When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 655: Heading South to Black Snake Bay

The ice and snow froze into window grilles on the glass, and the warm air emitted by the brass pipes formed a hazy mist on the glass.

Since the recruit camp was on holiday, Jeanne had nothing to do these days and had been hanging out in Horn's Stag Room in the Holy See Building.

She sat by the window, licking her fingers and flipping through the new Witcher novel.

This new style of witcher novel written by the Holy See is different from previous ones. It uses plain language and slang throughout, and compared to the witch hunting content in the past, it is more inclined towards adventure and excavation of ancient relics.

But from time to time she would let out a duck-like quacking laugh from her throat, which would cheer up Horn, who was immersed in official documents, and make his eyes darken at the same time.

"From what Lulos said, it was supposed to be passed around the New Year's Day, but I didn't expect it to be passed now." Looking at the schedule in his hand, Horn crossed out two items with a pen. "I thought it was Red Leaf Hill that was going to do it, but it turned out to be Lilac Corridor that did it."

"Red Leaf Hill is too close to us after all, so they have some concerns." Pettier smiled and showed the second schedule to Horn.

This schedule is the timetable for Horn's southern tour next month.

Horn had two goals when he went to Black Snake Bay this time. The first was to persuade most of the secret parties to unite, and the second was to hope that Black Snake Bay as a whole would join the Holy Axis.

Theoretically, Black Snake Bay is a huge treasure. For thousands of years, a large amount of alchemical technology has been sealed due to the suppression of the empire.

The mountain copper alone gave Horn the weapon foundation to defeat Prince Condé and the Imperial Order Company.

Even without such advanced structure and organization, it is still feasible for Black Snake Bay to expel most of the demon hunters and knights through local combat, let alone defeat Prince Condai.

However, in the current Black Snake Bay, a large amount of land is still occupied by the church and the demon hunter organization, like a dense net pressing on the heads of the Black Snake Bay secret party.

The biggest reason why they are currently in a defensive or even lingering state is their fragmented organizational structure.

Horn believes there are two reasons for this situation:
The first is that many of the secret parties in Black Snake Bay are formed by fugitives, bandits, savage tribes and secret organizations, and they are naturally inclined towards anarchism.

The second is that the church's cleanup every once in a while would cause a major reshuffle of power in Black Snake Bay, making it impossible to develop in one place for a long time, and forming a nomadic and scattered living habit.

But this decentralized state is obviously out of step with the times. What Horn needs to do is to merge the big and small secret parties and eventually form a Black Snake Bay national entity.

Otherwise, Black Snake Bay will not only not be a help, but a burden instead.

Given the current situation of internal and external troubles in Black Snake Bay, both Horn and the Royal Council of Cardinals felt that this was a good opportunity.

After completing the first goal, Horn's second goal was to get Black Snake Bay to join the Holy Axis Monarchy.

Currently, the Holy Axis is a federal organization established mainly by the Holy Fathers to fight against the Church. Its main purpose is to defend against the invasion of the Church.

But this federal organization currently has only one member country, which is the Holy Monarchy of the Thousand Valleys.

Horn has two identities: he is both the Patriarch of the Thousand Valleys and the Pope of the Holy Axis.

Of course, he hopes that Black Snake Bay and Thousand River Valley will form a stable and close alliance, and even turn it into a sacred axis through a customs union and military assistance.

As the Pope of the Holy Axis, Horn has always felt that vassalage is a superior form of alliance.

In addition, through the Holy Axis's customs union policy, Horn's forces can reach the Green Dragon Forest and the estuary of the Ibe River.

After breaking through the Green Dragon Forest and the Lilac Corridor, Horn's merchant ships will be able to sail downstream to the Griffin Cape Frontier.

They even bypassed the Nauan River route and went directly to sea for trade.

By integrating Black Serpent Bay, Horn's Holy Axis could expand in size and power, solidifying its defenses against the Church.

At the same time, under the banner of the Holy Axis, Horn was able to expand his power little by little from the Customs Union.

In other words, Horn could have annexed Black Snake Bay in a relatively peaceful manner, and his southern tour was intended to convince these groups face to face.

