Blessed by Abundance, Becoming a Scourge of Terra

A Tribute to the Legendary Tax King!

A few days later, Londinium's "purge of the king's side" was resolved perfectly. The remaining royal uncle could be left for the other dukes to deal with.

So long as the other dukes had any sense, they would surely eradicate King Aslan's last chance of making a comeback.

After all, their thinking was simple: I'm not an Aslan anyway, so it makes no difference who becomes king.

Yet for some reason, even after everything had settled, Victoria's Beast Lord never appeared.

It was only about a month later that the lion actually sent Victoria's prince back.

Huang Cao truly couldn't make sense of that move. Could that lion really have thought that King Aslan, stripped of his power, could still overthrow him?

More than once after finishing his business, Huang Cao had tried to find that lion, but every attempt came up empty.

If I can't find it, then forget it. I'll just keep gnawing away at this country.

"Most of these new nobles are the eldest legitimate sons of ducal families. Sooner or later, they'll inherit their positions."

After a series of observations and investigations, Huang Cao had to admit that Victoria's nobles were truly reckless.

They had put all their heirs in Londinium.

If someone wiped them all out in one fell swoop, there wouldn't even be anyone left to inherit the family estates.

Still, it was easy enough to understand. The dukes commanded heavy forces, and if the king had nothing to restrain them with, accidents could easily happen.

Keeping the dukes' heirs in Victoria's most prosperous capital allowed King Aslan to better monitor their every move.

Even if they later came to blows, the dukes would have to consider the safety of their heirs.

But no one could have expected that, through Huang Cao's maneuvering, those ducal heirs would spontaneously form a force that could not be ignored—and kick the king off his throne in one blow.

"Right. Since Duke Windermere no longer oversees Kazdel's border, and his garrison is now within my territory..."

"Then let's give Leithanian a little trouble. Transfer Windermere's army over to Leithanian."

"Now that I think about it, where has the Cumberland family gone?"

Huang Cao remembered that, in the original story, there seemed to be a family called Cumberland that was exceptionally loyal to King Aslan. The earliest Steam Knights had also come from that family.

According to the records, due to historical reasons and their loyalty, many Steam Knight pilots came from that family.

Even the family's future duke had gone to his death alongside the last King Aslan.

So why, after he had caused such a huge upheaval in Londinium, had this family still not made its stance clear?

Could they be planning something big?

That was entirely possible. He needed the other dukes to pin this family down.

However, Victoria seemed to have fewer than eight dukes at present. Over the following century, there would apparently be another Duke of Wellington, who had been born in Tara.

The original story had not described in detail how Wellington became a duke. According to the current timeline, this god of modern warfare either had not yet been born or had only just been born.

"Write a secret letter to Duke of Cumberland for me. Tell him that if he wants King Aslan to stay alive, he'd better behave himself."

"Does he want the man, or does he want Victoria? He can choose one."

Without the slightest hesitation, Huang Cao gave Shi Huaiya the order. At the same time, he wrote to the other dukes, hinting that they should deal with King Aslan's biological uncle as soon as possible.

Dealing with that man was also a warning to Duke of Cumberland, telling the Steam Knights under his command not to act rashly.

"Understood, The Speaker."

Shi Huaiya did not dare slack off in the slightest. Like a perfect tool, he carried out Huang Cao's orders with unwavering resolve.

This great figure had needed less than five years to effortlessly take possession of the ancient nation of Victoria.

He had truly chosen the right person to follow!

Huang Cao believed he had not done much in all this. If anyone was to blame, it was the current King Aslan for encountering a calamity like him, which had torn open the contradictions between the two sides ahead of time.

Next, Huang Cao still had much to do in order to placate the other dukes who had stayed out of the affair.

First came dividing the spoils... no, it should be called rewarding merit. And then he could continue harvesting this country properly.

Thus, over the next few days, nobles who had suddenly come to their senses flocked into Londinium over the important matter of dividing the spoils.

Before long, an unprecedented merit-rewarding conference opened under King Aslan's "organization."

Huang Cao placed both hands on the Lion King's shoulders and watched him read every word of the decree.

Every provision and clause in the decree benefited the nobles present, and it did not even damage their reputations.

Huang Cao knew that the dukes attending the meeting might look down on him. After all, nobles who considered themselves clever were mostly proud and arrogant.

But as mentioned before, many members of the Lower House were the heirs of these dukes.

Those members trusted him deeply. Once this generation of nobles grew old, wouldn't the next generation all be his people?

And there was no need to worry that the legislators would fail to inherit their ducal positions.

The prestige and achievements they had accumulated through the coup alone would be enough to earn his legislators the favor of their ducal fathers and mothers.

They could look down on him all they wanted. As long as it didn't stop them from paying taxes.

When it came to fleecing others, Huang Cao had taken it to the extreme.

When King Aslan's enfeoffment decree distributed the land, it completely bypassed the dukes and granted all the land to their heirs.

That was because, when the coup took place, the dukes were still outside baring their teeth at the armies of other nations.

So when the news reached their ears, these people even thought their homes had been robbed—though for the Cumberland family, they really had been.

And most people instinctively thought that giving land to their sons and daughters was the same as giving it to themselves.

