Throne of the North.

Chapter 521: Using Food to Control the Nobles

Legend has it that gods gave everything to humans.

He illuminates the darkness and gives light to mankind, and He scatters seeds and gives food to mankind.

Thus, human beings had a festival to express gratitude to God, which was called the Festival of Grace.

After the harvest, the bleak sky makes time pass quickly, and we quickly enter the cold winter. The Festival of Grace is in the depths of winter.

Winter is always hard to endure. The wind and snow brought by the north can make all life fearful. Even the nobles can resist going out to seek joy and hide in their own castles to enjoy the warmth brought by firewood.

In the castle, they would order the people in the territory to store food, especially food for the nobles. The lords would not give up the luxury of food even in the cold winter.

In winter, even the war in the South would stop. This was not a suitable time to start a war, and even the lowest-level slave soldiers knew this.

The honorable Emperor Flor was not willing to recall the army in the winter. He knew very well that once the army was recalled, it would be difficult to continue to dispatch such a large number of troops next year.

He needs victory. The empire's army needs a victory to forge ahead and build confidence in the Church of the Dawn, so that next year's war will go more smoothly.

So... hundreds of thousands of troops stayed in the Thousand Lakes Province, a province where lakes, swamps and land coexisted.

This decision also brings with it problems.

For example, there is not enough food.

The war had been going on for half a year, and the food supply for hundreds of thousands of troops was not entirely borne by the nobles. The empire dispatched a large amount of food to the south to enter the battlefield. Because the war had destroyed and the soldiers were consumed, it was said that some nobles in the imperial capital used food to persuade the emperor to stop the war, because in such a short period of war, the empire's total grain output for one year was consumed on the southern battlefield.

The authenticity remains to be verified, but the emergence of food problems is inevitable.

This has nothing to do with Ryan. Emperor Flor is collecting grain but cannot get it from the North.

But this matter is related to the Northern Province.

Since the emperor urgently dispatched grain to the battlefield in the south, naturally, the small amount of grain that had entered the Northern Wind Province this year was gone.

As everyone knows, the nobles of the North Wind Province need to buy food to survive the coldest one or two months every year. Even the most indifferent noble lords have to distribute food to their people during that time, otherwise there will be widespread hunger and death.

This is the horror of the North.

However, the emperor's brightness dumbfounded the nobles.

“We also have a lot of food stored.”

Some nobles breathed a sigh of relief despite being nervous, because the ice cellars in the Frozen Territory contained a large amount of food for them, of course, almost all of it was meat.

Another part of the nobles did not change at all. They were unwilling to distribute the more expensive meat to those damned peasants.

Even if they starve to death.

This was undoubtedly a crisis belonging to the land of the Borean Province. Some nobles looked towards the direction of the Frozen Territory, waiting for the Northern Baron to speak out.

Since Ryan has invisibly seized the power from the nobles, he naturally has to bear the pressure from them.

"It's ridiculous. I'm not their babysitter. They don't want to consume their own food reserves, so they come to me for an explanation?"

On the Rhino Horn Mountain, Baron Ryan sneered continuously, but at this time he also felt the emperor's anger.

It's a very simple problem. The nobles have a lot of wealth, a lot of food, and a lot of resources, but they are unwilling to give them out. Instead, they cry and say that they have nothing and need help from the empire.

For a noble, such a scene might be a shame, an insult to ancestors and bloodline.

But if all nobles were like this, then it would not be an insult to dignity, but a politics.

This was the first personal political crisis Ryan faced in this land.

After calming down, Ryan did think about a solution.

It was not about helping those stingy nobles to get food, because this was essentially a political dispute between him and the nobles.

Ryan can solve the food problem at any time. Nidhogg has harvested a huge amount of food this year, the kind that cannot be eaten up.

The key lies in what purpose Ryan wants to accomplish in this incident.

He has a lot of options.

Selling food to those nobles at a high price will allow the nobles to see the strength of the Frozen Territory. As the territory that needs food the most, the Frozen Territory actually has a large amount of food to sell to them. This will naturally demonstrate Ryan's strength and make the nobles more cohesive.

