The operations of the Gray Cloak Order on the Soqya Peninsula were finally showing results. Their intelligence network had gradually touched most of the Ivy Alliance city-states, including Fedi. Thus, shortly after the Delmore Alliance withdrew their troops from Bronze Pass, the relevant intelligence was delivered to Charlotte by Letter Raven.
While Charlotte breathed a huge sigh of relief, she also profoundly felt that the situation was becoming increasingly dangerous and that she had to hurry.
Although she was not yet clear on exactly what method the Fedi City-State had used to force the Delmore Alliance to temporarily withdraw, the situation where the Ivy Alliance was weak and the Delmore Alliance was strong would not change because of this single retreat. It would be difficult to replenish the casualties among the elites within ten years. Fedi might have used a small trick to make the Delmore people retreat once, but could they do it a second or third time?
Charlotte did not want to see a unified regime appear on the Soqya Peninsula. She had previously sat by and watched as the Delmore Alliance nearly breached Fedi City-State because the incident happened suddenly; the Lanwan Viscountcy had just finished the Battle of Soqya, and she herself was not ready, so she had no choice. Charlotte did not want to experience that feeling of sitting at home worrying helplessly a second time.
Additionally, the caravan subordinate to the Elm Tree Town Commerce Department also brought back some news for Charlotte.
First, just as Charlotte had thought, the Bonan Duchy was in chaos.
The Commander of the Royal Knights, David Boyan, led his army into the Bonan Duchy to hunt down the tribal leader Basha. Because David Boyan was anxious to reinforce Platinum City, he had only drawn ten Griffin Knight Squads from the border. His ground forces were insufficient; he could easily crush the organized resistance of the mountain people and send the enemy scurrying like rats, but he could not surround and strangle Basha's remnants. Thus, he requested assistance from the Bonan Duchy.
However, upon learning that the Duke of Bonan, Fernandez Paster, had died in battle at Platinum City, the Duke's eight sons did not come to assist David Boyan with righteous indignation. Instead, they instantly became spirited and performed a fine show of brothers quarreling at home and fighting among themselves for the Commander.
Basha led tens of thousands of remnants and openly ran through the defense lines of Duke Fernandez's eight sons, returning to the Kanpei Mountains. Along the way, they bypassed castles and avoided ducal armies, and Fernandez's sons ignored them, caring only about fighting their own 'brotherly matches'.
Commander David was so angry that smoke practically poured from his seven orifices, and he furiously cursed in front of his many subordinates that Duke Fernandez had birthed a nest of vermin.
Although Commander David felt that those people were vermin, their bloodlines were noble after all, and the new Duke of Bonan could only be decided from among those eight. Currently, the most hopeful candidates were Fernandez's eldest son, Fraser Paster, and his third son, Daniel Paster—Fernandez's second son was a cripple with legs of different lengths, so he lacked competitiveness. Currently, both men claimed to be the Duke of Bonan, accusing the other of being a rebel, and fighting like wildfire.
Emperor Henry had sent envoys multiple times to conscript the Bonan Duchy's army to participate in the suppression battle against Charlotte's grandfather, Ethel Hollowin. But because the internal fighting in the Bonan Duchy was simply too lively, the envoys not only returned empty-handed and disheveled but even brought back the news that "the new Duke of Bonan requests His Majesty the Emperor to send troops to help the Bonan Duchy suppress the rebellion."
Although Charlotte did not know how Henry responded to this, that guy's mood right now surely couldn't be too wonderful.
Secondly, there was the tense situation in the Green Plains Duchy.
The Duke of Green Plains, Jose Mellerfield, was continuously sending reinforcements to Sean's Camp.
As mentioned before, Sean's Camp was a military stronghold established by the Green Plains Duchy on the border to defend against the Cato Kingdom. At such a sensitive juncture, the Green Plains Duchy reinforcing the border again made it hard for people not to think too much.
Charlotte did not know if her old dad had made a decision yet; she hoped the answer was "yes." Regardless of whether her old dad really intended to go to war with her grandfather, having a clear strategic goal would allow the entire duchy to advance toward that goal without hesitation.
But it was a pity; Charlotte knew that Jose Mellerfield had a nature of being "full of schemes but lacking decision." Increasing troops at Sean's Camp was extremely likely a directional move made by her old dad under the pressure of the nobles surnamed Mellerfield. These people wanted the duchy to be promoted to a kingdom, wanted the Mellerfield family to advance further, and wanted to obtain more wealth and glory. Such thoughts were beyond reproach. However, their actions, combined with her old dad's indecisiveness, were very likely to push the Green Plains Duchy into the most dangerous situation.
