Chapter 22: Clash of Empires Below

  "Would that Rome had not shown its weakness in grain supply!" Alexander muttered through gritted teeth.

  I comforted him by saying: "There are too many causes and effects involved, it's not something we can change in a short period of time, but we won't just sit back and wait for death."

  The scratching of the quill pen stopped, and the meeting fell silent. I sat quietly in my chair, thinking, thinking about how to respond to the counterattack from France.

  Know yourself and know your enemy, you can win a hundred battles.

  Does the empire have no land for planting grains?

  On the contrary, the empire sits on the lower middle plain of the Danube River. In the past, Romania, Serbia and Hungary were all major grain-producing countries in this land, with more than 10% of their national economy relying on agriculture!

  But why is it in such a predicament?

  It's human selfishness!

  Since the invention of perfume, because the production of perfume requires a large amount of raw materials, after the development of the Danube River downstream plain, roses are everywhere. Why? Compared to cheap food, planting roses for perfume processing plants is more profitable.

  You can't have your cake and eat it. The Empire's perfume has taken over the entire Western European market, bringing in a huge fortune for the Empire that no one can deny. Therefore, perfume and grain have always been a difficult problem to choose between. Although successive rulers had strict orders, under the impact of Poland's cheap grain exports, the ban was lifted due to pressure! A small portion of the enormous wealth obtained from exporting perfume is used to buy grain from Poland, while the vacant land is used to plant more raw materials and increase perfume production!

  What about the Middle Nao River Plain?

  There's also a lot of land there!

  The precipitous cliffs of the Katerlak Gorge, the existence of the Southern Carpathians, blocked the fertile grain-producing plains of the middle Danube from being used by the Empire.

  The key is now obvious, the empire does not lack grain, but it cannot be transported!

  What about Colbert? If we say that this world really has a force similar to the many characters in the game with ability values exceeding 90, it is obviously France. And Colbert, to exaggerate, his political value must exceed at least 120. The effect is like Uesugi in Nobunaga's Ambition, where he can easily cut down 50,000-60,000 troops with just a few thousand soldiers.

  I'm not kidding. Ever since Kolbell took office, the Empire has had to deal with this guy every year, and I heard that the previous Minister of Finance still wakes up in the middle of the night screaming his name.

  For such a strong man, I racked my brains to recall that there was roughly someone in French history. In the past world, Colbert was the Minister of Finance and Navy Minister of Louis XIV, dedicating his life to France's conquests and the unparalleled achievements of the Sun King.

  In this world, Colbert also excelled in fulfilling his destiny or the mission entrusted to him by God, making France prosperous! This Frenchman, recommended by the Sun King's trusted men, emerged and knocked down the French nobles who were entrenched in the important position of Minister of Finance. After being appointed as the Auditor General of Finance by Louis XIV, he rebuilt France's financial system within three years. Then this Frenchman held high the banner of mercantilism, frequently using tariffs and a series of measures to strike at the economies of enemy countries, thereby controlling their revenue. Although some of his methods seem somewhat childish 300 years later, don't forget that in this era, Colbert was a wise man who led others by more than one step, and many of the traps he set were not yet clear to others.

  But our finance minister cannot be blamed for handling the French export tariff issue in this way. Faced with such a malicious policy change, the empire can only use the same policy to counterattack and force the other side to compromise. However, this may lead both sides into a prisoner's dilemma.

  Prisoner's dilemma, an economic definition of self-imposed constraints and being outsmarted by one's own intelligence. In the context of current issues, when a country unilaterally raises tariffs, another country will react in the same way, triggering a tariff war, causing both countries' goods to lose market share in each other's markets, ultimately harming their own economies.

  However, the problem lies in the fact that the goods manufactured by this newly born strong country of France are all available in the empire, and the French market is not large within the imperial market. Therefore, import tariffs, which are the most effective weapon, are useless against the French. But Rome, as an old-brand empire, is different from France. The market share of various luxury goods is very high! More importantly, even if export tariffs can be used to fill the gap in grain purchases for a while, without new grain purchasing countries, the empire will always be subject to France, which has replaced Poland as the empire's largest grain-importing country and enemy!

  What a thorny issue!

