Imperial Crown.

Chapter 293 Public anger is hard to offend

Anthony recommended Raven's letter and set out from the Nord Province to the capital.

Not long after, another letter also written by Anthony was delivered to Raven's desk by old Gordon.

After opening the envelope and taking it out, Raven was immediately amused and threw it aside.

"Master, is there any problem with this letter?" asked old Gordon.

"See for yourself," Raven said.

Old Gordon pushed his monocle up, picked up the letter, and as he read it, his expression also became strange:
"Sir, I'm sorry I can't maintain my dignity. Has our Governor not taken his medicine recently?"

This is only because old Gordon has good self-control. If it were someone else, he would have started scolding.

Because Anthony mentioned in this letter that in order to ensure the stability of the Nord Province, he hoped that Raven would take the initiative to "donate generously" and provide the Governor's Office with at least 3000 million pounds of food to show the unity of the entire province.

The grain carts were conspicuous, and it was impossible to hide the fact that Raven had obtained a large amount of grain. Anthony was not the first noble to ask Raven for grain, and he would not be the last.

But asking for such a huge amount is really too much.

3000 million pounds of food, enough to keep 10 people alive for a year!
"...Master, what should we do?" Old Gordon asked tentatively.

Seeing Gordon's expression, Raven smiled and said, "You should have an idea. Tell me about it."

Old Gordon nodded and said, "I think that no matter how bad the content is, this letter is written by the Governor after all."

"Next, I will draft a reply letter on your behalf, saying that we don't have that much grain, and then we will double the grain in the autumn tax. What do you think?"

The Raven Territory is expected to harvest about 6000 million pounds of grain this year, of which about 3600 million pounds will be harvested. According to the imperial tax, about 700 million pounds will have to be handed over. If doubled, it will be 1400 million pounds.

For Raven, who had some food in hand, this was not unacceptable.

"It is indeed a mature and prudent plan." Raven nodded.

"So, I'll do it?"

"No, you can reply to the letter, but I won't give him any food."

"But, sir, it is the Governor-General after all..."

"so what?"

This question stumped old Gordon, and then he gradually showed an understanding.

Yeah, so what about the Governor?

Could it be that if Raven didn't give Anthony food, what else could he do?

No, not at all.

Now everyone in the Nordic province is short of food. In order to please His Majesty the King, Anthony has not yet refused to follow the customary practice of reducing taxes, which has caused great dissatisfaction.

At this time, if Anthony used his authority as governor to forcibly demand food from Raven, it would inevitably make other nobles feel insecure, and his already precarious prestige would likely collapse overnight.

Anthony couldn't afford such consequences.

"But, taxes, are you really not going to be paid?" Old Gordon swallowed his saliva: "That is against the laws of the empire."

"We can give you the gold coins," Raven said. "We will convert the grain into taxes based on the annual grain prices in the past. That's less than 1000 gold coins."

"He wants me to be the first to come forward, so I'll do it in a different way to show him."

Anthony sent this letter to Raven in the hope that he would set an example and "give full support to this war."

But if Raven really did that, he would definitely make enemies with all the nobles in the province.

Since Anthony is greedy and doesn't care about Raven's life or death, there is no need for Raven to flatter him.

Not handing over the grain was a practical action telling Anthony that—

Even though I'm just a baron, you can't control me as you please!

"If you have nothing else, draft a letter for me. Be polite." Raven took out a thick stack of documents from the drawer. "By the way, give this to Hyena Wheeler and have him take it to the forge and hand it over to Sohei personally."

"Yes, sir."

Old Gordon took the order and retreated, handing the documents to the hyena, who then rode at full speed to the forge.

Now the forge is busy manufacturing various weapons and equipment for the new recruits, and the work is in full swing and at full power.

Several large chimneys were emitting black smoke, and when you got closer, you could smell the sour odor of sulfur.

The factory is heavily guarded. Not only are there two teams of 100 people guarding the interior, but there are also eagle-eye guards patrolling the door at all times, and any suspicious person they see will be taken down immediately.

