Sixteen, Queen Lixuan's melancholy

Surrounded by a few maids, Queen Claire Belmont wore the most luxurious dress and rode a light sedan chair decorated with colorful fabrics. She was carried out from the palace by four muscular dwarf slaves, and came to the street outside the palace gate, heading towards the Senate at the other end of the city. :) Lixuan City was filled with desolate and dilapidated city appearance, and then slowly appeared in front of her...

——Actually, this city has indeed become a "root of great ruins".

There are many majestic and spectacular ancient buildings on both sides of the street, which can accommodate ten carriages, standing on both sides of the street. These include several magnificent temples, a row of exquisitely carved columns supporting the marble domes painted with murals; a circular theater composed of sixty arcades, inlaid with countless gorgeous reliefs of colorful light; and a large public bathroom, school, and library... At least hundreds of wizard towers of varying heights and shapes stand one after another between the blocks. At a glance, they are everywhere, demonstrating the city's great arcane heritage.

However, the Silk Road is in an era of great recession after all. As a commercial city developed based on the Silk Road, although Lixuan City has many majestic and magnificent buildings, it has inevitably become a dying city.

——In its heyday, Lixuan City had a total of 200,000 permanent residents in the city alone, not including the population of towns and vassal states. In this era of Great Recession, the once scattered villages and pastoral suburbs outside the city, which had been filled with pastoral music, had become lifeless deserts and Gobi. The once bustling post roads and inns are now rare to have a few visitors all year round.

Now, the residents of Lixuan who are forced to curl up inside the city wall and rely on the underground river to make a living, have only less than 20,000 people left. Among them, more than 5,000 people are Tubo refugees who have just escaped from the snowy plateau in order to avoid the military front of Timur Khan...

Therefore, with such a sparse remaining population, the scene in the city of Lixuan is naturally very bleak. If any traveler with extensive knowledge comes here, he will definitely be surprised by the dilapidatedness of this magnificent city.

——Due to the cut-off of the trade routes and the withering population, even the residential areas in the city that were still crowded, were completely rural: there were few shops, and sheep and hens wandering on the once bustling commercial streets; the exquisite marble statues on the street were climbed up to wild grape vines; and the empty and silent spice market was covered with thatch taller than people; ancient temples and temples also collapsed and decayed due to disrepair; the streets were deserted, with few pedestrians, and were deserted and collapsed houses everywhere; the gorgeous fountains on the square had long dried up to the bottom; and the exquisite and elegant gardens were all replaced by vegetable beds and arable land due to more urgent needs.

Not only are the civilian areas dilapidated, but even the palaces that symbolize authority are now mostly dilapidated and uninhabitable. The magnificent "Golden Palace" famous for its giant gilded dome has collapsed for more than a hundred years, and there are only broken walls left, but it is impossible to repair them. The palace where the Queen lives now is actually a small palace in the fortress Acropolis. Although the government and the Senate Building in the center of the city seem to be intact, the officials and veterans who know the details dare not "take risks" to live in this crumbling palace.

The queen's sedan chair was carried over the empty old Senate building, and passed the Arcane Academy and the Seminary that had been closed for many years. She passed by countless old and dilapidated buildings, and finally came to the other end of the city, enshrined in the Grand Temple of the Magic Goddess Mistera.

This is the only large-scale building in Lixuan City except for the royal palace. At its most prosperous heyday, more than 800 priests, paladins and apprentices lived in the temple, and yells praising the goddess were scattered from morning to night. But in this era of great decline, there are only a few more than twenty people left in the clergy and their families in the Mistera Temple in Lixuan City.

In order to save expenses and avoid the waste and idleness of this building in the best state, the royal family moved the Senate, the government and the court of Lixuan City. At the same time, schools, hospitals and relief houses were attached to the temple to provide the most basic welfare for the remaining citizens and create the only prosperous area in the city. But even so, standing in front of the temple and looking out, it was still empty and dilapidated.

"...Good morning, Your Majesty, please speed up, the elders have been waiting for a long time?"

A temple priestess wearing a blue and white striped long skirt smiled and greeted him from the dark corridors, and at the same time handed over a volume of documents to the queen on the sedan chair, "... Please keep the financial and material statements for this statistics, so you may need it at the meeting later."

"...Oh, it's been counted today? I'm afraid there won't be any good news."

Queen Claire Belmont lazily took the scroll from the sedan chair, spread it casually with her slender hands, then raised her eyebrows, and unexpectedly saw a series of shocking terrible deficits, "...all dropped to the minimum warning line...below?"

Divide-Separation-Line

"...... The collapse of the District Magic Net in late autumn last year led to the quiet departure of the last two druids in the city. From then on, the arable land in the suburbs of Lixuan and the city lacked the regulation of natural magic. Coupled with rampant diseases and pests, this year's food harvest is a foregone conclusion..."

In the center of the slightly empty chamber, a middle-aged official in white robe talked with a roll of parchment, "... Due to the consumption of the Tubo refugees, the barley, wheat, oats and beans stored in the treasury are only about 320,000 pounds left. Even if the private grain stocks are included, it may be difficult to maintain until the next harvest season... In order to prevent the outbreak of famine, the government must try to find ways to purchase from outside..."

"…Outward purchase? Is there still money in our treasury?"

Another middle-aged veteran with a beard stood up from his marble seat and retorted loudly, "...The last camel caravan that came to Lixuan City with silk and spices was fifteen years ago. The income from the salt lake outside the city was replaced last year with pig iron to build weapons and saltpeter equipped with gunpowder... Now even the salary of the soldiers guarding the city has been owed for three months. Where should we get money to buy food? Could it be that the caravan will directly carry salt blocks to trade? The other party may not be willing to collect it?"

"…The Elder Theron said it was right. The only little money we had had was already running out as early as last year. What's more, now within a radius of 800 miles near us, there are no neighbors available for purchasing grain."

A dark officer wearing armor and a scarred face also stood up and echoed, "...The four city-states nearest to us, Ganquan, Xiping, Saiye and Hanhai, were attacked and massacred by Tukan cavalry two months ago. When our reconnaissance team rushed there, there were only corpses and ruins everywhere, and there was no sign of a living person... and the villain who planned these atrocities was..."

Speaking of this, he couldn't help but pause a little, and then almost gritted his teeth and spit out a name: "...Temur Khan's youngest son, the 'Prince of Destruction' Heda Huli"...
Chapter completed!