I became a witch, but I started the industrial revolution

Chapter 210 Money! Money everywhere!

Just when John successfully returned to the alliance by entering the high seas through a submarine and being picked up by the naval fleet, the maid who had not seen the couple come down the next day knocked on John's door.

There was no response no matter how hard they knocked. With a scream from the curious maid who pushed the door open, the drama in the Vatican began.

【John ran away! 】

The gossip passed by the ears of all the nobles like a hurricane. Without caring about killing people, they immediately sent private soldiers to forcibly take over the United Bank.

Why? Of course, it’s for the silver coins that are kept as reserves within the bank!

The bank's accounts are very clear. The combined reserves of precious metals such as the Glory Silver Coin, the General Silver Coin, and the Gold Coin are approximately equivalent to 8 million of the current Vatican banknotes, plus the 2 million in the treasury before the United Bank took over the coinage rights, totaling a little over 10 billion.

Is it a lot? Of course it is a lot!

But it is nothing compared to the current market value of Wokingmeh United. According to the stock price, the market value of Wokingmeh United has exceeded 25 billion. The two Demetria Churches combined are not as valuable as one company.

And this is calculated based on the skyrocketing value of the Vatican's paper money. According to the exchange rate of the alliance currency, it is actually less than 200 million.

The United Bank has issued about 40 billion in currency based on stocks. Because the market has good expectations for stocks, the United Bank has already printed 10 billion but has not yet officially issued it.

50 billion in banknotes and million in precious metals.

Everyone was scrambling frantically for the precious metals in the bank vault. They could now clearly hear the "ding ding ding" sound echoing in their ears.

When the exchange reopens after the weekend, the stock shares they hold will be worthless and no one will be willing to take them.

At the same time, they searched everywhere for John, the culprit. Even the king and the Pope were alarmed. The Pope even used the magic of the Goddess of Light to locate and track John using his daily necessities.

As a result, no feedback was received, which means that either the other party is not in the radiation area of ​​the goddess's faith, that is, Demetria, or he is dead.

The news spread quickly because the minor nobles were also involved. When they learned that John had run away, they also wanted to cash out, but the middle and big nobles above had not yet cashed out, so how could it be their turn? So an internal conflict broke out.

The news leaked out unknowingly, and no one paid attention to the gossip at first, until they used Vatican banknotes in stores and were refused by the shops or the prices of goods skyrocketed dozens of times the recommended price in banknotes.

No, after just two seconds of savoring it, the price tag went up again.

When the stock market opened on Monday, the share price of Wokingmacher United Company fell to the limit down and closed. The stock exchange closed its doors within 5 minutes of opening.

Money is really worthless.

In addition to precious metals such as silver coins that can still be used to purchase goods, the value of paper money has been constantly updated from the original 1 silver coin to 0.25 paper money. The latest exchange rate has skyrocketed from 0.25 to 2500, 3000, and 5000.

And this is the result of the kingdom's king's strong requirement that all noble territories must accept paper money for consumption, otherwise no one would want paper money at all.

Before the people could recover from the panic caused by the plummeting face value of paper money, the value of silver coins and glory silver coins also suddenly began to plummet.

After all, truth will come to light. After counterfeit silver coins are put on the market, there will always be a few that are used for special purposes, such as melting them into silver to engrave inscriptions or magic circles.

One after another, unlucky engravers and magicians were scared to death by the molten iron that suddenly exploded during the smelting process, and only then did people notice the small mechanism in the silver coin.

Through violent tests of magic, it was found that eight out of ten of all the newer silver coins had hidden secrets. Once a magic bullet was fired, the pile of silver coins exploded, which was more lively than the New Year's Day.

The purity of the silver coin was not high enough, so naturally its value exploded instantly. Precious metals have their own constant value, but the alliance's previous counterfeiting method took away about 70% of the silver content, so the corresponding value of the silver coin had to fall to the same level.

Thanks to John's operation of sealing up these silver coins as reserves from the beginning, the explosion only occurred in the Vatican, and other places did not have time to suffer such a catastrophic disaster.

But this also became the last straw that broke the camel's back for the nation's sanity.

