When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 701: "Flies in the Thousand River Valley Can Gather Honey"

Between the azure sky and the deep blue sea there are milky white mountains and clouds. Seagulls are circling above the mountains and clouds, landing between the masts, and making "woooo-woooo" calls.

The fishy sea breeze blew across the rugged rocks on the coast and over the barnacle-covered hulls of ships. Passers-by covered their heads with their felt hats and looked out at the endless sea.

It’s a pity that at the port of Dam City, citizens cannot see the beautiful scenery of the water and sky joining together. All they can see is a dense forest of countless long sails moving slowly.

This is also the origin of the name of Dam City as the Sailing Capital. Dam City, located at the mouth of the Nauan River in the windmill area, has an extremely excellent deep-water port that can accommodate more than 2,000 large and small sailboats, and 7,000 to 8,000 merchants travel back and forth every day.

At this moment, there are at least nearly a thousand large and small merchant ships waiting in line on the coast. The porters are wearing summer vests in winter, shouting as they carry the wooden boxes down one by one.

There are vampires or blood slaves wearing black robes covering their faces in broad daylight, Aiel people wearing fake ears with their heads held high, dwarves sleeping drunkenly under the eaves, and even Centaur gangs lurking at the street corners.

Merchants brought grain, silk, tea and precious metals from the Flesh and Blood Court in the west, and took away woolen cloth from River Island, wine from Dawn Island, high-end furniture and handicrafts from Windmill Land, giltware from Codfish Burg, bone china from Flower Hill and colored glass from White Sand Land.

It is precisely because of this feature that Dam City has now become the center of overseas trade for the Kingdom of Leia.

The Leia royal family can absorb at least 20 gold pounds from the Windmill Land every year. It is an important source of income for the royal family, but compared with the overall wealth of the Windmill Land, this number is even a bit small.

Because although the windmill land nominally belongs to Leia, the Leians can hardly reach in.

After the Battle of Windmill Land, in order to ease the financial pressure, the former king had to hand over Windmill Land to the trusteeship of the Imperial Parliament in order to obtain sufficient loans from the banking families and oligarchs in Windmill Land.

If we say that in the Battle of Windmill Land, the Franks lost face and the Leians lost substance, then the people of Windmill Land won a double victory - a double win.

The Franks did not obtain the territories illegally occupied by the Laeans during the Hundred Years' War. Although the Laeans retained the only good port outlet to the sea, they lost control of the windmill land.

In the bizarre political game, Windmill Land inexplicably gained the autonomy that the people of Thousand River Valley had fought for with their lives and blood.

Within fifty or sixty years, the number of towns in the windmill land increased dramatically from about one hundred to nearly three hundred, and merchants, citizens and craftsmen from all over the empire immigrated to the windmill land.

It is precisely because of this prosperous business culture that a large number of urban citizens were born, and tea restaurants that were too expensive to operate in the inland are now everywhere in the windmill area.

Unlike farmers and craftsmen, merchants and citizens earn their income from information asymmetry, so they need a place to exchange information.

In a tea restaurant on the corner of The Hague Street, during the morning when people need to work, you can see groups of citizens and scholars sitting with their feet up in the tea restaurant, chatting and debating.

This tea restaurant is not very big. The brick and stone structure is covered with a layer of red-painted wooden boards, and there is a L-shaped counter against one end of the wall.

Unlike other taverns and restaurants at that time, there were no shrines, animal skins or deer heads on the walls. Instead, there were exquisite portraits and landscapes.

Sitting under a painting of an island landscape, Rufair, who had already graduated from River Island King's University, was wearing crystal glasses and sorting out the manuscripts in her hands.

"...My friend went to Qianhe Valley to buy dye not long ago, and came back to tell me that he was really enlightened in the Thousand River Valley. The flies in the Thousand River Valley can collect honey!..."

"...The Holy Father created flies not because they are born to attract stench, but because of the dirty and bad environment. The citizens of Qianhe Valley not only keep themselves clean, but also take the initiative to clean up the garbage and dirt on the ground..."

"…from town to village, from valley to riverbank, everywhere you look is bright flowers and carpets of green grass…"

"...In such a clean environment, in order to survive, flies naturally began to change. They no longer chased feces and urine, but instead pollinated crops and flowers like bees..."

Rufair took off his glasses, rubbed his sore neck, and raised his head from the sea of ​​dense text.

She picked up the cold black tea on the table, took a sip, and then slowly exhaled.

After half a year of training, the editors and reporters of the Dam City newspaper have finally gotten on with the job and can write fairly good articles and reports.

Sitting in the corner of the tea restaurant, Lu Feier looked around and saw that almost half of the people in the tea restaurant were reading a copy of "Yi Lin". Whenever he saw such a scene, his original idea of ​​being lazy would disappear a lot.

From the time Yilin was published at the beginning of the year to today, this weekly or even semi-weekly newspaper has become popular in towns and cities of all sizes in the windmill area.

At first, everyone in Windmill Land thought that the eldest daughter of the Larkin family had nothing to do and made such a booklet for fun.

In addition to reprinting some articles from Pravda, the pamphlet also contained various news about the princes in the empire, commissioned articles from several scholar brothers, and some sour poems and jokes.

