Urban Sims

Chapter 78No.70 Nine Church Responses
Taking Elena and Otto back to Grandland, the hardest hit, of course, was his wife Fanny. Fortunately, when she was about 30 years old, she finally became pregnant and gave birth to an eight-pound baby soon after. Boy, the mother is more expensive than the child, and the position of the countess has finally been secured.Moreover, people will always mature, especially for women. Fanny, who has a son and regards him as the focus of her life, what she has to do at this time is not to compete for favor with those destined to be indispensable by her husband's side. It is to train his own children to be the best and most legitimate successors of the Burns family.

For the next ten years.

Zhou Ming, who has mastered an earldom and most of the iron castle kingdom, based on these lands and the resources under the land, embarked on a road of farming violent soldiers, constantly launching foreign wars, and crazy expansion.

First, the Duke of Milton in the west of the Iron Castle Kingdom was wiped out without much effort, and he took control of the entire territory of the original Iron Castle Kingdom. After two years of digestion, a large amount of shallow oil was mined in the black marsh in the west. After fractionation, Some of the secondary raw materials from fractionation can be used as fuel for high-power steam engines, some can be used as kerosene lamps, lamp oil for horse lamps, asphalt for laying "highways", and paraffin for making bright candles—petroleum The value extended by the chemical industry is not weaker than the huge profits brought by the three industries of coal, steel and rail.

Three years later.

The thief Jie Luo led three batches of mercenary groups and a large number of slave laborers. After Zhou Ming used up all the black powder in his inventory, he finally built an easy-to-pass road in the short ten-kilometer-long gale pass in the Ural Snow Mountain. In order to build this channel, the number of deaths paid for the construction of this channel is twice as many as the number of slave laborers who died in the construction of the [-]-kilometer wooden rails in the plateau corridor. It can be said that every meter long Under the trench channel, there is a corpse of a worker.

After opening the channel, Zhou Ming, who has a steady stream of sulfur and saltpeter, naturally does not want this channel leading to the New World to be placed under the eyes of the Tongshan Kingdom every day, causing its prying and coveting.

In addition, mass production of guns and artillery requires a large amount of copper. If the Kingdom of Copper Mountain is not destroyed at this time, when will it be destroyed again?
Zhou Ming commanded 47 soldiers and used lightning tactics to control the Tongshan Kingdom with [-] earldoms in less than two years.

With a large amount of copper, it took less than a year. With the Guards as the foundation, Zhou Ming trained a pure firearms army with a number of 1. He trained his hands with several surrounding kingdoms. In all battles, they were victorious with single-digit casualties, and then the city walls were bombarded with artillery, and several surrounding kingdoms fell one after another.

At this time, Zhou Ming saw on the [World Map] that, excluding the New World, he had already controlled a huge territory with an area of ​​more than 500 million square kilometers and a population of more than 3000 million. His achievements were not inferior to that of Alexander the Great. How many.

but……

Zhou Ming was not satisfied with this, because after the death of Alexander the Great, the empire he built quickly fell apart, and there were also some hidden forces in the huge territory he controlled.

For example, the seven earls who started a business together with him, the dozens of small countries around the wall that swayed their tails and swayed their tails, and the backward lord enfeoffment system, dozens of neurotic lords jumped out every year to hinder the actions of the people in the territory. Free movement, destroying local business routes, intercepting and killing passing mercenaries and traveling merchants, trying to close the country and keep things in the past.

After killing batch after batch of jumping clowns, Zhou Ming discovered that with the continuous expansion of the scope of interests, various internal conflicts caused by uneven distribution of interests, different personal pursuits, and different ways of thinking are no longer It can be solved by making the interest cake bigger, designing a new upward channel, and conducting influence induction.

For example, the seven earls who have been closely cooperating with Zhou Ming all these years, after he fulfilled his promise, indeed granted each earl a medium-sized kingdom with more than 20 counties, and gave each earl 200 yuan per year. [-] gold coins for business alliance dividends.

It stands to reason that the seven earls should be very satisfied and willing to accept it, but they are not enough people. Seeing that Zhou Ming is tightly holding the 36 earldoms of the United States of Iron Castle, the 47 earldoms of the United States of Copper Mountain, and dozens of surrounding counties. After adding up the territories, there are more than 120 earldoms in total. There are inexhaustible coal mines, iron mines, inexhaustible copper mines, inexhaustible oil and other resources. When Zhou Ming brought more than 5000 million gold coins in revenue, how did the seven earls whose respective kingdoms' revenue couldn't even keep up with this fraction feel balanced?

As for Zhou Ming's dividend of 200 million gold coins per year...although it's quite a lot, it's only a small part of what they deserve. Compared to their potential losses, it's really worthless.

Under the grievances accumulated over the years, after one of the seven earls passed away and his son came to power, this newborn calf, in the name of the elders of the United States Council of Elders, who had long existed in name only, actively joined forces. At the Council of Elders, Initiated a proposal to impeach the chairman, wanting to oust Zhou Ming, and divide up the interests of the two United States and the Free Trade Union—this idea is very good, but this proposal, except for his own vote in favor, the other six earls (In fact, it should be said to be the king, but it is more convenient to call it that way), they all expressed their support verbally, and then abstained.

