Anthony has been so anxious lately that he has lost a lot of hair and wants to just give up and die. Being an undead creature is much more comfortable than being this wretched pope.
Anthony has thousands of years of political experience, a large number of followers and subordinates, and countless people who believe in him, but he cannot solve the current problem-famine. There is a famine in the main plane.
"Actually, there is a famine in the main plane all the time, every year, a small one every year, a big one every five years, and plagues happen from time to time." Anthony said with a bitter face: "Some landowners and nobles collect taxes very harshly. There will also be small-scale riots.”
These things actually happened relatively rarely under Anthony's rule, but they were very common in the western parishes, so the population of the western parishes never increased.
There will be famines under Anthony's rule, but he will allocate, transfer, redeem, reduce taxes, borrow, installment, and even cheat to transfer the food of the landlords and nobles to the victims or bankrupt farmers in some methods that are not objectionable to everyone. in hand.
If you can't afford it next year, you can pay it back in installments. You really can't afford it. You can't afford it, even if you cut taxes a little bit. Policies are tilted. As long as people are alive, there is always a way to survive.
However, all movements are based on one foundation, and that is food.
"Now even the landlords and nobles have no food left in their homes. Even if I ransack their homes, I won't be able to get much food. Besides..." Anthony said with a wry smile.
And there is a more troublesome thing that restricts him, preventing him from using some rough methods, such as snatching...
The Eastern Dioceses became independent, they were now called the Holy Church, and he was vicar general.
In order to win over the princes, nobles and landowners to follow him, Anthony secretly made a lot of compromises and concessions. Otherwise, even with the hidden lines he had laid out for thousands of years, those people would not have been able to risk following him.
In essence, what Anthony did was tantamount to rebellion. If he failed, he would probably be beheaded. Without huge benefits, who would follow him?
However, most of what he transferred was the benefit of the theocracy and was just a generosity. However, he could not use too rough methods, otherwise the entire eastern diocese would be in chaos.
"As long as I dare to raid one house, the others will definitely rebel, and everyone will think: Do you, Anthony, want to settle the account and refuse to admit it?"
"Not only can't my house be searched, but when I see someone hoarding things, I have to close my eyes and pretend I don't see them. Do you think I'm angry or not?"
Nigris nodded: "It's indeed quite irritating, especially when you said so much and the real owner didn't listen, it's even more irritating." After saying that, he pointed and pulled them into the consciousness space, and then distracted himself from farming. Ange.
Anthony sighed: "I'm used to it. It's the same with you, the God of Knowledge. Lord Ange respects your opinion."
The flattery was just right, and Nigris' little tail was raised. But after it was done, it started to scratch its head: "But you want too much, one hundred thousand tons, two hundred million catties, save some food, how much is enough?" Millions of people ate it.”
"Yes, but the food gap is so big. This year there was first a drought, then a hurricane, and then an insect plague. All the grain fields in the Principality of Montenegro were destroyed, and all their victims came to our east. The harvests in previous years were good. There are more people giving birth to children, and the population in our east has been increasing year after year, and the burden is getting bigger and bigger." Anthony said distressedly.
In an era of inconvenient transportation and low productivity, population is sometimes not a wealth but a burden.
For example, there is a disaster in a place with more than 5,000 victims. It is easy to transport food to the disaster relief area. Even if there is no road, food for 5,000 people can be transported through the wilderness.
But if 50,000 people are affected by a disaster in this place, the difficulty of transporting food for disaster relief will not be ten times higher, but may be fifty or a hundred times more difficult.
Because the wild land cannot bear the transportation of so many materials, roads need to be built, and the people transporting materials need to eat and drink, and more than half of them will be consumed on the road. It is good to have only one or two of the materials transported in.
Therefore, the management difficulty of a country with a population of one million and that of a country with a population of tens of millions is not ten times, but dozens or hundreds of times.
In the era of low productivity, too much population was often the beginning of the division of the empire. It was not until we entered industrial society that the advantages of population could be transformed into productivity through education.
Anthony is now experiencing the pain of too many people. For example, when he asks Ange for help now, he asks for 100,000 tons. When he saved the Principality of Montenegro, he only asked for 1,000 tons.
