Starting as an Island Lord – Chapter 161

Chapter 161: No Money? Let’s Fire Up the Printing Press!

Dawn Castle is divided into four areas.

From the outside in, they are the Military Alert Zone, the Meeting Area, the Dawn Treasury, and the Dawn Garden.

At this moment, Rosen’s perfect puppet is in the Meeting Area, discussing new policies for governing Virland with the top figures from all walks of life in all twenty-five counties of Virland.

There are so many people here, over 400 from each county on average, adding up to over 10,000 people, packing the Meeting Area of Dawn Castle to the brim.

Those who can finally enter the Hall of Glory in the Meeting Area and discuss with Rosen face-to-face…

…if they are magic practitioners, they are at least at the peak of the High-level. If they are merchants, they have assets of at least 50,000 Orgues.

But it’s not just magic practitioners and merchants.

Craftsmen with top-notch skills, village elders with high reputations in the countryside, even bards, painters, and even prostitutes, who have always been regarded as a lowly profession, have been invited.

Strictly adhering to the slogan of not looking at background, but only at ability and character, it is almost a super-sized replica of the Island Citizen Assembly back then.

Actually, the High Priest of the Grand Temple of Saint Virland and the Adrian family insisted on holding the Duke’s coronation first, but Rosen rejected it.

He knew where his greatest source of power came from, so he insisted on setting the basic course for governing Virland first, and then finding time for the Duke’s coronation ceremony.

While the front area was in heated discussion, Rosen’s main body came to the Dawn Garden, a place specifically for the Duke’s residence, with his family.

Serena and the others knew that Rosen had a puppet clone, and they didn’t observe carefully, thinking that the one in the Meeting Area was just a higher-end puppet.

At this moment, she was holding her husband Rosen’s arm, strolling in the beautiful garden where she had grown up, her heart filled with a myriad of thoughts.

She thought she would never come back in this life, but she didn’t expect to come back so soon.

“Honey, is the garden beautiful?”

Rosen’s gaze swept over the flourishing Wave Roses, looking at the blue and white tide of flowers surging in the breeze like waves, and sincerely praised: “It’s a beautiful scenery I’ve never seen before.”

Serena was very happy: “Then let’s spend the rest of our lives here?”

But unexpectedly, Rosen shook his head.

“No, honey, this will be a villa, and Dawn City will still be the richest city in Virland, but the capital of Virland cannot be located by the sea.”

Dawn City is a coastal city, not far from Storm Bay is the Gilded Strait, and more than 200 kilometers further is Aaron.

In case of war, if they lose at sea, Aaron’s warships will enter Storm Bay and be able to directly bombard Dawn Garden.

And naval warfare is not only about technology, but also about luck.

One carelessness can lead to the loss of all their possessions at the bottom of the sea.

Therefore, the capital of Virland must not be so close to Aaron.

Serena was startled, but then understood Rosen’s thoughts.

Virland used to be a puppet of Aaron, so it didn’t matter if the capital was in Dawn City, but it definitely won’t work in the future.

She asked softly: “Then where is the new capital going to be?”

“It’s still under discussion.”

“For now, it’s tentatively set to be 《Mondania》 City, the capital of Monte County in the middle reaches of the Orland River Basin. It’s connected to Storm Bay in Dawn City by the Orland River, but at least 300 kilometers away from the coast. Besides, the Earl of Monte County is also finished.”

“I remember Mondania was quite rudimentary.”

“Rudimentary is good, it’s perfect for tearing down and starting from scratch in design and reconstruction.”

“Build it according to the style of the newest cities, first build the most advanced urban water supply and drainage system, so that every household can access the cleanest water by simply turning on a switch, and ensure that no feces, urine, or other filthy excrement can be seen on the streets.”

Serena’s eyes lit up: “That’s great!”

“Finally, the city roads should also be wide, and the widest and flattest roads should be built between Mondania City, Dawn City, and other major cities in Virland for transporting goods, just like we did on the island.”

Regarding transportation, Rosen not only wanted to build highways in this world, but also planned to create trains.

Trains are no longer a big technical challenge, just invest money and they can be built.

Trains have large transportation capacity, low transportation costs, and are fast, which can greatly promote the flow of people and goods between the provinces of Virland.

Serena couldn’t keep up with Rosen’s thinking on these development details.

