Volume 4 Chapter 27 Holding the butcher’s knife
When his highness Eric took over, the kingdom was going to change and many people in Banta City were worried.
When her highness Seveni was the Banta City’s City Lord, Banta City was like Seveni’s back garden, full of her faithful supporters.
Now that his highness Eric had taken the throne, then according to normal conventions, the previous situation would have been taken care of. For Banta City that explicitly showed their support for Seveni, it would definitely be something his highness Eric took care of.
Of all the companies in Banta City, the most worrying was naturally the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce was the closest to her highness in Banta City and chairman Xu was a firm supporter of her highness Seveni, rejecting his highness Eric in public many times, so he had completely made a break with his highness Eric before.
To everyone, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was a thorn in his highness Eric’s eyes, so once he took the throne, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce wouldn’t be able to escape his sights.
It was because of this worry that Xu Yi had to put his plan in place ahead of time, forcing him to stop developing the Falling Rain valley and moving the most precious resources over to the Stantine Duchy. It was all in case his highness Eric made a move.
But facts surprised everyone.
After his highness Eric took over the throne, he didn’t make any excessive moves on Banta City and didn’t start with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce like everyone expected. He even made a statement that commended the Frestech Chamber of Commerce for all they’ve done in developing Banta City which made everyone’s jaws drop.
Moreover, although the new City Lord was appointed by his highness……Alright, it should be King Eric now. After he arrived in Banta City, he was very friendly towards Xu Yi and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. It wasn’t like how Count Stagg immediately aimed at the Frestech Chamber of Commerce once he took over.
Other than this, the new City Lord indicated that he would support the development of the magic machine industry. He would go around the foundations her highness Seveni built and develop Banta City to become one of the most prosperous cities in the Lampuri Kingdom.
Everyone was confused by what King Eric and the new City Lord did.
His majesty Eric…..just what was he thinking?
For this question, his majesty Eric had accepted a special interview from the «Lampuri Weekly» to explicitly show his position.
He claimed in the interview that he was just a normal prince and because he was competing for the throne with Seveni, naturally the Frestech Chamber of Commerce that supported her would be his enemy and he would try to take them down.
But once he became king, he began thinking from the angle of a king and he found that the magic machine industry represented by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was of great help to the development of the kingdom.
Since he was the king, the thing he had to think about first was the development of the kingdom.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the magic machine industry was good for the kingdom, so of course he would support their development. It wasn’t strange for him to change his attitude towards them.
Through King Eric’s statement, everyone understood.
It had to be said, King Eric’s explanation was quite reasonable.
He was already the king, so naturally his eyes couldn’t be narrow. He had to consider the benefits of the kingdom before doing anything.
It was said that…..after this interview was published to the entire kingdom, the regions that had been opposed to his highness Eric taking the throne stopped complaining. The prestige of King Eric in the kingdom had increased without a doubt.
Even Banta City that was most worried about King Eric had many new voices that supported the king.
Suddenly, the Lampuri Kingdom became like how Seveni described it to Xu Yi before.
With the stable throne, the Lampuri Kingdom would be able to develop in the most stable manner.
Seeing the situation in Banta City and the kingdom, even Xu Yi had hesitated a bit.
However…..facts proved that everyone was happy to soon, especially Xu Yi.
A month after his highness Eric took the throne, it was little by little at first, but if one looked carefully, bad news kept coming for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
First it was inspections on the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s factories in the various other cities.
In name, it was because the king cared about the development of the magic machine industry, so they wanted to conduct an inspection of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
But in truth, during this inspection, there were many production magic machines and even entire production lines that were taken away as part of the investigation. There were even some workers and some engineers that were taken away.
Although the people were released, the magic machines had never come back.
After that, the kingdom’s parliament had established a magic machine industry management department.
As the name suggested, this was a department that managed all the companies involved in the magic machine industry in the kingdom.
The one that bore the brunt of this was naturally the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
According to the rules of the magic machine industry management department, as long as a company was involved in the magic machine industry, they would be managed by the department.
This so-called management was requesting each company to work with the magic machine industry management department. For example, the department required all the companies involved in the magic machine industry to have a certificate from the department before they started producing.
On this certificate, the department gave different certificates for different magic machines.
For the Frestech Chamber of Commerce that produced over a hundred kinds of magic machines, they needed over a hundred different certificates.
For each certificate, not mentioning the complicated process, just the payments made weren’t small.
For just the Magic Refrigerator certificate, if it was approved, it would take three hundred gold coins for a certificate.
After the Frestech Chamber of Commerce received the certificate for all their magic machines, they had spent over forty thousand gold coins on this.
As for the amount that couldn’t be avoided during the process, it wasn’t less than this number.
This meant that just to apply for certificates, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had paid over eighty thousand gold coins.
Those certificates only lasted a year……
If having to pay tens of thousands of gold coins a year wasn’t considered much, the other rule that the department made was something that Xu Yi couldn’t accept.
In the name of developing the kingdom’s magic machine industry, they requested the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to give all their unique technology to the other companies to help the other magic machine companies grow stronger.
This was a request that Xu Yi firmly rejected.
Moreover, when the department asked the opinions of the other companies, they were rejected by most of the other companies.
Almost all the companies thought that this went completely against the basic principles of business.
If the department enforced this, it would be equal to breaking the iron laws of all the companies in the Lampuri Kingdom.
To care about their reputation, no company dared to support the department.
Because of the strong opposition, the department gave up in the end.
However, through this matter, Xu Yi knew the true ideas of King Eric.
It wasn’t that he didn’t touch the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, rather he wanted to very much.
But whether it was because he was worried about Seveni or his own throne that he had just taken, he had to remain reserved for some times, otherwise others would have ideas towards him. He couldn’t be this direct…..or it could be said that his table manners weren’t ugly.
In short, he was using slow and gentle methods that didn’t attract people’s attention to attack the magic machine industry the Frestech Chamber of Commerce represented.
Xu Yi of course could guess his true thoughts.
As a king, he would want to tightly grasp something that could deeply affect the Lampuri Kingdom like the magic machine industry in his hands.
As for the tax changes in Banta City, that to Xu Yi seemed like he couldn’t wait any longer.
This business tax was clearly a butcher’s knife over the magic machine industry represented by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. The intention was to cut away the fattest piece of meat and then fill it with the nobles that had supported him to the throne.
When he thought of the tax changes, Xu Yi couldn’t help giving a cold laugh in his heart.
His highness Eric had taken the throne with the support of the nobles, but how could those nobles support him for free?
The greedy nobles wanted him to pay many times what they paid him, even more than ten times over.
Duke Stagg who had become the prime minister was also the chief of the magic machine industry management department, which clearly proved this point.
But there were only Xu Yi’s guesses, he couldn’t say it to Seveni.
Seeing Seveni in thought, Xu Yi gave a sigh in his heart.
He didn’t know how much Seveni knew about this situation.
If she knew about his highness Eric’s actions, would she regret letting down the people that had supported her by giving up the throne?
A young man wearing the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s uniform ran over. He was panting as he stood in front of Xu Yi, shaking Xu Yi and Seveni out of their thoughts.
“Did something happen?” Xu Yi was a bit confused, he had said that no one was allowed to disrupt his discussion with Seveni if nothing happened.
“Sir…..Sir chairman, Kamado…..The Lord City Lord is there.” The young man replied while panting.
“Oh? The Lord City Lord is here again?” Xu Yi was surprised before turning to smile at Seveni, “Your highness, are you interested in seeing a good play?”