king of ros

Chapter 307 The Suffering of Bureaucracy
While the Rus and Bulgars were preparing for a war against bandits, something else was going on in Moscow.

Moscow, the core of Northeast Ross, is becoming more and more lively these days, and caravans from other places are constantly flocking here.

The reason why so many caravans came was very simple. The prince of Moscow was generously buying grain, which made more and more merchants rush to buy grain and come here. No matter how much grain they brought, Moscow would eat it generously.

Along with this raging grain trade, the export of other commodities in Moscow has also surged. After all, so many caravans always leave with some goods, which also makes the city's exports more prosperous.

It's just that even if so much food is purchased from merchants, the Moscow government must continue to step up collection from the people if it wants to meet the supply of the distant army.

As the person in charge of all this, Leo is very troubled by this. Things like food collection are not easy to handle in Northeast Ross. In many cases, force has to be used, and sometimes even force cannot be used to collect food.

Expropriation parties from Moscow roamed the countryside, taking all that could be taken, sometimes by sword.

Rostislav recently transferred Anwar away. This Persian has always been responsible for coordinating with many forces outside Moscow. After he disappeared, many things became more difficult.

If it weren't for the constant news of victories from the East, and the occasional return of some soldiers with full purses, it proved that the East's conquest of Bulgar was extremely smooth, and troubles would have appeared long ago.

People still look forward to victory in the distance, and everyone thinks that as long as their army returns victorious, these exorbitant taxes will become a thing of the past.

But even so, as the leader of the expropriation activities, Leo was nicknamed "Reaper" by the public.

Because he continued to exploit the people wave after wave, his greed seemed endless, bringing countless families and villages to the brink of death.

Moreover, even for villages that have paid taxes, their taxes, that is, their respective goods will be strictly inspected. If they do not meet the requirements, Leo will be mercilessly punished. Going through the tax inspection is like experiencing death. Judgment is average.

And once Leo was found guilty, the lightest thing to do would be a whip, and the heaviest would be to hang his head on a spear.

After all, the people didn't have the guts to scold Rostislav. They knew very well about the prince's ability and military exploits. In comparison, it was most appropriate to scold Leo, a foreign Greek. His Greek identity was his biggest original sin. Why? There's nothing wrong with scolding.

As for these scoldings, Leo didn't really care. During his years in Constantinople, he didn't know how many such insults he had experienced. went, but none of that mattered to Leo.

Leo is more worried about whether Northeast Ross will rise up against the princely regime under the large amount of expropriation, because to be honest, Leo knows that the current expropriation is indeed a bit excessive, but it must be so in order to meet the needs of the army.

As an official who has served in the imperial capital, Leo is very clear about the destructive power that the people can unleash.

Moreover, he had also experienced the riots in Kyiv. During that riot, Leo saw the abundant martial arts of the people of Ross and the residual influence of paganism in this land, so he was naturally more vigilant about this aspect.

It was also for this reason that after discovering that heretic warlocks were active in the countryside, Leo immediately asked Mrs. Zoe to eliminate these warlocks and eliminate all possible destabilizing factors.

Although Leo received a wave of infamy for his ruthless pressure on pagan warlocks, Leo still didn't care at all. Who cares what the obvious people think?Containing potential chaos is more important to him than infamy.

Today is also a very busy day for Leo. He is busy checking the material list, and after the inspection, he has to check the physical objects. Finally, he has to arrange for a team to send the food to Yaroslavl, and then the food It will be sent to the place of the winter army by the Volga River.

Looking at the huge amount of supplies on the books, Leo couldn't help but lament that the consumption of supplies after the war was really uncontrollable. Rostislav had saved supplies for this expedition for a full year, and it ended up being two months after the war. These materials were exhausted, and then they had to start expropriating the civilians in order to ensure the logistics of the army.

The consumption of materials in too many places exceeded everyone's expectations, and in many places it was because of the cumbersome rules that caused a lot of waste. In short, the speed of consumption was completely beyond imagination.

The only good news for him during this period is that as the prince's army captured Bulgar, the food requirements for them dropped all of a sudden, allowing Leo to breathe a sigh of relief and save him from sending So many grain expropriation teams went to the countryside to grab grain.

But after seeing a report, Leo had another headache. This report was a record of his own rumors.

The expropriation during this period has caused complaints from the public, and rumors will naturally arise, and the core of the rumors is directed at him, the mayor of Moscow, the actual leader of the Moscow government.In these rumors, it was said that he, Leo, had caused the large-scale expropriation in order to fill his own pockets. All of this was a conspiracy of the Greeks, and some even suggested that he was cuckolding Lord Rostislav.

Leo didn't have a headache because of these insults, he didn't care about his reputation in this regard.

It's that the various remarks above are too inductive, and they constitute a complete set of conspiracy chain logic. If this set of logic is copied, it can completely achieve some effects that are enough to destabilize the overall situation.

Because he, Leo, is now the actual leader of the Moscow government, Mrs. Zoe doesn't care about it at all, and he, a bureaucrat, is at the front. This is enough to prove some people's conspiracy theories.

"This time it's really troublesome, damn it, it's completely on my deathbed."

Leo looked at the report and couldn't help cursing, because he knew that no matter what response he made, the makers and believers of these rumors would interpret a set of logic that continued to deepen their conspiracy theory.

"Lord Rostislav, come back quickly..."

After thinking for a while, Leos finally said this weakly, because as he said, as long as Rostislav returns, then everything will be fine, but if Rostislav does not return, then the problem will always exist there objectively.

Just when Leo was having a headache because of these, suddenly he heard a burst of cheerful music coming from outside the window. The mayor of Moscow was stunned for a moment, and then he realized that it was the return of the Alexei troupe.

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(End of this chapter)