Start with Island Lord

Five days later.

White Swan Castle.

Rosen received the messenger from Aaron in his study room facing the lake.

This time the messenger was not Sir Jarak, because this noble-born knight was imprisoned by his king, and his future was uncertain.

The new messenger is called Ruifa.

A master of four-ring magic who was born as a commoner, he is in his early fifties, with tough eyes, a calm personality, and meticulous attention to detail in his clothes. He does not have the exquisite tone of a child of a noble family.

Because of his status as Aaron's messenger, he was awarded the honorary title of knight.

"Sir Ruifa, the 'Night of Blood Knife' launched by your Majesty really opened my eyes."

On the night when the Lion Fleet was defeated by him, Dange caused a big incident in the Hall of Heroes of Lion Castle.

He dispatched the Aaron Night Guard and wiped out all 122 noble members of the Noble Cabinet Council and their 488 assistants.

That night, night guards from all over Aaron were also dispatched.

The entire aristocracy of Aaron was killed and captured, and their family property was confiscated into the Aaron treasury.

In the middle of the night, a large number of civilian auxiliary officers were promoted to key positions to fill the vacancies left by the nobles.

After one night, except for a few alert nobles who managed to escape from Aaron, 90% of the nobles were completely destroyed.

This night is also called the "Night of the Bloody Knife" by the Aaron people.

The decisiveness of the Lion King's attack and the swiftness of his movements shocked all the allies in the alliance.

Rosen also had to sigh, feeling that this Lion King was really a ruthless person.

Sir Ruifa's face was solemn: "The southern beheading operation launched by the Duke was not bad, and the glorious victory in the Gilded Strait was enough to be recorded in the history of the alliance's naval battles."

After a pause, he said: "Your Majesty the Duke, we have 40,000 brave and skilled warriors staying in Weilan. Your Majesty hopes to redeem these people."

Rosen was currently short of money, so he simply nodded.

"Redemption is no problem, but I need compensation. And this is the compensation list."

He handed the book to the messenger with his mage's hand.

Sir Ruifa looked at it carefully and said after a while: "Your Excellency, this is too much."

Of course Rosen knew why he said that.

Because the total amount of compensation was as high as 20 million Oggs, and a series of treaties were proposed to open bilateral trade.

Ruifa frowned: "Aaron has no money at the moment."

In his opinion, the treaty was fine and relatively fair, but the amount of compensation was outrageous.

"Aaron has it!"

Rosen grinned: "Your Majesty has just raided the homes of the great nobles in the country, and there are mountains of gold in the treasury."

He and the ministers estimated that the king's treasury in Dange had increased by at least 50 million Oggs of gold!

This is just gold. If other wealth is added, it will be an even more jaw-dropping figure.

After all, Aaron is much richer than Weilan.

Therefore, although the compensation of 20 million Oggs is a lot, Dange can definitely get it, and he will definitely get it.

First, Aaron needs these naval warriors who are good at fighting.

Second, Dange also needs to know the truth about the naval battle.

Because naval battles take place on the sea and there are no bystanders, the most reliable way is naturally to ask the soldiers who participated in the naval battle in person.

Sir Ruifa's eyes twitched: "Duke, your Majesty did get a sum of money, but actually not."

Rosen waved his hand: "You can't hide this from me, because I just did the same thing, and I know that the nobles are very rich."

As he said that, he pointed to the compensation list: "Sir, go back and tell your Majesty that if you compensate the money, this incident will be over. The two countries will resume normal trade in the future."

Sir Ruifa couldn't say anything and turned to leave.

Entering again was Prince Lafayette of Levind.

As soon as Rosen saw him, a cold smile appeared on his face.

"Your Highness, Levander has greatly disappointed me."

Seeing that the other party was about to defend himself, he raised his hand and pressed it, signaling the prince to listen to him, because he no longer wanted to hear any meaningless excuses.

"I know this is not something you can decide, and I don't mean to blame you."

Speaking of this, Rosen looked at the prince, his eyes circling around his emerald green eyes and long light golden hair.

"I'm just reminding you, be careful of the glory of the Sheela family being taken away by despicable villains through conspiracy."

Prince Lafayette was shocked: "What do you mean, Duke?"

Rosen threw a ring to the prince: "I have a lot of research on bloodlines. I researched this ring based on the knowledge I know."

"The magic weapon is called the 'Ring of Purity of Blood'. When it is close to members of the same family, it will emit a faint light of the same color."

"Look, in the hands of the prince, it is a dark green light, which means sacred blood. If it is close to non-sacred blood, like me."

Rosen picked up a similar ring, and the gemstone on the ring showed a light green metallic luster.

"See, I only have a little bit of natural blood in me, so that's why it's this color."

At this point, he had already seen the thoughtful look on Prince Lafayette's face, so he said no more.

"Your Highness, I will keep your country's black stone battleship to offset your country's debt to me."

"As for the warriors in your country, there are about 6,000 of them, and the average ransom is 500 Oggs, or 625 gold sira.

"Your country will give it to you. If not, then I will tell these soldiers that their motherland has abandoned them, and then accept them as citizens of Weiland."

Prince Lafayette was in a confused mood and almost didn't listen to the rest of the words.

He hurriedly saluted Rosen and quickly exited the lakeside study.

After he left, Acting Minister of State Kluber walked in in formal attire.

"My regards, Duke."

Rosen stood up from his chair, walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass window, and looked out at the beautiful view of Swan Lake:

"My Minister of State, from now on, talk about business directly. There is no need to waste time on false courtesy."