Hyena is Raven's chief guard, and this time he came on official business, but even so, he was subjected to a thorough body search, and after entering the factory, his route was strictly restricted.

In particular, contact with the isolated second workroom is not allowed.

"Has it been half a year?" The hyena couldn't help but wonder, "What on earth is going on in there?"

The gray dwarf leading the way was named Fabin. Hearing this, he screamed in a shrill voice: "Hey, it's a secret, a secret, understand? Even I, the supervisor, don't know what's in there, so don't ask around!"

"I can hear you, Binsi, don't be so loud." The hyena said, covering his ears.

"I've said it many times, my name is Fabin, not Binxi!" Fabin was extremely dissatisfied.

"Oh, really?" The hyena scratched his neck and pointed at another gray dwarf not far away: "Isn't he the one called Fabin?"

"That's..." Fabin rolled his eyes and gave up arguing: "Well, in the eyes of you guys on the ground, we gray dwarves all look the same, right?"

The hyena coughed awkwardly, which was considered as his agreement.

Fabin was speechless for a while, then asked: "Then how do you tell Boweir and Sohei apart? Even in the eyes of us gray dwarves, they look the same."

“There are different degrees of blackness.”

"what?"

"You know, those sunglasses the Hawkeye guards are issued? Bower's are that black. Soh's are more like a burnt potato."

"what?"

Fabin just couldn't understand why the same black could be done in different ways.

But when he saw Sohei and Bowell, he had to admit that what the hyena said made some sense.

Bower is shiny black, but Sohei is a bit... uh, dull.

It was the first time that Fabin realized that he could distinguish his compatriots in this way. He felt a little dizzy. "Hey, two leaders, I have brought the people with me. I will leave first."

He wanted to find a piece of Angel's Light to shine on himself and see what kind of evil magic he was.

But as he was walking, he suddenly jumped up and slapped himself.

Confused!
Isn’t the biggest difference between Sohei and Bowell the fact that Sohei has a beard?!
This suddenness made the hyena a little confused: "What happened to Binxi?"

"Maybe he drank too much bad wine." Bowell said, "Don't worry about him. You are here to deliver something, so just leave it to me."

"This is what the Baron specifically asked Sohei to give to him," said the hyena. "See? It's mine!" Sohei elbowed Bowell aside, took the document from the hyena and began to look through it. "By the way, the axe you ordered will take some time. I recently came up with a new idea."

The hyena shrugged. "You forge it, you decide. Anyway, it's fine as long as a good weapon ends up in my hands."

As he said this, he moved closer to Sohei and wanted to see what was written on the document.

Bowell's head squeezed in: "Let me see too. You can't even recognize a few words. Why are you joining in the fun?"

The hyena pursed his lips and walked aside.

Anyway, he really couldn't understand it.

Sohei stroked his beard with one hand, doubts slowly accumulated in his red eyes, his finger stopped on the third page of the document, and he was reluctant to turn the page.

"Why are you reading so slowly..." Bowell said as he was about to turn the page for Sohei.

Then Sohei opened his arm with a snap: "Don't mess with me."

"You!" Bowell was about to argue, but was stopped by Sohei's glare.

Bowell had no choice but to give up, stood aside with his arms folded, looking unhappy, and sighed silently.

Originally, he and Sohei jointly led this group of gray dwarves, but as time went on, their status slowly changed.

Bowell opened his own jewelry store, but business was always bad. The high-end jewelry he made could not be sold at all and he was always losing money, which made him fall into deep self-doubt.

But Sohei is completely different.

From the moment he forged the "best sword in the world", he seemed to have been inspired by something and his forging skills improved by leaps and bounds.

After modifying the crossbow and making mithril soft armor for the lord, his molten fighting spirit directly broke through to the second level.

After this experience, the weapons forged by Sohei became more and more ingenious, and he gradually became the person who had the final say in the factory.

Even Bowell had to admit that Sohei seemed to have won the favor of the Lord of the Forge.

