Holding Grain Hostage to Command the Nobles

Legend has it that Deities gave everything to mankind.

He illuminates the darkness and gives light to mankind. He scatters seeds and gives food to mankind.

Therefore, humans have a festival of thanksgiving for Deities, which is called Divine Grace Festival.

After the harvest, the desolation of the sky makes time fly quickly, and we quickly enter the cold winter. Divine Grace Festival is in the depths of winter.

Winter is always difficult. The wind and snow brought by Northlands can make all life fearful. Even nobles can resist going out to find fun and hide in their castles to enjoy the warmth brought by firewood.

They will order the people in the territory to store food in the castle, especially food for the nobles. The gentlemen will not give up the luxury of food even in the cold winter.

In winter, even South's war will stop. This is not a suitable season for war. Even the lowest slave soldiers know this truth.

The noble His Majesty Emperor Flor is not willing to recall the army in winter. He knows very well that once recalled, it will be difficult to continue to mobilize such a large scale next year.

He needs a victory, and the empire's army needs a victory to advance bravely and form confidence in Church of Dawn, so that next year's war will go more smoothly.

So... hundreds of thousands of troops just stayed in Thousand Lakes Province, the province where lakes and swamps coexist with the Mainland.

And this decision also comes with its attendant problems.

For example, there is not enough food.

Half a year after the war began, the food for hundreds of thousands of troops was not entirely borne by the nobles. The empire sent a large amount of food south to enter the battlefield. Because the war was destroyed and the soldiers were consumed, it is said that Imperial Capital some nobles used food to persuade the emperor to stop the war. Because of the short war, South the empire's total food production for a year was consumed on the battlefield.

The authenticity needs to be verified, but the emergence of food problems is inevitable.

This has nothing to do with Ryan. Emperor Flor is collecting grain but cannot receive it from Northlands.

But this matter has something to do with Northwind Province.

Since the emperor urgently dispatched food to South's battlefield, naturally, the small amount of food that entered Northwind Province this year was gone.

As we all know, the nobles of Northwind Province need to buy food to survive the coldest month or two every year. Even the most indifferent noble lords have to distribute food to their people during that time, otherwise there will be widespread hunger and death.

This is how scary Northlands is.

However, the emperor's brightness made the nobles dumbfounded.

"We also stored a lot of food."

Some of the nobles breathed a sigh of relief, because Frozen Earth Territory's ice cellar warehouse stored a large amount of food belonging to them, of course, almost all of it was meat.

The other part of the nobles had no change. They were unwilling to distribute more expensive meat to those damn mud-legged people.

Even if they starve to death.

This is undoubtedly a crisis belonging to the land of Northwind Province. Some nobles looked in the direction of Frozen Earth Territory, waiting for the Northern Baron to take the initiative to speak out.

Since Ryan has invisibly seized the power from the great nobles, he will naturally have to bear the pressure from the nobles.

"It's ridiculous. I'm not their nanny. They don't want to consume their own food reserves, and then they come to me to ask for an explanation?"

On Rhino Horn Mountain, Baron Ryan sneered, but at this time he felt the emperor's anger.

It's a simple question. The nobles have a lot of wealth, a lot of food, and a lot of resources, but they are just unwilling to take it out. Instead, they are crying that they have nothing and need relief from the empire.

For a nobleman, such a scene may be a shame, an insult to his ancestors and his bloodline.

But if all nobles are like this, then this is not an insult to dignity, but a matter of politics.

Ryan faced the first personal political crisis in this land.

After calming down, Ryan was indeed thinking about a solution.

It's not about helping those poor nobles find ways to get food, because this is essentially a political dispute between him and the nobles.

The food problem Ryan can be solved at any time. Nidhogg has harvested a huge amount of food this year, which is impossible to finish.

The key lies in what purpose Ryan wants to accomplish in this incident.

He has many options.

Sell food to those nobles at high prices. In this way, the nobles will see Frozen Earth Territory's background. As Frozen Earth Territory, who needs food the most, has a large amount of food sold to them. This will naturally demonstrate the strength of Ryan and make the nobles more cohesive.

