Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Chapter 1299 – Green Is A Sin
Facing Casillas’s threats, Jack and the others could only convince Henry to agree to help the Spain army settle their grain problem.
Although Henry agreed in the end, his face was dark.
At the same time, to disturb the Egypt army’s logistical support, they came to an agreement for the Gaule and Caesar squadrons to work with the Spanish Invincible Squadron to strengthen their control of the Mediterranean Ocean.
The Egypt army’s support could be split into three types.
First, was the grain stored in Great Xia Jidian City. Jidian City’s grain was mostly from Morocco Province. After such a long period of consumption, not much remained.
Secondly, the grain pillaged from Spain.
For this, the entire south side of Spain fell into harm’s way. To get grain, the Egypt army stopped at nothing and swept every inch of land.
However, with the Spanish army being prepared, such a grain source was not stable.
Thirdly, there was the grain transported by the Atlantic Squadron from Tunisia Port.
When Azure Badge and Great Xia signed the contract, there was one particularly important term – Great Xia had to provide grain for them until the Egypt army gained a stable footing in the European battlefield.
This grain was amassed by the Egypt Dynasty, so Ouyang Shuo had no reason to object to this term.
To maintain the agreement, after leading the 1st division to the Gulf of Aden and taking over the name of the Atlantic Squadron, Atlantic Squadron Fleet Admiral Zhou Yu immediately started to plan the matter.
The Alliance Army needed the three squadrons to work together to break their enemy’s most important grain source and make the Egypt army fall by itself.
That was a good plan, as this grabbed onto the most fatal weakness of the Egypt army.
After Casillas made his problems heard, Caesar also had things to say, “Egypt submitting to Great Xia allows them to return to the Mediterranean. For the Ottoman Dynasty in the future, it will be difficult for me to send any more troops.
Compared to Casillas, Caesar was a lot more direct.
Italy was the Caesar Dynasty’s core region, and it was also the closest to Great Xia. They were only separated by the Tunisia straits.
As such, Caesar was obviously nervous.
“I think you should not be so afraid of Great Xia.” The one who spoke was Jack, “Great Xia only has less than a million troops in Africa, and they also need to defend East and North Africa.
“The Egypt Dynasty has also just submitted, so there a plenty of internal problems that Great Xia needs to address. How can they provoke the Caesar Dynasty now?”
Caesar did not agree and argued, “You are not the one facing the problem. Apart from Africa, Great Xia has four to five million troops in China, what is difficult about teleporting some of them over?”
Out of all the people present, probably only Caesar dared to speak to Jack like that.
“Then do as you deem fit!”
Jack was furious. He tried to mediate the European battlefield out of kindness, yet he was scolded for it.
When the others saw this situation, they did not interfere.
Due to this small incident, the meeting ended with such an awkward atmosphere.
…
4th month, 28th day, South America.
Jack fulfilled his promise, and on this day, half of the Columbia army, numbering at 200 thousand troops, along with the 400 thousand Brasilia Dynasty troops, started to wage war against the Indian Empire.
The Indian Empire had once again entered a fight on two fronts.
When Casillas saw that, he moved back 50 thousand troops from Argentina, slightly stabilizing the Spain situation and blocking the Egypt army on the south.
The Spain situation was slowly stabilizing.
Facing the pincer attack, Juarez was determined to take down the Argentina region first this time before focusing on the Brasilia Dynasty. He wanted to do so in case they ended up in a prolonged fight on two fronts.
While arranging troops to defend the east, the Indian Empire strengthened their attacks on the south.
The entire South America was dragged into the flames of war.
Only Ecuador Prefecture under Great Xia was still able to have some rare peace; it was like the only clean land there.
This time, Juarez was going all out. He had also bought 20 million more gold worth of firearms from Great Xia. He said that they wanted the most advanced flintlock guns and cannons.
The two deals pretty much used up a year of the Indian Empire’s financial savings.
Facing such a huge deal, Ouyang Shuo naturally accepted it.
The 10 prioritized city slowly rose up. One factory after another was being built up, and large amounts of coal and iron ore were sent through the ocean route to these cities, becoming tons of steel and then many guns and cannons.
Along with the advanced ocean transportation system, these weapons were sent to the rest of the world.
Using the three firearm deals, the industrialization of these cities welcomed a huge leap.
To start railroad transport as early as possible and increase the efficiency of coal and resource transportation, the Imperial Court’s railroad network was in overdrive.
The three deals, along with the sale of eliminated firearms, totaled at 76 million gold. Apart from the money used to build factories, the rest was invested into railroad construction.
