Lux's Farewell

When Karya returned to Fossbarrow, all of Demacia seemed to be in a state of unending glory.

On the surface, this kind of glory is that the monopolized Shurima trade has brought amazing financial income to the royal family. Aristocrats and wealthy landowners from all over the world have seen what a real treasure is.

But on a deeper level, in Karya's eyes, this glory is the true sense of flowers blooming brocades and raging fire cooking oil.

In the past, although the nobles of Demacia lived extravagantly, the degree of luxury was actually limited-considering the production and price issues, in Demacia, wine pools and meat forests are actually not too extravagant. Even if you want to prodigal, you can at most build castles, buy horses, and expand your private army.

Even the expansion of the most expensive private army has just been cut off by the royal family. Many Demacian nobles have a lot of resources in their hands, but these resources can't be spent at all.

However, what needs attention is that a large part of the "resources" here are not gold coins, but food collected as taxes.

That's right, in Demacia's traditional tax revenue, food, horses, weapons and other physical objects account for a considerable proportion.

The main reason for this phenomenon is the lack of gold coins in Demacia.

Throughout Demacia, the mines are mainly located in the north, and mining has always been inconvenient in the past.

What's more terrible is that among the minerals in the north, the proportion of precious metal mines is very low, which directly leads to the high price of precious metals in Demacia, and even the minting of coins is not profitable.

Therefore, although noble gentlemen are rich, the "money" here should be more precisely an asset, not a currency.

When it comes to the stock of currency, the noble lords of Demacia can't even compare with the merchants of Vazuan.

In the case of insufficient currency stock, internal transactions are fine, but when it comes to foreign trade, things like "thousands of pounds of grain are exchanged for a clockwork clock" are likely to happen.

Insufficient currency, single types of commodities, and numerous internal trade barriers are all important factors that hinder Demacia's internal trade; while the high price of currency and the unpopularity of food as a bulk commodity have led to Demacia's inability to trade in Runeterra. has been marginalized in international trade.

Therefore, on the whole, in the past few hundred years, Demacia has maintained an internally stable feudal manor economy, playing its own game.

But now, the situation is different.

Although Jarvan IV's victory in Tobyssia failed to completely dismember Noxus, it also made Demacia's external environment unprecedentedly relaxed.

At the same time, the first step of Jarvan IV's internal centralization reform eliminated most of the nobles' private armies, which greatly increased the economic pressure on the royal family, and Jarvan IV had to seek new sources of income.

The external environment has improved, there are more places to ask for money internally, and Jarvan IV himself has been to Shurima. Combining the above conditions, the birth of the royal family's Shurima trade seems inevitable.

Ning Wudao turned the food that was not favored in foreign trade into a treasure in the past, and then brought a steady stream of gold coins to the royal family.

The astonishing amount of gold coin income not only allowed Jarvan IV to get rid of the deficit, but also, together with the northern border trade, severely impacted Demacia's old economy in turn.

As mentioned earlier, in the past, Demacia has always been a country that played its own game economically. The land here is fertile and the climate is mild. It is the largest food production place in Runeterra itself. It is completely necessary to carry out a complete internal cycle economically. No problem.

However, with the development of the North Trade and Shurima Trade, the South-North trade route, the past internal circulation was gradually disrupted by foreign trade.

The lords from all over the world were surprised to find that there were such output in those distant countries!

Tea, silk, gemstones, spices, high-grade meat products...these are out-and-out goodies, and with the promotion of Lacus and Jarvan IV, they were quickly recognized by the lords of various places. The territory of Marcia became popular in a big way.

There are all kinds of materials in hand and the lords have taken out the income from the territory to buy these imported goods from the two major trading groups, one south and one north.

As a result, the manors of nobles look more and more "high-end", and the collections are more and more colorful. Many things that only a few top nobles could afford in the past have quickly entered the families of ordinary nobles-just bite your teeth , you can also wear Ionian silk, sip spirit tea, and turn on the automatic aromatherapy machine to fill the room with the fragrance of Icacia irises.

It seems that overnight, the food that used to be used to feed private soldiers and hire farmers to build forts and walls for themselves has become a treasure that can bring more enjoyment.

Under such a climate, even some lords who still retained their private armies gradually gave up their military power.

For Jarvan IV, this was undoubtedly what he wanted to see very much. The royal power finally completely suppressed the power of the nobility.

It's a pity that the smug Jarvan IV didn't notice that under this piece of perfection, Demacia's society was facing an astonishing fragmentation.

At first, no one cared about the complaints of a group of peasants in the tavern during the slack season. These drunk peasants just murmured indistinctly that the lord would not renovate the castle anymore. He wanted to earn some extra money and had no savings for his family Chance.

Secondly, some handicraft practitioners are in a difficult situation. From time to time, there are always some new technologies in the north or new products in the south that make their business worse and worse. When recruiting workers, the whole family left.

Finally, the farmers in Demacia were surprised to find that although the price of grain was increasing year by year, their lives were getting tighter and tighter. Even if they wanted to change a hoe, the price was so expensive that it made people feel distressed.

There must be something wrong.

However, Jarvan IV did not realize that there was a problem.

In other words, according to Demacia's traditional thinking, there is no problem at all-because in Demacia's traditional thinking, the economy is a very simple and primitive thing, and the most technical part of it is just accounting.

But in fact, due to changes in the economic form and economic system, it seems that everything is getting better and better in Demacia, and one bomb after another has been planted at the grassroots level.

Farmers, who accounted for more than [-]% of the entire population of Demacia, are gradually feeling the decline in living standards and realizing that there is no way to save money to buy armor and horses for their children.

