Chapter 172: The Duke Has No Money in His Pocket (23)

Five days later.

White Swan Castle.

Luosen received a messenger from Aaron in his lakeside study.

This messenger, however, was not Sir Yalak, because that noble‑born knight had been imprisoned by his king, his future uncertain.

The new messenger was called Rui Fa.

A civilian‑born Four‑ring Arcane Master in his early fifties, with a resolute gaze and steady temperament, whose attire was unadorned and lacked the refined air of a noble scion.

Because of his status as Aaron's messenger, he was granted an honorary Knight title.

"Knight Rui Fa, the 'Night of the Blood Blade' launched by your sovereign truly opened my eyes."

On the night his Lion Fleet was defeated, Dang caused a major incident in the Hero Hall of Lion Castle.

He deployed the Aaron Night Guard, completely eliminating the 122 noble council members and their 488 assistants.

That night, Aaron's Night Guards from across the realm also mobilized.

All of Aaron's nobles were killed or captured, and their family assets were confiscated into Aaron's treasury.

Around midnight, a large number of civilian aides were promoted to key positions, filling the vacancies left by the nobles.

After one night, aside from a few alert nobles who escaped Aaron, ninety percent of the nobles were outright eliminated.

That night was also called the 'Night of the Blood Blade' by Aaron's people.

The Lion King's decisive strike and swift action left every allied nation in the coalition utterly shocked.

Luosen couldn't help but remark that the Lion King was truly ruthless.

Knight Rui Fa's face turned solemn: "The Duke's southern decapitation campaign was no less impressive, and the glorious victory in the Gilded Strait is worthy of being recorded in the alliance's naval history."

After a pause, he said: "Your Grace, we have forty thousand valiant and battle‑ready warriors stationed in Weilan; the sovereign wishes to ransom them back."

Luosen was currently short of funds, so he nodded decisively.

"Ransom is no problem, but I require compensation. Here is the compensation list."

He used Mage Hand to hand the booklet to the messenger.

Knight Rui Fa examined it, and after a moment said, "Your Grace, this is far too much."

Luosen naturally understood why he said that.

The total compensation amounted to 20 million Ogre, accompanied by a series of treaties opening bilateral trade.

Rui Fa frowned, "Aaron currently has no money."

In his view, the treaties were fine and relatively fair, but the compensation sum was absurd.

"Aaron has!"

Luosen grinned, "The sovereign just seized the estates of the great domestic nobles; the treasury's gold is piled like mountains."

He and his ministers estimated that Dang's royal vault had increased by at least fifty million Ogre in gold!

And that's only gold; adding other assets would make the figure even more staggering.

After all, Aaron is far richer than Weilan.

Thus, although the 20‑million‑Ogre compensation is large, Dang can certainly pay it, and will certainly do so.

First, Aaron needs these capable naval soldiers.

Second, because Dang also needs to know the truth of the naval battle.

Since the naval battle took place on the open sea with no observers, the most reliable method is naturally to question the soldiers who actually fought.

Knight Rui Fa twitched his eye corner and said, "Duke, the sovereign did receive a sum, but actually has none."

Luosen waved his hand, "You can't hide that from me; I just did the same thing, and I know the nobles are very wealthy."

He pointed to the compensation list and said, "Knight, go tell the sovereign that once this sum is paid, the incident will be over. The two nations will resume normal trade thereafter."

Knight Rui Fa had nothing to say and turned to leave.

The next entrant was Prince Rafaye of Levinde.

When Luosen saw him, a faint cold smile appeared on his face.

"Your Highness, Levinde has greatly disappointed me."

Seeing the prince attempt to argue, he raised his hand to silence him, indicating the prince should listen, as he no longer wished to hear any meaningless defense.

"I know this is not something you can decide, and I have no intention of blaming you."

Saying this, Luosen looked at the prince, his gaze sweeping over the prince's emerald eyes and light‑gold hair.

"I am only reminding you to be careful that the Shira family's honor could be taken away by vile men through conspiracies."

Prince Rafaye was startled, "What does the Duke mean?"

Luosen tossed a ring to the prince, "I have a deep study of bloodlines, and based on what I know, I have crafted this ring."

The artifact is called the 'Pure‑Blood Ring'; when near members of the same family, it emits a subtle glow of uniform color.

"Look, in the prince's hand it shines a deep green light, indicating a sacred bloodline. If it nears a non‑sacred bloodline, such as mine—"

Luosen picked up an identical ring, and its gem displayed a pale green metallic sheen.

"See, I have only a trace of natural bloodline, so it shows this color."

Having said that, he saw the thoughtful look on Prince Rafaye's face and said no more.

"Your Highness, I will retain your nation's Black Stone warship, which will exactly offset your debt to me."

"As for your warriors, there are about 6,000, with an average ransom of 500 Ogre, or 625 Shira gold."

"Your country may decide to pay. If you refuse, I will tell these soldiers that their homeland has abandoned them, and then I will grant them Weilan citizenship."

Prince Rafaye's mood was in disarray, and he barely absorbed the rest of the words.

He quickly bowed to Luosen and hurried out of the lakeside study.

After he left, Acting Minister of State Affairs Klub entered, dressed in formal attire.

"Duke, my respects to you." Luosen rose from his chair, walked to the floor‑to‑ceiling glass window, and gazed at the beautiful scenery of Swan Lake outside.

