Chapter 820 (1/2)
Chapter 820: The Journey
Translator: TransN Editor: Meh
Lorgar stared at the circles drawn by Andrea on the ground for a good while before she voiced out her thoughts. “But if you want to keep this circulation going, you’ve got to keep investing money… so, there’s still a large amount of wealth that isn’t in the hands of the great chief.”
“That’s it… This is what makes His Majesty different from all those other nobles, and it took me a while before I could figure out this point.” Andrea then drew a larger circle around the small circles. “From the very beginning, he’s regarded the entire Graycastle as his own domain. Given that, no matter which city accumulates the wealth, it still belongs to him.”
“But he’s the king, so shouldn’t it be natural for him to think that way?”
Andrea retorted, “When Wildflame was the strongest clan, were you able to lord over clans in the Silver Stream Oasis? I’m guessing you couldn’t even control the other clans inside Iron Sand City. It’s the same for the Four Kingdoms. The nobles are like your clan chiefs. They won’t let anyone else intervene in the affairs of their land and neither would they consider any other noble’s domain as their homeland.”
“…” Lorgar remained silent for a while. “We can’t control our subjects simply by thinking them ours.”
“Yes. You’re much smarter than Ashes. Stay away from her in the future or your brain will be slowly filled with mud, like hers.” Andrea patted Lorgar’s shoulder. “The key lies in the combination of military might and the implementation of His Majesty’s policies. The former can discourage the nobles from having any second thoughts, while the latter will gradually help to centralize the kingdom’s power. This is a brilliant innovation. What’s even more amazing, is that the king had already put this into practice since the beginning. Only having stayed in Neverwinter for so long can I now recognize the intricacies of this plan.”
“It’s indeed a bit… complicated.” Lorgar scratched her head, and she was a bit surprised. She never expected that this blonde-haired girl who usually distanced herself from the others would answer her question so enthusiastically and in such great detail. Her guess was that Andrea might have been eagerly looking forward to sharing her findings and thoughts with someone else, but had failed to find a person to talk to.
“Of course, politics is 10,000 times more complicated than fighting.” said Andrea, proudly, “and that’s just one part. The other part is that the king is going to acquire more than just wealth—he’ll also have you guys. ”
“Us?”
“This principle is much simpler. When Mojin immigrants get food and houses through working for the king, they would become part of this circulation. You’ll gradually get used to this lifestyle of using your wages to buy all kinds of goods and comforts produced by Graycastle. In the end, you’ll never be able to stop living in this kind of a comfortable manner and will eventually become a genuine citizen of the kingdom.”
Andrea impaled the wooden stick into the ground, wiped her hands clean, and stood up. “This is inevitable. The oases are shrinking, and the survival of the Mojin clans are being threatened. Under this circumstance, the king has offered you a way to survive without fighting each other for water, so more and more Mojins will choose to leave the desert. Meanwhile, there are many deserted lands lying in the Southern Territory. It’s only natural for the king to bring the Mojin people there to reclaim those lands—and create wealth for him.”
She paused for a moment and asked, “Now do you understand? By doing so, 20 years later, His Majesty Roland will not only get all the Blackwater that he desires but also an accumulated wealth as well as most of the Mojins of the Southernmost Region. Do you still think that buying Blackwater from the Iron Sand City would be a better option?”
Lorgar did not answer but instead faintly felt her heartache. As compared to the answer itself, what shook her more was Andrea’s attitude—She believed that Andrea revealed all the reasons behind the king’s arrangements probably not out of trust, but because no Mojin could reverse this situation.
Lorgar admired this intelligent blonde witch who could actually figure out the king’s true intentions. However, she respected the great chief himself even more. He always thought of the bigger picture and was able to become an irreplaceable figure in his subjects’ hearts through meticulous planning. Not to mention his revolutionizing ideas. She believed that if he had been born in Iron Sand City, he would have definitely become an outstanding warrior.