In fact, she always felt that her husband’s thinking was very jumpy, his imagination was extremely rich, and strangely enough, the final results were particularly good.

“Oh~ honey, you do what you see fit, no need to tell me.”

She immediately changed the subject: “But I have a worry, this is definitely going to cost a lot of money, right? Do we have that much money?”

Rosen laughed, raised his hand to brush aside the hair on his wife’s temples that had been blown by the wind.

“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll figure out the money.”

He had decided to start the era of credit paper money.

No money? Let’s fire up the printing press!

Of course, Virland, which had just experienced the counterfeit bank deposit receipt storm, had plummeted in confidence in any deposit receipt-like things.

Even the bank deposit receipt business of the entire Nature Alliance was greatly affected.

It will take a lot of preparatory work to restore public confidence.

Promoting this will be Rosen’s main task as Duke for a long time to come.

If he does it well, not only will he be able to flexibly allocate various resources of the country, but he will also be able to go abroad to collect seigniorage and vigorously suck the blood of the Nature Alliance.

Of course, to achieve the latter point, a lot of work needs to be done, and it won’t happen overnight.

Serena’s voice came from beside him.

“Honey, these servants look clumsy, I’ll help arrange the new home.”

Rosen nodded: “Go ahead, I’ll also focus on controlling the puppet Duke in the front yard.”

Serena was very familiar with Dawn Castle, and even familiar with most of the servants in the castle, so she arranged things with ease and enjoyed it.

Rosen sat in a shaded pavilion in the garden under Alia’s guard and began to look at a stack of newly compiled data on Virland.

“There are only 2 small civilian shipyards in the whole of Virland, and they can only build wooden sailing cargo ships under 500 tons, with a total annual production capacity of 5 ships.”

“There is no capability to build warships. All warships and large cargo ships are purchased from Aaron.”

‘Tsk~~’

Although he had known this information for a long time, when he actually saw the detailed data of the shipyard, Rosen still had the urge to grab Lyd from Greystone Island and slap him hard.

Although Aaron had restrictions, it would be good to build a few more civilian shipyards and train some shipwrights. Two shipyards, five small ships a year, this is only slightly better than nothing.

“We must expand quickly and build enough new warships!”

Rosen could fully imagine that, in at most half a year, Aaron’s Lion Fleet would definitely seize the opportunity to go north and give him a hard blow while he was still unstable.

This is something that is bound to happen, regardless of personal will or reason. Even if Deng doesn’t want to do it, it’s useless.

Because among Aaron’s 110 million people, a huge interest group that sucks blood from Virland has already formed, and he has completely cut off their financial resources.

◈◈◈

Blocking people’s financial resources is like killing their parents. Deng will definitely be coerced by this huge interest group to desperately attack Virland.

This attack will definitely be very fierce, and it will be Virland’s founding battle.

If Virland doesn’t fight back, then his freshly acquired Duke’s throne will be gone.

Maybe he personally can survive, but he will also become a homeless dog, and the fate of his family may not be much better than that of the Earls of the Southern Counties.

“Warships need to be built, and aircraft also need to be vigorously developed. These two national defense artifacts, both require absolute resource investment.”

“Coastal defense weapons also need to be built quickly. Even if we can’t win at sea, we must prevent the Lion warships from landing.”

Although they already have 10 new Blackstone warships, plus the more than 40 modified artillery sailing ships inherited from Duke Lyd, it’s still not enough.

Because Aaron’s ships are very large, numerous, and have larger caliber guns, and they will definitely use the urgently developed Blackstone warships.

Therefore, this naval battle will be a real tough battle.

Before winning the upcoming founding battle, Rosen didn’t plan to invest too many resources in other areas, at most just building a prototype.

Rosen continued to look at the second statistical content.

‘There are 580,000 formal mages in Virland, 80,000 High-level, 200,000 Mid-level, and 300,000 Low-level, all traditional mages. Although they learned new era magic, they are seriously out of touch with the latest magic achievements.’

‘There are 2.89 million informal mages with low-level mana. Apart from decent mana, they are almost all incompetent.’

Rosen smiled as he read: “That’s good, much better than the situation on White Sturgeon Island~”

White Sturgeon Island was truly impoverished back then.

Rosen’s idea for these mages was to train them first, and then put them to work.

