Urban Sims

Earldom of Merlin, Merlin Castle.

In the gorgeously decorated banquet hall, a large banquet was being held to celebrate the victory.

The guests with rough appearance and loud voices were chatting and drinking, and the banquet hall was filled with a noisy and happy atmosphere.

In a corner of the banquet, in a slightly quieter corner, sat a few men who drank wine, said nothing, and occasionally frowned. It was difficult for this particularly noisy atmosphere to adapt.

"Knight Edward, so you are here."

Holding a huge wine glass, Baron Romon, who was blushing from the alcohol, walked to the table with some unsteady steps, and said to the handsome young man in front of him, "Knight Edward, welcome to the Northern Faction!"

After finishing speaking, Baron Romon held the wine glass and saluted the handsome young man. He raised his thick red neck and poured the wine into his mouth with a grunt. Baron, drawing cheers from all around.

"Baron Romont, I'd like to toast you too."

Zhou Ming stood up with a smile, took a small cup filled with ale, tipped his head up gracefully, and drank the wine inside.

"Boys from the south, drink with a big cup, don't act like a woman!" The big man next to him rang out loudly, he couldn't understand this kind of gentle way of drinking.

"That's right, you boy from the south, drink from a bigger cup and let us see. Your cup is too small for a ten-year-old child." Another drunkard shouted.

"Don't say that, Edward's knight is very skilled in martial arts. I saw him kill at least ten southern knights on the battlefield that day, and none of the knights could do ten tricks with him." A person with a slightly clearer mind said. .

"So what? The wine shop is a battlefield. As long as you can't drink, you're still a bitch!" The drunkard said disdainfully.

"You—!" Morris Knight put his hand on the hilt of his sword, and Huo Di stood up. He, who has always been gentle and gentle, really had enough of these rude, barbaric, and no chivalrous Yankees!

"Teacher, please sit down."

Zhou Ming raised his hand and pressed slightly, let Morris Knight sit back, asked someone to change a huge wine glass, and asked a booing big man to pour wine for him. When the wine glass was full and was about to overflow, he raised his glass loudly to everyone around him. Said: "Gentlemen, I would like to toast you all!"

After finishing speaking, Zhou Ming raised his head and poured the golden ale into his mouth, a small amount of liquor overflowed from the corner of his mouth, gurgling, and after a while, the ale in the huge cup ran low.

The wine glass in his hand was turned upside down, and there was not a single drop of leftover wine, but Zhou Ming, whose veins near his temples were bulging, roared, "Good wine!"

"good!"

"Well done!"

"It's a man!"

"This kid likes me!"

The big men cheered loudly, and they all looked at this kid pleasing to the eye. Even the owner Earl William, who saw this scene, walked over with a big smile, patted Zhou Ming on the shoulder, and said loudly to everyone: "Don't call me Edward from now on. Knight 'boy from the South', from today on, we are all Yankees!"

"Yes, Yankees! We are all Yankees!"

"Long live the Yankees!"

"Here's to the Yankees!"

For a time, the warm atmosphere at the celebration banquet reached its peak.

…

After attending the celebration banquet in Fort Merlyn, on the way back to Grandland, Zhou Ming saw that his father, Baron Connor, and father-in-law, Baron Sean, were listless and unhappy all the way.

"Damn it, damn it! I turned out to be a damned Yankee!" Baron Howard cursed all the way, unable to accept the reality that he himself had become a "Yankee".

Seeing this scene, Zhou Ming couldn't persuade him to say anything. Compared with being framed and dying, the territory was divided and embezzled by others, and some changes in his faction category were nothing at all.

Just give it some time to get used to it.

Four years.

Zhou Ming silently calculated in his mind that this 1,000-horse war was a full four years earlier than the 500-horse war in the previous life.

King Helian, who is proficient in the art of controlling power, played such a brilliant move within a few days after he took the stage. If there is no expert guidance behind him, it must be impossible.

However, Helian seriously underestimated the power of intelligence in Zhou Ming's hands. Zhou Ming already knew when the aristocratic court was arguing over the distribution of 1,000 horses. With rapid expansion and development, the Free Business Alliance has grown into a capital behemoth. Sooner or later, it will have a fierce collision with the royal power.

