Council of Merchants
Sarna News
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The Council of Merchants was the ruling body of the former Hanseatic League.
History
The ruling body of the League was a council of merchants. They operated from the League's planet capital, Bremen (HL), into Freie Hansestead's capitol.
During decades, the Council meddled into the Umayyad Caliphate and Castilian Principalities, making them fought each other, expecting to one day conquer their worlds after they have weakened themselves, but the conquest of those by Clan Goliath Scorpion put an end to those plans.[1]
After 3088, when the Home Clans and nearby Escorpión Imperio became serious threats for the Hansa, the Council decided to focus their economy to national defense. Some merchants rebelled against the reduction of their benefits, but the armed forces of the League crushed them. The Council also allowed greater autonomy to their military leaders, and even gave them a voice into their Council, though reluctantly.[2]
However, all their preparations proved futile: when the conflict between the Hansa and the Scorpions, the Hanseatic Crusade, began, the Council's forces were unable to stop the clanners, and the invaders eventually reached Bremen. The battle slowly turned against the Hansa, and the 12 October 3140, a day which later will be known as the Red Saturday, a team of Scorpions' Elementals penetrated into the Capitol and captured the Council. But its members, refusing to surrender, instead activated a failsafe which detonated hidden explosives which destroyed the capitol, much of the city and caused massive losses between both Scorpions and Hansa defenders. If the Council expected their sacrifice to galvanize their troops, they were wrong: Their last Captain-Marshal of the Hanseatic Defense Force, Rudolf Schmidt, ignoring the explosion was the work of the Council, instead ordered his forces to cease fighting, and later, surrender all Hansa worlds to the Scorpions across the league, to prevent more bloodshed. Schmidt, the last surviving high authority in the Hansa, did all what he could to facilitate the former League's incorporation into the Scorpion Empire.[3]