Chapter 683 (1/2)

“What do you think of this matter?” asked Sui Xiong after he had given a recount of the entire event. With a frown, he said, “You can’t blame me for saying too much. You should also instill in your followers a unified mindset. We are not pursuing absolute unison. It’s not strange to have different parties and factions internally, but no matter what, it should not escalate to the point where two major parties have to resort to force and fight one another!”

The Goddess of Wealth, Manissy, was usually full of confidence. But at this moment, she did not seem to appear so confident. She kept silent for a long time only to heave a deep sigh. But still, she said nothing.

“What’s wrong with you?” wondered Sui Xiong. “Weren’t things perfectly fine before?”

“At that time, I felt that I was able to keep things under control,” said the Goddess of Wealth as she finally spoke up. Her voice was filled with bitterness. “Now, I’ve come to realize that actually, I can’t. On top of my inability to keep things under control, there’s also… something major is going to happen.”

Sui Xiong was taken aback. Though he did have some expectations on the severity of the situation, he had never expected it to be so serious enough to render the Goddess of Wealth to be at her wits’ end.

“How did this happen? Does that mean you can’t even control your church?” he asked worriedly.

“The church is still in control, but now… the church is the only thing left that I can control,” said the Goddess of Wealth with a sigh. She seemed exhausted. “The conflict between the aristocratic party and merchant party has reached a point where their incompatibility is irreconcilable. Though the church is still trying its best to mediate their conflict, it seems like this time around, there is no way to hold them back.”

“What if they can’t be held back? Will there really be internal strife?”

“Most probably,” said the Goddess of Wealth with a bitter smile. “I went to learn more about the details of this matter. Between the aristocratic party and merchant party, there’s really no way we can mediate this.”

“Why?”

“Probably because of the ‘flow process,'” said the Goddess of Wealth. “The flow process method can greatly reduce the time required to train workers and can also break up the original complex working procedure. This will greatly increase the content that can be produced. Currently, the merchant party is going all out to push for this type of production process, so they need even more manpower. But they do not have enough workers on hand and need to recruit…”

Sui Xiong understood what she was getting at.

To the civilians, though the techniques available for them to learn via the flow process were limited, the wages at workshops were clearly much higher than the income earned from farming—mainly because the aristocrats collected so much tax that farming the fields was simply not enough for them to support their families. By contrast, at least if they had work to do, they could still put food on the table.

This world had yet to enter the era of the industrial revolution, a time where the people would be described as “things that dripped with blood and coated with dirt.” The wages at workshops might not be high, but they were at least higher than the income earned on the fields… at least this was the situation in the Commonwealth of Gold Coins.

Under such circumstances, it was certainly not difficult for the merchants to recruit workers. However, they would encounter a problem.

Among the civilians of this world, most were not “freemen.” As subjects of the lord, they did not have the right to accept employment out of freewill.

And would the lords allow a great portion of the labor force in their territories to become workers elsewhere?

Sui Xiong took a moment to recall and thought of Geerteng Hill.

Geerteng Hill used to be an area with agriculture as its main income. Now, it was a world-renowned place of stationery and medicinal herbs. How did Olian Geerteng deploy human resources?

So he contacted Olian to ask about this matter.

“Of course, I would have to let go of the fields,” replied Olian. “Food supply and such, we just need to buy them.”

Sui Xiong nodded. That was pretty much what he guessed.

But clearly, a majority of the lords in the Commonwealth of Gold Coins did not express their acceptance because those workshops belonged to the merchant party and not to them.

“If the merchants allow the lords to become shareholders of these workshops, do you think this will work out?” he suggested.