Lux's Farewell

561 [0555] Immortals fight, mortals suffer

In Xiongdu, which was already undercurrent, the situation soon became uncontrollable with the arrival of two disruptors, and as Jarvan III boldly used the Illuminati to gather power.

Due to Demacia's special social structure, the turmoil that originated in Xiongdu quickly swept across the country, and even Mithral City was not spared from it.

Taxes and garrisons are the basis of the ruling order, but now, with the undisguised centralization of power by His Majesty the King, these foundations have become less secure.

Even the royal family is directly under the fief, and at this time it is carrying out "demonstrative reforms" and exploring new possibilities.

In the whole of Demacia, only Fossbarrow seemed to stay out of the matter.

The reason why Fossbarrow stays out of the matter is also very simple. Now Fossbarrow doesn't even collect taxes. The Silent People, headed by Grandma Ling, are not from Jarvan III's faction at all—under such circumstances, what the Fossbarrow people should do naturally, no matter how big the storm in Xiongdu is, it can't blow to their own home. One-third of an acre of land.

Even because of their embarrassing status as a royalist, even Pete and Augatha are consciously marginalizing the defending family. In the correspondence with Lacus, they hope that Lacus will "keep a low profile and stay out of it as much as possible."

Lux is naturally good at what she does.

The Forsbarrows live their lives behind closed doors.

For these "remote people" who have lived in the northern border of the kingdom for generations, what they care more about is the planting of saffron, the adjustment of salaries at the canal construction site, and the new hazelnut breeding experiment started this year. What kind of power struggle are they engaged in, what kind of ruling power are they trying to gather... What does this have to do with them, small people like them?

There is no doubt that this is something Lux is very happy to see.

She is happy to see Fossbarrow living and working in peace and contentment, and at the same time, she is very sure that in Demacia, only she can bring about such a leap forward.

Even in a sense, the more chaos elsewhere, the better life is for the Forsbarrows by comparison.

Soon, the summer will come, and the annual Xiongdu Trade Conference will start again. This time, the Fossbarrow Chamber of Commerce hired additional people, and under the escort of the northern border walker, they carried an astonishing amount of goods on the road. On the way to Xiongdu to participate in the trade conference.

After arriving in Xiongdu, Fossbarrow people were surprised to find that they had become the caravan that brought the most goods at this trade conference—compared with the past few years, this year's Xiongdu Trade Conference regardless of Both the scale and the quantity of goods are greatly reduced!
How is this going?

After some inquiries, the intelligence personnel accompanying the team quickly figured out the reason.

As the conflict between the royal family and the nobles broke out completely, the nobles who had no righteous status and could not raise their troops to resist soon found a way to fight against the royal family. On the surface, they were extremely obedient. Cooperate, don't obstruct, don't give any excuses, but for civilians, they still haven't given up their share.

Theoretically speaking, what Jarvan III wants to see is that he completely dominates the Illuminati, and then uses the Illuminati to start anew and completely centralize power, so as to completely control Demacia.

But the current situation is that the nobles will not prevent him from using the Illuminati, but at the same time they will not give up their financial rights at the grassroots level. King of kings, you are not qualified to take back my fief!
How much did the nobles charge when they had to pay taxes to the king in the past, and now how much will I charge after you send the Illuminati to directly collect taxes.

If we can't fight against the royal family, can't we still deal with the common people?

Facts have proved that it is still very easy for them to clean up civilians.

Objectively speaking, the life of Demacian civilians is still very good. As the most fertile area in Runeterra, even if the tax amount is relatively high, most of Demacia civilians can still survive. If you want to get ahead, you can only go to the army and work hard, but at least in terms of basic living standards, everyone still has some guarantees.

However, when Jarvan III tried to centralize power and sent the Illuminati, the mad dog, life for the common people of Demacia began to deteriorate.

The original tax was not less than a penny, but now the Illuminati collects extra money. It is said that this money is for the royal family?

What the hell, the royal family's money is going to the noble lords, why are you looking for us commoners?