Demacians are very able to endure hardships, and Demacians are not afraid of hardships.

But the problem is, now the Demacians find that they don't have to suffer.

In the past, hard-working Demacian farmers could work hard to save money, accumulating two or three generations of money to buy a horse, buy a suit of armor, and send the most reliable children to the army to fight.

But now, with inflation, the hard work accumulated by the past few generations has suddenly become worthless. The price of war horses has tripled, and the price of armor has increased by more than five times. Using food to hire farmers to renovate the castle, it seems that the road to joining the army is becoming more and more difficult!
What's more terrible is that not only is it becoming increasingly difficult to meet the conditions for joining the army, but now the number of people joining the army is also shrinking!

The private armies of the lords in various places are gradually cancelled. If they want to join the army now, they have to go directly to the army directly under the royal family.

Theoretically speaking, there are also quite a few legions directly under the royal family, which seem to be the same as in the past, but don’t forget that the noble private army is recruited locally, and the competitors are only locals; but the legions directly under the royal family require you to bring your own Equipment, horses and dry rations, emasculation all participate in the recruitment!

Although Jarvan IV was also working hard to reform the selection plan for soldiers, because the number of troops under him in the Battle of Tobyssia was too inflated, he had to consciously reduce the number of places, so for ordinary civilians, The difficulty of joining the army is undoubtedly going to a higher level.

Joining the army, working hard, gaining military exploits, and becoming a nobleman used to be a very orthodox path to advancement in Demacia.

But now, this orthodox path has changed, and Demacia's talent flow has problems.

The hopelessness of the future, the lower living standards, and the further division between the common people and the nobles, although it seems to be calm on the surface, all these have completely overdrawn the stability of Demacia society.

If Jarvan IV can free up later, rebuild Demacia's talent flow system, expand the scale of trade, and include farmers into the trade system to make them beneficiaries, then Demacia will really flourish soon .

But it was a pity that Jarvan IV, who had never faced such a situation, did not realize that Demacia was facing serious economic problems at this time.

In his cognition, he has reformed taxation, lowered the tax rate of farmers, and restricted the taxation of nobles. The lives of commoners should be getting better and better.

But he doesn't know that if his policy is placed in the environment of Demacia's past internal cycle, it will indeed make farmers rejoice and shout for Mingjun, but in the current situation where the old and new economic orders are intertwined, it can only make the peasants happy. Farmers feel hopeless for the future.

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Contrary to Xiongdu, Fossbarrow also ushered in unprecedented prosperity, but this prosperity actually fell on most people.

The foundation of prosperity in Fossbarrow is also trade, but unlike Xiongdu, everyone here is a participant in trade.

In Forsbarrow and in the north, some are producers of trade goods, some are service providers who provide life services for these people, some are participants in trade itself, and some are managers of trade order.

From farmers who grow saffron and hazelnut, to workers in fur processing factories; from chefs gathered in urban residential areas, to small traders who are blooming everywhere; Market administrators, to the first generation of municipal engineers who began self-help urban planning...

All are part and parcel of Northern trade.

Similarly, although the degree is different, everyone in the northern border is the beneficiary of the northern border trade. Although the northern border trade also has luxury goods, most of them are general commodities that most people can afford.

There is Ionia's spirit tea for sale here, but more common tea and tobacco.

There are expensive Nasheramai silks and more expensive Ionian silks, but more cheap cotton wovens.

There are expensive Hex imported fully automatic aromatherapy machines for sale here, but more are fully automatic clocks and pocket watches.

……

……

Fossbarrow's starting point is very low. Compared with other places in Demacia, Fossbarrow people have to do their best to get enough food at the beginning.

However, with the arrival of Lux and the development of more industries, the lives of Fossbarrow people have undergone earth-shaking changes. Even the Demacians who immigrated here from relatively affluent areas later felt that their lives have leapfrogged. .

More importantly, compared with the congestion of other ascending channels, Fossbarrow is quite active in the cultivation and use of talents.

Large-scale basic education and annual batches of centralized literacy provide basic personnel training.

However, the assessment and promotion mechanism for clerks and northern border walkers has a clear upward path planned.

Living in Fossbarrow not only has advantages in terms of living standards, but also has a huge attraction for those who want to realize their self-worth.

Every spring and winter, Earl Laxana will give speeches in Fossbarrow and Xinfu City. Here, she will review the development and harvest of the past year without airs, and look forward to the plans and achievements of the coming year. Looking forward to it, countless people got information from her speech and soared into the sky.

Unlike the increasingly lifeless south, although the climate in the north is not very good, it always gives people a kind of vigorous vitality and hope.

Even many people who immigrated to the northern border in the past two years could not help but complain when they were drunk. If Jarvan IV had the ability of Earl Laxanna outside the battlefield, it would be great, maybe he would not have to leave his hometown so...

Everything is about comparison.

It also opened up a foreign trade route. Jarvan IV used it as a tool to collect money and centralize power, corrupting and weakening the power of nobles through the trade of luxury goods; The old order of Spiro has fundamentally completed a centralization reform of the big government.

When Shivana returned to the long-lost Fossbarrow, Dang Ino finally ended this dizzy study trip, and Dang Kaya finally returned to his long-awaited Fossbarrow.

Jarvan IV of Xiongdu is thinking about the next specific goal of the centralization operation, drawing a list among the nobles.

Laxana of Fossbarrow is studying the investigative report sent back by the Intelligence Group on the life of farmers in the south.

The focus of both parties is not in the same place.

And the future may be different because of this.

I wrote this chapter for almost six hours today, and I don’t know why I wrote it so slowly, but I ran out of time for the extra episode.

So, the episode will be updated tomorrow.