Chapter 780.2: Should I Lend You More?

Li Minghui froze. He thought for a long while but couldn’t even remember what their damn currency looked like, so he instinctively asked, “How much is that in Silver?”

The secretary froze as well and replied awkwardly, “Uh, direct trade between the New Alliance and the Empire is pretty limited. It usually goes through Port Gallon as the main gateway... The generally accepted local exchange rate right now is about 4 Gallons to 5 of their currency, with the main reference goods being cotton for textiles and beans for animal feed.”

After the embargo ended, the market price of a catty of beans in Tiger State and Panther State was roughly 5 Xilande currency, while in Port Gallon it averaged around 4 Gallons, mainly because the beans were used for oil pressing and feed.

Previously, because large quantities of Xilande currency held by Port Gallon had been loaned out and dumped, the currency had at one point become little more than waste paper in Rowell State, and even in Tiger State and Panther State. But the Empire was not Boulder Town. It had a huge population, and its people were used to hardship. The blood and sweat of nearly a hundred million slaves flowed down the Everflowing River into Tiger State and Panther State, forcibly propping the Xilande currency back up.

Not only that, the value of the Xilande currency had originally been determined almost entirely by two export commodities, slaves and livestock. But with Port Gallon’s existence suddenly making the Empire’s import-export business far more active, the currency had actually gone from something no outsider cared about at all to having a relatively stable exchange rate.

Using the figures his secretary had given him, Li Minghui counted on his fingers and roughly did the math.

The moment he finished, he was stunned.

800,000,000 Silver?!

If that exchange rate was reliable, that was equivalent to every person in the Xilande Empire lending the Southern Sea New 8 Silver!

Was the Empire really that rich?!

Li Minghui felt his hands trembling. They hadn’t shaken this badly even when he was being shelled by naval guns on Peace Island.

Siwen, standing beside the desk, was equally dumbfounded. His mouth hung open, unable to form a word, while his eyes stared at Li Minghui as if he wanted to snatch the pen off the desk and sign the loan agreement for him!

800,000,000 Silver... That averaged out to 800 Silver for every citizen of the Southern Sea New Alliance!

In fact, there was no need for the Council to give him any frantic hints. Li Minghui merely swallowed, then stared at his secretary and hurriedly asked, “How are they paying it? No, what I mean is, when are they sending the money over?”

The secretary replied quietly, “Duke Nihark didn’t say... But he’s already on North Island. Aren’t you going to meet him and discuss it face-to-face?”

Li Minghui immediately looked toward Siwen. The latter had become as docile as a well-fed seagull and voluntarily backed toward the office door. “I have nothing further. I wish you success in the negotiations, respected General Li Minghui. I hope you will lead us from one victory to another.”

The man had never once called him “General.” Especially not inside the presidential office.

Watching Siwen retreat through the doorway, Li Minghui felt smug, but still couldn’t help cursing under his breath. “Money-grubbing bastards!”

Then he coughed and looked back toward his secretary. “Invite Duke Nihark to dinner on my behalf. Make sure it’s of the highest standard. Don’t neglect our distinguished guest.”

...

At the front line in Ocean Edge Province, the fighting remained as intense as ever.

With the Beta 0.7 update raising the closed-beta player cap to 100,000, along with large numbers of new players pouring in, the New Alliance had recently seen quite a few new corps emerge that caught Chu Guang’s eye.

For example, there was the Burning Corps’ imitator, the Hellfire Corps.

As the New Alliance’s second airborne corps composed of players, its establishment had already reached 1,000 members. However, unlike the Burning Corps, they were not equipped with exoframes. They were closer to light paratroopers and favored the W-1A unpowered glider along with an airdrop motorcycle developed by Goblin Technology.

Although veterans of the Burning Corps constantly mocked them as a bunch of delinquent biker kids, the corps had actually performed quite well on the Northern Front. It was already showing signs of reaching a T3 corps, even surpassing the Silver Corps, which had firmly held the title of leader among the miscellaneous units since the Alpha phase.

At the very least, it was far more dependable than units like the Abstract Corps, which mainly existed to screw around.

Besides that, the Climber Corps, a new mountain corps had also distinguished itself!

The north of Ocean Edge Province was full of hills. Through dozens of deaths of every size and kind, the more than 1,000 players in this corps had gradually worked out their own distinctive combat doctrine. They had also cooperated with NPCs in Dawn City’s industrial district to develop a specialized set of mountain-warfare equipment. That included grappling-hook guns and short military boots fitted with climbing claws.

Even without exoskeletons, those simple and inexpensive pieces of equipment allowed them to burst out with combat effectiveness no weaker than soldiers wearing exoskeletons.

In addition, Make Me and Me Quiet, both of whom were enthusiastic about proselytizing, had established the Raptor Corps.

Garbage, who had originally belonged to the Burning Corps but had never actually operated with them, finally retired from the Burning Corps and officially joined the newly formed unit. Their combat performance was still a question mark for the time being, but its future looked promising.

With the players being far too competent, Chu Guang had lately begun to feel more and more like an NPC himself. His daily work consisted of standing at the respawn point, then watching the players at the front howl as they charged forward while artillery shells rained down as if they cost nothing.

The current situation on the Northern Front was simply a meat grinder. There was room for tactical maneuvering, but on a large scale, tactical wise, there was almost none.

That applied equally to the 10 divisions reinforced by the Army, the Academy’s Alpha Mobile Task Force, and the mercenaries and rookies the Enterprise kept sending to the frontlines.

The encouraging part was that under the coalition’s sustained siege, the Torch Church’s exhaustion was becoming increasingly obvious.

Perhaps it would not be much longer before the protracted war finally ended.

Ocean Edge Province was not even one and a half times the size of Mammoth State. The fact that the war had dragged on so long really was proof of just how troublesome the Torch Church could be.