Kluber already knew Rosen's character and immediately got to the point:

"Duke, after the trial operation of Welland Citizens Bank, almost all deposit certificates on the market have been redeemed."

"Currently, there are less than 4 million gold coins left in the bank, and bank customers have lost trust in any deposit receipts, so they can only withdraw but not deposit."

"Although it can still be maintained for now, it obviously makes market transactions much more difficult. Too many gold coins are scattered and accumulated in the private sector and do not participate in market flow."

Rosen understood: "In other words, we have no money to do big things?"

Kruber nodded: "Yes, Duke, the situation now is much worse than on Paddlefish Island. There are too many mouths to feed, too many places to spend money, and the way to make money has not yet been opened."

Of course, Rosen knew everything about this.

As the stall gets bigger, the development limit will naturally be much higher, but the maintenance costs will also increase, which is natural.

But he also knows that the biggest problem currently is not that Weilan has no money, but that the liquidity of currency has been greatly weakened.

Because of the fake deposit certificate incident, bank credit collapsed, and Weilan returned to the era of metal currency.

People prefer to keep excess metal currency at home rather than in banks.

But once the money is kept at home, it is equivalent to leaving the market and becoming dead money.

Almost equal to non-existence.

The more people save at home, the more dead money there is, and the less money Rosen, Duke of Wayland, has available to draw on.

Under this social background, even if Rosen does get the 20 million OOG compensation, it will be used up soon.

He envisions building a new capital, creating a powerful magic industrial zone, investing huge sums of money in magic research, and other major events. The total investment may require hundreds of millions or even billions of Oggs.

With the current backward ability to mobilize social resources, we will not be able to do it in a hundred years!

what to do?

One is to forcibly recruit people to work, which is what the nobles love to do.

But of course Rosen couldn't do this.

Otherwise, the so-called "citizens of Weiland" will become a joke, which will not only greatly harm the enthusiasm of the people, but also lose the basis for governance.

The only way is to use various clever tricks to get money back from people's pockets and turn it into living money circulating in the market again.

So, Rosen asked: "What are the benefits of some of the methods I thought of before?"

Kruber nodded: "Not bad."

"Noble castle parks in various places can collect about 20,000 OOGs a day. We also get a lot of money from renting and selling noble estates. Private gambling also generates a lot of income. But these incomes can only maintain the status quo and cannot solve the fundamental problem."

Rosen nodded to express his understanding. He knew it was time to take the next step.

He asked: "Have the private sector made demands for bank deposit certificates?"

"It has been proposed, and there are quite a few. Everyone feels it is inconvenient, but they are also worried that the fake deposit certificate incident will happen again."

In fact, because of the fake deposit certificate incident on Weiland Island, the bank deposit certificate business of the entire Natural Alliance has been greatly affected.

Rosen nodded: "It is really inconvenient to carry several kilograms of coins all day long to do transactions, and to go to the bank all the time."

But the collapse of trust happens in an instant, but the building of trust must be done bit by bit.

Now, Weilan has defeated Aaron's counterattack, and he, the Duke, is completely secure.

Stable power is the greatest basis for gaining the trust of the people.

Once the foundation is stable, the second step is to make people believe that large-scale fake certificates of deposit will not appear again.

Why not believe that there will never be fake certificates of deposit?

Because this is impossible.

There is no perfect anti-counterfeiting technology in the world. As long as you are willing to invest the cost, any deposit receipt can be forged.

Therefore, the truly feasible path is to use various methods to make the manufacturing cost of most fake certificates of deposit higher than the value represented by the certificate of deposit itself.

To achieve this, the first step is to raise the technical threshold for certificates of deposit. The second is to enhance law enforcement. The third is to reduce the amount of ‘bearer certificate of deposit’.

That is, the use of ‘small-amount bearer certificates of deposit’, i.e. banknotes.

Rosen smiled and said: "Kruber, in a month's time, let's hold a government bounty meeting in the entire Nature Alliance. The bounty should be set at 10,000 Oggs."

Seeing Crewe's confusion, he explained:

"In one month, I will release a sample of the new certificate of deposit."

"The reward is to find the technology that can forge brand new bank deposit certificates. Whoever's forgery can fool the eyes of a hundred shrewd businessmen will be rewarded."

Kruber clicked his tongue and exclaimed: "Duke, this is the largest reward in history."

"The amount is not big, how can it attract everyone's attention?"

Only by paying attention to it and triggering extensive discussion among the people can a new social consensus be formed.

While Duke Rosen was giving advice in his study near the lake, his body was staying in the northern suburbs of Mundania.

This was originally the military camp of the Earl of Monte County, covering an area of ​​more than 5,000 acres.

Now it has been transformed by Rosen into Weilan's aircraft design and manufacturing center, and the area has been increased to a full 20,000 acres.

At present, a large area of ​​above-ground and underground buildings has been urgently built with tempered yellow clay, covering an area of ​​about 100 acres.

In a secret underground laboratory, Rosen is staying with a large group of mages who specialize in wind magic, surrounding a "shadow assassin".

That is, the invisible self-destructing drone that has made great achievements in naval battles.

These wind mages are of course talents collected from all over Weilan.

There are more than 500 of them, plus the mages and craftsmen of the original aircraft research center, adding up to nearly a thousand people.

A group of people are discussing how to improve this thing.

This matter is also very important for reopening the bank, even the most important.

Because violence is always the first means to maintain the credit of the national bank.

If you want to open a bank, print banknotes and collect seigniorage, you must have thugs!

How good the thugs are determines how big the bank can be.

If the thugs are scared, the bank will go bankrupt!