You can also ignore it and let the nobles solve such troublesome matters within the territory on their own. After all, this matter has nothing to do with other nobles outside the territory, or even the emperor Imperial Capital.

In addition to these two methods, Ryan can also coordinate food within the nobles' territories. For example, Silver Stream County always needs more food, so that the nobles can sell more to nobles who are short of food, so that too many people will not starve to death and they can survive this winter.

Importing food from the two kingdoms in the east can, on the one hand, boost the economy, and on the other hand, it can also make Zero Crossing City more prosperous this winter.

However, no matter what method is used, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Ryan is not the nanny of the nobles. His selling of food will not make the nobles too grateful, but will instead create dependence.

If he doesn't ask, it will naturally affect his right to speak. When the nobles face collective incidents in the future, the weight of Ryan's voice will be questioned.

Coordinating the food in the hands of nobles is the most undesirable solution. Just look at the current His Majesty Emperor Flor.

Because of the war, all the nobles complained to the emperor about the lack of food, but in fact the nobles themselves were not short of food. It was South's war shortage.

In this kind of war situation, the nobles are not willing to take out the food they have, let alone a cold winter that will freeze people to death?

That would create greater contradictions.

As for the final import of food, Ryan doesn't think it is a good plan. It is winter, Sera Kingdom and Andara Kingdom also need food, and they are also at war now.

If you really want to buy food at this time, no matter how much money you have, it won't be enough.

Ryan needs to balance the consequences of this matter.

Seeing that the day of the blizzard was getting closer, Ryan finally made the decision to invite the nobles to Frozen Earth Territory at Divine Grace Festival.

The coldest two or three months under Northern Lands are the time after Divine Grace Festival when the new year begins.

Divine Grace Festival Before, it was just cold.

This kind of cold is something that humans can bear, but even so, many nobles are still reluctant to hit the road and rush to Frozen Earth Territory.

Who doesn't know where Frozen Earth Territory is? It is the coldest noble territory in the entire empire.

Starting from Dawn, some nobles even had to go together in groups, and it took Twilight a few days before they could reach Rhino Horn Mountain in Ryan.

Ryan didn't mind waiting either. Looking at the South sky on this increasingly tall mountain and watching the noble carriages entering Frozen Earth Territory, he felt as if all nations were coming to court.

The nobles have arrived, and communication among the nobles naturally requires a topic. This time the topic is undoubtedly the food issue.

"Hey, Your Majesty's war against the Church this year was undoubtedly a failure, but he was still unwilling to withdraw his troops, and we suffered as well."

"I originally made an agreement with the Imperial Merchant Guild, but the 20,000 kilograms of grain have not been delivered until now. I'm afraid it won't even be delivered to Northwind Province this winter."

"Who says it isn't? Your Majesty's decision has increased the price of Volga Province's spirits by 50%. Those damn guys, they have already made countless wealth, and they are still increasing the price."

"Baron Ackerman, who is married to my family, and Baron, who is Volga Province, are actually unable to continue brewing and storing wine this year. The tax imposed by Your Majesty on the grain there is horribly high."

"He can actually give me a discount of only 20% increase in price. Baron Knight If you want it, I can sell you some."

The nobles were communicating, and the sadness about food seemed to exist only in their imaginations. None of these nobles showed their absolute desire for food.

There is nothing strange about this. After all, if everyone is acting and standing on the same front, it doesn't matter. But if you are really helpless for food, it will show that you, a noble, are not capable enough. Your ancestors did not have such a problem, but now there is a food crisis here. Isn't this a problem of you, a noble?

The nobles' face project, or dedication to honor, transcended their fear of death.

"I wonder how Baron Ryan can get food."

A nobleman said in a low voice that when they came to Frozen Earth Territory, their own direction was the food problem, so there was no problem in saying it directly.

There were more and more nobles, so the host Ryan naturally had to appear. Although the ridiculous meeting had not yet been formally held, Ryan still pretended to be curious and asked many nobles at the banquet.

"Forest Otherworld will die completely in two years. During this time, you should have harvested a lot of food in that world. Why are you still worried about food?"

"In the past few years, Northwind Province's nobles should not be short of food, right?"

Ryan It is impossible for nobles to ask questions knowingly.

