Volume 4 Chapter 65 Tide of opposition
King Eric pinched his forehead as he felt like his head was so painful that it was about to explode.
The reason for this was that first, he hadn’t properly slept in several months and second, because there were always a pile of documents in front of him.
Although there seemed to be many documents, they were all about the same thing. They were talking about the bloody conflict that had occurred in Banta City before.
If one looked at it from a general sense, this conflict was just an accident and wasn’t worth paying attention to. It was impossible for it to cause a headache for the king.
But the problem was that there was a complicated meaning behind this that was very significant. It caused some people in the Lampuri Kingdom to react stronger, which made it more serious.
This conflict looked very simple on the surface, it was just the Banta City’s city guards killing a commoner by accident while carrying out their tasks.
This thing had happened many times in the history of the Lampuri Kingdom. Before they just shut the mouths of the commoners and just paid a bit of money to settle these matters.
But once this matter occurred, it was immediately spread. Very soon, almost everyone in the kingdom paid attention to this.
The reason for this conflict was that the city guards were following the rules of the City Lord Manor that forbade the agricultural magic machines of other companies to be used in Banta City’s harvest.
After this matter, all the newspapers in the Lampuri Kingdom gave exhaustive reports. There were many newspapers that followed up on this, writing the stories of both sides of the conflict, letting everyone know the reason for this conflict.
By learning the reason for this, it caused a strong reaction from many people in the kingdom.
The Banta City’s City Lord Manor was forcing people to use a brand of agricultural magic machines during the harvest?
This question was the core of everyone’s doubts.
To most people, the goal of the harvest was to harvest as quickly as possible. As long as the grain could be harvested, it didn’t matter what brand of agricultural magic machines were used.
Not to mention that there were only two brands in the kingdom. One was the Frestech Brand, which was used by the Cantona Chamber of Commerce, causing it to be confiscated by the city guards and created this bloody conflict.
The other was the Hayada Brand. Not only was it the one recommended in Banta City, it was also the brand that the magic machine industry management department suggested every other city used.
At the same time, the Hayada Chamber of Commerce was the brand chosen by the agricultural department. Before the spring harvest this year, it had been promoted in many cities of the kingdom and was recommended for use in those cities.
Although business and agricultural departments didn’t force people to use the Hayada Brand, since it was recommended by both the business and agricultural departments, most cities in the kingdom swapped from the Frestech Brand to the Hayada Brand.
This wasn’t much at first, but after the conflict in Banta City, there was a bunch of opposition that came forward.
There were two main reasons for this opposition. One of them was that whether it was the City Lord Manor, the magic machine industry management department, the agricultural department, or the business department, they couldn’t force people to use a single brand.
If people wanted to buy something, it was their right.
Forcing people would go against this basic principle.
The other reason mainly focused on the quality of the Hayada Brand.
According to the reports from various newspapers, there weren’t any good reviews of the Hayada Brand.
The reason the conflict appeared in Banta City was because the Hayada Brand’s magic machines were too lacking. More than half of the Cantona Chamber of Commerce’s Hayada Brand small Magic Harvesters had broken, so they were forced to break the rules of the City Lord Manor and use the Frestech Brand.
The City Lord Manor had tried to enforce this, which created this conflict with the Cantona Chamber of Commerce workers, creating this tragedy.
If the Hayada Brand magic machines had better quality, how could this have happened?
Moreover, other than Banta City, the performance of the Hayada Brand was also poor in the other cities.
The various newspapers reported that the Hayada Brand magic machines had various problems in different areas, causing the normal harvest to be unable to continue.
There were many cities that had to use the Frestech Brand agricultural magic machines because of the problems with the Hayada Brand, only then could they catch up.
Otherwise, the grain yield of the Lampuri Kingdom’s spring harvest might have been greatly affected.
Most newspapers were strongly denouncing the Hayada Chamber of Commerce.
Many people questioned the Hayada Chamber of Commerce. Why did the Hayada Chamber of Commerce produce such bad quality agricultural magic machines with the complete technology of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the support of the department?
Didn’t they say it would be comparable to the Frestech Brand? At least let it function properly, right?
But some newspapers put out a different point of view.