The angry citizens of the capital gathered in the streets and rushed into the palace shouting various slogans. With the guards' intentional or unintentional acquiescence, the Pope had no choice but to avoid it.

The king was captured and paraded through the streets.

How does it feel to be hit by money? King Demetria felt it. There were no rotten eggs or rotten vegetables on the way. All that was thrown at him was money.

Bundles of $100 bills were thrown at him, and he could clearly smell the scent of ink coming from the bills.

This smell soon turned into a burning smell, and what greeted him was not the guillotine, but the most vicious death that a believer could think of, a way to invigorate pagans and demons.

The burning at the stake was done with money to directly save his soul, and the paper money for the dead was burned on the spot.

No one stopped the people's anger because the credibility of the Demetria Kingdom among the people had fallen to the bottom at that time.

Not to mention the kingdom, a large number of angry believers rushed into the Vatican and set the churches on fire, because the Pope had also endorsed John.

The Holy See interpreted the analysis of the previous alliance course in the most intuitive way.

Faith is just an emotional sustenance. If it can't even do this, it will in turn cause more serious harm to itself or betrayal, causing a serious psychological gap.

What will await it next is the most serious backlash and revenge.

All the arsonists were arrested by the Vatican soldiers who came to support them.

But those who can do this are basically victims whose families have been broken up and whose loved ones have been destroyed by the collapse of the current monetary system. They don't want to live at all.

The Vatican's paper currency has long replaced the belongings of most ordinary people due to its portability and the deposit account method opened by the Union Bank.

Now the passbooks they hold are full of banknotes, and the purchasing power of banknotes is so low that two sacks may not be enough to buy a piece of bread.

The remaining silver and gold coins are a mixture of real and fake ones. Most shops only support transactions of half a silver coin because only by cutting it open can you see if there is anything mixed inside.

External violent destruction will directly destroy the small inscription circuit inside, causing an explosion. The splashing metal fragments are enough to easily kill ordinary people, so a new profession was created that specializes in cutting silver coins.

It is relatively easy for traditional magicians to do this job because their own magic shields can block it, but the price is relatively high, especially since a group of ordinary people who are willing to gamble their lives have also joined this industry.

They use various means such as observation and knocking to select the safe ones to cut open. They can charge a certain handling fee for each usable one cut. If it fails, it will be a resettlement fee.

Chapter 211 It's my turn to beat you~

Many people attacked the royal capital and the Church, but many others did not react so violently. Most of them were bound by family ties and wanted to struggle to give their families a glimmer of hope.

However, deep in his heart, his faith in the goddess had already been shaken.

If people's faith is a lamp in the spiritual world, then the lamp of faith corresponding to the Goddess of Light began to go out or dim on a large scale throughout the Vatican.

The Goddess of Light who was cultivating opened her eyes in confusion. She found that her cultivation was rapidly dissipating. In the blink of an eye, she lost 10% of her divine power.

Ifdien's beautiful eyes quickly changed from confusion to shock and anger.

Medea, far away in the subcontinent, stood with his hands behind his back on the ceiling of the 100-meter-high tower where the statue of the goddess was being built.

She looked at the pillar of light rising from the Demetria Church, and a subtle smile appeared on her face: "Falling so fast? Then it will be my turn to beat you next time~"

There is a big difference between the incense gods of the way of faith and the traditional gods of practice.

The power of the God of Incense is not so much his own as it is bestowed by his believers. It doesn't matter how it is bestowed, as long as the other party believes in you. This is also the reason why Medea can skip multiple levels.

In a sense, divine power is more advanced than the energy of cultivation.

In fact, Medea prefers to call it willpower. The thoughts of a huge number of believers are superimposed on one person, distorting the rules and restrictions on her.

For example, the slogan of omniscience and omnipotence that faith likes to use the most, if said too often, will plant the same idea in the hearts of believers: [He is omniscient and omnipotent! ]

Omniscience and omnipotence may not be achievable because they are too vague.

But as long as there are enough people who hold this idea and believe it firmly, omniscience and omnipotence will be gradually deconstructed into specific examples of ability, such as omnipotence means knowing everything.

Powerful and invincible?

So praying for a child should be okay? What about sending wealth? Exorcising evil spirits? Healing?

