Chapter 454 Lynn: Have you heard of magic bread?

  In the morning of the royal capital, Susan woke up from her sleep just after dawn. After doing the usual housework, she went out to buy ingredients for the next few days.

The streets are very lively, there is an endless stream of caravans coming and going, a number of strong camels are pulling wooden carts full of various supplies on the widened concrete road, several people who are going to the capital for the first time The wealthy businessman was commenting on the huge rotating waterwheel in the distance, and he could hear exclamations from time to time.

  Accompanied by a slightly piercing whistle, a richly decorated alchemy cart passed by quickly, and billowing steam spewed out from the chimney at the front of the cart, attracting the envious eyes of townspeople and merchants.

This kind of steam car that can run on its own without horses and camels is priced at hundreds of imperial gold coins. Only people with real status can own one. It is a new fashion for wealthy merchants and nobles in the capital. …

  As for the wizards and adults, they ride an iron box that doesn't need to breathe steam and runs faster. It is said that it needs to rely on witchcraft and magic to activate it.

  Susan was thinking about it when an oval shadow suddenly cast down, but it was a huge and imposing airship passing by above their heads, covering the hot sun in the sky.

  Beside the street, groups of children in twos and threes are stepping on the shadow cast by the airship, happily chasing and playing...

   Even though Susan sees all these grotesque things every day, she still feels uncomfortable.

  In the past year, she felt as if she was living in a dream.

First, in the propaganda of the church, the evil wizard led an army to occupy the royal capital, brutally killed King Bazel, razed the holy church to the ground, and a large number of devout believers were arrested. Panic, for fear that those minions of demons will target themselves.

However, what happened next was beyond their expectations. The wizards did not perform evil human sacrifices, nor did they rush into their homes to rob them of money. Instead, they began to repair houses and roads, and opened many magic workshops. Workshops, recruiting iron smelting, glass firing and gun making workers at high prices.

In the beginning, no one dared to join the workshop. There were even rumors that this was a way for the wizards to confuse them. The magic workshop recruited labor on the surface, but in fact it was conducting various evil human experiments. The soul is extracted, the body is corrupted into a skeleton, and thrown into the abyss!

  However, ever since the bold Haydn joined the wizards' workshop and lived an increasingly wealthy life, and was even assigned a new house, such rumors naturally disappeared.

  Susan is very fortunate that she and her husband are the first batch of people who joined the workshop.

   It is necessary to know that even if the magic workshop has been expanded several times, the number of laborers that can be recruited is still limited after all.

   Those poor people who wake up too late can only go to repair roads and mines—although the salary is not low, it is really much harder than working in the workshop.

  Now, together with her husband, in the musket making workshop, she can get a full monthly salary of 20 silver coins. If it was changed a year ago, this is completely unimaginable!

  It was also the first time for Susan to know that there is one day off from work every week.

  This is simply the kingdom of heaven described in the Bible, but it was built by wizards...

As Susan thought about it, she soon arrived at the busiest street in the capital, and she couldn't help looking at a newly opened clothing store. Behind the glass wall were colorful dresses, the fabrics and colors , It is simply more luxurious than what noble ladies wear in the past.

The price is not too expensive, about ten to fifteen silver coins. Susan counted the coins in her pocket, but thinking of the expenses for the two children to enter the Wizarding Academy, she gritted her teeth and walked to the bread on the side shop.

   "According to the usual practice, three bags of white bread and two servings of beans." Susan took out a small bag of copper coins from her pocket and handed it over.

  Baker owner Kom shook his head. "A total of one silver and ninety coppers..."

   "Why is it so expensive?" Susan's eyes widened, and she looked at the other party in disbelief.

  She remembered that a week ago, the price of a bag of white bread was only about fifteen copper coins, and a serving of beans was only ten copper coins.

"You probably don't know that the price of wheat has risen recently, so bread has to rise as well." Kom muttered. In just a few days, the price of wheat has nearly tripled, and his sales are already counted. cheap.

   "As for the reason... it might be because of the war."

