Tager brought the private ship owner before
This private ship owner was named Captain Fuderess, whose family had been seafarers for three generations. Tager explained that Captain Fuderess had previously, during the transport fleet's voyage, united with other private ship owners to subdue the escort personnel that the Invincible Fleet had placed aboard their merchant ships. They had foiled a plot by some die-hard members loyal to the Commercial Alliance, who had intended to set fire to the transport fleet after the Invincible Fleet raised the white flag of surrender. For this, Captain Fuderess had been commended by Admiral Sembawood.
Captain Fuderess was deeply honored to receive an audience with Lorist, the renowned Grand Duke of Northland and newly promoted Sword Saint. To show his respect, he presented Lorist with his family's most precious treasure—a one-foot-long red coral as vivid as blood. According to legend, his father had obtained this red coral during a maritime emergency, and it was thanks to the coral that he had been able to escape safely. In the eyes of many seafarers, red coral represented good fortune.
Captain Fuderess answered every one of Lorist's questions without hesitation. He told Lorist that he was a citizen of the Qigeda Kingdom and owned a ship called the Mermaid's Song. This was the first large ocean-going merchant vessel his family had acquired through three generations of seafarers' efforts. Because of the ship's name, he had developed a relationship with the Mermaid Trading Company—the largest trading company in the Qigeda Kingdom—and frequently transported goods for them.
The Mermaid Trading Company in the Qigeda Kingdom was backed by the Fosta family, and its head was none other than Duchess Windsor Bilina. The company had originally dealt in high-end clothing and luxury goods, but over the past two decades, as Grand Duke Fosta's power had grown, it had expanded into the largest trading company in the Qigeda Kingdom, covering nearly every aspect of daily life.
Captain Fuderess heaped praise upon Duchess Windsor Bilina. He told Lorist that in the Qigeda Kingdom, Duchess Windsor was practically an angel in everyone's heart. She was noble and beautiful, kind and generous, donating large sums of money to the poor every year. She would personally distribute food and clothing to the elderly and children in the slum districts, and had also established a Poor Relief Society to help the destitute find employment and receive free medical treatment. In the royal capital of Saint Maned City, Duchess Windsor's reputation even surpassed that of Her Majesty the Queen.
Because of his relationship with the Mermaid Trading Company, Captain Fuderess had accepted Grand Duke Fosta's commission to deliver the Grand Duke's personal letter and two messengers to the royal capital of Saint Maned City. After completing the delivery, Captain Fuderess discovered that with the full surrender of Grand Duke Fosta and the Firebird Legion, the royal capital and the entire Qigeda Kingdom were in a state of turbulent unrest. Many noble factions hostile to the Fosta family had emerged from the woodwork, baring their fangs at the Fosta family's territories, their subordinate properties, and their vassal lords, eager to kick a man while he was down.
At this critical moment, Duchess Windsor was simultaneously consolidating the family's forces for self-preservation while secretly gathering funds and transferring them onto Captain Fuderess's ship. If they could ransom Grand Duke Fosta and the Firebird Legion as quickly as possible, the storm would pass and the Fosta family would remain as steady as ever. They might even use a few of the most aggressive noble houses to make an example of.
Lorist curiously asked Captain Fuderess how he had disposed of the shipload of goods he had purchased from Silovas Island. Lorist was very interested in learning whether the daily necessities and goods produced in his family's territories had good sales prospects in the southern Galentea Continent.
Captain Fuderess replied that the Mermaid Trading Company had purchased his entire cargo, and Duchess Windsor had used the unloading window to secretly transfer her gathered funds onto his ship. That was why he had been able to return so quickly. This time he had returned with ample funds, and the Mermaid Trading Company had also allowed him to take out an interest-free loan to purchase some high-end goods produced by the Norton family, such as various glass products and snowflake paper. Captain Fuderess was confident these goods would earn him a fortune—perhaps in two or three years, the Fuderess family would be able to acquire a second large ocean-going vessel.
Regarding the sales of Norton family goods in the south of the continent, which Lorist was most concerned about, Captain Fuderess slapped his chest and declared there was absolutely no problem. As an old seafarer and smuggler who had sailed the seas for over thirty years, Captain Fuderess gave Lorist quite the education.
