Chapter 473: Insufficient Gold Coins

"Big trouble? What, are the rats over at Tuobeishan really not afraid of death? If I were them, even with the Decaying Lord's power blade at my throat, I would wait for the main army to disperse before launching an attack."

Sinuoli patted Belegar on the shoulder. He was such a cautious man when it came to military affairs; for him to leave the main force again to attend to private business, it must have been after careful analysis and confirmation that there was almost no danger.

"No, it's not that. Gold, it's about the gold coins! There aren't enough gold coins! The spoils of war are lacking, missing a lot!"

"Not enough gold coins? How can you face the ancestors in the tombs saying this? This is Karak Eight Peaks! The Queen of the Silver Abyss! The most prosperous fortress of the Mountain Kingdom!"

Sinuoli was shocked, more shocked than when the Ancestor Goddess said she had prepared thousands of years of treasure for him. As a Dwarf noble, he had only worried about gold coins when he first started out.

As he demonstrated his value with one victory after another and established his prestige as the Ancestor Chosen, the wealth accumulated over countless years by the Mountain Kingdom began to open up to him.

"I, I don't know either, perhaps, perhaps there is still..."

Facing Sinuoli's rapid-fire questioning, Belegar stammered, unable to lift his head. After regaining Eight Peaks, he had mapped out countless blueprints in his mind on how to restore the Clan's former glory step by step; could it be stillborn before it even started?

"Control yourself. Being a competent king means that while anyone else can panic, you cannot! Bring the report to me!"

Picking up the war revenue conversion table and looking at it, Sinuoli gasped. Although he had his eye on the vital strategic position of Eight Peaks, he had not been able to avoid the convention of having Belegar join forces with Brian's adventurers to produce a revenue estimate to mobilize the Human forces; comparing the two, he understood the situation.

First, the wealth buried under Eight Peaks had been exaggerated, and it was an exaggeration spanning thousands of years; it was hard to judge whether it was subjective intent or natural inclination. Undoubtedly, this helped strengthen the will of later generations to continue the struggle and made it slightly easier to solicit aid.

Secondly, there was no accurate statistic on how much of the resources were taken away during the initial evacuation. At that time, the Angrund Clan only sent the fire seeds back to the relatively safe Old World, and a significant proportion of the personnel defected to surrounding Karaks in an attempt to reclaim their homeland as soon as possible.

And as everyone knew, by the time Sinuoli led his troops south, those Karaks had been lost one by one until only Tiefengbao remained, and the resources within them had been lost along with them.

The third factor was the harvest of the exploration teams and Expeditionary Forces over the past two thousand years. They failed to recover Eight Peaks but were not without results; the resources they brought back provided a foundation for subsequent attempts, and the expedition organized by Duomujia Wangzi previously was a good example.

Finally, there was the destruction by the Greenskins and Skaven. They had been tossing about for so many years that even if the core Ancestral Tomb could not be opened, it was not difficult to scrape clean the floating wealth on the surface and open some vaults that had not received strict Protection Rune.

Under the influence of multiple factors, the actual spoils of war were less than one-fifth of the legends, reaching only thirty percent of the pre-war estimate. Never mind the funds to rebuild the fortress; it wasn't even enough to settle the military expenses at the victory banquet!

"You, oh you! You've really harmed me!"

Sinuoli crumpled the list of spoils and rubbed it, letting out a long sigh. Although the army fought under the banner of helping the Angrund Clan recover Eight Peaks, he was the one who organized and led it.

Whether it was the various Dwarf Karaks or the two Human forces of Bretonnia and the Empire, they all supported it because of his reputation; the Angrund Clan, this batch of "perennial losers," had long since overdrawn their credibility.

Reasonably and emotionally, he could not extract himself and leave Belegar to bear the responsibility alone. Not to mention that if Eight Peaks remained depressed and could not function as a hub, his own reputation would be ruined—how would he lead a team in the future?

"I calculated that this money is enough for the military expenses of our Human friends; it must be settled first to avoid damaging the reputation of the Qunshan. As for our compatriots, I am thinking of dividing them by closeness; I will borrow from relatives to pay the distant ones, and for the close ones, I would like to ask you to act as a guarantor for an extension."

Clearly, someone had been consulted; Belegar did not sit and wait for Sinuoli to find a way but proposed a relatively feasible solution. If Sinuoli's own line and the Tongshanbao line were deducted, the remainder was actually not too much.

"This is a temporary measure. What about yourself? Eight Peaks needs to be rebuilt, developed, and production restored; holding this place after the army disperses is another problem, and there will inevitably be a few more battles. There are so many places where money is needed!"

Sinuoli nodded and then shook his head. The original plan was quite good; after paying the military expenses for both sides, a large amount of resources would remain for the restoration of Eight Peaks. This large gap also had to be filled.

"Sigh, that matter must be put on the agenda. There is no time like the present; this can be considered an opportunity."

Taking paper and pen to make a simple calculation, with the huge war expenses, having no income while continuing to allocate resources was a great pressure on the Southlands. Sinuoli rubbed his cheeks and muttered.

"What matter?"

Hearing that there seemed to be a turning point, Belegar's eyes lit up and he leaned in.

"The matter of issuing paper currency. Do you think I spent so much effort promoting the Karak Gold Bank just to earn that little bit of interest spread from lending?"

Gently twisting his neck, a smile returned to his face as Sinuoli explained to Belegar. At any time, the biggest worry when engaging in currency is counterfeiting, and this magical world is not just a problem of "you handle the acid-free paper, I handle the color-changing ink."

The massive chaos brought about by rampant counterfeit money had a fatal attraction to the minions of Tzeentch. As long as the gains were large enough, let alone the Lord of Change, the Great Deceiver himself might take action personally.

In the first phase of the Karak Gold Bank, besides expanding outlets and accumulating operational experience, a very important task was to test the anti-counterfeiting capabilities of the deposit certificates. In fact, many counterfeiters were caught during the operation, and among them were many followers of Ranald.

Sinuoli's anti-counterfeiting method was simple to put plainly: the core was that the Divine Statue of every bank could invoke his Authority to place a divine power seal on the issued documents, and after receiving the documents, verify the status of the divine power seal through this method.

As long as no one or god could imitate his divine power seal and deceive his true self, there would be no problems. If he were truly deceived, Sinuoli would just admit defeat; if the foundation of his survival was handed over, what else was there to do!

"Paper currency? What is that?"

"It's a piece of paper, or rather a certificate of value. Holding it, it can be used directly as a certain amount of gold, or it can be exchanged for gold at any time. It's, um, a bit more convenient to use than gold coins."

"Do you mean to use this thing to settle with them? Will they agree?"

"They certainly won't all agree at first, but we can do the work; as long as a portion agrees, your turnover pressure will be a little smaller."

Sinuoli stroked his beard and made the final decision. The subsequent restoration of Eight Peaks was a major project, and he would take this opportunity to plan for himself.