Thus, the dukes all expressed no objections and were thoroughly satisfied.

Especially their heirs, whose gazes toward Huang Cao were filled with unparalleled admiration.

In Victoria, not every noble possessed their own fief.

The dukes' territories were indeed vast, but there were only so many areas suitable for development.

They could hardly have their own bloodlines personally lead people to reclaim wilderness, as if this were ancient Yan Country.

So before the duke died, his children beneath him basically had no fiefs of their own and all lived in the same castle.

And even after his death, the heir who inherited the ducal title would, in most cases, have to give some land to their other siblings.

More importantly, after this maneuver, the taxes could finally be collected!

As the greatest contributor to this affair, Huang Cao not only became the Protector Duke, but also the Minister of Finance in charge of the king's taxes.

The dukes might not pay taxes on time after receiving this land, or might even refuse to pay altogether.

But the councilors who truly received land knew exactly whose hands the taxes would go into, so they would all pay on time. This was called collecting taxes by a roundabout route.

With his prestige, Huang Cao could effortlessly gather all the taxes into his own hands.

The tax rate was not high—just fifteen percent of a territory's total income.

The land King Aslan possessed went without saying in terms of fertility.

The Speaker had bestowed all of Victoria's richest lands upon them. Such an act was simply too great!

So, could you be my Speaker for the rest of my life?

I was willing to do anything!

Huang Cao had truly taken the phrase "winning people's hearts" to the utmost extreme, making a ruthless investment in Victoria's future.

But just as Huang Cao was battling wits with the dukes in Victoria and making a killing, in distant Kazdel, there was another Demon King worrying about money.

After spending several months immersed in the library, Theresia finally completed the evolution of her thinking.

"I should make money first."

Having gone months without proper rest, Theresia felt as though her eyes were going dim.

Her weight had also dropped to a terrifying extent.

You could mock Theresia's ideals for being unrealistic, but you absolutely could not deny the effort she had put into them.

Theresia had proposed her vision. Though her abilities were somewhat lacking, she had always worked toward it.

That drive alone was enough to crush the vast majority of inhuman rulers across Terra's land.

"I need to save money. I need to cut the military!"

After careful consideration, Theresia decided to let these Lords of the Royal Court suffer a little.

Dukare in particular—it was time to send that lazy vampire to the front lines.

Every day, he hid in the castle away from the sun and sent his subordinates to handle everything.

How wonderful it would be if those people could be spared and put toward developing industry and agriculture.

Let the Lords of the Royal Court suffer a little; I'll bear the infamy!

Ever since she had wiped out Leithanian's elite forces in the previous battle, Theresia had learned something from her books.

Leithanian was genuinely wealthy. Even after sending off its elite troops in one go, it still had the resources to station an Army Group at the border.

If Kazdel had suffered losses like that, Theresia might have fainted on the spot.

So the question was how to make money.

Her ideals could not survive without even the slightest economic foundation.

Words alone could not make everyone willingly follow her. She also needed gold and silver to help her accomplish this goal.

In the original plot, after developing for so long, Theresia was actually quite a wealthy woman.

Otherwise, she would not have been able to afford the funds to purchase Rhodes Island. After all, this landship had been excavated in Rem Pito and rightfully belonged to that country.

Even if Kal'tsit could prove that the ship belonged to her, she could not possibly take it without paying a single coin.

So they could only fork out the money to buy their own father back.

But where was the money supposed to come from?

Loans from other countries... that was only worth considering if they could afford to repay them.

Never mind whether they could repay it—the question was whether they could even borrow any in the first place, because Kazdel's international reputation was practically zero.

After all, there was no precedent for giving loans to a Demon King. Who knew whether you Sarkaz lot would pay it back?

What if, when it came time to repay it, they suddenly said, "This was borrowed by the previous Demon King. I'm the current Demon King, so I don't acknowledge it."

That was a perfectly valid excuse, after all, because ever since the end of the Tikkaz era, succession to the throne of the Demon King had no longer worked by the father dying and the son or daughter inheriting the position.

Thus, the previous Demon King and the next often had no blood relation whatsoever, giving them ample reason not to repay the debt.

After being baptized by books, Theresia also came to understand just how much money it took to build a complete industrial chain in Kazdel.

As for why Kazdel had books on economic development, that was thanks to the summaries left behind by several previous Demon Kings.

While some Demon Kings truly did nothing useful, others had wanted to peacefully develop the people's livelihoods—though after making only a little progress, war would suddenly break out again.

No money? Then go earn it! Anything that could be exported, I'd export it!

No one knew how, over the more than one hundred years of the original plot—

—these siblings had scavenged their way into actually putting together a Mobile City.

Although the ancestor had been burned badly enough to hurt, they had at least managed to scrape together the money.

So it was time to take stock of what I had that could be sold.

Antiques? Sell them! Slap a label on them saying they had once been used by generations of Demon Kings.

The door panels of the Demon King's Palace? Sell those too! Price them a little higher—after all, they carried the weight of history. Just say they had been caressed by countless Demon Kings.

By attaching historical labels to these worthless everyday items, Theresia had truly carved making money into her bones.