The Eagle Feather Sword and the Hawkeye Half Armor were both independently designed by Sohei, and received unanimous praise and acclaim.

Today, Sohei no longer serves Raven simply because of the contract. He is here to explore and open up his own path in forging, and is truly addicted to forging.

"Bowell, come and take a look." Sohei suddenly spoke.

"Ha, now you know to call me." Bowell said in a gloomy tone, but still walked to Sohei's side: "What's going on?"

"Take a look at it yourself first, and we'll talk after you've finished reading it." Sohei stuffed the document into Bowell's hands.

For him who is not good at speaking, this is an apology.

Although he and Bowell would quarrel whenever they were together, as partners who had emerged from the dark area together, Sohei still valued Bowell very much.

Recently, he has also noticed a change in his temper, and he is increasingly intolerant of others' interference in weapon forging.

This is not good, but it cannot be changed.

Suo Hei had a vague feeling that he was about to touch the legendary "Wall of Masterpieces" and create his first masterpiece that would be passed down through the ages.

But he could never grasp that hint of inspiration, so he became more and more impatient.

"Genius..." Bowell's voice was a little excited: "A work of genius! How did our Lord come up with these ideas!?"

This document is actually a blueprint.

Design drawings of prosthetic limbs.

According to the design drawings, this prosthetic limb has a built-in magic crystal and can be operated and used through fighting spirit. If the craftsmanship is sophisticated enough, it can be almost indistinguishable from an ordinary person's limb.

If the material is right, then for most people it can be even better than the original limb.

At least steel doesn't bleed.

"This design is perfect." Bowell frowned and asked, "What do you want me to see?"

Sohei turned to the sixth page of the design: "I want to change this structure."

Then, he talked about his ideas for revision.

"Hiss..." Bowell took a breath after listening to Sohei's imagination: "This involves the change of core purpose. If there is a mistake, the whole design will be completely scrapped."

"You really want to do this?"

"Of course." Sohei said seriously: "I have a hunch that this is the right thing to do!"

Bowell was a little worried and looked at the hyena: "Did the Baron give any other instructions?"

"No, he just asked me to deliver this thing." The hyena said indifferently: "If you don't have any questions, I will go back and report."

Suo Hei nodded and said firmly: "Go and tell the Baron that if I change the design without authorization and cause any property loss, I am willing to bear the responsibility."

The hyena returned to Eagle City and repeated the dispute between Sohei and Bowell, as well as Sohei's final words, verbatim.

When Raven heard this, he just laughed it off and did not interfere.

The newly designed prosthesis cannot be completed overnight, and time continues to pass.

Strange to say.

Even though the ground had just been eaten bare by locusts the year before, the cicadas still chirped tirelessly when summer came.

They seem to be driven by something and return on time every summer.

There was plenty of rain this year. Although the locusts ate the surface plants, they also left behind a lot of feces and corpses. The soil fertility was replenished to a certain extent, so that the crops grew surprisingly well this year.

It was June, and there were still two months before the grain was harvested, but the tax reduction that the nobles had been expecting had not come. Instead, another fact came to light: Anthony took the initiative to express his determination to His Majesty the King that the Nord province did not need tax exemption.

This led to unanimous complaints from the nobles.

Just when Raven was about to take the lead again, Viscount John took the lead in making a statement -

There is a shortage of food in the territory and people have begun to starve to death. His Newsno Territory has no food to pay this year!
With Viscount John taking the lead, the nobles of Nord Province responded one after another. The first to start was Mansa County where John was, followed by Werth, Bell, Arag...

Until it gradually spread throughout the province.

Earl Tyrone only came out and said some bland words, and it was obvious that he had no intention of standing on Anthony's side.

In the end, Anthony had to issue an order in the name of the governor and "generously" cancel the in-kind tax in this year's tax collection.

"This is what we call public outrage."

Raven, who received the news, had an undisguised smile on his face and tapped his fingers on the table.

"it's time."

"Hyena, tell Simon to come see me."

……

(End of this chapter)