The countries in the central and southern regions of the continent also shipped their specialties to the southern markets—glass from the Trenber Kingdom, fruit wine from the Biedesen Duchy, ceramics from the Yabosun Kingdom, gold and silver wares from the Chikodo Duchy, and so on...
But the rise of the Commercial Alliance had transformed Morant City into the premier commercial metropolis of the Galentea Continent. Its unique geographical advantages and commercial strengths had allowed the Alliance's goods to gradually surpass the traditional specialties of those central and southern countries. Products like the fruit wine of the Biedesen Duchy, the ceramics of the Yabosun Kingdom, and the gold and silver wares of the Chikodo Duchy could no longer compete with those produced by the Commercial Alliance's trading companies. The markets of the two great powers in the south of the continent had been progressively monopolized by the Commercial Alliance through price advantages.
After the Glass War, the united blockade of the Commercial Alliance's trade routes by the central and southern countries was not about seeking justice for the nations that had been absorbed by the Alliance. On the contrary, it was a contest over profits—these countries were fighting to seize the markets the Commercial Alliance had monopolized. From a commercial standpoint, the nobles of those central and southern countries truly had no good strategy to compete with the Alliance for market share, so they could only resort to such underhanded means to achieve their goals.
The antagonism between the central and southern countries and the Commercial Alliance had led to rampant smuggling between the various nations. The Alliance had the Invincible Fleet, so most goods could still be transported by sea to the Roman Empire and the Havistan Khanate for trade. However, the land blockade had cut the Alliance off from most of its sources of raw materials.
Captain Fuderess said that for the past decade, the most profitable smuggling operation had been transporting raw materials from the central and southern countries by sea to Hidden Gold Bay, exchanging them in Morant City for finished goods, and then smuggling those products to other countries. But the central and southern countries' blockade of the Alliance's trade routes had made this raw material smuggling merely a drop in the bucket. Thus, the eventual war between the Central-Southern Allied Kingdoms and the Commercial Alliance had been inevitable.
Years of warfare had damaged the production capacity of both the Commercial Alliance and the central and southern countries. Meanwhile, the Alliance's implementation of the lordship system had compelled each trading company to relocate its production workshops to their respective company territories, resulting in a decline in both the quality and efficiency of their goods. Captain Fuderess noted that in recent years, the goods produced by the Commercial Alliance had become increasingly crude and shoddy.
Under these circumstances, the exquisite daily necessities and goods produced in the Norton family's territories had effectively filled the gap in the southern continental market. Captain Fuderess, drawing on his decades of smuggling expertise, guaranteed that the goods purchased by the private ship owners would definitely sell well across the southern countries. These people would all earn handsome profits from the Norton family's goods, Captain Fuderess said with a hint of reluctance. After all, he only owned a single ship and couldn't monopolize the entire trade route—there were simply too many private ship owners competing for a piece of the pie.
At that moment, Lorist suddenly understood why the Peterson Trading Company and the Chicked Trading Company of the Commercial Alliance had always suppressed the goods produced in his family's territories. They were trading companies with their own production workshops. If they purchased large quantities of the Norton family's goods, those products would inevitably create market pressure against their own workshops' output, squeezing their monopolized market share. That was why they had previously only purchased small quantities to sell as premium items. On one hand, this protected the market for their own products; on the other, they exploited their monopoly on trade routes and asymmetric market information, purchasing from the Norton family at low prices to generate greater profits for their companies.
Now these private ship owners didn't care one bit about encroaching on the market share controlled by those trading companies. All they knew was that the goods purchased from the Norton family would bring them heaps of gold coins. They had no private production workshops, so they had no reason to worry about whether flooding the market with the Norton family's goods would affect the Commercial Alliance's products. This was excellent—Lorist hadn't expected that a casual move on his part would deliver the most lethal blow to the Alliance's commercial interests. After all, at the time, he had simply been looking for an alternative outlet for the accumulated products of his family's territories stockpiled on Silovas Island.
In another half year, once the private ship owners had spread the influence of these Norton family goods across the entire southern continent, the Commercial Alliance might truly resort to desperate measures. Lorist thought smugly. He generously rewarded Captain Fuderess, presenting him with a family-made spyglass. After learning how to use it, Captain Fuderess was overjoyed, vowing that he would pass down the spyglass as a family heirloom from generation to generation.
