Overbearing and autocratic, these were the two most widely criticized points against Gorden during his later tenure as the Head of the House of Keyholders and the de facto leader of the Iron Bank and Braavos. It was not until he retired successfully and decisively yielded his seat to a successor, moving out of the main city to the countryside to retire, far from the center of power, completing the full set of "retreating bravely" and "washing one's hands in a golden basin," that the related criticisms slowly began to subside and gradually disappeared.
Time has passed, and the peers who fiercely criticized Gorden back then have all withered away. Among the people sitting in this room today, very few had ever discussed matters with him at the same table. Most people's impressions of this old man remained only in the descriptions of others, mainly their elders: very impressive, but even more arrogant and tyrannical... He rescued the Iron Bank from decline, but also nearly turned Braavos into his personal kingdom.
He was a legendary figure with a mixed reputation, but at this moment, the same thought emerged in the minds of most of the warmongers present: although democratic deliberation was good, having a decisive person take the lead and bear the responsibility at a critical moment felt quite good too.
However, the members of the House of Keyholders, who had been criticized no matter which side they stood on, stared at each other for a moment but heard no further guiding remarks from the irritable old man. Instead, they saw him take the small pot handed to him by the attending maiden, lean back into the wheelchair's soft cushion, and begin to slowly sip the liquid, whether tea or wine, while leisurely observing the expressions of the people around the table.
This scene lasted for dozens of seconds before everyone suddenly realized: this man planned to point out the direction and then retreat behind the scenes to observe, leaving the specific task of "finding a way" to them, the younger generation.
"How do we overthrow the Dragon dynasty?" The current President broke the deadlock. The scene of Gorden's spirited rant against the assembled elites was truly impactful, and he, who yearned for such power, had secretly taken it as a model to emulate. To become a political strongman like him, he would start by leading this war. "Braavos has worn down or defeated countless opponents throughout its long history and has plenty of successful experience to draw upon. What is there to worry about? Leaving everything else aside, the Rogare Bank Mr. Gallonier just mentioned, isn't it a weakened version of the current Westeros Bank? The process by which we destroyed this opponent can be considered a textbook model of multi-department coordinated warfare and the ruthless elimination of a mortal enemy... Why forge a new path when there is already a template?"
Everyone came to their senses, their eyes shining as they nodded in agreement, and began to work together to recall the entire process by which the Iron Bank crushed the Rogare Bank.
---
The Rogare Bank, as everyone knows, was a bank once established by the Rogare family of Lys.
During the regency of King Aegon III, the then head of the family, "the Great" Lysandro Rogare, by chance married his daughter, Lara Rogare, to Viserys Targaryen II, who was then a prince. He also successfully arranged for his younger brother, Delazako Rogare, to marry Queen Aliandra Martell of Dorne.
After completing these two monumental divine marriages, the Rogare Bank, with the Westeros kingdom as its ally and largest customer, quickly became richer and more powerful than the Iron Bank, subtly beginning to challenge the latter's financial position. But this prosperity came and went quickly. After the brothers Lysandro and Delazako, the helmsmen and two pillars of the Rogare family's rise, died on the same day, the family rapidly declined and, after a series of accidents and tragedies, collapsed and was swallowed by the tide of history.
Due to the passage of time, the remaining Rogare family has long since disintegrated and scattered throughout the world, no longer a force to be reckoned with. The details of this history are almost impossible to verify. Only the most crucial content is still firmly remembered: Lysandro and his younger brother Delazako, the heads of the Rogare family who died suddenly on the same day, ostensibly died in a boating accident and by choking on bacon, respectively... But conspiracy theories say they were both assassinated by the Iron Bank's sister organization, the House of Black and White.
Unlike most well-formed conspiracy theories that lack concrete evidence, this time the rumors were true.
But it must be added that what the Iron Bank, or rather Braavos, did in the fall of the Rogare Bank was far more than simply sending assassins to kill the two heads.
...
To sort out this matter, one must start before the Rogare Bank reached its peak and before it aroused the suspicion and full-scale attack of the Iron Bank.
Starting in 129 AC, a bloody civil war known as the "Blood Dragon Dance" occurred on the continent of Westeros. Countless historical records have documented the general course of this civil war, making further detailed description unnecessary. This Targaryen family infighting, also known as "The Princess and The Queen," "The Blacks and The Greens," or "A Play of Two Women," ended in a tragic manner. The leaders of both the Black and Green factions ultimately died, and the Targaryen dynasty declined from its peak, while the dragons were ultimately wiped out and became extinct because of this war.
