Chapter 261 Clouds of War (Part 2)

Author: Leader of the Tofu Naoxian Party

Chapter 261 Clouds of War (Part 2)

Winkrel Kingdom, Poseidon Cathedral.

This cathedral stands majestically in the center of the city, rising from the ground and reaching into the clouds.

The entire cathedral is built on a large square with green grass, surrounded by neatly arranged tall trees, and the atmosphere is fresh and holy.

The main building is covered with gorgeous and luxurious stained glass, which seems to be made of thousands of gems. The golden light transmitted seems to carry the aroma of money.

Between the columns and vaults, you can clearly see exquisite statues and reliefs, depicting the great achievements of Poseidon.

The main entrance of the cathedral is tall and spacious, leading to a large loggia. On the edge of the loggia, there is a spire decorated with feathers, surrounded by flowers, trees and carved gold and stone lace.

There are many small towers built on both sides, some are square and some are tapered. When the sky is clear, these small towers will emit flashing lights, making the cathedral even more dazzling.

The interior of the cathedral is extremely majestic, with huge vaults, stained glass and elegant paintings forming a magnificent and mysterious space.

It can be said that this is a magnificent building that is enough to make the monarchs of all human kingdoms on the continent drool with envy. The royal palace in the distance is like a stunted dwarf compared to it.

If seen from the sky, the two are like a father and his young son. Just like the relationship between Pope Will of the Poseidon Church and King Pablo of Winkrel.

In a secluded room in the church, Will, dressed in a luxurious blue and gold papal robe, was "interrogating" a rabbit-eared orc with a "serious" face.

The screams of the rabbit-eared girl were extremely rhythmic and dynamic due to Will's superb interrogation techniques.

Bang bang~

"Come in." Will kept moving, but his face became even more flushed and excited.

The sensible Archbishop Derek in blue opened the door and came in without any surprise, and calmly looked directly at the fierce battle scene: "Your Majesty, Winkrel's donation (church tax) has come out this year, do you want to take a look?"

"Come closer," Will shouted irritatingly.

"Yes." Derek, who knew his pope's little hobby, took a few steps closer and consciously touched - Will.

If he were not good at guessing his intentions and could have fun with His Majesty Will, and even more fun, which of the (third-level) priests to be promoted would not be more senior and meritorious than him, why would he, Derek, fill in for Thain after his death?

To become the Archbishop in Blue?

After a period of indescribable and indescribable activities, Will lay on the bed panting, listening to Derek read the data to him after finishing the fun.

Although he loves to play and knows how to play, he has to be said to be an above-level leader. He will never ignore things related to personnel rights and financial rights because of his hobbies.

"This year Winkrel's total offering money has increased by 37%, including commerce...agriculture..."

Will looked happy: "Not bad, it seems Pablo is doing a good job, I'm not in a hurry to replace him."

Derek pretended not to hear the last part of Will's words and continued to report with a smooth piece of paper: "Your Majesty, overall, Winkrel's commercial tax revenue has increased a lot, while agricultural tax revenue has dropped a lot."

Derek hesitated and said: "Your Majesty, there are some things I don't know whether to say or not."

"Derek, what's the relationship between you and me? Just say it straight away." Will said, pretending to be unhappy.

Derek took the opportunity to make a grateful expression and said:

"Your Majesty, although the tax is high, I don't think it is necessarily a good thing."

"Oh? Tell me carefully."

"Your Majesty, do you know that someone is smuggling and trading with Yashai?"

"Of course I know, but they are all decent people and they all pay taxes honestly, so I don't want to go into details." Will said with a somewhat embarrassed look.

You must know that behind these dead businessmen, they are all "our own people", and there is even a faint shadow of Will's involvement.

"Your Majesty, in the past few years, our tax revenue has been increasing year by year. The main growth comes from business. Ahem, cross-border smuggling contributes a lot."

"Logically speaking, making some money is not a big deal. After all, everyone has to make a living, but please take a look, Your Majesty, are the goods coming in from Yaxia too much?"

Derek nodded at the sexy underwear and stockings on the bunny-eared girl, and then pointed at the clothes on himself and Will.

"Look, even the clothes your Majesty and I are wearing are from Asshai."

"This..." Will said unnaturally, "The most important thing is to block the food export to Yaxia. It doesn't matter if we leave other details aside for now. After all, if we take Yaxia, the money will be ours!"

"

Derek continued to persuade: "Your Majesty, although they did not sell food to Yashai, I feel that this might be worse than selling food."

"If you think about it, all over Winkrel's country are enclosing land to raise sheep, or turning farmland into cotton fields, and fruit trees into mulberry trees.

Growing food for three years is not as profitable as growing cotton for one season. In order to make money, they even stopped planting in order to smuggle wool, cotton, and silk to Asia!

Three years ago, we were the largest grain exporter in the Northern Continent. Magzhek had to beg us to sell grain in a low voice, and Yaxia was even more choked by us.

