When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 730: Rapid City in 1448 (Part )
After the opening of the Erno River and other rivers to navigation, the water levels in both Jeanne d'Arc and Rapid City rose slightly.

The wool trade on the northern line and the spice and sugar trade on the southern line put Rapid City under greater transportation pressure than before.

So Meliati raised tens of thousands of gold pounds and dug out the old river course that was originally buried deep underground.

This way there are two parallel river tracks. If you are transporting towards Fran, you take the southern river track, and if you are transporting towards Leia, you take the northern river track.

Using this method, Catherine increased Rapids' annual cargo volume from 8 tons to 13 tons last year, and 4 tons in just three months this year.

Some people even calculated the size of ships passing through the north-south waterways into a very important north-south shipping index, which is updated weekly in the Megdi Business Daily.

As the largest waterway hub among the four plains counties, an increase in cargo volume in Rapid City almost means a significant economic boost.

Most people, including a large number of people in the Thousand River Valley, believed that Rapid City would decline for ten or twenty years.

But unexpectedly, with Horn's policy support, in just three years, Catherine and the Magdi Chamber of Commerce built Rapid City into one of the top three economic cities.

Catherine and the Magdi Chamber of Commerce played an indispensable role in this process.

After the Battle of Rapid City, 80% of the buildings in the port area were unusable, and nearly people had to be relocated to Jeanne d'Arc and the Holy See.

The destruction rate of handicraft workshops reached nearly 50%, and the unemployment rate was close to 30%. Martial law had to be imposed to maintain order.

In the first year, Catherine and the Magdeburg Chamber of Commerce first promulgated the "Street Store Relocation Law" to free up enough rivers and streets.

Horn's Twenty-Four Hour Law was implemented again, and a strike by a number of guild members was suppressed.

Catherine even ordered the front-line suppression soldiers to be equipped with hand cannons and fire live ammunition at the strikers when necessary.

This was a wise move in Horn's view, because a gun is most intimidating when it doesn't go off, and if it does go off it does no harm.

Then the strikers would become bolder and might even start directly attacking and suppressing the soldiers, causing even greater casualties.

The following year, Catherine raised funds several times, established the "Rapids City Reconstruction Foundation", and issued urban construction bonds.

In the later period, it cooperated with the Black Hat Army and contracted the reconstruction of most of the port area. It started the expansion of the double-track waterway with work instead of relief and carried out unified repairs on the infrastructure.

At this time, due to the various systems implemented by Horn after the war and the blockade, the economic level of Rapid City plummeted.

Last August, the Rapid City Redevelopment Foundation was on the brink of bankruptcy.

If it weren't for the help from my grandmother's Kush Foundation and the war reparations from the Lilac Corridor, Rapid City Hall would have almost gone bankrupt.

But Catherine worked at full capacity and managed to get through this most difficult time and successfully completed most of the reconstruction plan.

Although many streets and industries have not been restored, the economic level alone is higher than before the war.

After throwing away a dinar, Horn picked up a copy of the Magde Business Daily and two candies, sat on the edge of the flower bed, and asked, "Who is running the Magde Business Association now?"

"In name she is still Lady Catherine, but she only shows up at important meetings. The rest of the time, we discuss with the Partner Committee of the Magdeburg Chamber of Commerce." Rene replied.

"Have the negotiations on establishing the Holy Father Society within the Magdi Chamber of Commerce been approved?"

“Not yet. They accept the establishment of the Holy Father Society within the Chamber of Commerce, but it can only be a personal organization, not an official organization, and it is not allowed to have actual authority.

On the surface, they say that business needs professionals, but in private gatherings they say that the opinions of the mob will seriously interfere with the normal operation of business.

Your Majesty, do you need me to make them an offer they can't refuse?" A gleam of brilliance flashed in the eyes of the young Cheka director. Horn shook his head: "Don't push them too hard. It's like fishing, loosening the line from time to time and tightening it from time to time. It's not time to tighten the line yet."

"Then when can we tighten the line?" René has always played the role of a tight line, or it can be said that the Cheka can only play the role of a tight line.

"When necessary." Horn opened the second page of the Magdeburg Business Daily and began to read the foreign news section, "When they have no intention of doing so."

Compared with Pravda's selective news reports every day such as "Leia is too bad" and "The Holy See City is too bad", Magdi Business News is more objective.

In addition to foreign news, the "Megedi Business Daily" also provides the most accurate interpretation of various business news and indicators.

But from this point, Horn could smell a hint of rot.

Normally, a lot of industry news is random and cannot be that accurate.

The accuracy of the Magdeburg Business News was quite astonishing. According to Cheka statistics, most of the mistakes ultimately benefited the Chamber of Commerce itself.

Either the "Megdi Business News" has made every possible plan, or the Megdi Chamber of Commerce is both a player and a referee, and is the referee for the vast majority of competitions.

People of the same generation might not think it was a big deal, but people like Horn in later generations saw this kind of method a lot.

He couldn't help but be alert.

The Magdi Chamber of Commerce may seem to be just a small dye chamber of commerce, but it is actually a monopoly organization covering all aspects.

It has largely replaced the functions of the government without changing its essential need for profit.

Many times, many of the chamber’s actions are only for the personal interests of senior partners.

This is not to say that profits are not important, but that profits must have a bottom line.

It's working well so far, helping Horn do a lot of things, like sell bonds, keep markets stable, and keep shipping lanes open.

But this was only because Catherine, in cooperation with the army and the Cheka, was able to suppress the profit-seeking and short-sighted instincts of the senior partners.

As the economy develops rapidly, these senior partners continue to merge and hold controlling stakes in other companies, and there is a subtle trend of transforming into an oligarch.

Horn had already seen this, so he decided to nip it in the bud before it developed.

In order to develop, the Holy See allowed the emergence of a trust system, but what the Holy Grandson wanted was a controllable trust rather than an out-of-control oligarch.

Therefore, in the future, the Magdi Chamber of Commerce will be split into single-industry guilds or multiple state-owned enterprises, and workshops will be closed and merged to improve efficiency.

At the same time, these state-owned enterprises and workshops will be managed by a special committee or monks' association.

In order to keep these state-owned enterprises under control, Horn's first step is to insert the Holy Father Society into these state-owned enterprises.

In this way, when the Megdi Chamber of Commerce is dismembered, it can be ensured that it will be dispersed but not collapsed.

"How about this, you keep those dishonest ones under secret surveillance for me.

I'm going to visit the Magdeburg Chamber of Commerce in a couple of days, and then meet with several partners in the insurance and lottery industries to see if they have any sense of the big picture.

You collect evidence first, and when the time is right, I will let you launch the attack." Horn flipped open another page of the newspaper casually, "When I launch the attack, it must be as fast and accurate as Jeanne's lightning, and I will not hold back or show mercy."

(End of this chapter)