The only problem is that joining the Holy Axis requires recognizing Horn as Pope.

"Brother Horn, are you sure you can convince them?" Jeanna, who was Horn's chief of guards on this southern tour, raised her head and couldn't help asking, "Can these people from Black Snake Bay really listen to you?" "I'm not sure, but as long as we can play the cards in our hands well, I'm 70% sure we can succeed."

"Why is it only 70%?"

"Seventy percent is more than enough. If the Lilac Corridor hadn't launched a cleanup in advance for sugar and spices, it would probably be less than seventy percent."

After accepting the invitation from the Witch Council, before Horn went there, the lobbying group of the Ruoan Party and the Magdi Chamber of Commerce entered the Black Snake Bay in advance.

But Horn relies not only on lobbying groups, his real trump cards are "sugar and grain trade" and "military aid".

The sugar and grain trade solves the poverty and hunger within Black Snake Bay, while military aid can solve the military threats outside Black Snake Bay.

If the Black Snake Bay secret party can see the current situation clearly and want to break free from this endless cycle, they will definitely turn to Horn.

Hearing about military matters, Jeanne suddenly perked up: "So when are we going to send troops to attack the church and those hypocritical Knights Templar?"

"No hurry, no hurry, just play with them." Horn chuckled and glanced at the schedule. "We can provide a group of officers and soldiers to Black Snake Bay to participate in the war as private mercenaries."

Judging from the current attitude of the Witch Council, they still haven't adjusted their mindset.

In the past, Horn and his men needed the assistance of Black Snake Bay because they had consumed a large amount of their strength in the Thousand River Valley Civil War. This does not mean that the power Horn controls is weaker than that of Black Snake Bay.

But Black Snake Bay still regards Horn as a younger brother who succeeded with their support, rather than an equal.

That's why he asked Black Snake Bay to take a look at the coffin first. It wouldn't be too late to take action after shedding a few tears.

Thinking of this, Horn turned around and asked Pettier beside him, "How is the construction of the Ibe River Wharf going?"

"Four simple docks have been built. Although they are not yet completed, they are open to navigation." Pettier paused. "Among these four docks, three were contracted by the Ibe Foundation. They are building them very quickly."

The so-called Kush Foundation is an organization set up by Alcor’s grandmother Vivian.

When Horn first heard about this foundation, he couldn't help but sigh at the unity of the Ibe Knights.

The essence of this Kush Foundation is that the Kush Knights in North County and Ibe Plains contributed money and manpower, and pooled their resources together to undertake Horn's infrastructure projects.

A large number of Kush knights transformed themselves into contractors, bringing their own estates and all their relatives, young and old, to build roads and bridges.

These Kush Knights not only lead people to do the work, but sometimes roll up their sleeves and do it themselves. With their extraordinary knightly endurance and strength, their efficiency is astonishingly high.

The most important thing is that since the grandmother’s fund is privately raised, a guarantee is required.

In order to ensure that she could take on more projects, the grandmother pledged the ownership of a large amount of manor land.

In order to maximize profits by opening more stores, a large amount of cash flow raised was invested in construction.

In other words, the Kush Knights will not see any return on their earnings for a long time, and may even have to work for free or even pay themselves out of pocket.

However, the Kush knights were still able to work hard, forcing Horn to admire the old grandmother's methods and the knights' family tradition of unity and sacrifice.

After all, if there was no unity, no sacrifice, and no trust, they would have been assimilated and eliminated in the church's oppression long ago.

The Kush Foundation was one of the few things that made Horn feel conflicted, because on the one hand it could speed up infrastructure construction and concentrate resources on big things, but on the other hand it could easily create local mountaintops in the Ibe region.

The most classic example is the simple small towns that have been formed next to the several Ibe River docks that have been built.

Almost 90% of the people in this small town are Kush knights and their farmer relatives.

After thinking for a long time, Horn waved his feather pen and added a note to the itinerary.

"Before heading to Black Snake Bay this time, let's meet with the old grandmother first."

(End of this chapter)