In other words, Great Xia was using the money of other dynasties to build up its industrial facilities.
Along with the huge sum of money given by the Imperial Court, the railroad construction speed was by the day, and the railroad expanded daily.
A new construction miracle was happening on Great Xia land.
The infrastructure spree in history was about to occur in the game world.
…
The 5th month soon arrived.
Mediterranean Ocean.
Just as the flames of war rose up in South America, the Spain Invincible Squadron, Gaule Squadron, and Caesar Squadron launched a combined patrol to disturb the Atlantic Squadron’s resource line.
All of a sudden, the usually prosperous Mediterranean trade line became really nervous and jittery.
Large amounts of merchant ships were nervously parked near the harbor; they did not dare to travel on the ocean. News had it that yesterday, a merchant group was locked up because they ‘colluded with the enemy.’
The ocean trade of the European and American dynasties were affected.
Only a small number of merchants dared to take the risk to continue crossing this naval route. Seeing the flames of war, these people wanted to take the chance to profit.
Under such a situation, if they succeeded, they would be able to earn a lot.
Resources during wartime were always more expensive than during normal days.
Of course, there were also some merchants who dared to continue doing business normally. These were the merchant groups related to the three squadrons; they had obtained the protection of the three squadrons. Naturally, they had nothing to fear.
All of a sudden, there were many merchant groups who pledged their loyalty to these three squadrons.
To the three squadrons, this was a surprise. This was the first time they felt the joy of controlling the trade route, and they became more unrestrained when they did things.
As things developed, no matter how bold the merchants were, they did not dare to take the risk. Anyone who tried to pass the Mediterranean Ocean would have to give payment to the three squadrons.
Merchants and squadrons colluded together to monopolize the Mediterranean trade route.
Through this process, they seemed to forget that the Great Xia Atlantic Squadron was seemingly becoming more and more invisible, pretty much becoming transparent.
…
Another five country leader meeting.
The topic of discussion this time was the merchant ship incident.
The matter was actually really simple. The Caesar Dynasty was being greedy, using the reason of ‘checking the ships’ to lock down and swallow up merchant ships.
As the sentence said, “If the army robs, even gods cannot stop it.”
“Caesar, you have to give us an explanation!” The one who spoke was William. With Mediterranean naval route being blocked, the most affected party was the House of Tudor, which was why he was so fearless.
Caesar did not fear anything and calmly said, “What is there to explain? The Great Xia resources are going to the frontlines through merchant ships, so who can ensure that we are able to check the right ones every time? Messing up once is really normal.”
In truth, the actions of the Caesar Squadron were instigated by Caesar himself. This greedy person just wanted to use this chance to get rich.
Anyways, the Caesar Dynasty was located at the east of the Mediterranean. Even if the trade route was affected, it would not have much of an impact on the Caesar Dynasty. On the contrary, the merchant ships going toward the House of Tudor or the Ottoman Dynasty could only stop in the Caesar Dynasty and sell there, increasing their trade.
This deal was worth it no matter how one looked at it.
However, Caesar did not expect one random ship arrest situation to actually caused a chain reaction and caused a monopoly of the Mediterranean Ocean route.
Caesar noticed that accepting payments from the merchants was better than forcefully arresting them.
“You!”
Facing Caesar’s shameless acts, William was so furious that he was rendered speechless. “How should we handle this matter?” Seeing that Caesar was not going to admit his fault, William could only ask the rest.
Weirdly, neither Casillas or Henry made a sound.
Casillas was already nervous because of the war in his country. Even without this incident, their trade was pretty much zero. He also had to rely on the Caesar Squadron to snipe the Atlantic Squadron, so he would not step out to slap Caesar’s face.
Henry was still annoyed due to the last meeting, so he did not make a sound all the way.
Furthermore, the two of them had also benefited from it.
If they stepped out now to blame Caesar now, wouldn’t they be slapping their own faces?
The three of them had formed a sort of tacit understanding to earn a huge sum from this European war.
As for Pushkin, the Romanov Dynasty did not use the Mediterranean route, so he would not speak up for William.
Facing William’s stare, Pushkin unwillingly said, “I feel that using this to cut off the trade channel of the Ottoman Dynasty is beneficial to the frontlines.”
When William heard that, he could feel his hands turn cold.
Only now did he notice that without Jack here, these five European dynasties that each had their own agenda were a handful of scattered pieces of sand.
Moreover, he, William, had no authority in Europe at all.
A tragedy!
