Our family is in decline

There is no doubt that what Lance said made Greendale feel uneasy.

Because she knows what those so-called forces represent, the empire, the church, the mercenary guild, the doctor association, the business alliance...

This is only the bulk of them, not counting the smaller forces.

"We are under a lot of pressure now. We need to send troops to guard the ruins, and there are so many noble threats around us.

What's more important is the forces of all parties. What if the Medical Association blocks our drug sales and those businessmen cut off our supplies?

And if the church intervenes, those nobles will not be as perfunctory as they were with the empire, but may form a coalition to attack us..."

"Hahaha!"

Lance couldn't help laughing when he saw her being so serious, which made Greendale a little dissatisfied, and she frowned and asked.

"Can you still laugh at this time?"

"You think too highly of those guys. It would be terrible if they were like you said, but the fact is that it is impossible."

Lance talked eloquently and gave Greendale an in-depth analysis of the current situation.

"I want to explain the situation here. First of all, although the empire is currently in a stalemate and there is no war, no one between the two armies has the energy to cause trouble for us.

The same is true for the church. According to the information collected, the holy war failed, the holy city was taken away, and a large number of church legions were scattered and lost there, which has seriously damaged their vitality.

Even the civil war in the empire was a manifestation of the weakening of the church's control, which exposed a lot of messy things. Otherwise, it wouldn't be such a big thing as the ruins, and they didn't react at all.

Secondly, those forces you mentioned, what can the Medical Association do to block us? Have you forgotten the medicine field you set up in the first place? The raw materials have always been in our hands, and we use Roma channels. How can they block us?

Those guys from the mercenary guild are in bulk. If they want to cause trouble, they can only recruit some mercenary groups. But the problem is that all the mercenary groups coming over now go to the wilderness.

They have seen Hamlet's power. Do you think they will fight against us for the sake of the guild? Or go to the ruins to make money?

As for your worry about being blocked by them and causing difficulties in material shortage, it is even more impossible. You may have left the system during this period and it is not clear, but you should know that Hamlet has always exported agricultural products, and what is the most popular now?

As for food, the empire has not yet recovered from the natural disaster. Coupled with the war, bandits and robbers are raging from all sides. It can be said that whoever controls the food now has the initiative.

And do you know how exaggerated Hamlet’s storage of grain is after the autumn harvest is completed? Now it's not about whether they want to do business with us, but whether we want to do business with them.

It's not that I look down on them, but it's just that these guys can see from this retreat that they all have their own interests, are scattered, and are timid. "

Why is Lance so sure?

Because he was really confident, he began to conduct reconnaissance of the surrounding situation very early. At the same time, he has been building a large number of warehouses and constantly storing various supplies.

You must know that Lance only got one million gold coins by plundering a wealthy neighborhood in Totnes. This amount was actually extremely exaggerated. Many surrounding territories did not have this income for a year.

Only some special ones, such as Bastia, who monopolizes the trade routes in the mountains, have such accumulation, but with the Deer Head Tribe gone, he has shrunk by half. Now that the mountains are disconnected, it is impossible to support those knights. Hard to say.

Why did he spend all his one million gold coins so quickly, forcing Tiffany to block him?

The reason is that in addition to those welfare policies, Lance has been buying and buying at all costs.

The caravans on land that were frantically purchasing food and various supplies in Hamlet and its surrounding areas were all his people, and no one could refuse the money.

Especially for water routes, in the most exaggerated cases, a shipment of goods was twice as high as the market price. Even now, profits are given that are higher than the market price. It is not an exaggeration to say that Lance spent money to build that route.

But it was precisely this that opened up the situation, allowing them to re-recognize Hamlet as a place, and at the same time, they also stocked up a large amount of supplies.

Especially for basic supplies such as metals, gunpowder, and food, even if they block them for half a year, they will not affect the normal lives of ordinary people.

And if Lance couldn't handle this situation in half a year, he wouldn't have to do it.

Lance's long explanation also made it clearer to Greendale, who was not very sensitive to the situation, like clearing the clouds and seeing the sun.

She realized that the raw materials for the herbs and various medicines were indeed supplied internally by Hamlet. This also had to do with the strategy of opening three farms and preliminary wilderness development, and began transplanting herbs to cultivate medicinal fields.

Speaking of which, I was still responsible for this matter. Later, after I started, I left it to those people to take care of it. Just now I was so anxious that I forgot about it.

When there is no problem with the raw materials, the sales of those medicines are also outsourced to Sera, and this special channel cannot be blocked.

As for Hamlet's reserves, it is indeed exaggerated, and the initiative lies in his own hands.

I was still under a lot of pressure, but now it suddenly eased a lot.

But when she thought about it carefully, Greendale was suddenly a little shocked, because Lance had started to prepare these details a long time ago, back when Hamlet was still poor.

In other words, he saw the situation that Hamlet was about to face and had been preparing for it since then?

What a terrible vision!

In fact, Lance is not as outrageous as Greendale thought. Travelers are born to be surrounded, and what they do is simply the strong uneasiness that drives him to be independent.

It is difficult for Greendale to understand these things. What is in front of her is not Lance, but thousands of years of historical experience. He knows very well what to do in troubled times.

"So our main enemies are the surrounding lords?"

Greendale thought about Lance's words and found that he had been talking about various forces and did not mention the noble territories in the region, so there was this problem.

But Lance still shook his head at this. It seemed that Greendale was really insensitive to the military aspect, but it was also because Lance did not let her have military power at all. She was also worried about arousing Lance's suspicion and took the initiative. Stay away from these.

"It's not that easy to fight a war. It's not just a matter of time. The preparation of logistical supplies before the war starts is very troublesome.

