When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#667 - In Horn's explanation

In Horn's explanation, everyone in the hall was flipping through or listening to others explain the contents of the documents.

What had started as mosquito-like whispers quickly converged into a noisy torrent.

"Lord Horn, I find it hard to accept," finally, a drunken small-time secret society leader mustered his courage and stood up, "We are all secret societies with hundreds of years of heritage. Even the Church hasn't eliminated us. Why should we be disbanded just because you say so?"

"That's right!" another representative of a small secret society chimed in, "The territory we risked our lives to defend – isn't this clearly forcing us to hand it over to those big secret societies?"

"Yes, the Church hasn't eliminated you because it simply doesn't need to!" Holding his wine glass, Horn's tone was calm but possessed an imposing power, "It only needs to let you divide each other and then reap the benefits."

Lourdes exhaled a smoke ring, sarcastically scolding, "You only think about risking your lives to defend your territory, but you don't think about the benefits of the Federation and unity. You're really just thinking about yourself."

"But…"

The man wanted to argue, but Solan coldly interrupted him: "The territory you defended? Did you really defend it? How could the Church casually abduct your people and turn them into slaves?"

The two secret society leaders, including several people around them, sobered up considerably. They suddenly realized a problem.

That is, from a strength perspective, they were completely at a disadvantage.

These small secret societies were different from the Joann Party, which controlled seven or eight towns and hundreds of village communities, manors, and alchemy workshops. Small secret societies often only had three to five villages offering tribute.

Often, small secret societies didn't even have their own base and were more like wandering merchants or even lived in towns controlled by large secret societies.

Originally, they could resist the annexation of large secret societies by wandering around, relying on fortresses, or even cooperating with the Church.

However, with the support of the Northern Salvation Army, the Joann Party and the Shadow Society, two large secret societies, and several medium-sized secret societies could completely join forces to deal with these small secret societies.

Look at the piles of cracks on the Fraser Fortress, do they think their fortresses are taller and stronger than the walls of Fraser Fortress?

If they wanted to continue wandering or sneak into the Church's territory as guides, they either had to go north through the Red Copper Fortress to the Thousand River Valley, or go south through Fraser Fortress right under their noses!

No wonder, no wonder the Joann Party risked their lives to remove the outposts around Fraser Fortress and attack Fraser Fortress, so they were waiting for them here.

The two secret society leaders who had stood up were embarrassed for a moment, unsure whether to stand or sit, and didn't know what to say.

At this time, Horn walked to the two secret society leaders with his wine glass: "I know you're doing this for your secret society members, afraid of being annexed. Then you can also form a secret society alliance.

By cooperating with other secret societies, you can jointly control the decision-making power in the county council. You can even submit your own proposals through the council and influence the policies of the entire Black Serpent Bay. Isn't that more power than you had before?"

The two secret society leaders slowly sat down, with a thoughtful look on their faces.

"Lord Horn, I have another question." As soon as he turned around, Horn heard a deep voice behind him.

Seeing the stout middle-aged man in front of him, Horn quickly reviewed the information Lourdes had provided earlier.

"You must be Esteban the wizard of the Ramirez family?" Horn sized up the wizard and raised his wine glass to him.

After arriving at Black Serpent Bay, this was the first time Horn had met a representative of a secret society wizard family.

These wizard families belonged to the landlord class in Black Serpent Bay, often owning manors with tens of thousands of acres of land, engaging in various trades and alchemy industries.

Generally, any medium-sized or larger secret society would be composed of one to several secret societies, connected through marriage and bloodlines.

Secret societies like the Joann Party, built on a fanatical worship of Joann and with a political program, were a non-mainstream minority in Black Serpent Bay.

Wearing a wizard's hat, Esteban, with a thick mustache, gave Horn a standard bow: "Indeed, it's a great honor to be recognized by you."

"You can ask your question now."

"My question is simple. You said that as long as we submit the population register under our management, we can obtain a council seat. What counts as 'under our management'?"

Horn immediately understood.

This involved an important issue, that is, if two secret societies both claimed to have control over the population of a certain area, who should it belong to?

In Black Serpent Bay, there were not only jointly managed areas, but also areas with dual offerings, that is, offering tribute to two or even more secret societies at the same time, or simply being completely autonomous without offering tribute.

How to deal with these villages or areas was a big problem that couldn't be avoided.

"It's very simple, based on the current situation and documents. Whoever controls the area now, it belongs to them. Whoever can provide more detailed and authoritative management records has priority.

These documents can include tax records, trade records, or direct management certificates of land and population.

If the dispute still cannot be resolved, then the Holy Axis will form an arbitration committee to decide, to see who can get the recognition of the actual local population, how about that?"

The most ⊥ new ⊥ small ⊥ said ⊥ at ⊥ six ⊥ 9 ⊥⊥ book ⊥⊥ bar ⊥⊥ first ⊥ hair!

Then Esteban bowed again: "I couldn't agree more."

Horn's gaze swept over several large wizard families, raising his glass to them from afar, and these wizards stood up and returned the toast.

Holding his wine glass under the gaze of the crowd, Horn slowly walked back to the stage, the candlelight illuminating his smiling face: "Everyone has shown sincerity. It wouldn't be good if I didn't do anything. How about this?

The Holy Axis will provide Black Serpent Bay with 20,000 bolts of woolen cloth, 30,000 tons of grain, and 10,000 pieces of iron farm tools free of charge, for the construction of Sweet Branch plantations, smelting herb plantations, and slime farms.

Our Holy Scythe Monastery will provide you with planting techniques and herb seeds, and provide agricultural consultants to help you establish plantations."

Sweet Branch plantations are naturally for the upcoming sugar and grain trade, while smelting herb plantations are for the north.

The northern county of Black Serpent Bay is not as hot and humid as the central and southern counties, and there are many wastelands and wetlands, which are perfect for planting and making dissolving and softening potions for smelting metals.

Extracting accumulated water with clockwork machines can greatly increase the iron ore output of mines, but with so much ore, it has to be smelted.

Horn's current lightning furnace has not yet been successfully developed, and even if it is successfully developed, it will take a considerable amount of time to completely replace wet iron smelting.

Slime farms need no further explanation. Slime is a treasure, an industrial raw material that can almost replace rubber.

Mortar and the sugar industry have a great demand for slime juice. The local slime in Dazes Township is almost hunted to extinction, and has to be supplied by farming.

For Horn, Black Serpent Bay itself is a huge market and raw material production area.

Lourdes stood on a chair and poured a glass of fruit wine into a copper cup: "I propose that everyone raise their glasses again and let us celebrate the passage of the bill."

"Cheers!"