  "The French think they have gained enough advantage over the Habsburgs and are no longer willing to accommodate us on tariffs. Kolber received his king's orders and enthusiastically implemented his long-held wish. Erikss." The old man called out the name of the Imperial Finance Minister, "Stabilize grain prices, this is not the first time, everyone knows what to do, I don't want to see Romans starving on their own land! Your proposal was great, it gave me a lot of inspiration... Hmm, let's adopt the point that the French must purchase goods worth the value of the currency they hold after selling grain at the port. Leak the news that the French have raised tariffs against us to Austria's Habsburgs. I think they will be delighted to hear this news, Erikss, you and your people conduct a survey on various trade goods in the German region and submit it to me. Later, I will use this to have the Foreign Minister discuss the German region tariff agreement with the Austrians. As for retaliating against France..."

  I saw the supposedly noble people at the table suddenly come to life, with a burst of flying eyebrows and dancing colors, making me almost think that I was not sitting in the center of imperial power, but standing on the street corner encountering a group of thugs who heard the big boss's call, wanting to stir up trouble in the next block...

  Is this the prelude to the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of France vying for dominance in Western Europe, and Alexander and I happened to quietly witness Caesar blowing the war horn on that day?

  "I have something to think about carefully, you remember, after the recess today, immediately come up with a bill to reduce the financial budget of various departments of the empire! Two days later, present it!"

  Is that it?

  That's it, if an empire wants to launch a campaign, many details must be carefully studied! Because, at that time, it will no longer be just a military campaign, but a comprehensive and overwhelming attack. Military invasion is only the most direct and simplest way, but apart from this, there are also diplomacy and economy!

  After talking about France, it's the turn of Muslim issues in the East. The Muslims in the South have made some small moves on the Syrian side again.

  When it comes to Muslims, these guys used to have an impression that they can marry four wives, don't eat pork and Bin Laden uncle, and from time to time find the world police American Empire to compare with each other. The most sensational success was opening a gray machine and blackening the American Empire Building for a while.

  However, in this world, Muslims were implicated because my predecessor withstood two Western expeditions. They can be considered as the difficult brothers of our Roman Empire. But after all, they also pushed back the Persian Empire, made many Byzantine emperors worry and lose hair, and were strong enough to defeat the Crusaders head-on.

  They surrendered, sending over large sums of money and beautiful women. These soft blades greatly reduced the combat effectiveness of the Mongols on the Eastern Front. No wonder they say that beauties and gold are both national strategic reserves! Arabia has beauties, our thousand-year empire is not inferior. There's a saying, "Scholars drag their feet, old soldiers stand guard, generals rebel to the death, educated youth recite poetry in flower halls, emperors worry outside the city, princes worry, Lolita, famous ladies, and housewives marry barbarian chieftains...

  Anyway, basically, both sides had been waging a gentle campaign of beautiful women on each other's borders and tribal leaders until one day in the last century when the Muslims in the south welcomed a savior who exuded an aura of holy mission. The Muslims then rebelled, and we also intervened, driving out the Mongols from the Arabian Peninsula after some manipulation. During that time, the Muslims were very glorious, defeating the Roman Empire twice and winning numerous small victories, even knocking out the old guy's teeth. However, the savior who exuded an aura of holy mission was short-lived, dying in his 40s, and his dozens of wives' sons fought each other for inheritance.

  Our empire's people aren't anything good, taking advantage of someone else's misfortune after their father died to bully a group of bear children is naturally something they can do. Like my great-grandfather, he beheaded the son of that legendary Muslim savior who was said to have impregnated 100,000 cows and 10,000 horses before birth, laid countless eggs for hens, and produced 10,000 kilograms per mu. My grandfather destroyed two Sultanates, captured one of his grandsons and over a hundred great-granddaughters-in-law as well as their great-great-grandchildren. When it came to my cheap father, he was relatively inferior, so after conquering Damascus, he happily ran back to Constantinople to be crowned Caesar.

  It's been over a decade since the cheap father received Caesar, and southern Muslims either have an itchy skin or want to take advantage of our strategic shift to unify several fragmented Islamic states in half of the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt.

  I'm not entirely clear on why the cheap old man let those Muslim countries off, perhaps he also realized that while Muslims are easy to bully, it's a bit unrealistic to expect the entire empire to benefit from it. So today's bill targeting Muslims is also just a token gesture, only handed over to the ministers of the military and foreign affairs departments for handling, and not as grandiose as the one against France.

  "Long live Rome!!"

  Cheap old man turned his back to the imperial map, suddenly a high-handed hand, in the hall, all the high officials, including me, had to immediately raise their right hands in response.

  "For the Empire!!!"

  Cheap dad kept us all after the meeting and announced a message to us. He is going to modify the military school's payment terms, so we don't have to go back to the military school anymore. In the future, we will do some things. After finishing this message, he wanted to be alone to think, so we bid farewell and left the conference hall.