Do you still remember how long we prepared and how much supplies we mobilized before we found out the tunnels of the beast's den and prepared for a large-scale clearing of the wilderness?

Because of the problems here, I was chased by Tiffany with no way to escape. This is still so troublesome for us as Hamlet. Have you ever thought about the efficiency of those feudal territories?

Let me take the example of the war between Bastia and the mountain barbarians some time ago. They were doing it for this..."

Lance can casually tell you about the situation in Bastia. You must know that there are many things in it that even they themselves don't know.

One can imagine how good Lance is in Bastia's intelligence work, after all, he has his hands on the count's right-hand man.

"You must know that the Earl has very strong control over the territory, as well as the Eagle Group, but even so, there will be a shortage of warehouses, and there are a lot of noble interest disputes down there. You can think about what is going on in other places. ?”

"So even if those territories are controlled by the Ascension Sect, it will take a long time to take action?"

"You're only partly right. What's more important is that the large-scale mobilization of troops and supplies cannot be hidden. We have a large number of intelligence personnel around us. We don't even need to collect it specifically. We only need to pay a little attention to the prices.

Ovendo is now in our hands, but it has not directly revealed its relationship with us. During this time, Walter has already established channels with the imperial army.

As for those forces who want to move us, I don't know whether the Roma people agree, but Sera definitely disagrees, because her interests are deeply tied to ours, and she will notify us as soon as there is information.

Let me put it this way, if they take action, no matter which aspect, the first thing to know is not the troops below those guys, but us. "

She was a little worried at first, but she was relieved after hearing Lance's analysis.

At the same time, I also understood why Lance didn't like those Roma people, but still chose to cooperate with them, and treated Sera very generously, giving up part of the benefits of those potions.

It turns out that Serra is bound by interests. With the help of Roma channels, not only can Hamlet's largest foreign trade channel be stabilized, but it can also be learned about more.

At the same time, there is also Hamlet's own information channel. It can be said that nothing can be hidden from him.

But when she thought of this, Greendale suddenly realized why Lance had to say so much. She looked at Lance with a strange look and asked.

"You don't want to solve the dungeon first, do you?"

"Yeah." Lance answered directly without much hesitation, which was enough to show that everything had been thought out.

But Greendale did not agree with this answer, nor did she understand it. She rarely retorted:

"Isn't there a seal left by the church? There won't be any problems there in a short time. Shouldn't we deal with those guys around us first? There are also many forces lurking in. These are our current enemies. ah!"

Unlike some people, Greendale actually has no ambitions, and her character is also very gentle. Before, she was forced to deal with some things, and she was all following the plan made by Lance. Really If the matter cannot be resolved, it will be postponed until Lance comes back.

So she prefers to take advantage of this moment to fight out first, and put aside the dungeon matters for now. Anyway, the cult's nest has been destroyed. As long as they kill those guys, Hamlet's living space can be expanded.

"There is no way out if you rely on others." Lance criticized Greendale and emphasized again: "The cult is not important, nor are the nobles and various forces. What is important is the extremely dark dungeon under the old house. What matters is the evil ritual."

As he spoke, Lance found the ancestor's map and unfolded it in front of Greendale.

“I know there are many people who don’t understand why I haven’t expanded outward to seize more land and people, but instead turned around to open up the wilderness and gnaw on those hard bones.

But in fact, have you noticed that, except for the fact that we did not directly seize land, the food in the Hamlet area is monopolized by us. As for population growth and strength, you should be very clear. "Lance raised his hand and circled a line on the map.

"The reason is that most of the Hamlet area has been engulfed, and the remaining villages and towns are scattered and scattered by large stretches of wilderness.

If we take over those places, we need to divide our troops and they will be cut up. More importantly, controlling those places also requires bureaucrats. Where do I have so many people now?

In Hamlet, corruption has appeared while we are watching. Once they stay away, to put it bluntly, wherever they go, they will become corrupt and degenerate in a short period of time. In that case, do we really control those places?

It's just a burden. On the contrary, we are constantly siphoning the surrounding population. It is more useful to concentrate our efforts on development than to occupy those places. "

“Also, I want to refute your claim that Hamlet does not expand. Didn’t you see that Owendo, including the surrounding farms, has been controlled by us?

The empire chose this place because as long as it controls Ovendo, it controls Hamlet's access to the outside world. The same is true for us.

The remaining areas after taking control of Owendo are no longer important. "

It's easy to conquer, but difficult to manage. Besides, the food in those places can be bought with caravans, so why bother to manage it?

When the investment and reward were not proportional, Lance only chose to control Ovendo, and in turn developed the wilderness to fight against the cultists.

"Now you know why I have always disagreed with outward expansion? When we shrink, we are not shrinking, but concentrating our strength. This is how we have strength."

Lance stretched out his hand towards her, then clenched his fingers into fists and said viciously:

"Then punch them to death!"

Once the sacrificial ritual is broken, Lance will be able to send out troops without any scruples. No one can defeat any rotten fish or shrimp.

Greendale knew that she had been persuaded and said nothing. Her current task was to help fill in the possible loopholes in these plans.

"Can we release the connections between the cultists and those nobles to give the church a headache and disintegrate them from within?"

"No, now not only do we need to be stable, but they also need to be stable. It will not be good for us to introduce the church."

"Then we can only strengthen the intelligence work and keep an eye on them. Can Tamara get in touch? She may be able to find out the attitude of the Roma towards us. It is a bit risky to only trust one Sera."

There was no one else here. Greendale's words were not polite at all, which showed that she did not trust Sera, or that the Roma people were really notorious.

Lance, who was in high spirits just now, suddenly fell silent. He really couldn't say anything about this issue because the connection between him and Tamara was broken.