"Perhaps you could start with these private ship owners and arrange for our spy intelligence network to be planted among them, rather than specially dispatching agents to the southern continent to gather intelligence. For instance, this Captain Fuderess would be an excellent candidate. We don't need to turn him into one of our family's people—just maintain a good relationship with him, extract the latest news about the southern countries from him, and then cross-reference it with information from other private ship owners to verify its authenticity," Lorist advised Tager.
"I understand, Your Highness. I'll make the arrangements," Tager nodded. Lorist was right—these private ship owners were well-informed and well-connected. At the slightest disturbance in the southern countries, they would be the first to know. Getting the latest intelligence from their mouths was far more convenient than sending agents to the southern continent to gather information. Most importantly, it saved money, effort, and time. Over a few drinks in a tavern, they might even be able to find out what color undergarments the king's mistress was wearing.
The girl with the big eyes that he had once fancied had now become a truly elegant and independent noble lady. This filled him with a surge of emotion. That delicate, pitiful girl had been helpless after the upheaval in her family, and in her desperation had actually thrown herself into a lake to drown. After he had rescued her, she had stubbornly latched onto him, demanding that he come up with solutions for her. Back then, aside from acting shameless and crying, she truly couldn't think of anything else to do.
Nearly twenty years had passed in the blink of an eye, and that once-innocent beautiful girl had changed too. Perhaps he should have realized from their parting back then that he had understood far too little about her—or perhaps he had simply thought her too innocent. Judging from how she had handled the crisis facing the Fosta family this time, she was hardly lacking in cunning. Perhaps in the twenty years since marrying Grand Duke Fosta, she had finally been tempered by the scheming and intrigue of noble circles.
Lorist did not regret refusing to meet with her again. The past was the past, and the saying "it's better to remember than to meet again" perfectly captured his feelings at that moment. Sending Fatty Shi to deal with her was the best choice. Fatty Shi wouldn't be bothered by any sentimentality from the old days. The initiative now lay with the Norton family, and he would sharpen whatever blade needed sharpening, charging whatever price he saw fit.
But Lorist's lighthearted mood was soon shattered by the latest news from the imperial capital: "What did you say? Her Majesty the Queen died suddenly of illness?"
"Yes, Your Highness." Tager held the freshly arrived message from the messenger hawk. "On the thirty-second of August, the Duke of Fisablen arrived at the imperial capital and entered the royal palace for an audience with His Majesty the King. He did not leave the palace that night. The following afternoon, news emerged from the palace that Her Majesty the Queen had died suddenly of illness..."
Two lives lost in one fell swoop. How could they bring themselves to do it? It had been over a month since the Queen's pregnancy was discovered, and in another month or so she would have given birth. It was almost certain that the child in her womb had already developed into a fully formed infant. Although Lorist was a pure bystander in this matter, he still felt a pang of sadness. The
In mid-July, the Second Prince had led the noble alliance army of the Andinak Kingdom on their journey home. The Fisablen family's military forces had parted ways with the Second Prince in Campona Province. The Duke of Fisablen had taken the route through Bordoorg Province, intending to first visit Andewolve Province—the other Fisablen family territory that had been allocated to them. Nearly forty branch members of the Fisablen family were to be enfeoffed as landed nobles in that province. This was the compensation that the Fisablen family had received from the Second Prince in exchange for their military assistance.
Ever since the scandal of the Queen's pregnancy had come to light, the Second Prince had remained completely silent. Apart from strictly forbidding discussion of the matter in the imperial capital, he had placed the Queen's lover—the rumored bastard son of his own, Knight Vexas—under house arrest. Lorist had originally thought the Second Prince intended to wait until the child was born before taking action, but now he realized he had been waiting for the Duke of Fisablen's arrival.
It was now clear that the Second Prince and the Duke of Fisablen had reached some secret agreement before carrying out the deed. As a bystander merely watching from the sidelines, Lorist couldn't say much about it, nor could he condemn the Second Prince's ruthlessness. But the matter would certainly be swept under the rug, gradually forgotten as time passed. Perhaps it would leave only a brief line in the kingdom's history: "On a certain day of a certain month in a certain year, Her Majesty the Queen fell suddenly ill and, despite treatment, passed away."
"Mm, what about that Knight Vexas? Was he punished?" Lorist asked.
"No." Tager turned the silk message over in his hands, examining it carefully twice before answering. "It seems he's still in the royal palace, still under house arrest. There's no news of him being punished."
...