We have all paid the noble lord!
The common people will not understand that this is an open and secret struggle between the royal family and the nobles for financial power, and they will not realize that this is a change in the social order. What they see is that they need to pay a large amount of extra taxes. All of a sudden it becomes tight and there is no guarantee.

In the past, after paying the lord's taxes, the common people would have a surplus when they had a good harvest, and occasionally a bad harvest would only require a small amount of borrowing to survive.

But now it’s all right. After the Illuminati received an extra sum, although this year’s harvest is bumper, everyone’s life is still tight. Although there is no need for a loan, the situation is still worrying.

If it continues like this, there will be no hope for that day!
In this way, Jarvan III tried to centralize power, and the central and local governments of Demacia began to confront each other. "exorbitant taxes" appeared for the first time, and the royal family, which was originally known as "lenient and kind" by the public, finally suffered a disastrous decline.

With the economic downturn and the indifference of the local lords, the Xiongdu Trading Conference has naturally been greatly affected.

Only a city like Fossbarrow, which has stayed out of the way, is still able to provide new tricks. Caravans in other cities, even the goods of previous years are not fully stocked.

Fortunately, the main product newly added by Fossbarrow this time is saffron. Although it is a spice, the price is not too expensive, and the current production is limited, so even though the flow of people at the fair is much smaller, most of the The Hongsu was still sold.

As for those good things from the Freljord, except for furs, most of them are luxury goods—although the commoners have no money, the nobles still have money, and they have never seen animal bones, teeth, nuts, etc , still very interested.

In the end, Fossbarrow's caravan returned with a full load, and while Lux was happy, the alarm bell sounded in her heart.

We can no longer rely on the Xiongdu Trade Conference and the trade within the nobles. The construction of the new port must be stepped up. As the situation in Demacia becomes more and more tense, Fossbarrow's trade will be affected sooner or later!

........................

"Relax, Lacus, don't be so excited." When Lacus was thinking about the expansion of the new port, hurriedly took out all the letterheads that Ino had sent to him, and estimated the scale of the seaborne trade, Kalya comforted him, " You have to have confidence in the nobles of Demacia, they don’t act like you, and even if Forsbarrow’s trade is affected, it will be at least two years later.”

"People have no long-term concerns, but they must have near-term worries." Lacus shook her head, and found out the latest letter from Eno, "Eno said that he has already contacted Shadow Stream, and if everything goes well, the three After a month, the first batch of ships will arrive at Xingang, and even if the ice-free port has not been built yet, we must at least demonstrate a good business environment..."

"You're so excited." Kalya sighed helplessly, "Think about the ports you've been to, places like Kalamanda—although the current Newport and Zaun's Newport, and Piltover The port is not comparable, but compared to most trade ports, it is not inferior. It is true that there is a sense of crisis, but you must also have confidence.”

"I'm very confident." Lacus said helplessly, "But the situation in Demacia always gives me the feeling that the plan can't keep up with the changes. I never thought before that the struggle between the royal family and the nobles would bring harm to the common people. Let’s face a disaster, it’s a good year, if the weather is not so good next year, there will be bad harvests everywhere, and the nobles and the royal family will have to collect two taxes... I can hardly imagine the situation.”

"Objectively speaking, this is a good opportunity for you." Kalya understood Lacus's thoughts very well, "What Fossbarrow lacks is people. Now that taxes are getting heavier, if you play the sign of tax exemption, I think at least there are still quite a few civilians who came here to live in Mithral City."

Lux blinked at the words.

"Is that bad?"

"What's wrong?" Kalya asked back, "Do you think this is poaching, the lords who raised taxes for the common people?"

"..."

Lux opened her mouth, but didn't speak.

From the perspective of nobles, this may indeed be an offense, but should I care about this offense?

Which side should I stand on?
This is a question that can be answered without thinking.

