Alien Arms Empire

Chapter 227 227 Choice

John is a fisherman. As a civilian of the Poplar Kingdom, he is 45 years old. He has never thought that one day he would be able to board a warship.

 He has been living in Nanshui, where he sails a boat and fishes, barely supporting his family of three. But recently, this peaceful life has been broken.

First a huge warship with black smoke arrived, and then he saw with his own eyes that a dozen cargo ships that wanted to return to the port were bombarded and sunk into the water by the sound of cannons.

Then, the war broke out suddenly. There were many warships on the sea, and the winner was the enemy warship that didn’t know where it came from...

Going out to sea for fishing has become a dangerous thing, because some fishing boats were sunk when the other party passed by.

 So Jon had no choice but to give up his job and wait on the shore to pray for the war to end soon.

 A miracle seemed to have occurred. After being blocked for a month at Nanshui Port, two warships emitting black smoke sailed away in a swaggering manner.

The enemy has not appeared on the nearby sea for a day. Officials at Nanshui Port began to force the fishing boats to go out to sea and asked them to check the outer sea to see if the enemy had really gone far.

Soon, almost all the fishing boats returned to the seaside. These small fishing boats did not need to dock at the port at all, so they were relatively flexible and not easy to be wiped out.

 The fishing boats that came back brought good news. They did not find the black smoke-belching warship, and the Nanshui Port was temporarily calm.

Then the restoration work was fully launched. With the Marquis Leibert personally taking charge, the restoration work of Nanshui Port progressed quite rapidly.

 Some larger merchant ships salvaged the cannons from the battleships that sank offshore and had roughly ascertained the location of the sinking. These were the most valuable items on these sunken ships.

For those ships that don’t know where they were sunk or whether they were really sunk, there is currently no way to deal with them.

 In short, the loss of Nanshui Port this time, or the loss of Yangmu Kingdom, has been so great that it can be called terrifying.

The factory can basically maintain only one-third of its operating rate, and the roads are congested with temporary horse-drawn carriages laden with messy goods.

Sewage is flowing across the roads, workers are listless due to soaring prices, production is on the verge of collapse, and unrest may even occur at any time.

A modern city is fragile. Even a temporary water outage may cause problems for people's livelihood, not to mention the outbreak of a war.

Even though the Marquis is personally in charge, the entire Nanshui is still extremely depressed. It was only in the past two days that there was a glimmer of recovery.

　　Unfortunately, the dawn of recovery had nothing to do with Jon. He was conscripted into the army and became a sailor.

 Because the naval battleships suffered heavy losses and the number of naval sailors and crew members was also killed in battle, it was difficult to replenish them at the moment, so they had to find some fishermen to make up the number.

The warships they are responsible for controlling are not real warships, but are hiding in the port, along with more than a dozen armed merchant ships that have been returning home in the past few days.

As a result, just in the past few days, when everyone thought that the disaster was over, two enemy warships emitting black smoke came back menacingly.

They sank the armed merchant ships that were responsible for guarding the periphery of the port, and then captured the lucky or unlucky Jon.

　　He was then thrown onto the sea near the coast and allowed to swim back on his own. After he anxiously handed over the bottle he was carrying to the city guard officer, he was imprisoned.

At this time, he finally had time to calm down and carefully recall all the details of the powerful steel battleship.

On that battleship, there were clean wooden decks, dark cannons, tall chimneys, and sailors in beautiful clothes.

Those sailors were simply more dignified than the nobles. They wore white coats and hats that looked like boats on their sides. They stood upright like a poplar tree with their hands behind their backs.

He also remembered the huge dragon flag. He had never seen that flag before, but it was very beautiful.

In addition, he also remembered a detail, that is, there were elven sailors on the battleship, and they seemed to have duties, because many people obeyed the elf's orders.

  Could it be said that the nearby Songmu Kingdom has already attacked? Is this their battleship? Because he was frightened and too tired, Jon quickly fell asleep amid these speculations.

 But at the same time, some people couldn't sleep. Augustine Leibert smashed the exquisite-looking drifting bottle and took out the letter inside.

 Then, he opened his eyes wide and saw the secret message left by his cronies. This code word can only be used once, but it appears here...