"Commander David was right; they really are a bunch of vermin!"
While Charlotte wrote a letter to Jose Mellerfield, strongly persuading her old dad to either declare war on the Cato Kingdom immediately or withdraw troops from the border immediately—urging him not to be indecisive—she decided to declare war on the various city-states of Soqya.
This war did not begin with swords and flesh; Charlotte's weapon this time was the Dir.
The Delmore Alliance's silent withdrawal, under Charlotte's intentional propaganda, turned into a great victory for Fedi and a panicked flight for the Delmore people.
With Fedi winning so thoroughly, people naturally had more confidence in the continued existence of the Dir. Thus, the Elm Tree Town Exchange House, as well as the Exchange Houses Charlotte had newly set up in Ambratu, Little Sassinian, and Dorukocha, took the opportunity to simultaneously announce that the exchange rate for the Dir had risen again, jumping directly to 1:3.5.
This wave of major price increases made the "Dir merchants" ecstatic. They hoarded Dir even more aggressively, and even ordinary people who did not participate in commerce began to choose to keep Dir in their hands, no longer using or exchanging it easily.
Under these circumstances, some traveling merchants coming and going on the Soqya Peninsula gradually discovered a situation: in some city-states in the northern and central parts of the Soqya Peninsula, their goods were gradually becoming unsellable.
In Charlotte's previous life, many people knew how disastrous exaggerated inflation could be, yet few knew that severe deflation could also cause extremely negative effects.
This was not due to ignorance, but because a small amount of inflation is beneficial for stimulating economic growth. Under a credit currency system, the cost of issuing currency is extremely low, so almost all modern nations naturally tend to over-issue currency. Thus, modern people often hear about a certain country's economy collapsing due to severe inflation, rather than severe deflation causing an economic depression.
So when was deflation common? Naturally, in ancient societies where metal was used as currency. The most typical example was the silver famine in the late Ming Dynasty.
Due to the reduction of silver imports from overseas, the corruption of the government's currency system, and the large-scale hoarding of silver by powerful nobles and landlords, the silver on the market decreased continuously. The price of silver kept rising, and the silver obtained by farmers for their products became less and less, yet the "Single Whip Law" stipulated that the common people must pay taxes in silver.
When the price of silver rose to the point where the crops grown from the farmers' land could no longer be exchanged for enough silver to pay taxes, the Great Ming, that empire of silver, was not far from its doomsday.
Today, many city-states on the Soqya Peninsula were facing the same problem. The Dir circulating in the market was becoming scarcer, and the closer the city-state was to the Lanwan Strait, the more severe the situation was.
"This is the transaction record sent back by the caravan heading to the Badan City-State. They purchased sea fish, wool, mutton, clay pots, straw ropes, and other daily necessities." Cecilia handed a sheet of stationery to Charlotte and said, "I roughly calculated it according to the method you gave me. The prices in the Badan City-State have already dropped by about fifty percent. That is to say, the actual value of the Dir in Badan City has risen by about double."
"Tsk, this rose even faster than I expected. The Exchange House only let the Dir rise by one-eighth," Charlotte said while burying her head in processing official documents.
Apart from being happy, Cecilia could not help but say strangely, "The total amount of Dir hoarded in our treasury is less than 8.5 million, right? Why is the money shortage in the Badan City-State market so severe?"
Charlotte shook the quill in her hand and said, "The Dir we hoarded is just the small portion. The Dir in the hands of those 'Dir merchants,' city-state wealthy households, powerful nobles, and even ordinary citizens is the real bulk. As long as they don't want to spend this money for the time being, it is no different from hoarding."
Cecilia suddenly understood and nodded thoughtfully.
Charlotte finished processing an official document, raised her head, and asked, "Leaving aside the prices for now, have the Senates of Badan and Carmela responded? What do they say about us setting up Exchange Houses in Badan and Carmela?"
"With the 'Economic Cooperation Agreement' in place, Badan and Carmela City-States certainly have no reason to refuse the Exchange Houses," Cecilia answered immediately. "However, the Badan Senate requested that our Exchange Houses open the business of exchanging Fuso for Dir."
"Hehe..." Charlotte couldn't help but smile. "This was originally something we planned to do. Since they actively requested it, then let's satisfy their wishes."