"So, how do we publicize to attract people to live in Forsbarrow?" Lacus skipped over whether to do it or not, and asked what to do, "The only thing I can think of is to use last year's batch of people from Mythril City. The word-of-mouth of immigrants, plus the guarantee of tax exemption, and the introduction of jobs and so on..."

"That's enough." Carya said cheerfully, "Believe me, as long as you can prove that these are true, then many people will be willing to come to Fossbarrow to live - the winter here is indeed very cold, but for For the most part, they're not at the point where they're qualified to think about climate."

In this way, Lax pulled Sona together and began to discuss the next step of Fossbarrow's immigration plan.

After formulating a detailed plan, Lacus selected a group of immigrants who lived well and settled in Fossbarrow among the immigrants who followed her back to Miriam City last year, and formed an "immigration lobby group" and Unified training started.

The training here is not the training of head pulling skills, but Lacus hopes that every immigration representative can explain the relevant policies of Fossbarrow clearly. give an accurate answer.

There is no need for rhetoric, just say what you have - after all, these are the experiences of the immigrants. They did find jobs within their ability, they did have land for building houses, and they did not need to pay taxes.

Perhaps last year, these conditions were not enough to attract the residents of Miriam City to live in a strange land, but I believe that after the war, land annexation (attempted), and tax increases, the residents of Miriam City should start to rethink own future.

After all, in addition to the above-mentioned basic living standards, Fossbarrow can also provide clerical positions and free opportunities to learn literacy. Perhaps not every Miracle City person is aware of the importance of knowledge, but I think there are still many people who do. What exactly do these conditions mean.

Coupled with the prestige accumulated by Lux in the Battle of Mithral City last year...

Maybe Mithral City is about to face the biggest poaching incident in history!
........................

Because Lux had borrowed money from Mihril City before, Fossbarrow had to repay the loan on time every autumn before the grain harvest, and repay a sum of money with interest to the crown guards of Mithril City. .

And this year, when Fossbarrow's team came to Mithral City with money and goods, many residents of Mithral City appeared in their team and looked at familiar faces.

Aren't these the people who couldn't survive in Mithral City last winter?
Are they returning home?
Curiosity is a human nature, not to mention the residents of Miyin City who are naturally gossipy. After these people came back, many residents of Miyin City asked about their lives in recent days.

Then, facing the former neighbors and fellow villagers, these guys with missions naturally started to brag.

Originally, the people of Miyin City liked to gossip, so naturally they also had certain attainments in bragging, so everyone just listened to it as a story at first.

But as we talked, things started to go wrong.

duty free?

bag work?
Provide land to allow self-built houses?
Good guy, you can give me a limit for bragging, right?

Quite a few people showed expressions of "Are you fucking kidding me", and then interrupted the endless chatter of these immigrant representatives—we are all neighbors and fellow villagers, so you must be real.

"This is true. Fossbarrow does not pay taxes, does provide job introductions, and provides land to allow self-built houses. If I am not too old and my head is not clear, I still have the opportunity to learn to read and write. Woolen cloth!"

Good guy, if that's the case, then I won't be sleepy anymore!
Hearing this, the residents of Mithral City, who were sighing because of the extra tax this year, soon had other thoughts. Considering that bragging is too common in the northern border, they decided to go to Fossbarrow's The private army inquired, what are they called, Northland Walker, right?
In this way, when the northerners started shopping on the street and the clerks went out to shop, many residents of Mithril City began to ask them about Fossbarrow's immigration policy.

And their answers were no different from those of the previous immigration representatives.

Under such circumstances, many residents of Mithral City, whose lives were unsatisfactory due to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and double taxation, finally became active.

If it is really difficult to live in Mithral City, maybe going to Fossbarrow to make a living is also a way?

It's all the North!
　Carya's Small Classroom: Two Taxes:

　　In the past, the lords collected all the taxes in Demacia, and what was given to the royal family was given to the royal family, and what was left to themselves was kept to themselves.

　　But now, the royal family is trying to use the Illuminati to squeeze out the occupier's right to collect taxes. As a result, there are two terrible taxes at the grassroots level.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)