I just didn't expect that this collision would come so early and so quickly, so that when King Herian announced that all merchant alliance goods in the king's territory would be levied a 50% merchant tax, he had to spend three months, I have done the ideological work of all the lords of the seven counties in the north, stated their interests, and introduced that once the Free Trade Union is disbanded, the northern lords will return to the original difficult and poor situation, and finally live a few days of good life. The land lords expressed that they would stand upright and safeguard the interests of the merchant alliance.

Of course, it is also to safeguard their own interests.

After all, what touches the soul more than morality is interests.

Therefore, at the ruling meeting of the merchant alliance, the representatives of the lords of the North all abstained from voting. Although the 16 representatives of the South expressed their opposition, those members of the foreign merchant alliance who are not in the Kingdom of Voris do not care whether you are a royal family or not. Territory, as long as it violates their interests, you will be punished!

The giant beast of capital doesn't care whether you are the King or the King of Heaven. As long as you stop it from making money, it will bite you hard.

However, the Free Trade Alliance in Zhou Ming's hands is just a capital cub that has developed for more than four years. Its claws and teeth have not grown well, and it is not the ultimate form of devouring blood, flesh, and everything. There is no problem for the Reese Kingdom to dominate half of the country, but once outside the country, it will not be under his command and control.

Therefore, soon after the influential 1,000 Horse War, huge negative effects quickly emerged.

Half a month after the end of the war, the Southern Chamber of Commerce of the Kingdom of Voris, which almost copied the organizational structure of the Free Chamber of Commerce, was announced. Except for all the seven counties in the south, the royal territory of King Helian also joined the Southern Chamber of Commerce. A senior member of the royal family who serves as president of the Southern Merchant Alliance.

Later, in order to compete with the Free Business Alliance for the market, the members of the Southern Business Alliance, on the one hand, pooled their resources, referring to some of the best-selling products of the Free Business Alliance, and carried out a large number of counterfeit imitations. Commodities, a "comprehensive blockade order" was issued!

That is to say, the Free Merchant Alliance caravans are prohibited from passing through, the Free Merchant Alliance goods are burned, and traveling merchants selling the Free Merchant Alliance goods are intercepted and killed!

Only in October, one month after the war, 544 traveling merchants who made a living selling goods from the Free Trade Union entered the southern territories and mysteriously died at the hands of various "thieves".

The various commercial activities of the Free Trade Alliance soon fell into a low ebb.

In November, some worse news came. The upper echelons of the kingdoms of Chulin, Arino, and Iron Castle around the Kingdom of Voris issued "commercial restriction orders" one after another, and issued bans one after another, requiring their countries to join the free trade. The aristocratic territory of the Alliance must withdraw from the Free Merchant Alliance, a business organization!

Then, the Qiulin Merchant League, Arino Merchant League, and Iron Fort Kingdom Merchant League, led by the upper echelons of these kingdoms, filled the gap in the market for various commodities after the Free Trade Union withdrew.

Among them, the "Iron Ban" adopted by the Kingdom of Iron Castle is the most vicious. In order to prevent the country's lords, after selling the iron ingots to the Free Trade Alliance, the Free Trade Alliance then sold the fine ironware with ten times the price back to Iron Castle. The king of the Kingdom, the Iron Castle Kingdom, this time is determined to limit those hateful "Glenling Brand" iron tools to the point where not a single one can be sold.

At the end of the year, after the domino-like retreat from the last barony on the border of the Kingdom of Chulin, the Free Trade Alliance in Zhou Ming's hands only had 84 member territories with most of its members in the northern border of the Kingdom of Voris. .

"Although I had expected this step a long time ago, it was still one to two years earlier than expected, but it doesn't matter. With the funds I have at hand, it shouldn't be a big problem to start the second step plan. Already..."

Zhou Ming, who was burying his head at his desk, pondered for a moment, and with the quill in his hand, he wrote the words "Mercenary Union" on a piece of white paper.

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