But this is a rigid need. In other words, in his calculations, one hundred thousand tons is just enough to get through this disaster year. If it works well, it may be able to suppress the price of food, allowing those aristocratic landowners and hoarding profiteers to Spit out some of it.
But he also thought it was impossible. He could probably calculate how many things Ange had in his hands, because Anthony belonged to the innermost circle, and Ange had nothing to hide from him.
The farm in the Palace of Rest, the two underground cities in the Abyss of Rest, plus two World Tree protective forest farms, plus the Oasis of Hope and Dragonfall Lake.
Among them, the grain output of Zhuilong Lake should be the highest, but at the same time, it also supports the most people. It is hard to say how much food can be spared.
Even if these places are completely searched, it is impossible to scrape out 100,000 tons of grain, and the people in these places also need to eat.
However, we can’t just watch so many people die without dying. If the disaster is not controlled, at least millions of people will die in the eastern diocese. Coupled with the plague, tens of millions of people may die in the next few years. If he dies within the month, it will definitely cause unrest.
Anthony has actually seen this kind of thing many times over the past thousand years. In the era of insufficient productivity, the population was adjusted in this way.
What was different from the past was that this time, Anthony found that he seemed to be able to struggle. After all, he was protected by the immortal god.
One hundred thousand tons is not possible, fifty thousand tons is fine, thirty thousand tons is not impossible, even if it is only ten thousand tons, some people can be saved, right?
"Just tell him directly, don't explain anything else, Ange is too lazy to listen, just tell him what he will use in exchange for 100,000 tons of grain, and see how much he spends." Nigris gave Anthony advice.
Anthony felt that this suggestion was reliable, and he did not forget to raise his thumb to Negris, then turned to Ange and said: "Sir, please support me with 100,000 tons of food. I am willing to exchange 100,000 people for it."
Nigris, who had just finished attacking Anthony, exploded when he heard this: "Anthony, you are shameless. Not only do you want food, but you also want to dump the victims as a burden on us? You have no shame in eating both."
Anthony said without changing his expression: "Lord Naig, you have misunderstood. How can the population be a burden? There are craftsmen, farmers, young men, women, etc. among these 100,000 people, which just makes up for the lack of population under my command. , if we rely on natural procreation, we will not be able to fill the Parthian Abyss in another five hundred years."
"Why do we fill up the Abyss of Rest?" Nigris asked in confusion.
"Some people have faith. If the Temple of the Immortal has tens of millions of believers, your Excellency can become a being like His Majesty, and maybe he can unblock you." Anthony said.
When he said the previous part, Nigris was still disapproving and curled his lips disdainfully, causing Anthony to change the last sentence temporarily.
"Unseal? My seal?" Nigris asked sadly.
If Anthony didn't say anything, it almost forgot that it was still sealed. It was projected onto the dragon embryo all day long. In addition to feeling no pain, it didn't seem to affect its life, and its relationship with Nellie was getting better and better.
The only problem is that Nellie is getting bigger and bigger, and it is easy to break her bones when cuddling. Although it doesn't hurt, it is still very troublesome.
"Yes, don't you yearn for freedom?" Anthony asked.
Nigris took a deep breath and roared on Anthony's face: "I long for you Bada, I'm already dead of old age! Do you want me to die when you lift the seal? You don't have any life left, so you want to be free!" If you want me to die, you should die early, and I will ask my grandnephew to strangle you to death!"
"No, no, no, Lord Naige, what I mean is, don't you want to lift the seal of the Book of Brass? It's not your seal, it's the seal of the book. This is a book that conferred the title of god. Don't you want to take it? Are you going to hit people? He's very powerful."
Anthony covered his face to block Nigris's spittle. Although they were in Ange's consciousness space and all the images were fictitious, they would still be disgusting.
I usually see ingredients such as ambergris in some potions, but Anthony won't eat them. Isn't ambergris just the saliva of a dragon? It's so dirty.
"The seal of the book?" Nigris was stunned.
"Yes, the seal of the book, the seal of the Book of Brass."
"What can be done after the lockdown is lifted?" Nigris asked.
"Smashing people, I don't know anything else, but if it can seal you, it should also be able to seal gods weaker than you." Anthony said.
Nigris couldn't help frowning and thinking: "Is there any god weaker than me?"
