Redd glanced at him, his eyes calm, as if he was looking at a person who was using reasons to try to change the already determined outcome. "In this case, then increase taxes."
Douglas complained, "No more taxes can be added. The tax was increased once two years ago, and you increased it again half a year ago.
Free Cities The people's affordability is close to the limit. If taxes are added, problems will arise in the operation of trade City-States.
Merchants will buy less goods, port throughput will drop, and customs revenue will decrease. The people will mutiny."
Redd said casually, "Then let the people mutiny. Then kill all the mutinous mobs."
These words are very cold. Douglas once worked as a pirate, robbed merchant ships at sea, also participated in attacks on port cities, and had many lives on his hands.
But that kind of coldness is completely different from what is contained in the sentence Redd.
Pirates kill for money, to seize things that can be exchanged for gold and wine in the chaos.
Redd The cruelty in this sentence is institutional. On a chessboard that is already full, the disobedient chess pieces are directly removed from the chess board, and then new chess pieces are rearranged.
He didn't show any emotion, he was just stating a plan that could be implemented.
Douglas lowered his head, held the wooden sign in his hand, and pinched the edge of the wooden sign a little tighter with his fingers.
He bent down and his voice was lower than before. "I will think of another way."
Redd said, "You should know that I only want results."
Douglas's body was a little lower, his waist almost bent to 90 degrees, and his voice seemed to be squeezed out from the depth of his throat. "Understood."
The project to rebuild Valyria City continues to advance.
Redd takes time every day to check the construction progress at the ruins site, paying particular attention to those locations marked as "earth and fire nodes" by the exploration team.
Valyrians carried out large-scale geological transformation of this land during the Valyrian Freehold period. They buried a large number of metal nails forged with Valyrian steel throughout the peninsula.
Those steel nails are deeply embedded in underground fire channels and rock formation cracks to stabilize crustal activity, channel geothermal energy, and prevent volcanic eruptions.
When the doomsday disaster occurred, fourteen volcanoes erupted simultaneously. Although those steel nails failed to prevent the disaster from erupting, they maintained the stability of part of the strata during the disaster, preventing the area where Valyria City is located from completely shattering into pieces like other parts of the peninsula.
Redd Let the craftsmen and slaves search for the location of those steel nails in the ruins.
Most of them are buried deep underground, and some have shifted from their original positions due to terrain changes after the apocalypse and need to be repositioned and adjusted.
Redd confirmed the direction of those underground fire channels from the topographic map drawn by the exploration team, then compared the positions of the steel nails with the channel nodes, and marked the locations where new steel nails needed to be re-implanted.
Those steel nails will be forged from Valyrian steel, and the process requirements are high. Although the number is not large, each one needs to be tough enough, high enough to withstand high temperatures, and able to withstand the erosion of geothermal heat and magma for a long time.
Redd orders Douglas to mobilize all Valyrian steel stocks from Free Cities for forging new steel nails.
Those inventories were originally used as strategic material reserves, but are now being invested in reconstruction projects.
After the underground passage was blocked, surface and underground circulation was temporarily restricted to a few known passages.
The smoothness of the sea lanes was better than expected. The transport fleet followed the optimized route and steadily transported food, wood, stone, iron and manpower from Volantis to the camp port with a round-trip cycle of thirteen days.
The supply of materials for the reconstruction of Valyria City was therefore guaranteed. The materials and slaves transported from the sea were assigned to different areas of the ruins, and were cleaned, leveled, laid foundations and constructed according to the planned schedule.
A large number of slaves were unloaded from the ships, organized into teams under the supervision of soldiers and craftsmen, and assigned to various work areas in the ruins.
Some of them are prisoners of war captured from the Dothraki tribe, some are laborers recruited from Free Cities, and some are strong laborers selected from the Volantis prisoner of war camp.
Those people moved rocks and earth under the scorching sun, and rebuilt the foundation and stone wall skeleton on the ruins of Valyria City.
In order to solve Free Cities's financial problems, Douglas came up with a way - to rob Dothraki.
Dothraki is the strongest nomad on Essos. Their equestrianism and riding and shooting skills are unparalleled on the grasslands. However, their wealth mainly relies on plundering caravans and weak tribes to accumulate, and they lack fixed material reserves and defenses.
Douglas applied to Redd to call more than a dozen Demon Dragon to participate in the hunting operation, and Redd approved it.
During that operation, more than a dozen Demon Dragons swooped down from the air, burned the Dothraki's horses and tents with Dragonfires, swept their riders off their horses, and then forced the remaining people to surrender.
Facts have proved that Demon Dragon is still the overlord of this sky and earth.
Dothraki is helpless in front of Dragonfire. Their fastest horse can't outrun Demon Dragon in the air, and their strongest bow can't shoot through the dragon scales.
With just a dozen Demon Dragon, Dothraki, who lives by hunting, was completely pressed to the ground and rubbed, becoming the prey of Free Cities.
They were captured in batches and escorted to the construction sites of Volantis and Valyrian Peninsula to serve as slaves.
Their horses were converted into transport livestock, and their pastures were placed under the control of Free Cities.
A large number of Dothraki tribes were forced to move eastward, away from the borders of Free Cities.
There are always more solutions than difficulties.
Douglas briefly wrote this sentence in the report submitted to Redd.
Redd didn't say anything after reading it, but just drew a sign indicating approval at the end of the report.
It has been more than half a year since Redd left Westeros.
During this period of time, he continued to receive messages from King's Landing and Dragonstone through Mesalia's intelligence network.
The letter is delivered along fixed nodes through ravens, passing through Blackwater Bay, Driftmark, Dragonstone, then transiting through the route of Free Cities, and finally arriving at the camp of Valyrian Peninsula.
The contents of those letters have been sorted and screened by Mesalia, retaining only the parts with practical value and removing redundant politeness and irrelevant trivia.
Among the recent batch of letters, there was a message that made Redd stop other things he was doing and read it twice.
Rhaenyra's position on Small Council is slowly but continuously being weakened.