Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 606: The Center of Troubles

In a meeting room of a building in Beloberg, a group of important imperial officials were gathered together, discussing seriously how to deal with the current troubles.

Although it was not a formal meeting, except for Perfect and some other marginal ministers, almost all the important ministers who were qualified to attend the imperial meeting were present, so it was not much different from a formal meeting.

Because everyone was worried and had the habit of smoking, the meeting room was almost filled with smoke.

"The current situation can be said to be entirely caused by the Northern Lord. I think we must figure out the attitude of this young lady, or at least figure out why her attitude towards the Imperial Center has changed." The Chancellor of Finance had the ugliest expression among all the people. He expressed his opinion while smoking his pipe.

Although the empire's material supply had become a huge problem and tobacco had become an absolute luxury, it was still enough to sustain their daily consumption.

But at the moment, no matter how much he smoked, it would not be able to relieve the Minister of Finance's boredom at the moment, and he even felt like turning the table over.

The previous three years of the northern border development plan had almost drained all of the empire's assets, and the treasury had long been drained.

If the Queen had not taken out part of the royal assets to support the national finances, the empire would probably have gone bankrupt long ago.

Of course, the more important point is that Perfecto won the Seven Days War at that time, which allowed the empire to exploit the three defeated countries to its heart's content and plunder a large amount of wealth and resources from them, which was able to support the completion of the entire plan.

But now, with the coming of the doomsday winter, the empire's center that has moved to the north is almost cut off from even the communication with the empire's mainland. How can it have the energy to plunder resources and wealth from the old world?
Moreover, those three countries have already been squeezed to the limit by the empire in the past three years, and their people's livelihood has been in decline. After experiencing the baptism of the doomsday winter, I am afraid that no oil can be squeezed out of them anymore.

But this also brought about a very serious problem, that is, the imperial treasury lost a large source of income.

The empire's finances, which had been able to hold on for a while, became precarious.

At this time, the North taking the lead in reducing the taxes paid is no longer an ordinary issue, but a literal poke in the lungs of the Empire.

"I'm afraid we can't influence the Countess right now. Princess Anne just met her once before, and they parted on bad terms. This is probably enough to show her attitude." The Army Minister of the Military Department was also frowning at this time, but at least he was not completely without a strategy: "We can't fall out with the North, and the Empire can't afford the cost of falling out with the North, but this doesn't mean we can't do anything."

"Is there any solution from the army?" The Duke of Gloucester, who was presiding over the meeting, looked over with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

For him, the Speaker of the Noble Parliament, the work pressure in recent years has been too great, and he has long been overwhelmed.

The Duke of Gloucester is really unable to cope with the current situation which is making the situation worse. He is still sitting here, just hoping to support the empire from falling and find a solution to the problem so that the empire can continue.

"We can't fall out with the North, and it's not appropriate to put pressure on that young lady, but this doesn't mean the Empire can't put pressure in other directions!" The Army Minister's eyes gradually became sharper, and he tapped the armrest of the sofa with his fingers and said, "We need to kill a chicken to scare the monkeys, and a chicken that can be used to scare others can still be suppressed at this time!" Although the Army Minister did not explain his specific plan, it was not difficult to understand for the imperial officials present.

As soon as they heard it, they understood what the Minister of War meant, so someone soon asked, "So which chicken should we choose? The North can't choose, and we don't have many options!"

"The New World colonies are now divided into two, and the dominions have been pretending to obey the Empire but secretly disobeying it. They can be the chicken!" Someone immediately put forward his suggestion.

But someone immediately rejected it, saying, "That's not right. The Dominion gained its current status by relying on force to compete with the New World colonies. Last time, it was because of the suppression by the Northern Lords that they were temporarily suppressed and willing to compromise with the Empire.

If we choose them to be the chicken, they will only rebel against the rule of the empire again, and then we will not have to bear the cost of killing chickens, but the cost of a war. "

In response, the Chancellor of the Exchequer immediately nodded in agreement and stressed that the empire's finances were already stretched to the limit and that they simply could not come up with the money to fight a war.

"Since the autonomous regions cannot be chosen, what about the Empire's homeland? That is the hinterland that the Empire has been operating for many years. Although we have extracted all the essence of Langton, it does not mean that the Empire's homeland is no longer viable, right?" At this time, someone proposed an idea that sounded a little whimsical: "If we send people back to the Empire's homeland and try to retake this land and restore the Empire's control over it, it may be a good option to fight against the Northern Lords.

We can't do anything to the Northern Lords now. The biggest problem is that the center of the empire has moved to the North, and we lack the foundation to fight against the Northern Lords.

If we can manage the empire well, we can turn the current situation around!"

This suggestion quickly gained support from some people, including some conspiracy theorists, who believed that Perfectoct's proposal to build the North and move the center of the empire to the North was a long-planned conspiracy.

After all, the current Imperial Center is in a dependent state in the North, and is inferior to the North in everything. This has led to the North now pretending to obey the Imperial Center while the Imperial Center can't do anything about them.

"This suggestion..." The Duke of Gloucester pondered for a moment, and just as he was about to say something, the door of the conference room was roughly pushed open.

Princess Anne, dressed in military uniform, rushed in. She frowned and fanned the smoke in front of her. She walked directly to a window with dissatisfaction and opened it forcefully.

Suddenly a gust of cold wind blew in, quickly dispersing the smoke in the room, and also dispersing the atmosphere of the heated discussion just now.

"Your Highness, what are you doing?" The Duke of Gloucester looked at Princess Anne with a little dissatisfaction and questioned her.

"I heard what you just discussed. Finding a chicken to kill is indeed a good choice, but you are discussing with the wrong person! For the current empire, even if we can get the North to resume paying taxes to the center of the empire, it will be difficult to improve the current situation! So we need to open up new sources of revenue!" Princess Anne said loudly, and then had someone hang up a map of the empire's territory. With the cold wind blowing outside the window, Princess Anne stood in front of the map and tapped her hand on a place: "We should recover the empire's other overseas colonies!"

(End of this chapter)