Three years later, we were all reduced to importing grain from Magik! We also had to import grain from Yaxia in the opposite direction!

Your Majesty, I think this is not a good thing."

Will: "When we make money, why don't we just buy from other countries? Yaxia is short-sighted and sells grain in large quantities, so why don't we just buy from them?"

Wouldn't it be more convenient to make Yaxia have less food and send troops to attack them a year later?"

"My lord," Derek said sadly, "what are we selling to Yashai? Wool, cotton, silk, ore!

What did we buy? Clothes, porcelain, ironware, sugar...!

Logically speaking, with this kind of smuggling and this kind of transaction, even if we pay a lot of procedural fees, Yaxia must make a lot of money, and it shouldn't be us who make money to buy food!

It's so abnormal, don't you think it's strange?

There must be a succubus (meaning fatal temptation) in the abnormality!"

"We make money from taxes, and the nobles and priests make money from smuggling. It looks like you are good, I am good, and everyone is good.

Only the Yashai people who buy raw materials at a higher price than the finished product are fools and fools who give away money.

But are there really rich people whose money is blown by the wind? Are their brains made of troll feces?”

Ah Qiu~ Zhong Ming, who was thousands of miles away, sneezed inexplicably.

Will also noticed something was wrong, and his expression became serious: "Continue talking."

Derek said impassionedly:

"The nobles and clergy are now making a lot of money, but large numbers of farmers have lost their land and are wandering in the wilderness and urban slums.

Fertile fields were planted with inedible cotton, and more and more people were unemployed.

If this continues, let’s not talk about what to do if one day we can’t buy food.

That is, a large number of unemployed farmers do not believe in our God, and even starve to death. The faith provided to our God has been greatly reduced, and we are afraid that our God will blame us."

"There are also Winkrel's iron-making workshops, blacksmith shops, tailor shops, bakeries... they are all closed down one by one, and more and more people are homeless.

Now it's like cooking oil in a raging fire.

What’s the use of making more money?”

"This is definitely Yaxia's conspiracy, a complete conspiracy!"

Yes, this is the dumping of products from industrial countries to agricultural countries, especially when Zhong Ming paid for subsidies and deliberately raised the purchase price of raw materials, which was a cross-generational attack on productivity.

Generally, under such circumstances, the agriculture and manufacturing industries of agricultural countries will be severely hit, causing their economic growth to stagnate or even reverse, reduce employment opportunities, fall in prices, and intensify trade deficits, thus affecting all aspects of the overall economy.

Zhong Ming, however, gave profits to Winkrel in the form of subsidies, not because he was possessed by a benevolent person and turned it into a trade surplus to make money, but to attack Winkrel's agriculture in a way that would hurt people and wipe out households.

There is no way, if there is not enough profit, how can the nobles try their best to risk the gallows to smuggle and trade with the Yaxia caravan?

This situation caused a double wave of unemployment for urban citizens and farmers. Even if there was no force against the nobility and clergy, its domestic stability would inevitably decline sharply, and the situation would be tense, with frequent conflicts and turmoil.

The faith Poseidon gained from Winkrel must have been a stock market crash.

As for Winkrel, who was accustomed to Yaxia's cheap food and industrial products, and whose own manufacturing capabilities had been severely cut by more than a dozen times, his military strength would definitely decline accordingly.

In fact, the refugees wandering in the streets, alleys, fields and wilderness were eroded by the impression of Asia's fertility and wealth, and they yearned for the life and culture of Asia. Unable to survive, they all took the route and entered Magik along the Winkrel border and then wandered around.

Enter Asshai.

It can be said that he traveled thousands of miles along the way, with corpses everywhere, starvation and countless losses, but his love for a better life still could not be changed, and many refugees still poured into Asia.

Zhong Ming also accepted all comers and set up many missionary points to relieve the refugees on the border. While preaching to the refugees, he distributed food and clothing to them and arranged work for them.

The newly moved nobles from the border, as well as the newly ennobled nouveau riche, are in short supply of people, so they have learned to recruit refugees in a decent manner.

After three years of boiling frogs in warm water, the powerful Winkrel Kingdom, with more than five million square meters of fertile land, has quietly weakened a lot.

Including the Principality of Wizard and the Principality of Dimen, they are all being weakened silently by Zhong Ming's "trade war" method.

Only the Principality of Magik was in an ambiguous state due to the ambiguous relationship between Lucky and Zhong Ming. The eldest prince Magik died in Estonia, and Lucky suddenly became the first heir.

Zhong Ming thought he could fight for it, so he didn't rush to use this trick on Magzhik.

Derek exposed his sinister intentions today, and things seem to have developed differently...

The more Pope Will listened, the more serious his expression became: "It's a bit alarmist, but it's not unreasonable.

Derek, is there any solution? Enforce a complete eradication of smuggling? Increase tariffs?"

Derek shook his head: "It's difficult, it's difficult."
To be continued...