Jon is a fisherman. As a civilian of the Poplar Kingdom, he is 45 years old. He has never thought that one day he would be able to board a warship.
He has been living in Nanshui, sailing a boat and fishing here, barely supporting his family of three. But recently, this peaceful life has been broken.
First, a huge warship with black smoke arrived, and then he saw with his own eyes that more than a dozen cargo ships that wanted to return to the port were bombarded and sunk into the water by the bombardment of artillery.
Then, the war broke out suddenly. There were many warships on the sea. The winner was the enemy warship from nowhere...
Fishing at sea has become a dangerous thing, because some fishing boats were sunk by the other side when passing by.
So Jon could only honestly give up his job and wait on the shore to pray for the war to end soon.
A miracle seemed to have occurred. After being blocked at Nanshui Port for a month, it turned into two black-smoking warships and sailed away in a swaggering manner.
The enemy had not appeared on the nearby sea for a day. Officials at Nanshui Port began to force the fishing boats to go out to sea and asked them to check the outer sea to see if the enemy had really gone far.
Soon, almost all the fishing boats returned to the beach - these small fishing boats did not need to dock at the port at all, so they were relatively flexible and not easy to be wiped out.
The fishing boats that came back brought good news. They did not find the black smoke-belching warship, and Nanshui Port temporarily calmed down.
Then the restoration work was fully launched. With Lord Marquis Leibert personally taking charge, the restoration work of Nanshui Port progressed quite quickly.
Some larger merchant ships salvaged the cannons from the battleships that sank offshore and had roughly ascertained the location of the sinking. These were the most valuable items on these sunken ships.
For those ships that don’t know where they were sunk or whether they were really sunk, there is currently no way to deal with them.
In short, the loss of Nanshui Port, or the loss of Yangmu Kingdom, has been so great that it can be called terrifying.
The factory can basically maintain only one-third of its operating rate, and the roads are congested with temporarily dispatched horse-drawn carriages loaded with messy goods.
Sewage is flowing across the roads, workers are tortured by soaring prices and are listless, production is on the verge of collapse, and unrest may even occur at any time.
A modern city is fragile. Even a temporary water outage may cause problems for people's livelihood, not to mention the outbreak of a war.
Even though the Marquis was personally in charge, the entire Nanshui was still extremely depressed. It was only in the past two days that there was a glimmer of recovery.
Unfortunately, the dawn of recovery had nothing to do with Jon. He was drafted into the army and became a navy.
Because the naval warships suffered heavy losses and the number of navy sailors and crew members was also very high, it was difficult to replenish the supplies at the moment, so we had to find some fishermen to make up the number.
The warship they are responsible for controlling is not a real warship, but is hidden in the port, along with more than a dozen armed merchant ships that have been returning home in the past few days.
As a result, just in the past few days, when everyone thought that the disaster was over, two enemy warships emitting black smoke came back menacingly.
They sank the armed merchant ships responsible for guarding the outer perimeter of the port, and then captured the lucky or unlucky Jon.
He was then thrown into the sea near the coast and allowed to swim back on his own. After he anxiously handed over the bottle he was carrying to the officers of the city guard, he was imprisoned.
At this time, he finally had time to calm down and carefully recall all the details of the powerful steel battleship.
On that battleship, there were clean wooden decks, dark cannons, tall chimneys, and sailors in beautiful clothes.
Those sailors were simply more dignified than the nobles. They wore white coats and boat-shaped hats, and stood as straight as a poplar tree with their hands behind their backs.
He also remembered the huge dragon flag. He had never seen that flag before, but it was very beautiful.
In addition, he also remembered a detail, that is, there are actually elf sailors on the battleship, and they seem to have duties, because many of them obey the elf's orders.
Could it be said that the nearby Pinewood Kingdom has already attacked? Is this their battleship? Because Jon was frightened and too tired, he quickly fell asleep amid these speculations.
But at the same time, someone couldn't sleep.
Augustine Reibert smashed the exquisite-looking drifting bottle and took out the letter inside.
Then, he opened his eyes wide and saw the code word left by his cronies. This code word could only be used once, but it appeared here...
When he continued to read on, he was so shocked by what the letter said that he jumped up from his chair.
