Chapter 253 The More Iron, the Less Iron

Three days have passed since Meliati attacked and killed Bishop Resite.

The actual situation is much better than Melia had expected.

Except for the loss of Changfeng Fort, nearly two thousand mountain knights successfully captured three strategic locations like a flood.

After capturing these three strategic locations, the knights of Cold Spring Castle began to eliminate the church's strongholds in the central valley one by one.

As a mountainous county, there are not many places to be stationed. Resit was killed, Whitewater Castle was captured, and the grassroots church was leaderless.

In the countryside of North Mound County, the knights in black armor and red clothes broke into one monastery after another along the way, and even captured a Blue Blood Orphanage.

The ugly and extravagant lives of the priests were exposed to the sun. Apart from the wealth that went into the hands of the soldiers, Meliati estimated that she could obtain nearly 100,000 gold pounds from the looted wealth.

You know, according to the church and imperial tax books, the annual tax payable by North Mound County should be around 4100 gold pounds.

However, more than 100,000 gold pounds were buried underground in various monasteries.

A large number of low-level monks from the Thousand River Valley were promoted to bishops and priests, and the fiefs of the Knights Templar and the church were constantly divided up by local knights.

According to Meliati's request, the new fiefdom must be signed with a written contract rather than a verbal contract.

Mines, shops, workshops and other industries were divided up and annexed by the Dragon Cult dwarves and Magdi merchants sent by Meliati.

At the same time, cheap food from Norn quickly rushed into the market, and the Magdi Chamber of Commerce even sold food and grain seeds at cost price.

Meliati put away her loan sharking nature and even frantically whitewashed her previous behavior, cracking down on the private loan sharking that was disrupting the market.

The money obtained from these loan sharks was all converted into wages for the workers.

Having followed Horn for so long, Meliati not only copied the car bunker tactics, but also copied the work-for-relief strategy.

However, the work-for-relief policy that was considered normal in Horn's hands became abnormal in Meliati's hands.

After the flood, the mountain people’s food reserves were basically used up throughout the winter, and the crops they sowed in the spring would not be harvested until at least the end of summer.

During this period, they had neither food nor income, so they could only flee from famine and run around as beggars.

After the beginning of spring, a large number of unemployed people appeared throughout the Qianhe Valley.

In this situation, Meliati realized that giving relief food to farmers for free would only encourage laziness, and that official low-interest loans to farmers would often turn into usury again due to corruption.

Meliyati started out as a loan shark, and no one in Qianhe Valley knew more about loan sharking than her.

Then the only way to overcome the crisis is to learn to use work as a substitute for relief, promote rural handicrafts and open up wasteland and mines, tie the farmers to the spot, and use their income from labor to buy food.

The direction of rural handicrafts chosen by Meliati had been determined long ago, which was iron smelting and forging.

The iron produced in this way can be used by ourselves and can also be exported to Norn in exchange for food, forming a cycle.

There is just one problem. The more iron is produced, the lower the price of iron will be, so the workshop's profit will be lower, and in the end the only option is to reduce iron production.

Simply put, the more iron you produce, the less iron you produce.

In today's era, it is normal to increase or decrease production and hire or fire employees according to market demand.

But the problem is that if production is reduced and profits decrease, workers will be laid off, and they will have no income and no food to eat. At that time, they will rebel against Meliati.

Land annexation does not lead to peasant uprisings, but hunger. In order to solve this problem, Meliati had an idea and divided the grain from Norn into two directions.

The first direction was to recruit laborers, open up wasteland and mines, and develop the iron smelting industry and the military industry.

The second direction is to expand the military, and expand the military on a large scale.

In this way, even if the price of iron drops, Cold Spring Castle can still purchase weapons for the war to maintain the price of iron and ensure that the workshop owner can make a small profit instead of a loss.

The laid-off laborers were converted into soldiers on the spot, taking the iron weapons they produced and rushing to the battlefield.

The wealth they plundered on the battlefield was gathered at Cold Spring Castle, where they could purchase weapons and arm their soldiers.

The war machine built by Meliati can continuously achieve a positive cycle.

According to her prediction, the war demands they will face in the future will definitely not be small.

These new iron smelting workshops and blacksmith shops cannot be built just like that. She needs a large number of blacksmiths and technical talents in iron smelting.

So she had previously used loan sharking and kidnapping to specifically find the dwarves of the Dragon Cult and reached an agreement.

Meliati granted them the right to "live on the plains and worship freely" in exchange for the dwarves' help in establishing iron smelting workshops and blacksmith shops.

In just three days, the black smoke from iron smelting and the black flood were spreading throughout North Mound County.

On February 1445, 2, Duke Melia of Cold Spring Castle and three thousand mountain knights moved to Longfort.

She had originally planned to launch a surprise attack on High Castle, but due to the sudden rebellion of the Lord of Longfort, the news was leaked.

After Fili's investigation, the High Castle was well prepared and the surprise was lost, so there was no need for a surprise attack.

This in turn gave Meliati the opportunity to turn her attention inward and begin to completely eliminate the Church's influence in the Central Valley.

Ever since learning that Meliati was stationed at the Longfort, there had been an endless stream of small lords, knights, merchants, guild leaders and other representatives of public opinion coming to pledge their allegiance every day.

Even the nobles and knights of Upper River County wrote to Meliati to express their gratitude, "Once you come to Thousand River Valley, you are a Thousand River Valley person."

According to Meliati's recruitment procedures, judging by her strength on paper, she has nearly a hundred more extraordinary knights and thousands of soldiers under her command.

Even Meliati's strong body felt a little tired after working non-stop for three days.

After seeing off a group of craftsmen who had sworn allegiance, Meliati sat by the fireplace in the hall. Seeing that there was nothing to do, she took a break and took a nap.

Unfortunately, she didn't sleep for long as she was awakened by footsteps.

As soon as the door was opened, the extremely alert Meliati opened her eyes.

"What's the matter?" After tidying up her messy clothes, Meliati stood up and looked at Fili who was walking towards her with her hands behind her back.

"Lord Meliati." Fili looked at Meliati, who was even more majestic than before, and half-knelt down to salute.

"I'm not the king yet. Even if I were the king, you wouldn't have to bow to me like this." Pulling Fili's shoulders, Meliati lifted him up and said, "Tell me what's the matter."

Looking up at Meliati's iron face, Fili's face was solemn, and he took out a roll of secret reports:
"Your Excellency, there is news from the High Castle that the Fanged Knight Arman is heading towards the Long Fort with two companies of imperial orders, four hundred extraordinary knights, and a number of infantrymen."

(End of this chapter)