There was no doubt that the Hayada Brand was of poor quality, these newspapers wouldn’t argue against that. They placed the problem on the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, saying that because the Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn’t give the full technology to the Hayada Chamber of Commerce, this caused the quality of the Hayada Brand to be bad.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn’t hand over all the technology according to their contract with the department, choosing to break the cooperation midway. This left the magic machine industry management department and the ten companies in a mess.
These ten companies were just barely able to make these magic machines.
In order to support the development of these ten companies so they could make better magic machines in the future, the Lampuri Kingdom’s people should limit the Frestech Brand magic machines. They hoped that everyone could give the ten companies more patience and support them.
But this viewpoint was cursed at by many people.
The magic machine industry management department wanted to steal the large magic machine market from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. After stealing the technology, they can’t even use it properly and now they were blaming the Frestech Chamber of Commerce?
This was clearly trying to paint a different picture!
An article published in the «Lampuri Weekly» pushed the anger towards the ten companies to another peak.
This article was an interview with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s magic machine development center’s chief, magic mechanical engineer dwarf Camby.
In the interview, Camby replied that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had given all the related technology to the ten companies and didn’t hold back anything.
The reason why their magic machines were inferior to the Frestech Brand was that other than their skills being worse than the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the other important reason was that they skimped on labour and materials.
Take the small Magic Harvester that caused this problem. The Frestech Brand small Magic Harvester was made with the super hard steel alloy of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, which had a cost of two hundred gold coins per ton.
The Hayada Chamber of Commerce’s small Magic Harvesters were made from the steel products the Detroit Chamber of Commerce of the ten companies refined. Whether it was in terms of hardness, resistance to wear, or resistance to oxidation, they were all inferior to the Frestech Brand’s steel products. Each ton cost no more than fifty gold coins to make.
The biggest problem with the Hayada Brand small Magic Harvester were the broken components. The breaking of the most important turning axis was because of the lack of quality in the steel.
The «Lampuri Weekly» posted data that Camby had given, making a full comparison of the Frestech Brand small Magic Harvester to the Hayada Brand small Magic Harvester.
Although the data seemed boring, it was very enlightening.
Comparing it, there was no doubt that the Hayada Brand skimped on labor and materials, so it was impossible for it to have good quality.
With these results, other than the newspapers who questioned Camby’s data, there was no one else who spoke up for the Hayada Chamber of Commerce.
So in just less than a month since the conflict in Banta City, the Lampuri Kingdom erupted with activities that boycotted the Hayada Chamber of Commerce. All the cities in the kingdom announced that they wouldn’t use any agricultural magic machines from the Hayada Chamber of Commerce.
After this, these activities went on to resist the magic machines produced by the ten companies.
In everyone’s opinions, the Hayada Chamber of Commerce’s magic machines were this lacking, so the other companies of the ten companies must also make disappointing magic machines.
Moreover, before this, there were many voices that had already expressed their opposition to the products of these companies. Now they were using this chance to expand their influence.
Of the documents in front of King Eric, many of them came from the City Lord Manor of different cities. They requested the magic machine industry management department to strictly control the quality of magic machines produced by those ten companies.
Otherwise, there would be a bunch of cities in the kingdom that would reject importing the magic machines of those companies.
In these documents, there were people who were even more direct.
For example, Sowell City’s Count Sean announced in his document that Sowell City wouldn’t accept the management of the department, they would support the development of the magic machine companies of their city.
There were also other cities that made the same decision as Sowell City, making up a third of the Lampuri Kingdom.
If he added in the other cities that sent in documents, there wasn’t a single city in the kingdom that supported the magic machine industry management department.
Looking at the documents in front of him, King Eric felt his head ache again. He couldn’t help deeply knitting his brows and cursing as he was filled with a deep helplessness.
Although he was already the Lampuri Kingdom’s king in name, there were few things that he could control.
Not to mention making the nobles and these cities that protested change their attitude, he couldn’t even influence the magic machine industry management department, the business department, and the agricultural department, the departments that should have been under his control.
“If Seveni had become queen and she had the support of Xu Yi and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, would she be much better off than me?”
Hearing the familiar sound of Duke Stagg’s footsteps outside the door, King Eric gave a bitter laugh.