Sweep
Edmund was leading his men to inventory the supplies in the storerooms of the Sweet Sorghum Territory castle. This Baron Benn was indeed a model of exploiting his people to the bone. Just by looking at the way he dealt with the Hashim family, Edmund knew that this guy was very good at accumulating wealth. The inventory of the storerooms proved Edmund's guess right.
The clerk, his face flushed, reported, "Lord Edmund, we have completed the inventory of the several vaults discovered within the castle, and found a large quantity of gold and silver Silver Coin inside."
Edmund joked, "Judging from how happy you are, I know you've made a fortune. Tell me, have we made a fortune?"
The clerk swallowed hard. "The Grand Duchy of Vera has 3,400 standard gold coins, 1,300 Silver Maple Leaf, 4,000 standard Silver Coin, and varying quantities of gold and silver artifacts."
"How much is this approximately?" Just hearing the amount, Edmund knew that the money was quite valuable, but the Grand Duchy of Vera and the Raine Kingdom had different currency systems, and he was not a professional merchant, so he didn't know how to convert it.
"The Grand Duchy's gold coins weigh about 5 grams, which is 2.5 times the weight of the small gold dragon and one-quarter the weight of the large gold dragon, equivalent to 850 large gold dragons."
Although the Silver Maple Leaf weighs only 15 grams, a quarter lighter than the Great Silver Dragon, it is a fine ornament in the kingdom. Many nobles like to adorn their clothes with it, and it is quite valuable. It can be sold for two Great Silver Dragons in the Capital City. All of these together are worth about 2,600 Great Silver Dragons, which is equivalent to 260 Small Gold Dragons and 26 Great Gold Dragons.
However, considering the large quantity of Silver Maple Leaf in the Grand Duchy of Vera, we estimate that our harvest this time may impact the kingdom's jewelry market, causing the price of Silver Maple Leaf to drop. But I think this batch of Silver Maple Leaf Leaves is worth at least 20 Great Gold Dragons.
As for those principality Silver Coin, which weigh about 5 grams but contain one-fifth non-silver metal, I think they are worth only 2 small silver dragons, which is equivalent to 8,000 small silver dragons in total, or 8 large gold dragons.
This time, the gold and silver coins alone were worth 878 large gold dragons. If the gold and silver artifacts are included, the harvest could easily reach 1000 large gold dragons.
Upon hearing this number, Edmund's eyes widened. 1,000 Great Gold Dragons! As the commander of the Kingdom Navy fleet, his annual salary was only 5 Great Gold Dragons. This amount of money was enough for him to earn for 200 years, while the annual income of Dragonblood Orchid Territory was only 500 Great Gold Dragons.
As far as he knew, the annual maintenance cost for his largest squadron of the Kingdom Navy was only 200 Great Gold Dragons, and the cost of building such a squadron was only 800 Great Gold Dragons. This amount of money was enough to build a Kingdom Navy squadron and use it for a year.
If a minor baron of the Grand Duchy of Vera could amass such wealth, Edmund wouldn't even know whether the Grand Duchy of Vera or the Raine Kingdom was the most powerful nation.
However, Edmund was unaware that Baron Benn was indeed an exception. No ordinary duchy nobleman had his methods of accumulating wealth, reducing the original 900-plus Freemen in his territory to just over 400.
Independent nobles generally place great importance on the number of Freemen in their territories, since soldiers, artisans, and merchants all come from these Freemen.
Baron Benn's actions were highly regarded in the surrounding noble territories. Of the more than 500 Freemen people who disappeared from Sweet Sorghum Territory, only half were bankrupted by Viscount Benn; the other half had fled from Sweet Sorghum Territory.
In addition to the gold and silver, Edmund also discovered large quantities of grain, including wheat and sorghum, as well as a considerable amount of raw sugar.
Sweet Sorghum Territory, but the yield per acre of this sorghum is not high. However, it has a special by-product: sugar.
Sweet sorghum stalks contain a lot of sugar and can be used to make sugar. Although the sugar-making process is not very refined, the raw sugar made from sweet sorghum has far fewer impurities than that made from sugar beets, and it is very popular among the Freemen in the western regions.