If they didn’t have enough ability and were unwilling to learn, then they could go wherever it’s cool.

Then came the third statistic.

‘The number of farmers in the lost southern territories is 11.38 million, 60% enter the noble plantations to grow various cash crops, and 40% enter the emerging factories to become workers.’

In other words, about 4.5 million are a brand new working class, and the other 6 million plus can also become workers if things go well.

“With the fertile land of the Southern Great Plains, coupled with the super high yield of staple food like potatoes, there’s simply no need for so many farmers.”

“So, I have enough workers.”

“If these workers can also gain mana, then I will have a large number of mana workers, and with the assembly line, I can increase production capacity wildly.”

How do workers gain mana?

Of course, by promoting cultivation methods.

The working class naturally possesses a high degree of organization and obedience. As long as they have the correct cultivation methods and environment, a large number of mana workers will emerge soon.

“Most of the workers in Virland are from farming backgrounds, 《Island Enlightenment Thirteen Volumes》 is still too difficult, it needs to be further simplified, and a catchy mantra needs to be compiled.”

As a tenth-circle mage, Rosen knew very well how to cultivate most efficiently.

He also knew very well that as long as the essence is extracted, even the most foolish person can touch the magic circle and gain mana if they persevere.

The next statistic is 《Rough Exploration of Island Resource Distribution》.

“Ha~ the Blackstone ore is unexpectedly abundant, tsk tsk~~ that’s great!”

Blackstone ore is the burning source of the new era, and in Rosen’s plan, it is also an excellent fuel for the transitional period.

Virland has a very large reserve, so there’s no need to worry about being controlled by others in terms of energy.

“However, the island is still too small, and the resources are unevenly distributed. There are many resources that are simply not available… This is probably a common problem for islands.”

Virland Island is also an island, of course much larger than White Sturgeon Island, with more resources, but the shortcomings are still very obvious.

There are many new era mines, such as iron ore, which are pitifully scarce.

And in the new era, not having iron ore is almost like being lame.

Although tempered materials can be used as substitutes in many places, steel can also be tempered, and the performance ceiling after tempering is very high.

Tempered steel can exhibit performance far exceeding that of high-performance steel on Earth, and naturally it can be used to build stronger magic machinery.

Therefore, iron ore is still very important.

“It seems that we have to go out to sea to grab iron ore!”

After roughly browsing through the manpower and material resources of the island, he started looking at money, or more accurately, gold and silver currency.

‘The total cash confiscated from the property of the Earl and the great nobles is 49.82 million Orgues.’

“The Earls of the Southern Counties are really rich!”

This is a lot of money, but it is still far from enough to realize the construction plans for various magic industries in Rosen’s mind.

‘Dawn Bank needs to exchange 31.28 million Orgues of deposit receipts, of which 5.31 million Orgues are counterfeit deposit receipts from Levend.’

Rosen frowned when he saw this: “The little king of Levend, secretly doing such a large-scale scheme!”

More than five million Orgues, accounting for almost half of the previous Duke of Virland’s financial income, must be recovered from Levend.

If they don’t pay it back, he will make the little king’s life difficult.

After almost finishing reading the statistical data, Rosen closed the statistics booklet, patted it in his hand, and said to Alia beside him:

“Sigh~~ such a large Virland is essentially just a big plantation for Aaron.”

There are not many valuable assets.

Even the factories are just some rough processing plants for cash crops, and there are not even a few cotton spinning mills.

There is not a single high-end magic industry.

Alia giggled: “It used to be, but it’s not anymore, Master.”

“That’s right.”

Stretching, Rosen was going to see how Serena’s arrangements were going, but before he had taken a few steps, news came from the front yard that a group of envoys from the Radiant Empire had arrived.

“Envoys from the Radiant Empire… let me see. Hmm, interesting, let the puppet receive them tonight.”

He was very busy during the day, and couldn’t spare any time. He couldn’t see them for a while after dinner either, because there were too many people who wanted to see him, and each one was very important.

He could only arrange to meet them late at night.

Before figuring out the situation, the main body decided not to show up for the time being, because Empress Zhuoya was suspected to be a ninth-circle mage, and her magic cultivation was very terrifying.

Although Rosen had tenth-circle mana and his own unique skills, it was better to be safe than sorry when it comes to meeting a king.