that I could gain quite a huge influence over the cossacks. By giving them the reason to fight for the Commonwealth, not only a monetary one but also the prospect of creating an autonomous princedom on the southern Russia soil, that would not only mean a huge hit to the greatest Commonwealth rival, but also a chance to finally make a long peace with the Ottomans!

After all, while western Europe would scorn the entirety of Poland for aligning our interests with the Islamic country, I couldn't care less about this fact. Why bother with Habsburgs? They were the ones that rather swiftly after Polish Hussary saved the Vienna from the Turkish onslaught turned around and took part in a partitioning of the commonwealth. Why care about France? Why care about German princedoms? With how all those lands were enveloped in the flames of the great religious wars, Commonwealth tolerant approach to the religion was honestly far more in line with Ottoman semi-tolerance!

"That punny prince? Isn't he still in the middle of the civil war with the Habsburg backed Kasper? Let's be honest, I don't really see any chances for him to win his own struggle and remain the prince he is now!"

Hearing an unfamiliar name, I had to do my best to not show the confusion on my face. While the history of Bathory was quite well known, I never reached the point of learning about the details of what he was doing before the election itself!