  There are rumors in the royal capital that the wizards have gone to the empire, and the citizens in the newly added territory can also enter the workshop to work like them, and live a life of eating white bread.

  But where did so much bread come from?

  Although Kom heard from businessmen from afar that the wizards had created an alchemy creation that could automatically cultivate the land, it probably couldn't supply the rations of millions of people in the kingdom.

   What's more unfortunate is that there seems to be a food shortage in several territories in the northeast of the kingdom, so now there are rumors in the capital that there is not enough food.

  Many shrewd businessmen have already started hoarding wheat, and Kom is no exception. Then he reminded Susan that it is best to buy more today, maybe the price will be more than this tomorrow!

  Susan looked at the high price and was a little hesitant, but thinking that the price of bread might continue to rise, she counted out the coins and said with a sigh.

   "Five more bags of black bread."

   "Five bags of black bread, a total of sixty coppers!" Kom couldn't help but smile from ear to ear. After tasting the delicious white bread, not many people would be willing to eat hard and difficult to chew black bread.

   Now, taking advantage of this opportunity, you can clear the inventory.

After paying three silver coins with great distress, Susan took over the purchased ingredients and frowned. Not only did the price of the bread increase several times, but it was also much smaller visible to the naked eye. It was originally a piece of bread. The standard four-finger thickness has now been reduced to about three fingers.

  Susan couldn't help feeling a little worried. Since the wizards took control of the capital, the famine seems to have become a thing of the past, but now the successive increases in food prices make Susan quite worried.

  Even if I can barely afford it now, what about a week or even a month later?

  Susan held the last few silver coins in her hand, hesitating whether to buy more?

  …

  Under the joint operation of a group of nobles and wealthy businessmen, rumors about the famine quickly spread throughout the kingdom, and the price of wheat increased almost every day, causing panic that once affected the city of fire oil!

  Lin En, who was in the laboratory, thinking about how to change the large nuclear explosion technique into a large hydrogen explosion technique, was also forced to stop his research and was dragged into the conference room.

   After reading the report, Lynn couldn't help but frowned.

  In just half a month, the price of wheat per kilogram in the kingdom has changed from the original two copper coins to the current ten copper coins, more than five times the original price!

   "Why didn't anyone remind me of such a big thing before?" Lynn asked in confusion.

He could tell at a glance that someone wanted to disrupt the entire kingdom by manipulating the price of food. The best way was to kill it as soon as there was a sign. Once it developed into a chain reaction, it would be very difficult to deal with. .

  Because everyone will start hoarding spontaneously, no amount of food will be enough!

   Lauder, who was in charge of grain purchases, was quite helpless pouring bitter water.

  Due to the production of the nuclear fusion reactor, all the speakers and the great wizards are very busy. Unless it is a particularly urgent matter, there is no way to hold a meeting to discuss it.

   Moreover, successive wars will often lead to an increase in the price of food. It is very normal for the price of wheat to fluctuate or even double in the short term.

It's just that they have been controlling the price of wheat by harvesting and releasing grain, so this year, it has only increased by about 50%, which has not caused any waves compared to the wages of the poor who have increased several times .

  This caused Lauder to not pay too much attention to the rise in wheat prices at the beginning. As usual, he dispatched more grain to various places to stabilize food prices. He did not report it as an emergency until he found that the situation was completely out of control.

Alva, who was in charge of trade at the side, also added that just the day before yesterday the church suddenly set up outposts in the border cities of the empire to strictly investigate the departure of caravans, and the number of caravans coming from the empire dropped by 80%. They can no longer buy food on a large scale from the empire!

   Two consecutive bad news made a group of congressmen worried.

Even though most wizards don't have any theoretical foundation in economics, the importance of food is well understood. The citizens can wear broken or bad clothes, and they don't have to buy those novel alchemy creations, but they can't Don't eat!

  After pondering for a while, Rafael proposed that a rationing system could be implemented, stipulating how much bread each person can buy at most, and punishing them if they exceed it.

   Some members even felt that they could save some food by reducing the lunch supply of the workshop.