The person to whom the power of will is projected will naturally have some ability in this area. The more people believe in this, the stronger the ability will be.

As the wisher himself, he can also project several abilities to perform "miracles" according to his own preferences to guide believers to pray in this direction for resonance and refinement.

Previously, Ifdien had blurred the conceptual distinction between himself and the goddess of magic in the subcontinent, perhaps with the intention of usurping the throne.

Too bad she failed.

Because she was stabbed in the back by Medea~

In periods of low productivity, more foolish policies can stabilize people's hearts, consolidate rule and resource allocation. People will want to escape from pain, and the church will naturally have a breeding ground for development.

Because resources are limited, having too many smart people is actually not good. The most painful thing is to be awake but unable to change.

But now, due to the Industrial Revolution, the world's productivity is expanding on a large scale. Every country and nation will inevitably join the global competition. Using the same ruling methods as before will sooner or later lead to big problems.

If you want to maintain competitiveness during the industrial revolution, you have to release the population and the monopolized educational resources. Once ordinary people receive education, they will begin to fight for human rights and everything that should belong to them.

If the potential of the population is not released, more important things will be lost in the struggle between major powers. Although she does not use cannons to blast open the doors of other countries, it does not mean that the countries that buy cannons from her will not do the same.

According to the intelligence she obtained, the first countries that received cruisers on sea trials almost all began to send out large numbers of forces to explore the maritime strength of other countries. It was almost self-evident what they wanted to do.

The later a country realizes this, the smaller its window of opportunity for transformation will be, and the greater the price it will pay.

The same is true for the church

A choice must be made between the citizens who begin to fight for their rights and the kingdom.

Medea, the new god who came into being late, had the upper hand because she followed the trend of the times instead of going against the old times.

She doesn't care how much her believers believe in her. As long as the alliance develops in a positive direction, her basic base of believers will never collapse. Even when encountering certain adversities, Medea's strength will skyrocket.

If this time, Ifdien personally took action and failed to properly handle the relationship between the believers and the Kingdom Church, and still used the old-fashioned pagan cleansing method, such as burning witches.

Then the two of them could not be considered rivals, because Iftien might fall from the altar before he could live to see Medea take action herself.

It's not just Ifdion, the same goes for gods from other kingdoms and races.

Either you adapt to the times like she did, or continue to strengthen control, brainwashing, and stand still, and then perish with the country.

Demetria was hit by a financial nuclear bomb, not only causing domestic political instability, but also the morale of the soldiers retreating from the front lines plummeted, and the supply of food, weapons, etc. also came to a standstill.

The internal situation of the Tsarist Empire was also very chaotic, and it can be said that neither side gained any benefit at all.

The Tsar's throne was unstable because the army occupied a large amount of domestic resources due to the war, most of which were concentrated in the Krichnev Oblast.

The rebels quickly penetrated and seized these military supplies. In addition to counterattacking and occupying part of the Vatican area, they also began to approach the capital Vyatlitsk.

As a veteran army that had been baptized by war, after capturing Krichnev and acquiring a large amount of armaments, they had the power to shake the foundation of the Tsar's rule.

It’s no joke that the first thing the Tsar did when he opened his eyes every day was to touch his neck to see if his head was still there.

Fortunately, the capital had a Central Guard directly under the Tsar. When the equipment of the Seris Alliance was replaced, a large part of the good things were directly handed over to the Guard for use, which allowed him to barely resist and wait for other nobles to send troops for support.

It is no joke that the emperor's position is unstable and the foundation of his rule has been shaken. Whether it is a feudal system or a centralized imperial system, the operating principles in the feudal period are almost the same.

That is to maintain an elite central army and use it to leverage the armies in other parts of the country. This is the core idea.

Later, he used methods such as supporting his own confidants to take power and transferring back prestigious generals or nobles to weaken their influence to allow the entire country to operate normally.

There are many examples in history of seemingly powerful empires and kingdoms declining or even collapsing due to the loss of one or two legions. These were basically due to the internal imbalance caused by the loss of this core force.

Although the Tsar's central army was still there, the gap between the two sides in combat effectiveness and weaponry was not that big. In fact, because the slaves had no way to retreat, the morale of the serf resistance army remained high.