Although the previous issues of "Yi Lin" were published frequently, they were always tepid. Instead, those "church jokes" won it a group of fans who would buy every issue.

In the end, in order to clear out the inventory and make room, Lu Feil had to give away these "Yilin" for free.

Her eldest brother, Flamant, took a five-day boat ride to Dam City, said to Rufaire, "Please publish the next issue soon, as there is no paper in the toilet at home again," and left by boat.

Lufel was so angry that he couldn't eat for several days. He lost four or five pounds due to starvation. He even began to doubt whether the newspaper was too stupid. However, this situation changed dramatically after the outbreak of the Black Snake Bay War.

Since the Black Snake Bay War was related to the very important spice trade, the ship owners and citizens of Windmill Land were very anxious about the progress of the war.

Among the many rumors flying around, "Yi Lin" was the most accurate and timely in reporting the Black Snake Bay War, which attracted a large number of readers.

After all, Yilin has exclusive news channels in Qianhe Valley - several senior monk friends of Rufil, including Futseva, Armand, Leonardo and others.

At the same time, from the war between the Yilin newspaper and the Black Snake Bay, Horn and the Holy Alliance once again entered the public eye.

In the town of Windmill Land, scholars began to study the "Freedom Charter of the Thousand Valleys", and knights bought up discarded holy guns and clockwork cannons at high prices, but the citizens were most concerned about the price of spices.

The logical chain is simple: the war was initiated by peasant rebels, so it was bound to bring destruction, and destruction would inevitably lead to reduced production. Both spices and sugar would be reduced in production, so stockpiling in advance would allow them to be sold at a high price.

As a result, a large number of citizens began to frantically hoard spices and brown sugar, and some even borrowed money to hoard them. Bankers and business aristocrats added fuel to the fire by shouting "spices will definitely increase in price in autumn."

Only "Yilin" published an anonymous report in the newspaper, which not only accurately informed the war situation and the current situation of Black Snake Bay, but also called on many citizens not to hoard, and that the Holy Alliance was not that kind of ignorant rebel.

The final result, of course, was that the spice ships arrived at the port as scheduled in September, and the spices on the market not only did not decrease but increased.

Those citizens who hoarded spices lost everything they had.

On the contrary, those citizens who bought "Yi Lin" were fine, and some even made a fortune by short selling.

After this incident, "Yilin" became famous, and those pamphlets that were used as table legs were put on the table again and became must-read materials for citizens.

This is an incredible read, with novel colloquial articles, interesting church jokes, exciting Thousand Valley theological debates, and advanced Thousand Valley Charter and urban construction...

In this era of rumors and unreliable information flying around, Yilin learned advanced concepts from Pravda, which instantly made it the most accurate and timely source of information.

The famous scholar and Chief Justice Quivarin personally commented on the newspaper as "rational, neutral and objective". Of course, Master Quivarin's comments on the newspaper were made by chance and had nothing to do with the fact that the editor-in-chief was his student.

During those days, "Yi Lin" was selling like crazy. It was reprinted every day, and every batch was sold out. Lu Feil even made up for the previous losses.

As Yilin became popular, scholars discovered that an article published in Yilin was more effective than ten street speeches, and some art critics could make a new painter's work sell out with just one sentence in the newspaper.

Businessmen were surprised to find that the information collected and analyzed in Yilin was of better quality than what they paid a lot of money for, not to mention the profits brought by the advertisers and ship owners.

The father who had been urging her to get married in her hometown even wrote a letter to Lufel himself, which simply said, "You did the right thing, absolutely the right thing!"

"Yi Lin" is not just a simple newspaper. It has the potential to be a mouthpiece of public opinion, and this is what the Larkin family values.

But she is now also facing a huge problem, which is the emergence of a large number of counterfeit newspapers.

After all, printing newspapers does not require any technical content, but it can firmly control the direction of public opinion, so it is naturally targeted by a large number of citizens and business aristocrats.

Although these tabloids are not as good as Yilin, they are cheaper and dare to make up stories.

Because Yilin has published too many "Thousand Valley Myths", they have been attacking Lufeil as a Thousand Valley spy.

In addition to the targeting by some local oligarchs in Windmill Land, even Rufair, the eldest daughter of the Lakin family, was in a difficult situation.

She had just finished editing a feature article about the Black Snake Bay War and was about to take a break when the door of the tea restaurant was suddenly pushed open.

Just as Ruffield continued to review the manuscript, a young student dressed simply but looking anxious walked in. He glanced around and when he saw Ruffield, he walked over quickly.

"Ms. Ruffield..." the newspaper employee lowered his voice, "It's the new issue of Pravda and the messenger sent by the Holy Alliance."

Rufair's brows slightly frowned, she took a deep breath, and handed the manuscript in her hand to the employee: "Okay, I understand."

She adjusted her collar, walked out of the tea restaurant, and passed through the crowded wooden stairs to the meeting room on the second floor of the newspaper office opposite the tea restaurant.

A man in a dark robe stood outside the door, his wrists hidden in his cloak, staring at the surroundings with a pair of inverted triangle eyes without blinking.

Rufeel nodded to him politely and opened the door.

"Armand?!"

(End of this chapter)