14 million gold coins!
Datang Group actually asked him to pay a full 14 million gold coins!
He held the letter with a sinister expression on his face, like a beast about to eat a man.
"Asshole! Are they crazy? How dare they ask for so much? How could I give them 14 million gold coins?" Leibot yelled angrily in his office and threw everything he could find on the ground.
However, when he calmed down, he confirmed a few things: First, his cronies had indeed arrived in Bunas, although it was a few days earlier. Second, the other party actually had a way to get the news the same day.
Transfer to Nanshui Port!
Third, the Datang Group, to which he owed 100,000 gold coins, was indeed capable of collecting debts, and those steel battleships were sent by them. Fourth, the current matter cannot be delayed and must be dealt with as soon as possible.
The matter at hand is indeed tricky, because as the prime minister of the Yangmu Kingdom and as a marquis, Rebot must consider the impact of this unwinnable naval battle on the Yangmu Kingdom.
If there really is a stronger existence than the Cyric Consortium, supporting the Pinewood Kingdom and other kingdoms, then the expansion war of the Poplar Kingdom can only be declared over.
They may not even be able to defend their borders, and a long-term naval blockade will completely collapse the economy of the Yangmu Kingdom.
Obviously, if these things really happen, then his role as prime minister will be over. The huge reputation accumulated by defeating the Kingdom of Gales will also be wiped out.
The king could no longer trust him, the person who had caused disaster, and might even get rid of him in exchange for Datang Group's understanding, thus ending the war...
But how is he going to deal with the matter at hand? According to what this letter says, send someone to the enemy's warship, use that magical machine, write a reply to remotely direct the negotiations?
Are you kidding me? Playing cards with your opponent? Telling your bottom line to your opponent? Isn't this stupid?
Moreover, I only have one chance to confirm the true thoughts of my confidant, because there is only one password at that time. How can I confirm the identity of the replyer in the next letter?
What's more...what I said here, will the meaning be changed when it is transmitted to my cronies? What is said by my cronies, will it be the original words when it is transmitted to me?
This state of being unilaterally transparent to the enemy, having problems on his side, and being constrained at every turn, immediately made Leibert irritated.
When he wanted to throw something again, he calmed himself down as much as possible - no matter what, no matter what the price, he had to give an explanation to the king and end this farce, the sooner the better.
!
His eyes rolled around in his sockets, and he actually considered whether he should pay the debts of Datang Group.
For a person like him, interests always come first, and he must make a decision to ensure his own interests. Obviously, judging from the current situation, it is more appropriate for him to find a way to settle this debt.
his fundamental interests.
Soon, he roughly estimated some things. First of all, he couldn't really prepare 14 million gold coins to repay the debt, otherwise King Yangmu XI would most likely let him go home to retire.
So replacing it with something else becomes the only option—for example, the most valuable thing: land! Or minerals!
The Yangmu Kingdom previously relied on selling out the technology of Datang Group to get back most of its mines from Cyric, including the iron ore and copper mines contained in his territory.
He can't move what's on the kingdom's side, but he can move what's in his own territory. Although this will reduce his income, he can keep everything he owns on the king's side.
Keep the position of prime minister, keep your title, keep your power and the possibility of external expansion to expand your influence.
As for my income...at worst, it will return to what it was before being controlled by Cyric. Anyway, it's not impossible to live with it for a while.
But the current debt is too huge, and it is obviously impossible to repay it solely by relying on the mine.
Therefore, at least part of the land must be added, a complete piece of land that may be valuable. After thinking about it, he decided to ask the king's opinion.
Because the most valuable land in his hands is Nanshui Port, which is also his base camp. However, Nanshui Port has the largest industrial base in the kingdom, and he does not dare to cede it to himself.
He planned to ask His Majesty the King if he was willing to make an exchange and cede Osa Port, and then return Nanshui Port to the King himself, and then find a fiefdom elsewhere.
After all, the value of Nanshui Port is much higher than that of Osa Port. If Yangmu XI could take back Nanshui, he would be very happy to find another poor place for Leibot.
The remaining thing is how to introduce the latest and most useful technology to Yangmu Kingdom after repairing the relationship with Datang Group.
