Start with Island Lord

Early morning.

Dawn Castle in Dawn City.

When the morning light passed through the exquisite carved glass and fell on the equally exquisite dining table, the Duke was enjoying an even more exquisite breakfast with his family.

After taking a sip of the refreshing mouthwash and spitting it into the water tray brought by the servant in time, the Duke twisted his neck again, adjusted the neat white napkin, and then turned to smile at the Duchess opposite.

"Dear, this golden pearl necklace looks really shiny."

The Duchess was talking to her seven-year-old son. Hearing this, she turned to her husband and smiled: "Really? I think so too."

Just then, a ray of morning light shone on her, and the golden sunlight and golden pearls complemented each other, making the already very beautiful and elegant Duchess even more beautiful and noble.

The Duke realized a little later that his wife had many more pearl ornaments on her.

Not only a golden pearl necklace, but also a golden pearl head flower and a golden pearl bracelet, and each pearl was plump and large, and it was obvious that it was worth a lot of money at a glance.

He even found several strings of pearls on his little daughter.

"My dear, I don't remember you having so many pearls before?"

The Duchess was drinking milk and shrugged her shoulders: "They are all new and cost a lot of money. Reid, don't look like that, these pearls are worth it."

The Duke was not really short of money. His wife was good in everything, obedient, beautiful, and gave birth to a pair of beautiful children.

But she just loved to dress herself up too much and often spent a lot of money on some flashy things.

Of course, the Duchess did need some good jewelry to decorate her appearance, but he didn't think it was necessary to get too many, after all, these were just embellishments.

So, he was not in a very happy mood.

The Duchess was a little afraid of her husband. Although her mother's family was an ancient noble family of Aaron, its strength had been greatly weakened and could not provide her with much help.

She immediately explained: "My dear, these jewelry are really worthwhile."

"Look, this gold pearl necklace, every pearl is top quality, I only spent 1900 Ogg, and this head flower, it's only 1300 Ogg."

The Duke was impatient to listen, but as he listened, he found that the price was much lower than the usual market price.

At least 10% lower!

He was a little surprised: "Well~~ That's really worthwhile, you didn't buy a fake, did you, dear?"

He didn't believe that there would be merchants in the world who would actively lower prices.

The Duchess's charming face immediately showed an exaggerated expression of humiliated self-esteem:

"My dear, although my brain is not as good as yours, you can't look down on me like this, right?"

"Maybe I am not good at other things, but I am definitely more proficient in jewelry than you. And I didn't go to buy it alone, I brought the jewelry appraiser in the castle with me."

The Duke also felt that he had said too much: "Okay, I apologize to you, Madam, I shouldn't doubt your professional ability."

He quickly glanced at all the pearl ornaments within his sight: "Did you buy only these ones that you wear?"

"No, there are quite a few, and the total cost is less than 30,000 Ogg."

"I didn't want to buy so many, but the rich ladies in Dawn City all went to see them. Everyone knows the goods and scrambled to buy them."

"I thought I couldn't embarrass you, so I bought more."

The Duke had nothing to say: "Okay, okay, let's stop here."

Breakfast returned to calm, and after breakfast, the Duke took a walk in the garden as usual.

When walking, you can naturally see servants cleaning the garden and gardeners taking care of flowers.

As a result, he actually saw pearl jewelry again.

Although the quality of the jewelry is far inferior to the one carried by his wife, it is not particularly bad.

If it were usual, the Duke would certainly not pay attention to this matter, but because of the breakfast, he was particularly sensitive to pearls today.

"It's strange, why did so many pearls appear all of a sudden? Did someone rob the treasure house of the queen of the sea fish?"

With such confusion, he came to his study room, which had just been renovated.

As soon as he arrived at the door of the study, he found that his housekeeper Bede was waiting at the door, holding a roll of documents in his hand and a solemn look on his face.

As the Duke entered the study, he asked: "Bede, what's the situation?"

Bede followed and put the documents on the table.

"Master, the investigation report submitted by Master Williamson of the Shire County Government Affairs Department is about the White Sturgeon Island."

"White Sturgeon Island? What could happen in that shabby place of the White Sturgeon Island?"

The Duke couldn't figure it out. If it weren't for his sister's insistence on marrying to the White Sturgeon Island, he couldn't even remember the name of this place.

Bede shook his head: "Master, the messenger from Master Williamson said it was very important and must be delivered to you as soon as possible."

The Duke looked down at the document.

The document was still in the envelope, the magic seal was still intact, and there were five pentagrams drawn on the envelope with blood-red ink, indicating that the content of the letter was very urgent.

He was slightly shocked and immediately opened the envelope to read it.

As he read, the Duke's expression became more and more gloomy, his brows frowned more and more, and his hands holding the letter paper subconsciously exerted force, so that the five knuckles turned slightly white.

