Chapter 52: Live To Sienna Pt.52
Towards the beginning of the year of Sienna’s marriage with Carl, heavy rain fell on every part of Laifsden. Perhaps it was unfair since it had not fallen for five years, and the downpour continued for three months. Thus, after finding out that Sienna had a way to buy a ticket to purchase wheat, she could plan the job.
“It’s natural to have some heavy rain.”
“….”
Sienna planned the job because she knew that it was going to rain but could not explain why it was going to rain.
“Well, if there’s no heavy rain, we can find another way. It’s a way to block two roads that aren’t big. There’ll be a lot to look for, and we can use explosives.”
“Anyway, we can make as many contracts as we can, and we can lose the road. I’d rather put the land as collateral. As long as they own the big farmland, they’ll soon recover their losses.”
“It will not only hurt Empress Arya’s financial strength, but we will also gain a lot. Wheat prices will rise in the capital because the southern business community won’t be able to sell wheat if the roads are lost. In the south, where there’s so much wheat, the price will drop because we can’t sell it outside. If there are rumors in the south that they are fixing the price of wheat for a bigger profit, then they will lose public support no matter how much they use the road loss as an excuse. This could turn the neutral forces away from them.”
“Yes, I’m sure you think they’re not releasing wheat to expand their power, and I’m going to antagonize them. If you really planned to do that to expand profits and power, then you could selectively supply wheat, but you wouldn’t bring wheat to buy the hearts of neutral forces. I’m sure neutral forces will turn around.”
Sienna admired Carl all the time. While agonizing over the matter for a long time, she only thought of hurting Arya’s funding. Nevertheless, Carl thought of it as short time and political advantage.
“One more thing!”
Sienna said, pointing to the flowers acting as the Hegea River on the table.
“If the road gets blocked, then there will be an attempt to send the wheat up somehow. The best way is to use the waterways. The tax rate is 50 percent, but it’s a lot more profitable than a penalty.”
One of the unusual taxes in Laifsden was the calculation of numbers. If they use the waterway, they would have to pay fifty percent of the shipping tax as well as fifty percent of the goods they carried. In the past, there had been a clever restriction on what they originally intended in the toxic clause law or official documents designed to discriminate against the southern region.
The clause had not been a problem in the south because there were not many ships, and there had been no inconveniences in overland travel. However, if they blocked both roads according to Sienna and Carl’s plan, then the Southern aristocrats would use the waterway, even if they pay a lot of taxes.
“And then, Carl…”
“Are you telling me to use my hand to attack the ships?”
“That’s right, but you can’t take advantage of them brazenly. Why don’t you control Hegea River through the floodgates?”
“Numeric?”
Carl asked suspiciously. It seems that they have not yet received any information on the waters located in the Hegea River.
“To give you a clue, there’s only one person in charge of the floodgates around here. Red Cabillion. He tried to become a royal knight as a descendant of a small baroness, but he failed. It’s time to save money rather than merit to join the Knights. After failing the Knights’ Test and failing to succeed the baroness, he jumped in and became their leader. He’s got a big head, and he’s admired by his enemies. If he set his mind, then it would be easy to move his enemies.”
If Sienna didn’t step in two years later, then Carl would lead the army to clean up the increasingly notorious bandits and met Red. After facing Carl and the sword, Red swore allegiance to Carl and went under him. In the process, Red loses his wrist.
He had the most admirable ability. She couldn’t understand vowing allegiance to a man who blew his wrist. Still, Red, who remembered if he was serious about going under Carl, escorted him to the end for him.
“I’m sure that’s where he is. I heard that it’s forming a hill at the end of the Marlins.”
“That’s great if it’s true.”
“Great. He’s a man who unifies his enemies on his own. Given the right time, he would have become a great war hero. I’ve heard that his backbone wields a huge iron rod. His strength is so great that if he wields a stick, then three or four people will fly away. Of course, I’ve never seen it in person, so I’m not sure if it’s real.”
“No, a guy named Red Cabillion is great, but your intelligence far exceeded that. This information, like before, wouldn’t be something you could get even if you bought it with money.”
Carl’s eyes flashed. He also had an intelligence team. Information was essential to the current political situation wherein people are risking their lives to fight for the imperial throne.
Unlike such value, quality information was not easy to obtain. Every high-ranking aristocrat had their own intelligence group, but gathering high-quality data had always been difficult.
Sienna could not tell him that she was the real person behind this information. She also couldn’t say that the reason why she became aware of it was that she had experienced the future firsthand. She held out a citrus fruit called tria to him, who looked at the prey like a hunter.
“No matter how much you look at me, I can’t tell you who my informant is.”
“Hmm…”
Carl took up the tria that Sienna gave him and looked at it for a while.
“Did you get this information from that source?”
She understood what he was saying and felt sorry for him. The sandwich she gave him a while ago, and the tria, too, were pinpointing Carl’s taste. For Sienna, it was an act of knowing that he didn’t like sweets and liked something sour, but he was also suspicious of it.
“What are you talking about? I just gave you something from the table.”
“That’s true about the sandwich, but what about the tria?”
Trias that had sour and salty tastes were not popular among the nobles. It was a fruit that had a strong, pungent smell, kept together with other fruits to prevent insects from sitting on the rest of the fruits in the basket. However, it was usually not eaten. Sienna had no good excuse.
“By the way, we need to draw as much money as we can.”
“We’ve already talked to a merchant.”
Sienna said she would give any help to Kelly.
‘What I need is enough money to pay for the entire wheat in the south.’
She said this because she had some serious thoughts about it. If she refused, she thought about how to persuade her, but it was unnecessary.
She replied that she would do so with great pleasure. Turns out, Kelly had made initially great efforts to expand her business by selling wheat. The Southern business community was so big that it was hard to squeeze through the cracks. Nevertheless, if the plan succeeded, then it could bring a large proportion of their interests.
“I don’t think any of the bosses are big enough to handle.”
“You don’t have to worry about it because it’s as good as the top five.”
“I’ve never heard of an association with that kind of financial power. If you’re talking about Merpil, then…”
Aunt Kelly’s Green Corporation was not known to the public. Thus, in the past, she didn’t even know that she had a business meeting. Only a few years after entering the imperial palace did she found out about it.
The Green Corporation was inherited upon Kelly’s husband’s death. Kelly’s husband was known only to maintain the capital. In fact, he had amassed considerable wealth through the secret trade. It was unknown because the deal was not carried out with the government’s permission, so it had been secretly established.
Kelly took over the business and was pondering legal means of doing business one step at a time. She repeatedly challenged the trafficking business but eventually failed to intervene in the smuggling business that the Southern Merchant monopolized. Instead, it would later make a big name for itself as the top seller of jewelry and paintings in the capital.
“It’s not the Merphil Corporation. The Merpil Corporation doesn’t have that much money.”
“Is that so?”