Pioneer Lord: Starting From Daily Intelligence-Chapter 453 - 183: Signing Unequal Treaties and Establishing the Suzerainty-Tributary Trade System (Part 4)
As the Lord, he has the privilege to be so domineering. Moreover, for a faction, it might not necessarily be a bad thing.
A Lord doesn’t need to be exceptionally wise; as a Monarch, he should have a resolute will and a clear strategy. As long as the direction he points his sword in is clear and he can unify all the power in the Territory, it’s much more meaningful than daydreaming!
A Territory doesn’t fear not having people propose various ingenious plans; what it fears most is a Monarch who is indecisive and changes orders frequently.
Even the most powerful faction can lose significant strength if they change policies two or three times completely by 180 degrees, preventing them from operating at even two to three-tenths of their effectiveness.
And under Su Li’s determined attitude, Oliver’s intellect can be fully realized. After brief contemplation, he murmured, "In that case, we can adjust our approach and reward the Green Dragon with 1,000 Golden Crowns every month!"
"Reward the Green Dragon with 1,000 Golden Crowns every month?" Su Li raised an eyebrow, feeling vaguely familiar with this routine. "Explain in detail."
Oliver patiently explained, "Considering the Green Dragon’s extreme greed for gold, even if it knows the gold is laced with poison, it would swallow it without hesitation. Asking it to pay 500 Golden Crowns monthly will certainly cause great resentment, but if we reward it with 1,000 Golden Crowns each month, it would surely relish the agreement."
"But obtaining these 1,000 Golden Crowns isn’t as easy as it seems; it must provide tribute and vassal taxes worth 1,000 Golden Crowns."
"For example, paying 300 Fire Spike Crystals, 1 Elite Knight, 50 slaves, and 5,000 pounds of iron ore, along with 10 pounds of Vibranium, monthly to the Territory!"
Su Li immediately realized, isn’t this just a simplified version of the Eastern tribute trade system?
Nominally, Su Li does seem to give the Green Dragon 1,000 Golden Crowns every month like a sucker, allowing the Green Dragon to earn a substantial 13,000 Golden Crowns from the Hesse Territory annually. Just by using the title of a vassal, it can gather nearly 200,000 Golden Crowns from the Hesse Territory in just a little over a decade, becoming incredibly wealthy.
But the issue lies in the sovereign nation holding the pricing rights within this trade system!
Fire Spike Crystals, 1 Elite Knight, 50 slaves, 5,000 pounds of iron ore, and 10 pounds of Vibranium, you say their value is only 1,000 Crowns?
Just the value of those 300 Fire Spike Crystals exceeds 1,000 Golden Crowns.
In the battle, why could the Human Legion easily defeat the Tree Demon Legion? Precisely because Hilude gathered the Territory’s Fire Spike Crystal weapons together.
Even a regular weapon, when embedded with a Fire Spike Crystal, emits a blazing red light when delivering heavy and consecutive hits, accompanied by the roaring sound of flames, increasing the fire damage.
And the Dwarves, using their superb forging skills, consolidate the powerful characteristics of the Fire Spike Crystals into rune weapons, enabling a more potent flame attribute to explode when a Fire Attribute Knight uses a rune weapon, where even a regular attack can erupt with resplendent and scorching crimson light, adding extremely powerful fire damage.
This gemstone alone can comfortably match a farmer family’s annual earnings.
If he could indeed receive 300 every month, Su Li could easily promote this gemstone as a new specialty for the Territory and sell it externally.
Moreover, the agreement’s content regarding slaves forces the Green Dragon Legion to be unable to rest and recuperate peacefully. Solving the issue for 50 slaves is easy; the Green Dragon Legion can just destroy a Forest Robber Gang or capture Beastmen in the forest to gather them, but finding an Elite Knight isn’t as simple.
This means they must attack more monster camps to find such captives. Continuous warfare is bound to drag the Green Dragon Legion’s energy and strength development down, while it adds a fixed population source for the Hesse Territory.
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