A war with no winners, this is the concluding view that has long been a consensus in historical circles.
But it should be noted that having no winners does not mean there were no beneficiaries.
And the biggest beneficiary, without a doubt, was Braavos.
As the financial center of the known world, Braavos had political needs that the other eight Free Cities did not: it needed to ensure a certain degree of control and influence over the world beyond itself in order to protect its core interests.
But before the "Blood Dragon Dance," Braavos could only barely manage to roughly grasp the changes in the situation in Westeros.
This was not because its external affairs were poorly handled or neglected, but because at that time, after the Targaryen and Martell families temporarily maintained peace following their war, under their respective leadership, the national strength of the Seven Kingdoms, or rather the 6+1 Kingdoms, rapidly developed and expanded to an astonishing degree. The result of this prosperity was that many lords and nobles who had no dealings with Braavos and were not on the Iron Bank's contact list also quickly gained wealth and influence, and thus began to have a voice and a need to be heard. The emergence of this group did not weaken Braavos's influence over the Seven Kingdoms, but, like dye spread over an expanding balloon becoming lighter, it diluted the Iron Bank's originally dense and extensive network of contacts in the Seven Kingdoms, causing its previously considerable control and interference in Westeros to almost fade away and become ineffective.
Braavos desperately needed an opportunity to pull this giant beast, which was about to completely break free, back under control.
At this time, the conflict between the Black and Green factions began to show signs.
Of course, it must be made clear: Braavos was not the instigator or manipulator of this civil war. No matter how mythologized the Iron Bank is, it did not have that capability. This civil war began with the death of King Viserys I. It was initiated when Queen Alicent Hightower and her faction defied the king's will and arbitrarily crowned Prince Aegon. It officially erupted after the chance encounter of the two dragonrider princes, Lucerys and Aemond, at Storm's End, and their subsequent dragon duel in the bay outside the castle, historically known as the "Dance over Shipbreaker Bay." It ultimately burned brighter and brighter due to the hatred and anger of the members of the Black and Green factions toward each other, until it swept across the entire Seven Kingdoms and even the known world...
Throughout this entire war, Braavos and the Iron Bank played little part, but the intensity and outcome of the war were actually heightened and made more tragic through the manipulation of their countless threads. In the end, the Black and Green factions exhausted each other in near mutual destruction, and the overall national strength of the entire Seven Kingdoms shrank and declined by an order of magnitude.
Westeros was still the Targaryens' Westeros, but the giant beast, having lost a great deal of weight, became easier to lead by the nose than it had been before the Blood Dragon Dance. Although Braavos mostly remained a spectator throughout the war, it quietly profited by reweaving its network of contacts during the years of civil war, and decisively supported the winning side when the outcome gradually became clear. Ultimately, as a marginal winner, one of the mediators, and a supporter of post-war reconstruction, it seized a larger share of influence and discursive power.
To what extent was its taming of Westeros once successful?
Popular rumor had it that "who sits on the Iron Throne is decided by the Iron Bank"!
The bad news was that this statement was actually true to some extent: after the civil war ended, from Cregan Stark, who served for only one day but signed nearly two dozen death warrants, to the famous "Hooded Hand" Tyland Lannister, and then to the arrogant and powerful Unwin Peake, the young and naive Thaddeus Rowan, and the Kingsguard turned Hand, Marston Waters... Several consecutive Hands, like a flowing stream, were either old friends of Braavos or power brokers who had directly or indirectly received benefits from the Iron Bank and served its interests according to its expectations and hints. If they fell into neither category, they would quickly be removed from office for various strange and inexplicable "reasons." The regency council and the Small Council were filled with representatives of foreign interests. This trend was only effectively brought under control when King Aegon III appointed his absolutely trusted family member, his own younger brother, Viserys Targaryen, who later also became king, as the King's Hand!
But just when the bankers and Keyholders of Braavos thought Westeros was in their pocket and their position as the "world financial center" was unshakable, the Rogare family suddenly emerged halfway through, also jumping out of the mess left by the Blood Dragon Dance... No, it should be said, out of the piles of dragon scales, also wanting to be the biggest beneficiary!
(To be continued.)
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