"My minister of state, from now on speak straight to the matter; there is no need to waste time on empty courtesies."

Klub, already aware of Luosen's temperament, went straight to the point: "Duke, after the trial operation of the Weilan Citizen Bank, almost all certificates on the market have been redeemed."

"At present the bank holds less than 4 million Ogre in gold coins, and its customers have lost trust in any certificate, so they only withdraw, not deposit."

"Although it can still be sustained for now, clearly this greatly increases the difficulty of market transactions. Excess gold coins are scattered among the populace, not participating in market circulation."

Luosen understood and said, "So that means we have no money for big projects?"

Klub nodded: "Yes, Duke, the current situation is far worse than on White Sturgeon Island. Too many mouths to feed, too many places to fund, and the ways to earn money have not yet opened."

To this, Rosen Ziran knows it perfectly clear.

When the scale expands, the development ceiling naturally rises, but maintenance costs also rise proportionally, which is only natural.

Yet he knows even better that the biggest problem now is not that Weilan lacks money, but that the liquidity of the currency has greatly weakened.

Because of the fake certificate incident, bank credit collapsed, and Weilan reverted to the metal‑currency era.

People prefer to keep excess metal currency at home rather than in the bank.

But once money sits idle at home, it leaves the market and becomes dead money.

Roughly equivalent to non‑existence.

The more people store at home, the more dead money there is, and the less money Luosen, this Duke of Weilan, can draw upon.

In this social context, even if Luosen actually received a 20 million Ogre compensation, it would be spent quickly.

He envisions building a brand‑new capital, creating a powerful spellcraft industrial zone, pouring huge funds into spell research and other grand projects, which together could require hundreds of millions, even tens of billions of Ogre in investment.

With today's backward capacity to mobilize social resources, even a hundred years wouldn't accomplish it!

What to do? One option is to forcibly conscript the populace to work, which is precisely what the nobles love most.

But Rosen Ziran cannot do that.

Otherwise the so‑called "Weilan citizens" would become a joke, severely damaging the people's motivation and even eroding the foundation of rule.

The only recourse is to employ various clever schemes to pull money out of the people's purses and turn it back into circulating cash.

So Luosen asked, "How profitable are the methods I previously thought of?"

Klub nodded: "Not bad."

"Noble castle parks across the lands can bring in about 20,000 Ogre per day. Renting and selling noble estates also yields a large sum. Private gambling brings considerable income as well, but these revenues only maintain the status quo and cannot solve the root problem."

Luosen nodded in understanding; he knew it was time to take the next step.

He asked, "The public have put forward demands on bank certificates, right?"

"They have, and many of them; everyone finds it inconvenient but worries the fake certificate incident might recur."

In fact, because of the fake certificate incident on Weilan Island, the entire Natural Alliance's bank certificate business was heavily affected.

Luosen nodded: "Carrying a few to a dozen kilograms of coins for transactions all day and constantly running to the bank is indeed very inconvenient."

Yet the collapse of trust happens in an instant, while rebuilding trust must come bit by bit.

Today, Weilan has already repelled Aaron's counterattack, and this duke has firmly settled his position.

Stable power is the greatest foundation for gaining the people's trust.

With the base stable, the next step is to make people believe that large‑scale fake certificates will not appear again.

Why not believe that fake certificates will never appear?

Because that is impossible.

There is no perfect anti‑counterfeit technology in the world; as long as cost is invested, any certificate can be forged.

Therefore, the truly viable path is, through various means, to make the manufacturing cost of the vast majority of fake certificates exceed the value the certificate represents.

To achieve this, first raise the technical threshold for certificates; second, strengthen law enforcement; third, lower the limit of "unregistered certificates."

In other words, adopt "small‑amount unregistered certificates," i. e., paper money.

Luosen smiled, "Klub, in a month, hold a government bounty across the entire Natural Alliance, setting the prize at 10,000 Ogre."

Seeing Klub's confusion, he explained, "In a month I will release a new certificate sample."

"The bounty is to find a technique that can forge a brand‑new bank certificate; whoever's forgery can deceive the eyes of a hundred shrewd merchants will receive the prize."

Klub clicked his tongue in amazement, "Duke, this counts as the largest‑ever bounty in history."

"The amount isn't huge; how can we get everyone to pay attention?"

Only by attracting attention and sparking widespread public discussion can a new social consensus form.

And while Duke Luosen was directing affairs in his lakeside study, his true self remained in the north suburb of Mordania.

This place was originally the military camp of the Count of Mont County, covering over 5,000 mu.

It has now been transformed by Luosen into Weilan's aviation design and manufacturing center, expanding the area to a full 20,000 mu.

Currently, using tempered yellow clay, a large above‑ and underground complex has been hurriedly erected, occupying about 100 mu.

In a secret underground laboratory, Luosen is together with a large group of wind‑spell mages, gathered around a "Shadow Assassin."

It is the stealth self‑destruct drone that achieved great feats in naval battles.

These wind mages, of course, were recruited from across Weilan.

There are over 500 of them, and together with the mages and craftsmen from the original aviation research center, the total approaches a thousand people.

A group is discussing how to improve this device.

This matter is also extremely important for reopening the bank, even the most important.

Because violence is always the primary means of maintaining a national bank's credit.

To open a bank, print paper money and collect minting tax, you must have enforcers! The more capable the enforcers, the larger the bank can be.

If the enforcers are cowardly, the bank will have to collapse!

(End of chapter)