Can I Borrow Money?

That night, Count Boles lay on his broad yet ice-cold bed, tossing and turning, utterly without sleep.

Outside the window, the moonlight was cold and clear, seeping through the lattice to cast mottled shadows across the floor, just like the tangled mess of his thoughts at that moment.

The arrival of twenty-five hundred Eagle Nest Cavalry had brought him a powerful martial reliance, but it had also brought an imminent financial black hole large enough to crush his entire new administration in Hewenham.

Half a year of unpaid wages, for an elite cavalry force, was an astronomical sum.

He had boasted in public that he would pay the full amount in three days. This concerned not only his personal credibility, but directly affected the stability of this crucial army, and even the safety of Hewenham's overall situation.

If he broke faith before the army, the lighter consequence would be scattered morale and ineffective command; the heavier could be mutiny, with consequences too dreadful to imagine.

But where would the money come from? The silver vaults of the Hewenham Governor's Office, after the previous incumbent's squandering, corrupt officials' hollowing-out, and the drain of years of war, had long since been empty. They probably could not even stretch to pay the salaries of the local officials.

Raise taxes? With the people's livelihood withered and the bandit scourge not yet quelled, that would be no different from drinking poison to quench thirst. It would only drive more commoners onto Liangshan, playing right into Jianxi's hands.

"Borrow" from the local strongmen? The calculating, hostile faces of Albrecht, Glass, and the others flashed through Boles's mind in an instant. It would already be a blessing if they did not seize the chance to make trouble; how could they possibly send charcoal in the snow? It