Franz, the foreign minister of the kingdom of Mainz.

As I was in my carriage, which was driving to the king's palace in freesailing, the capital of the kingdom of Strasbourg, I thought about how all the Gretan states not agreeing to join us. If they join us, they want to retain their army, have complete control over their finances, and have the ability to leave the empire whenever they want to. This is unagreeable as this will split the empire. The king was not expecting the Gretan states to join us, but he told me to build public support.

When I reached the palace, I was taken into a room by the butler where the king of Strasbourg and the cabinet were discussing. After exchanging our pleasantries, we started discussing the matter at hand.

"Your majesty, I would like you to join our quest in establishing the Gretan empire. You will be downgraded to a duke, but you will still hold most of your financial power and be somewhat autonomous from the central government. Establishing the Gretan empire is the sacred task of all Gretan nobles, which will be fulfilled when given a chance." I said to the king.

The king looked at his cabinet and said."We all want to fulfill the sacred task of establishing the Gretan empire, but we are scared of foreign interference. Even if we unite, we do not have the strength to fight against the rest of the world. This will end disastrously for our people, and I do not want this to happen."

"The great powers all fighting against each other in the Karaman empire. They will not interfere against us. We won't get a better chance than this to unify the Gretan region. The Rostok empire is allied with us, and they have agreed to the unification of the Gretan empire." I said passionately.

The Rostok empire did not agree to us unifying the Gretan region, but there is no harm in a bit of lying.

"We don't want to take the risk of being the sinners of the Gretan region and destroy it. Even though the Rostok empire has agreed to the unification of the Gretan region, they might backstab us given enough benefit. The great powers are fighting, but they can readily concede as this war doesn't threaten their core interests, and the unification of the Gretan region is a more significant threat to all of them. None of the countries in the Gretan region agreed to your proposal due to this reason." said the king with a smile.

After trying to convince them a few more times, I left that palace as they wouldn't agree. But, of course, they didn't agree, as joining the Gretan empire would place an authority above them and reduce their independence. As the Gretan unification strategy leader in the government, I am pretty disappointed that they didn't willingly join. If they had willing joined, we could have avoided war and their liquidation. Time for war, I guess.