When he continued to look down, he was so shocked by what the letter said that he jumped up from his chair.

 14 million gold coins!

Datang Group actually asked him to pay a full 14 million gold coins!

He held the letter with a sinister expression on his face, like a beast about to eat a man.

"Assholes! Are they crazy? How dare they ask for so much? How could I give them 14 million gold coins?" Leibot yelled angrily in his office and threw everything he could find on the ground.

However, when he calmed down, he confirmed a few things: First, his cronies had indeed arrived in Bunas, albeit a few days earlier. Second, the other party actually has a way to transmit the message to Nanshui Port on the same day!

Third, the Datang Group, to which he owed 100,000 gold coins, was indeed capable of collecting debts, and those steel battleships were sent by them. Fourth, the current matter cannot be delayed and must be dealt with as soon as possible.

 The matter at hand is indeed tricky, because as the prime minister of the Yangmu Kingdom and as a marquis, Rebot must consider the impact of this unwinnable naval battle on the Yangmu Kingdom.

If there really is a stronger existence than the Cyric Consortium, supporting the Pinewood Kingdom and other kingdoms, then the expansion war of the Poplar Kingdom can only be declared over.

They may not even be able to defend their borders, and a long-term naval blockade will completely collapse the economy of the Poplar Kingdom.

 Obviously, if these things really happen, then his role as prime minister will come to an end. The huge reputation accumulated by defeating the Kingdom of Gales will also be wiped out.

The king can no longer trust him, the person who caused the disaster, and may even get rid of him in exchange for Datang Group's understanding, thus ending the war...

 But how should he deal with the matter at hand? According to what this letter says, send someone to the enemy's warship, use that magical machine, write a reply to remotely direct the negotiations?

 Are you kidding me? Playing cards with your opponent? Tell your opponent your bottom line? Isn't this stupid?

Furthermore, I only have one chance to confirm my confidant’s true thoughts, because there is only one password at that time. How can I confirm the identity of the replyer in the next letter?

What's more...what I said here, will the meaning be changed when it is transmitted to my cronies? What is said by my cronies, will it be the original words when it is transmitted to me?

This kind of unilateral transparency to the enemy, while having problems and constraints on his own side, immediately made Leibert irritated.

When he wanted to throw something again, he calmed himself down as much as possible - no matter what, no matter what the price, he had to give an explanation to the king and end this farce, the sooner the better!

His eyes rolled around in his sockets, and he actually considered whether he should pay the debt of Datang Group.

 For people like him, interests always come first, and he must make decisions to ensure his own interests. Obviously, judging from the current situation, it is more in his fundamental interest for him to find a way to settle this debt.

 Soon, he roughly estimated something. First of all, he could not really prepare 14 million gold coins to repay the debt, otherwise King Yangmu XI would most likely let him go home for retirement.

 So replacing it with something else becomes the only option—for example, the most valuable thing: land! Or minerals!

Yangmu Kingdom previously relied on selling the technology of Datang Group to get back most of its mines from Cyric, including the iron ore and copper mines contained in his territory.

 He cannot move those on the other side of the kingdom, but he can move those within his own territory. Although this would reduce his income, he could keep everything he had with the king.

 Keep the position of prime minister, keep your title, keep your power and the possibility of external expansion to expand your influence.

As for my income...at worst, it will return to what it was before being controlled by Cyric. Anyway, it's not impossible to live with it for a while.

  But the current debt is too huge, and it is obviously impossible to repay it solely by relying on the mines.

 So, at least part of the land must be added, a complete piece of land that may be valuable. After much thought, he decided to ask the king's opinion.

 Because the most valuable land in his hands is Nanshui Port, which is also his base camp. However, Nanshui Port has the largest industrial base in the kingdom, and he does not dare to cede it to himself.

He planned to ask His Majesty the King if he was willing to make an exchange and cede Osa Port, and then return the South Water Port to the King himself, and then find a fiefdom elsewhere.

  After all, the value of Nanshui Port is much higher than that of Osa Port. If Yangmu XI could take back Nanshui, he would be very happy to find another poor place for Leibert.

 The remaining thing is how to introduce the latest and most useful technology to the Yangmu Kingdom after repairing the relationship with Datang Group.

 (End of this chapter)