Baron Benn's family had made a living selling this kind of coarse sugar for generations and had always lived a comfortable life until last year when a kind of White Sugar suddenly appeared on the market. Its taste was much better than that of the coarse sugar made from sweet sorghum, and it immediately crushed the coarse sugar in the Sweet Sorghum Territory.
After the territory's income plummeted, Baron Benn suddenly found life difficult. He originally wanted to use violence to drive out the merchants who sold White Sugar, but after a few encounters, he discovered that these merchants had powerful backgrounds and were simply beyond his ability to deal with.
In order to find a way to increase revenue, Baron Benn had no choice but to turn his attention to the Freemen in his territory. Although Baron Benn had previously used various excuses to exploit the Freemen, he had always been careful not to take advantage of them completely. Even with the Hashim family, Baron Benn only planned to take a small cut every now and then, but he never expected to destroy them.
However, the grim economic situation forced him to intensify his plunder of the Freemen in his territory. After all, in his view, it was because these Freemen were unwilling to buy the raw sugar produced in his territory that his income had plummeted.
He didn't even consider that his territory only had a few Freemen, and even if all of them bought his coarse sugar, it wouldn't amount to much money. But by this time, Baron Benn had already lost his patience.
The trigger was the Hashim family. At that time, Baron Benn punished Hashim and demanded that the Hashim family pay him some compensation for food expenses. At first, he didn't ask for much, but his steward said that the Hashim family owned a lot of land and could ask for more.
Baron Benn lost control of himself and forcibly seized all of Hashim's land, driving Hashim out of their house. This time, Baron Benn really made a lot of money, since Hashim's land had been managed very well and sold for a considerable sum.
Having tasted success, Baron Benn completely let himself go and began to intensify the persecution of Freemen in his territory. This brought him a great deal of wealth, especially after forcibly confiscating the property of two merchants in his territory, which doubled the value of his treasury.
Baron Benn originally planned to use the money to expand his territory's army, since his original private War Department had already gone to the front lines with Count Sibeth, and he didn't know when they would return.
Baron Benn had planned to expand his army in order to protect his property and territory, but he found that the Freemen of military age in his territory were basically useless, because the families of those Freemen had disappeared had either been destroyed by him or had simply fled to other territories.
Although Baron Benn had already realized something was wrong, he could have easily used the money to hire mercenary groups or caravan guards to help him defend his territory.
But when Baron Benn did the math, he realized that recruiting soldiers was much cheaper than hiring guards, and he couldn't bear to let others make so much money. So he gave up on expanding his army and planned to wait until the battle on the front lines was over before his private army returned to his territory.
However, he was not very lucky. The Civil War lasted a long time, and the troops of the Western Noble Alliance Army were all stationed on the front lines with the two legions of the duchy.
Edmund led the Kingdom Navy task force to the western part of the Duchy, where he encountered the Hashim family and made them his first target. They became the second nobleman in the west to die for the Duchy during the Civil War. The first one was naturally Baron of Woven Fern, who was dealt with by Victor and Alex.
Of course, all of this that happened in Baron Benn's territory also officially kicked off the Kingdom Navy sweep of the western region.
Edmund wouldn't keep all the spoils of this great achievement to himself. According to the Kingdom Navy regulations on the distribution of war spoils, at least 50% should be supplied to the country, while he planned to split the other 50% equally with Texera and Gilles, also in an attempt to win them over.
After Tesla and Gilles completed their blockade mission, they returned to Sweet Sorghum Castle and discussed the battle plan with Edmund. The two were stunned when they saw the gold and Silver Coin placed in front of them.
"Seniors, this money is the spoils of this operation. I have already set aside the portion to be handed over to the kingdom. The rest can be divided among the three of us."
Gilles couldn't contain himself and asked directly, "How much are these worth?"
"500 Golden Dragons".
Gilles and Texera couldn't believe their ears; the amount of money was astronomical to them.
Even though both of them became independent nobles, as the first generation of independent nobles, they both lived a miserable life. Most of their stipends and spoils of war were used to manage their territories, which currently only received investment and no returns.
Five hundred large golden dragons was truly unbelievable for these two newly appointed barons of the kingdom, especially since they would each receive one-third of the money.