On the first weekend of November, Chu Guang had originally planned to give himself half a day off and browse Earth’s internet for inspiration, to see how other “Boss-level NPCs” harvested their users.

But the New Alliance’s foreign minister, Cheng Yan, suddenly video called him.

“Administrator, although you may already have noticed, I still need to remind you that the Xilande Empire seems to be making little moves around us again.”

Chu Guang raised an eyebrow and asked curiously, “Oh? What kind of moves?”

Choosing his words carefully, Cheng Yan continued, “They gave the Southern Sea New Alliance an interest-free loan of 10,000,000,000 Xilande currency, with only a simple restriction on how the funds may be used: the money has to be spent importing goods from ports within the Xilande Empire. On top of that, they also negotiated a steel and cement export order worth a billion Xilande currency at 50% below market price.”

Chu Guang froze for quite a while without speaking. It wasn’t that he had been frightened by the Empire’s generosity. He simply couldn’t understand what kind of bizarre maneuver this was.

Usually, the only people capable of confusing him so badly were the players. It was relatively rare for a proper “NPC” to leave him completely unable to understand what the hell was going on.

The last time had been when the Gray Wolf Army suddenly attacked French Fry Harbor. Chu Guang had stared at the map for ages and still couldn’t figure out what the Xilande Empire had gained apart from getting beaten up.

This time was much the same. He genuinely couldn’t understand what new trick Wutuo Xilande thought he was playing.

Objectively speaking, there was nothing inherently wrong with debt as an economic lubricant. Lending out one’s currency could stimulate exports of domestic products, and exports were one of the three main engines of an economy. Under certain circumstances, lending money to outsiders could even be more useful than lending it domestically. Especially when domestic money supply was lower than actual market demand. In other words, when the economy was suffering from deflation, it was fairly standard for a smaller economy to proactively import a limited amount of inflation, particularly an economy with a substantial foundation like the Southern Sea New Alliance.

The problem was that the Poro Province itself still operated on a shit economy.

By the standards of Stellaris, quite a few of its survivors would literally fall into the livestock category.

Clearly, it wasn’t even a question of deflation or inflation. There simply was no market there in the classical sense. Why insist on solving the problem through market mechanisms?

If Chu Guang absolutely had to consider things from the perspective of the royal family, then perhaps adding a clause saying that repayment had to be made in equivalent Dinars or Silver would make the whole thing look less ridiculous.

Or perhaps the Xilande Empire could require the Southern Sea New Alliance to accept Xilande currency whenever it sold goods to the Empire.

Even that would make more sense.

Setting aside the benefits themselves, the entire operation was filled with things that were difficult to understand. When the New Alliance had previously borrowed money from Boulder Town, Boulder Town had been willing to lend partly because they held the big guns, and partly because the two sides had substantial mutual investments.

They had basically stacked every possible anti-default buff.

Even from the perspective of its own interests, the New Alliance was extremely unlikely to simply default, just as the Southern Sea New Alliance could not realistically default on what it owed the New Alliance.

In fact, Boulder Town had used a similar model of economic control over the various agricultural settlements of the Brocade River Province!

Liszt himself had invested in Camu tree plantations in Brocade River Province very early on.

The problem was simply that the nobles of the Inner City had been far too greedy and arrogant. They had piled the chips on the gambling table too high and ultimately played themselves into ruin.

As for the Empire... Perhaps it did genuinely have far more blood to bleed than Boulder Town. But other than that, it possessed none of the necessary conditions.

At least, that was how it looked to an outsider like him.

Chu Guang thought for a long time but still couldn’t figure out what kind of scheme the Empire was trying to pull. Logically speaking, even charity wasn’t done like that!

It looked more like someone was feeding Wutuo Xilande terrible advice.

Still, if someone wanted to hand out free money, then ultimately that was a good thing for the New Alliance’s little minion. After all, the Southern Sea New Alliance wasn’t merely suffering from inflation anymore. Its domestic currency had outright collapsed.

Even government employees were being paid in Silver from the New Alliance!

If someone was willing to come to the Southern Sea New Alliance and buy air worth even less than beer foam, the locals would have to be idiots to refuse.

Chu Guang couldn’t help sighing to himself. Besides the Academy, there was now one more entity on the wasteland whose thinking he simply couldn’t decipher.

The Mutant Slime Mold Research Committee and Port Gallon had given the Xilande Empire a sum of money. What Chu Guang had never expected was that the emperor there would use it like this.

“Why don’t you ask Duke Garawa whether we can borrow some too?” Chu Guang asked casually.

Cheng Yan froze. “This... doesn’t seem like a very good idea.”

He wasn’t in charge of economics, but he instinctively felt that having too much debt wasn’t a good thing. And besides, Xilande currency didn’t seem particularly useful.

Chu Guang, however, was thinking differently. He merely offered an encouraging smile. “What’s wrong with asking? Just go and ask... Of course, if they genuinely don’t want to lend us any, then forget it. There’s no need to force them.”

Seeing that Chu Guang wasn’t joking, Cheng Yan could only respond with a helpless laugh. “All right.”

After ending the call, Chu Guang had originally intended to put the matter aside. But in the end, his fingers got itchy. He logged into his administrator account and posted an announcement on the forum, leaking news of this massive sum of money to the lifestyle players active in the South Sea.

Even a mosquito was meat, no matter how small its body was. Besides, the Southern Sea New Alliance itself might not even be able to consume the whole chunk of meat themselves. It was better to let the players operating there help the locals digest some of it.

For example, they could help convert the Xilande currency they couldn’t spend into Silver at a 50% discount! Xilande currency might be useless almost everywhere else, but for Lifestyle Profession players active around Port Gallon, it was still quite useful...

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