Throne of Vientiane Civilization

In the past few years, they have been vigorously developing within the Great Zhou Dynasty. In the volcanic island, the southern region, and the northeastern region, which area of ​​development and construction is not burning money like crazy?

The manufacturing of steam trains and the laying of railways have indeed greatly accelerated the development and construction efficiency of relevant areas.

but! The efficiency of development and construction has accelerated, which often means that the speed at which you spend money has also accelerated! !

Not to mention that the various R\u0026D and production departments below also consume a lot of financial funds every year.

This causes them to throw their money out like crazy.

Zhou Xu has been able to do so much in the past two years, thanks to the wealth he accumulated during the war in the early years.

But to be honest, their foundation in Dazhou is still shallow, and their wealth is not much. After such a squandering, they have finally bottomed out...

To put it simply, they have no savings. Now within their own government, the salary expenditures and project funds of various departments depend entirely on the revenue from their state-owned industries and the taxes paid by the people every year.

Whenever something happens to these two areas, their financial expenditure in the new year will be problematic.

The Finance Minister was undoubtedly aware of this and quickly called for a halt.

By the way, it was not just the project of manufacturing the No. 003 steam train that he stopped. There were many other projects, all of which he proposed to reduce funding or directly eliminate.

It's just that the steam train project is a relatively typical one and has been specifically mentioned.

In fact, the report sent by the Finance Minister this time is as thick as a "five-year college entrance examination, three-year simulation" book.

As if he was afraid that His Majesty would not understand, he made a detailed display and calculation of each project that needed to be cut or eliminated, and he marked the reasons and his own thoughts behind each project.

What should Zhou Xu do? I could only read it page by page slowly.

After all, even Huo Qubing couldn't directly make the decision for him whether to cut off some projects.

He will certainly not agree to all of these applications from the Finance Minister.

He and the Finance Minister view a project from different perspectives, so their ideas are naturally different.

However, he obviously would not reject them all. Forget about anything else, at least regarding their current financial issues, the Finance Minister's words were not problematic.

According to the Finance Minister’s idea, it will be slowed down this year.

When the development and construction in the Northeast is completed, a lot of fiscal expenditures will be stopped. At the same time, after the Northeast has completed its development and construction, it will be able to bring some economic benefits to them after it generates a regional economy.

By then, their internal financial situation will be clearly relieved.

Zhou Xu agreed with this view.

The financial situation determines that they will not make any new moves in the coming period, mainly focusing on existing development projects.

In the blink of an eye, it’s winter again...

This winter, the Plains Fortress in New Taipei District has not been peaceful. Outside the fortress, nearly a thousand corpses of big green men were lying there. The soldiers of the Plains Fortress were braving the wind and snow outside to clean up the battlefield.

As the commander-in-chief of the New Taipei District, Shi Lei stood on top of the fortress wall and frowned slightly as he looked at the scene outside the wall.

"This is already the third wave this year..."

The first wave is in autumn and the second wave is in early winter.

Although the three waves of greenskins were all small-scale troops, with a total strength of less than a thousand men, and they were all easily defeated, this was obviously different from the usual situation, and it still made Shi Lei a little worried.

At this moment, a group of figures appeared outside the fortress, causing Shi Lei to turn around and walk off the wall.

It's the dwarves from Copperforge who are here.

Although each time the battle ended before they arrived, the dwarves still sent troops over to confirm the situation out of caution.

According to his observations, the leader was Vol'jin Copperfurnace, who had had contact with them before.

The arrival of Wo'jin Copperfurnace gave him some ideas.

Shi Lei could feel that the opponent's status among the dwarves in Copperhearth Castle was not low. Except for the first two times, the other dwarf who led the team to confirm the situation was another one.

Now that Wojin Copper Furnace appeared again, Shi Lei guessed that there must be something going on.

"Long time no see! Good friend!"

Seeing Shi Lei, Wojin Bronze Furnace laughed and approached.

As soon as they met, Shi Lei clearly felt that the other party was trying to get close to him.

However, due to the other party's heroic behavior, it doesn't make people feel a little bit disgusted.

"Long time no see, Lord Wojin, why are you here in person this time?"

After some simple polite remarks, Shi Lei got straight to the point.

Although Wo'jin, who is over two hundred years old, is not naive, he is obviously not good at beating around the bush.

"There's something I want you to talk about."

Having said this, Wojin turned his head and looked around.

"I think we'd better talk somewhere else."

"Please come with me."

Understanding what Wo Jin meant, Shi Lei nodded and made a 'please' gesture.

"You guys wait for me outside."

After signaling his boar knights to wait outside, Wojin followed Shi Lei into the Plains Fortress, led him to the empty conference room, and ordered someone to brew two cups of hot tea.

Running around in this ice and snow is not an easy job. With a sip of hot tea, Wojin obviously felt a lot more comfortable.

"I won't beat around the bush. I'm here to invite you, the Great Zhou, to join the coalition forces to jointly resist the invasion of the greenskins."

Shi Lei frowned upon hearing this, and subconsciously wanted to use that excuse to refuse.

Unexpectedly, this time Woking was even quicker.

"Don't rush to refuse. Listen to me, Mr. Shi Lei. I'm sure you've noticed that this is not the first time that the greenskins' troops have penetrated deep into our territory."

Woking's words made Shi Lei swallow back the words that were already on the tip of his tongue, and he acted like he was "listening attentively."

"This is because the greenskins' offensive and troop size have both increased."

Speaking of this, Woking scratched his messy hair as if he had thought of something bothering him.

"To be precise, something happened within the coalition. One coalition force temporarily withdrew from the front because of some things. The withdrawal of that force has a significant impact on the entire front-line situation."

"Forget it, let's not talk about this annoying thing. To put it simply, the greenskins are now in the upper hand, and our Copperforge has been besieged by a large greenskin force since the fall."

"The situation is quite bad now. We are a little overwhelmed. This is also the main reason why so many small-scale greenskin troops have sneaked in this year."

"With so many small troops missing, the greenskins must have noticed this place. Once Copperforge is breached, your Great Zhou cannot stay out of it."

At this point, Woking paused, and his face showed full sincerity...

"You don't want to join the coalition, it doesn't matter. I only represent our Copperforge and hope to form an alliance with your Great Zhou to jointly resist the invasion of greenskins on this land!"