Chapter 714 (1/2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In the end, the result of this negotiation was relatively unfavorable to the merchants because the merchant party had once again conceded and compromised.
Though taxes were reduced, the aristocratic lords could still send people to be directly involved in the management of the Chamber of Commerce.
According to the aristocratic party, this was called supervision rights. As lords, they had to ensure that they were able to supervise every force in their territory. There should not be a truly uncontrolled force existing. But everyone knew that this would mean that almost all the chambers of commerce in the various territories would completely fall within the control of the local lords.
Though usually, they could peacefully and steadily operate their businesses to make money, when the lords got angry and turned against them, they might be smothered and clobbered anytime. There was no way they could think of escaping at all.
Given such a result, it would seem that Sui Xiong was certainly not going to accept this—who in the world would allow an enemy with a knife into his home? That would certainly be a fool incapable of using his brains!
But to the merchants, so long as there were fewer taxes to pay and there was nothing affecting their means of income, they could give in to almost anything else. After all, the merchants were most concerned about money. Money was the only thing they ever cared about.
When the outcome of the negotiations was out, Sui Xiong waved his tentacles and released the fellows in there. All of them smelled so bad that their stench was literally no different from that of rotting bodies. Then he left right away and returned to his God’s Kingdom.
“Really too useless, no matter what help is given, they are still hopeless!” Sui Xiong said. Back in the council room, when he opened his mouth to speak, this was the first thing he said, “Manissy, the merchant party is really a hopeless bunch!”
The Goddess of Wealth was a little puzzled, so she asked, “Doesn’t this make a pretty good outcome? There’s no need to go to war.”
Sui Xiong could not help feeling at a loss for words, and then something came to mind… this was clearly what was meant by “if the upper beam was not straight, the lower one would go awry”! The Goddess of Wealth herself was just a silly goose who saw money but not danger. How could the merchant party be expected to be canny and far-sighted?
Thinking about this, he could not help breathing out a deep sigh.
“Anyway, this matter is finally brought to a close,” he said. He could not be bothered to further talk about this screwed up matter and steered the topic back to serious business right away. “I feel that our Republic of Northwest should take warning from this matter.”
“Take warning?” The gods from the Void God System looked at one another as they could not understand exactly where the need to “take warning” was.
After a moment, Wall asked, “Your Majesty, we don’t have any aristocrats who actually hold real power within our Republic of Northwest.”
Sui Xiong shook his head and said, “The problem is not here. The problem lies within who should our country rely on? What kind of person should be the core of society?”
“Shouldn’t it be the merchants, I guess?” Wall said. He thought about it, then said, “The Republic of Northwest is almost a country founded on commerce. The core of the country should of course, be the merchants.”
“The merchants are simply weak to the core. They’re not reliable!” Sui Xiong said. He shook his head and refuted Wall’s claim. “This time, I’ve personally witnessed their weakness. I’ve clearly forced the merchant party to the same level as the aristocratic party. So long as they had persevered and did not give in, the aristocratic party would have been the side succumbing in the end—the issue with inheritance rights of the merchants is easily resolvable. At most, they could divide the assets among themselves, but would the aristocrats accept the splitting of assets? Once this generation of aristocrats dies, their children would already be beating the hell out of one another just to vie for the inheritance rights, not to mention those relatives with inheritance rights yet not on good terms with the children of these aristocrats… So long as this batch of representatives die when I catch the next batch of representatives, the aristocrats will have no choice but to give in.”
“That may be the case, but it seems a little too harsh…” Morani said. Shaking his head, he added, “Must we go to the extent of people dying?”
“A war will result in even more deaths. So we can say those leaders from the aristocratic party and merchant party have parents giving birth to and raising them, but not the soldiers who sadly have to seek joy amidst the hardships in life?” Sui Xiong retorted.
Morani thought for a moment, nodded and said, “You’re right. If losing a few great aristocrats or major merchants could solve the problem and avert a war, then we should just let them die.”