They could also just ignore it and let the nobles solve the troubles within the territory on their own. After all, this matter had nothing to do with other nobles outside the territory, or even the emperor.

In addition to these two methods, Ryan can also coordinate the food in the nobles' territories. For example, Yinchuan County will always have more food, so the nobles can sell some of it to the nobles who are short of food, so that not too many people will starve to death and they can survive the winter.

Importing food from the two kingdoms in the east can not only boost the economy, but also make Lingdu City more prosperous this winter.

However, no matter what method is used, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Ryan is not a nanny for the nobles. His sale of grain will not make the nobles overly grateful, but will instead form dependence.

If he does not care, it will naturally affect his right to speak. When the nobles face collective events in the future, the weight of Ryan's voice will be questioned.

Coordinating the food in the hands of the nobles is the most undesirable option. Just look at the current situation of Emperor Flor.

Because of the war, all the nobles were complaining to the emperor about food shortages, but in reality the nobles themselves were not short of food; it was the war in the south that caused the shortage.

In this kind of war situation, the nobles were unwilling to give up the food they had, let alone a cold winter that could freeze people to death?
That would create even greater conflict.

As for importing food in the end, Ryan didn't think it was a good plan. It was winter, and the Kingdom of Sera and the Kingdom of Andara also needed food, and they were also at war now.

If we really want to buy food at this time, no amount of money will be enough.

Ryan needs to balance the consequences of this incident.

As the snowstorm was getting closer, Ryan finally made a decision and invited the nobles to come to the Frozen Territory during the God's Grace Festival.

In the north, the coldest two or three months are the time after the Festival of Grace, when the new year begins.

Before the God's Grace Festival, it was just cold. This kind of cold was what humans could bear, but even so, many nobles were still reluctant to set out on the road to the Frozen Territory.

Everyone knows where the Frozen Territory is. It is the coldest noble territory in the entire empire.

Some nobles even had to set out in groups from dawn, and could only reach Ryan's Rhino Horn Mountain at dusk a few days later.

Ryan didn't mind waiting. Standing on this increasingly tall mountain, he looked up at the southern sky and watched the nobles' carriages entering the frozen land territory. He felt as if all nations were coming to pay tribute.

The nobles have arrived, and naturally communication between the nobles requires topics, and this time the topic is undoubtedly the food issue.

"Alas, His Majesty's war against the Holy See this year was undoubtedly a failure, but he was unwilling to withdraw his troops, and we suffered as a result."

"We had originally agreed with the Imperial Chamber of Commerce that 20,000 kilograms of grain has not been delivered yet. I'm afraid it won't be delivered to Beifeng Province this winter."

"Who says it's not true? Your Majesty's decision has caused the price of spirits in the Volga Province to increase by 50%. Those damn guys have already made countless fortunes, but they are still raising the price."

"Baron Ackerman, who is married to my family and is the baron of the Volga Province, is unable to continue brewing and storing wine this year. His Majesty's tax on grain there is terribly high."

"He was able to give me a discount of only 20% increase in price. If you want, Baron Knight, I can sell you some."

The nobles were communicating, and the worry about food seemed to exist only in their imagination. None of these nobles showed an absolute desire for food.

There is nothing strange about this. After all, if everyone is just acting and standing on the same side, then there is nothing wrong. But if you really can't do anything about food, then it shows that you as a noble are not capable enough. Your ancestors didn't have such problems, but you have a food crisis. Isn't this your problem as a noble?

The nobles' face-saving projects, or their obsession with honor, transcended their fear of death.

"I wonder how Baron Ryan can get food."

Some nobles whispered that the main reason they came to this frozen land territory was the food issue, so there was nothing wrong with just saying it out loud.

As more and more nobles came, Ryan, as the host, naturally had to show up. Although a ridiculous meeting had not yet been formally held, Ryan still pretended to be curious and asked many nobles at the banquet.

"The mountain forest world will be completely dead in two years. You should have harvested a lot of food in that world during this period. Why are you still worried about food?"

"In recent years, the nobles in the Northern Wind Province should not be short of food, right?"

Ryan asked knowingly, but the nobles would never do that.