But soon, Nigris came back to his senses: "Zobada, I almost fell into the trap of your kobold. Now we are talking about you exchanging people for food. You got rid of the baggage and exchanged it for food. Don’t do it, Ange’s food doesn’t grow in water!”
Anthony spread his hands: "Then I can only buy it with money, two hundred thousand magic crystals, how about it?"
"Pfft, it's not as good as a population of 100,000. Are you bargaining too hard?" Nigris said.
"Sir, this is just food after all. How much do you want to sell it for?" Anthony was also speechless.
That's right. Although food is very important, the price is not high. When Ice City bought food from the main plane, it only cost one magic crystal per ton. Anthony probably wanted to buy food from Falling Dragon Lake, not from another plane. , being able to produce two magic crystals is already very high, at least five times higher than the normal price of food.
Things that don't involve gods and magic, things that can be mass-produced, and things that ordinary people need, the unit price must not be expensive.
But Nigris clearly looked down upon this small business and felt it was worse than a population of 100,000.
"How about 100,000 people plus 200,000 magic crystals? If you are not satisfied with this price, then you will kill me." Anthony muttered.
"Bah!" Faced with Anthony's behavior of taking advantage and being obedient, Nigris could only protest: "I don't care, you can ask Ange, I don't know if he can provide 100,000 tons of grain."
Anthony turned to Ange and said, "Sir, I hope to use 100,000 people and 200,000 magic crystals to purchase 100,000 tons of food. Is that okay?"
Ange tilted his head and flew up directly. A ring of scales appeared on his body. He pointed at a piece of waterless magic rice in the waterway and said, "Seven thousand tons."
He flew to another area, pointed at this area, and said: "Fifteen thousand tons."
He kept pointing all the way, adding more as he went, and soon it reached 75,000 tons.
Anthony was already stunned. How long has it been since Ange came to this plane? Why do you grow so much food? And it’s still floating on the water? Isn't this amazing?
The figure of 75,000 tons has far exceeded his expectations. When Ange flew to an immature rice field, Anthony quickly said: "That's almost enough. A little less is fine, a little less is fine." .”
Ange ignored him and landed directly on a piece of floating rubber board. He stepped hard and made his footprints. The rice field grew rapidly, blossomed, bore fruit, and matured.
As he did, after a few times, Ange pointed at the last piece of floating rubber board and said: "One hundred thousand tons."
Anthony's anxiety turned into pain and happiness. The happiness was that the most troublesome problem was solved, but the pain was, how to move back so much food?
A few days later, a team of Paladins teleported to the Danhai plane and presented a document to the person in charge of Guangming Island, the slick priest.
"Transferred away? You're so good, why do you want to transfer us away?" The priest couldn't believe it.
Although he was transferred to an alien plane, with a lack of entertainment in the harsh mountains and rivers, he was also far away from the center and power struggles, with no one to care about him, and his life was very comfortable. Why was he transferred away inexplicably?
"We don't know either, Priest, execute the order. This is an order personally issued by the Holy Church on behalf of Pope Anthony." The Paladin said with a straight face.
The priest quickly held the paladin's hand, and a little bit of his "heart" slipped into the paladin's sleeve.
The Paladin's expression softened a little, and he whispered: "A big shot has taken a liking to this plane. There's nothing promising about it. Leave quickly. The big shot revealed that he will arrange a good job for you when you return."
Big shot? ! The priest immediately thought of the big man rocking the sea in the airship with the young adventurer sitting four months ago. Could it be him?
In a plane where the Light Church is not dominant, giving up means giving up. The hundreds of people on the Guangming Sandbank quickly evacuated, leaving only the adventurers.
Immediately afterwards, two people wearing cloaks came here through the teleportation array. They did not take a boat, but ran directly to the sea. A horse appeared from under them, dragging a dead body all the way from the water to the distance. .
"Polk? Why are you here?" It was the two black warriors under Anthony.
"Your Majesty asked us to give you a gift. The plane certificate, in the name of the Holy Church, recognizes that this plane belongs to Lord Ange. As long as you don't want to be an enemy of the Holy Church, don't deny its ownership. But in order to avoid suspicion, Your Majesty registered it under the name of the mercenary king Caigu Gu."
Polk knelt down and held the object in his hands above his head.
7017k