Cecilia frowned slightly and said, "But didn't you say we need to reserve at least ten million Dir before opening the Dir exchange business? We haven't reserved enough Dir yet."
"This is indeed a problem," Charlotte sighed with some annoyance. "But time does not allow us to slowly save money anymore. If the money isn't enough, then let's borrow some from someone..."
Just as Cecilia and Charlotte were speaking, the door to the study was suddenly pushed open with a clang.
"Charlotte, I found some useful things regarding that matter you mentioned!"
Charlotte looked toward the door and didn't see anyone. Looking lower, she finally discovered a certain 1.3-meter-tall person walking into the study holding a large pile of materials. The height of the parchment and books piled up almost exceeded her head.
Seeing Lilith walking unsteadily, Cecilia hurriedly reached out to help Lilith share a portion of the parchment.
"Thanks." Lilith let out a long breath, thanked Cecilia, and then said excitedly to Charlotte, "Charlotte, let me tell you, this might be a super big discovery."
"What super big discovery?" Charlotte asked in confusion.
"Didn't you ask me last time if the legend of Saint Roman sleepwalking to the Kingdom of the Seven Sages was credible?" Lilith said while placing the materials in her arms onto Charlotte's desk.
"Mm, yes." Charlotte recalled there was indeed such a matter. Saint Roman sleepwalking to the Kingdom of the Seven Sages sounded like an ordinary legend, but in this world where a True God existed, Charlotte dared not treat mythological stories as fabricated rumors, so Charlotte had consulted Lilith.
Lilith said at the time that she wasn't too clear and needed to check. This check took several days, and Charlotte had almost forgotten about it. She hadn't expected Lilith to actually find something.
"What did you find out?" Charlotte asked curiously.
Lilith dug out a copy of The Canon, quickly flipped to the chapter regarding the Kingdom of the Seven Sages, and said, "Look, The Canon has detailed records regarding the Kingdom of the Seven Sages, and even records the names and appearances of the Seven Sages. But..."
Lilith then dug out a yellowed ancient book. While flipping to the corresponding paragraph, she said:
"This is an ancient book from the Wimbledon Empire period. Of course, it's not the original, but a copy made by later generations. It counts as a collection of religious stories, and it is also the oldest book I could find that completely records the story of Saint Roman sleepwalking to the Kingdom of the Seven Sages. However, the story makes absolutely no mention of the representative elements of the Kingdom of the Seven Sages found in The Canon, such as any of the Seven Sages, the colossal divine statues, the rivers flowing with honey water, and so on; none of these are there. These elements exist in later versions, but it can basically be confirmed that they were added by later generations. Yet, whether in the later versions or the ancient original version, the Saint Roman in the story was very convinced that he had arrived at the Kingdom of the Seven Sages. Don't you find that strange?"
"It is indeed a bit strange," Cecilia, who was listening from the side, couldn't help but nod. "If Saint Roman didn't see those things recorded in The Canon, why would he feel he had arrived at the Kingdom of the Seven Sages?"
"Did you figure out why?" Charlotte asked.
"I can't say I completely figured it out, but I can say I have a bit of a clue," Lilith dug out a tattered notebook from her pile of materials and said, "I found this in a church before. It is the handwriting of an ordinary cleric from the Wimbledon Empire period. When this cleric was a priest apprentice, Saint Roman was likely still alive. He wrote a sentence in the notebook..."
Lilith carefully flipped to one of the pages and read: "Saint Roman, blessed by God's grace, was sent a messenger to lead him in sleepwalking to the Kingdom of God on Earth."
Lilith placed heavy emphasis on "Kingdom of God on Earth."
"You mean..." Charlotte seemed to taste something in the words. "We people of the present day think 'Kingdom of God on Earth' refers to the legendary 'Kingdom of the Seven Sages,' but in reality, Saint Roman might have gone to a different 'Kingdom of God'?"
"Exactly." Lilith clapped her hands. "That is what I mean. Also, do you know who the messenger that led Saint Roman to sleepwalk to the Kingdom of God on Earth was?"
"Seemed to be called Fitch..." Charlotte frowned as she recalled.
Lilith laughed, patted the materials at her hand, and said confidently, "After my repeated textual research, that messenger's name should be Fedi!"
"Eh?" Charlotte stared blankly for a long while, then also revealed a smile. "It seems I really do have to hurry up and take down this Soqya Peninsula."
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