Not long after, under the blow of Zhou Ming's [-] army, after the head of the newborn calf boy was cut off, the seven counts became six counts.

Relying on overwhelming force, Zhou Ming has established absolute authority in this huge territory, but what he wears on his head is still only a crown obtained by bribing Cardinal Thomas, Cardinal Thomas of the Northeast Archdiocese with a huge sum of money. The crown (small size, with a three-legged gold rim, worn by the king of a small country), and the land he controls, and the number of small countries around him that surrender to him, are enough for him to be crowned emperor (the emperor is a higher level than the king, so it can be said that he is a king King), and the church only added a small crown to him?
Not only that, with the continuous expansion of the territory and the rapid entry into the era of semi-industrialized capital tide, the territory controlled by Zhou Ming is not only extremely powerful in military strength, but also economically, because of the free business alliance, mercenary union, and well-connected The existence and development of the rail transit network is at least 50 years ahead of the hundreds of kingdoms in the west. Not to mention, after the mass-produced [steam engine] comes out, Zhou Ming's territory is the economic headquarter of a small earldom. Quantity is stronger than a kingdom to the west.

Therefore, in terms of economic and trade exchanges with hundreds of kingdoms and churches in the west, Zhou Ming's territory has been in a state of "excess" with huge sums all year round.

For example, the furniture, pottery, white paper, ironware, weapons, perfume, cotton cloth, tea, cigarettes and other products produced on Zhou Ming's site are far superior to the hundreds of kingdoms in the west in terms of quality, quantity, variety, and price. And the products produced in the church territory are more cost-effective.

Facing the impact of these tide-like industrial commodities, and when a tobacco product called "fushou cream" became popular among the nobles and high-level churches in various kingdoms, some people of insight in the church, after ten years Economic and trade data statistics, came to an extremely shocking conclusion:

If the church continues to produce 500 million, 1000 million, 2000 million, 5000 million, ..., 1 million, 1.2 million gold coins every year, at most another 30 years, the church's gold and silver reserves will be exhausted, and finally No money available.

And the tithes collected by the church from the Free Trade Union are just a little bit of production on the land, and the commercial tax and mining tax are not involved. The little agricultural products collected from the land alone are not enough to buy a few top-level Pattons. porcelain.

Therefore, after this conclusion report was submitted to the Supreme Pope, Pope Santaro I attached great importance to it. After some consultations, he decided to limit the inflow of goods from the Free Trade Union, and levy business taxes and mines on that Free Trade Union. The tax, the commercial tax is set at [-]%, the mining tax is set at [-]%, and it is set a little higher, and the gold coins that have flowed into that area over the years are recovered.

This was naturally rejected by Zhou Ming!He originally wanted to ask Pope Santaro to crown him, but he was refused by the other party, and he was also asked to stop invading neighboring countries and spit out the land that he had invaded. Now, he has to be charged [-]% of the commercial tax and [-]% of the tax. Mining tax?
Do you really think he is a fat sheep slaughtered at will?
If you don't pay, you won't pay a penny of commercial tax and mining tax. If you don't feel comfortable, let's fight!
The war with real swords and guns did not start immediately, but the trade war initiated by the church did cause heavy losses to the Free Trade Union.

After the border blockade was implemented by many countries in the west, a large amount of goods of the Free Trade Union could not be sold. The trade war lasted only one year, and the Free Trade Union lost hundreds of millions of gold coins.

Another, knowing that the inland area where the Free Trade Union is located lacks salt, the insidious church actually issued a ban on salt, severely restricting the inflow of salt. In less than half a year, the price of salt on Zhou Ming's site skyrocketed by a thousand times. , extremely lacking.

At this time, Zhou Ming had no choice but to send a large number of people to the plateau of the New World to find several plateau salt lakes as an emergency source of salt.

On the other hand, he had no choice but to tear himself apart and expelled all the priests in the territory who were still supporting the Pope, and then recruited another ambitious priest. Zhou Ming had an in-depth discussion with him and revised some of the teachings of the Holy Father. , founded a Protestantism, and according to Zhou Ming's request, the tithe tax was reduced to one-fifteenth tax, and the love work of the church was changed to paid labor, which greatly reduced the burden on the believers. The teachings are indeed more down-to-earth. For a while, believers converted to Protestantism one after another, happily.

"Heretics! These heretics who deserve to go to Hell, attack them, kill them! All kingdoms, all believers, and all armies go to attack them. The Holy Father's holy words cannot be tampered with, and the dignity of the gods cannot be desecrated. Believers of the Holy Father You, lambs of the world, don't hesitate, take up your sword, take up your sword now, and kill those heretics who are incarnate by the devil!"

Heresy Crusade Order!
In the history of thousands of years since the establishment of the church, it has only been issued three times, resulting in three major population extinctions, the disappearance of two large religions, and the collapse of multiple giant empires. If you modify it, you will become a heresy that cannot be tolerated, and you must put it to death!

The extremely bloody and tragic 30-year war has officially begun.

　This chapter is out of outline, let’s add some details to the next chapter, please recommend!
　　


(End of this chapter)