After a long time, he slowly put down the document in his hand and said, "You step back and call Master Ande over."

After a while, Master Ande came over.

"Close the door."

'Click~'

The door was closed, and the secret circle on the door was automatically activated, blocking the transmission of information inside and outside the room.

The Duke whispered: "Baron Paddlefish Island, wants to rebel!"

Ender was shocked when he heard this, with a look of extreme surprise on his face.

This is not his fault, because the duty of the black-clad iron guards is to guard Chenxi City.

Especially for Dawn Castle, investigating a barren island thousands of miles away is not within the scope of the black-clad iron guard's responsibilities.

There was no need to tell him about this. Instead, he should go to the generals of the Storm Fleet and ask them to go to the fleet to suppress the rebellion.

But since he had already said it, Master Ander naturally couldn't pretend that he didn't hear it. He said cautiously: "Your Excellency, this, this, he is a little baron, why should he?"

"Why did he marry my sister!"

The Duke raised his hand and threw the document into Master Ander's face, and shouted: "If you hadn't hesitated that night, you wouldn't have had this trouble at all in the future!"

Master Ander hurriedly picked up the document and looked at it carefully. The more he looked at it, the more shocked he became: "Mr. Williamson is not making it up, right? This is too outrageous?"

What's the saying, "The maritime trade in Beiweilan is busy, and the northern counties are frantically transporting people and goods to the island."

What about 'everyone from the Shire County, from the noble lady to the washerwoman, wore beautiful magic weapons from Paddlefish Island'.

And what about 'pearls are everywhere, there are so many pearl jewelry in the Shire County market that they are almost free'.

It feels like a bard making up a random story.

The Duke gritted his teeth and sneered: "I don't know about other things. Pearl jewelry is indeed flying all over the sky, and they all flew to my wife!"

"I wonder why there are so many pearls all at once. I bet someone actually robbed the fish-men!"

Master Ande had also discovered that many noble ladies had pearl jewelry on their bodies, and he immediately believed in the investigation report.

But again, this matter was not his business, so he didn't say a word.

"I want you to send someone to the city immediately to investigate and show me how many pearls this baron has sold to my city!"

This matter was under the control of Master Ande, and he immediately nodded: "I'll go check it out right away!"

"Results as soon as possible!"

Master Ande nodded, quickly exited the study, and sent his men to the city to investigate the situation.

In order to complete the Duke's task as soon as possible, he worked very hard and made very detailed statistics for about half a month, and then put an investigation report on the Duke's desk.

The report was very detailed and cumbersome, and the Duke was too lazy to look at the process and looked directly at the results.

"A total of approximately 670,000 Oggs of pearls are expected to be sold."

The Duke's hands trembled a little when he saw it: "Chenxi City alone was sold for 670,000?"

"That's probably the number."

"Weilan has twenty-five counties, and each county has a big city. They must have been sold. How much money will be gained from this?"

Master Ander said softly: "Based on Master Williamson's investigation results, the total value is estimated to be more than 5 million Oggs."

The Duke almost jumped up when he saw it: "Five million Oggs? Just buy a bunch of pearls that can't be eaten or used but can only be looked at?!"

The entire Principality of Weilan's fiscal revenue for the whole year was only 11 million Oggs, and half of it was robbed at once!

The Duke suddenly remembered something and immediately shouted: "Immediately send people to various Chenxi Banks to do statistics and see how much gold is left in the bank vaults!"

"Yes, Duke."

Master Ander went to do it immediately.

This is a bit troublesome, because Dawn Bank not only has a head office, but also many branches, distributed throughout Liming County.

But since it was the Duke's wish, Master Ander naturally tried his best to handle it.

With the help of rapid information exchange by telepathic mages from various places, he and his men spent ten days calculating the detailed situation.

As a result, the total amount of gold coins in banks around the world was at least 7 million Oggs less than the previous year!

This is 7 million Oggs, 70 tons of gold, accounting for more than 30% of the total!

When the Duke received this data, he was so shocked that he almost choked on the hot tea on the spot.

“Did all this money be taken away by Paddlefish Island?”

He didn't believe Paddlefish Island could do such a thing quietly.

This is too cruel!

Mage Ander shook his head.

"Your Majesty, the investigation time is too short to determine this."

"The only thing that is certain at the moment is that most of this money must have flowed into Paddlefish Island. And now Paddlefish Island must be very, very wealthy."

The Duke was furious, stood up, raised his hand and slapped the table hard, roaring angrily.

"What a bastard!"

This is not only a rebellion, but it has already become a reality!

The Duke immediately shouted: "Bede~Bede~~"

"The old slave is here!"

Bede, the housekeeper, pushed open the door and entered.

"Convene the upper-level noble council immediately. I will fight against the rebellion!"

On this day, two full months have passed since the pearl trade ended.