"Baron Ryan, you also know that the food stored in the Frozen Earth Territory warehouse is not ordinary food. Those foods are bathed in divine food. They are sold to Imperial Capital and West Coast at a high price. This year we have lost a lot of Iron Ore wealth because of His Highness Elector's affairs."

"We will rely on this food to recover our wealth next year. Even we ourselves are not willing to eat this food, so what qualifications do those mud-legged people have?"

"Forest Otherworld has a lot of meat, but no ordinary food. Are we supposed to give these precious meats to slaves who cannot earn wealth for us?"

The nobleman was justified and said it as a matter of course. This kind of thing is almost an instinctive understanding, and there is no inhumane statement.

The nobles also agreed with this reason. What they needed was the cheapest paste to maintain vital signs, not delicacies.

To put it bluntly, the real danger of the food crisis is not the nobles, but the large number of slaves below who may starve to death in the next few months.

They... can die.

"That's true."

Ryan said with a smile, raising the fruit wine in his hand. Fresh fruits from Otherworld Svadilfari are rare items in the eyes of these nobles. The fruit wine brewed is more expensive than the spirits of Volga Province. The nobles are usually reluctant to drink it. Only in Frozen Earth Territory can they drink freely.

A few days later, the nobles have arrived, and Ryan finally held an informal noble meeting openly and honestly.

Most of his meetings are informal because he is not Marquis of Northwind.

Thinking of this, the nobles including Ryan couldn't help but look at the only woman in the meeting.

Shaya, this Marquis's Mother also appeared here for some reason.

The nobles were originally very dissatisfied because she was not a real Noble Title noble, but Shaya said that the governor was young and then made it clear that although the governor could not handle Northwind Province's government affairs yet, he needed to know all of Northwind Province's decisions.

This is understandable, and because of their status in this meeting, it cannot be said that the nobles of Northwind Province will not play with Governor of Northwind.

So in the end we could only arrange for Shaya to listen in from a distance to ensure that she knew what was said in this meeting.

When Ryan slowly sat down, there were no more unnecessary sounds in the meeting. The voice of Northern Baron, who was only twenty-one until now, sounded clearly in the ears of the nobles.

"Without South's food, Northlands's land seems unable to survive."

Ryan said straight to the point. Everyone knows the importance of food, but this sentence is indeed true. The food grown on the fertile land of South is the lifeblood of Northwind.

"But in fact, it has never been the nobles who cannot survive. Northwind Province has never been troubled by the problem of food. Even if the land here is frozen, food can still grow. It is the land that those barbaric Orcs will plunder at all costs."

"However, nobles are all benevolent. Starting from our ancestors, they have been kind to their own people and do not want to see them suffer from hunger and die."

"So when did Northwind Province start to lack food?"

Ryan thought for a while and then said:

"Probably, it started a hundred years ago. We have not experienced that era, but we have suffered the consequences of what happened in that era."

"The territory of the nobles is the land given to his loyal followers by the noble His Majesty the Emperor. These lands belong to the nobles, including the people on the land."

"A hundred years ago, the food grown on the land of the nobles could supply the entire population in the territory. But now, the land is still the same land, but the people of the noble lords are no longer the same number of people as before."

"The discovery of Otherworld is just like Forest Otherworld a few years ago. Natives also lives among them. They entered our world, entered our territory, and became the subjects of the nobles."

"The population has increased, but the food supply has not."

"So today's food crisis has arisen. This is a test of the kindness of the nobles."

"Are you willing to watch the people in your territory starve to death and let the population return to the number that the land can support? Or are the nobles willing to continue to fulfill their noble and benevolent qualities so that their people can see next spring and continue to bask in the light."

Just kidding, Lord Ryan is not the nanny of these nobles. When they encounter problems, they just throw them to him, Baron Ryan, who has the right to speak Northwind. Will he handle it for these nobles?

If you handle it well, you will get the gratitude of the nobles. If you handle it badly, you will bear all the responsibilities.

It's funny, the risks and benefits are not directly proportional. Ryan naturally has a way to bring this ball back to these nobles.

He looked around at these nobles. He had already said this, so are the nobles kind? Or is it ungrateful?

(End of chapter)