"Baron Ryan, you also know that the food stored in the warehouse of the frozen earth territory is not ordinary food. It is food that is bathed in divinity. It will be sold at a high price in the imperial capital or the west coast. This year, we have lost a lot of iron ore wealth because of the matter of His Highness the Emperor Chosen."

"Next year, we will use this food to recover our wealth. Even we ourselves are unwilling to eat this food, so what right do those peasants have to eat it?"

"There is a lot of meat in the mountain forest world, but no ordinary food. Are we going to give this precious meat to slaves who can't earn us any wealth?"

The nobles said it reasonably and as a matter of course, this kind of thing is almost an instinctive cognition, and there is no such thing as inhumane.

The nobles also agreed with this reason. What they needed was the cheapest porridge to maintain their vital signs, not delicacies from the mountains and the sea.

To put it bluntly, the people who are truly in danger from the food crisis are not the nobles, but the large number of slaves who may starve to death in the next few months.

They...can die.

"That's true."

Ryan said with a smile, raising the fruit wine in his hand. Fresh fruits from the alien world of Svadifari are rare items in the eyes of these nobles. The brewed fruit wine is even more expensive than the spirits in the Volga Province. The nobles are reluctant to drink it at ordinary times, and can only drink it in the Frozen Territory.

A few more days passed, and all the nobles had arrived. Ryan finally held an informal noble meeting with openness and frankness.

Most of his meetings were informal, for he was not Lord North Wind.

Thinking of this, the nobles including Ryan couldn't help but look at the only woman in the meeting.

Shaya, the Marquis' mother appeared here for some reason.

The nobles were originally very dissatisfied because she was not a real noble, but Shaya said that the governor was too young, and then made it clear that although the governor could not handle the government affairs of the North Wind Province now, he needed to know all the decisions of the North Wind Province.

This is understandable, and this meeting was held because of their status. It cannot be said that the nobles of the North Wind Province did not want to play with Governor North Wind.

So in the end, we could only arrange for Shaya to listen in from a distance and make sure she knew what was said in the meeting.

When Ryan sat down slowly, there were no extra voices in the meeting, until the voice of the 21-year-old Baron of the North rang clearly in the ears of the nobles.

"Without the food from the south, the land in the north seems unviable."

Ryan went straight to the point and said, everyone knows the importance of food, but this statement is also true, the food grown on the fertile land in the south is the lifeblood of the north wind.

"But in fact, it was never the nobles who couldn't survive. The North Wind Province had never been troubled by food problems. Even if the land here was frozen, it could still grow food. It was the land that those barbaric orcs were willing to plunder at all costs."

"But the nobles are all kind. Since our ancestors, they have been kind to their people and don't want to see them starve to death."

"So when did the North Wind Province begin to lack food?"

Ryan thought for a moment, then said:

"Probably, it started a hundred years ago. We didn't experience that era, but we suffered the consequences of what happened in that era."

"The lands of the nobles are the lands granted by His Majesty the Emperor to his loyal followers. These lands belong to the nobles, including the people on the lands."

"A hundred years ago, the food grown on the nobles' land was enough to supply all the people in the territory. But now, the land is still the same land, but the people of the noble lords are no longer the same number of people as before."

"The discovery of another world is just like the other world in the mountains and forests a few years ago. There are also natives living in it. They entered our world, entered our territory, and became the subjects of the nobles."

“The population has increased, but the food supply has not increased.”

“Thus, today’s food crisis has arisen. This is a test of the nobles’ kindness.”

"Are you willing to watch the people in your territory starve to death and let the population return to the number that the land can support? Or are the nobles willing to continue to fulfill their noble qualities of kindness and let their people see next spring and continue to bathe in the light?"

Are you kidding? Master Ryan is not the nanny of these nobles. When problems arise, they just throw them to Baron Ryan, who holds the final say in the North Wind. Will he let these nobles deal with them?
If you handle it well, you will be grateful to the nobles; if you handle it poorly, you will have to bear all the responsibility.

It's funny. The risk and the reward are not proportional. Ryan naturally has a way to get the ball back to these nobles.

He looked around at these nobles. He had already said this. So, were the nobles kind or not?
(End of this chapter)