  He had heard complaints from wizards in the alchemy workshop before that because the council stipulated that one meal should be provided every day, many extremely stingy poor people would deliberately skip breakfast and dinner and eat one meal in the workshop until they were full.

"No, this will only cause greater panic. We don't have enough food!" Harov directly rejected the proposal. He knows that all current strategies to reduce food supply will further increase the price of bread. soaring.

  Aurora turned her head to look at Lynn, and asked thoughtfully how much wheat they still have, is it enough to supply the entire kingdom?

  Some time ago, she received a report that a large area of ​​cultivated land in the eastern territory of the kingdom seemed to have been abandoned.

   "It's not deserted. In fact, I'm planning to integrate these lands to grow some cash crops." Lynn explained.

  [Hadra Tower] is known as the kingdom of mines, which is its advantage, but sometimes it is also a disadvantage.

  Mountainous means that there are few plains suitable for large-scale farming.

  The scattered fields in the kingdom couldn't give full play to the advantages of mechanization.

  Lin En thinks that the cost-effectiveness of planting wheat is too low. It is better to plant a fruit tree or something to enrich the diet of the townspeople and improve the per capita night blindness in the kingdom.

   In addition, it is also to allow some self-cultivating farmers to obtain similar income to the people who entered the workshop, otherwise, who would farm the land?

   As for the supply of food, of course it is enough!

Since the capture of the southern part of the kingdom more than a year ago, Lynn has started to lay out the layout. Because this area has the only floodplain in the kingdom, he let the Musketeers unite with the liberated miners to reclaim it there. Many new lands, engage in fully mechanized big farm mode!

  Now more than 70% of the food in the entire kingdom is produced from this super farm...

  Although the members of the House of Representatives present did not understand what the mechanized farm that Lynn was talking about looked like, they still heard one thing, that is, they still had enough food.

   Realizing this, Harov and the others breathed a sigh of relief, and then asked quite strangely.

   "Since there is enough food, why do we need to buy a large amount of wheat from the empire?"

   "Naturally, it is to prevent the famine caused by a large number of refugees." Lynn said freely. "It's always safer to have more food reserves, isn't it?"

  Once they defeat the Holy See, they will have to face tens of millions of poor people in the empire, so it is better to prepare early than late!

  Lin En also did not expect that his actions of integrating the cultivated land in the east and buying grain from the empire would cause some people to misjudge, thus launching a food war.

   "Lauder, have you found out who is manipulating behind the scenes?" Lynn asked after a pause.

   "I suspect it has something to do with the nobles in the kingdom." Lauder replied hesitantly.

Since there are too many people buying wheat on a large scale, many traders and even civilians have participated in it. In a short period of time, he has no way of determining who is behind the scenes and who is following the trend to make a fortune. , but it is certain that a large number of kingdom nobles must have participated in it.

  However, he has asked the psychic wizards to investigate, and I believe it will not be long before there will be a result.

   "Nobleman..." Lynn's face suddenly turned cold.

   Recently, he has been busy dealing with the empire and the church. He almost forgot that there are such a group of moths in the kingdom who rely on their territory and do not work.

  The reason why they were not dealt with before was that the wizards occupied the kingdom not long ago and had not yet gained the trust of the people. Taking action against these people might make the stable situation erode again.

   In addition, not all nobles are so unethical. Some noble children who know how to adapt and master knowledge are still willing to embrace the new era, so it is not good to kill all these people.

   After thinking for a moment, Lin En gave orders. "Since they are willing to collect grain at a high price, let them continue to collect it, and release part of the grain we have stored!"

  He did not intend to send people to arrest all the merchants hoarding wheat. Firstly, there were too many people, and secondly, the kingdom did not have this law.

  But this doesn't mean that I don't have other ways to deal with these people.

   Also just took this opportunity to let those businessmen who want to follow suit and take advantage of the country’s fortunes know that there is a limit to the freedom of trade, and once you cross the line, you will bear the consequences!

  '071, help me call out the artificial starch technology...' Lin En said silently in his heart, he didn't want to come up with this technology so quickly.

  (end of this chapter)