Volume 6 Chapter 119 - Stubborn Duke (1/2)

Duke Windsor glared at the two in front of him with a dark look on his face.

“What did you say? The merchants have all run away? Why? Where? What are they doing?”

The two subordinates gulped at the same time and carefully looked at Duke Windsor before one of them hesitantly replied, “Lord…..Lord Duke, the merchants running away, the reason is probably…..probably related to you……”

“Related to me?” Duke Windsor knitted his brows and asked in a sharp voice, “What do you mean? Could it be that I expelled them?”

The two officials who were responsible for the finances of the southern province revealed helpless bitter smiles at the same time.

Recently, the people of the southern province had been leaving the southern province and their key companies were moving to other places in the empire. When they looked for the reason, they found that it was because of the Lord Duke in front of them.

The reason for this was very simple, it was because the Lord Duke had given the order not to allow any goods related to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to enter the southern province.

After the emperor changed his attitude towards the Frestech Chamber of Commerce after being convinced by the chief of the financial department Marquis Hastri, there were countless Frestech Chamber of Commerce magic machines that came from the Stantine Duchy and the Lampuri Kingdom through the southwest province into the Candra Empire.

After the Candra Empire navy reached a private agreement with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce with the silent approval of the emperor, they opened a sea trade route together and even more goods from the Stantine Duchy flooded into the Candra Empire.

These goods were not just the magic machines from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the other magic machine companies, it also included various other products that had the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s influence.

Because these products were better than the products that were found locally in the empire, they were very welcomed.

For the keen merchants, there was a clear hidden opportunity.

So without the Frestech Chamber of Commerce wasting any effort, the merchants of the Candra Empire were like dogs as they flooded the southern ports and the Candra Empire’s border with the Norton Duchy. The reason for this was to snatch the Stantine Duchy’s goods as soon as possible and sell for a good price after transporting it back.

With this tide of business, the ban that Duke Windsor made before became even more prominent.

This ban not only prohibited the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s goods, it also banned products related to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

This “all” included all the goods that came from the Stantine Duchy and the Norton Duchy.

Because the products that were very popular in the Candra Empire, not a single one wasn’t related to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

Even the only product that the Stantine Duchy could import into the Candra Empire before, the fruit farmed in the Stantine Duchy, had also been greatly influenced by the industrialization of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

For example, take the canned fruit that had very high sales, it was a product that was made with the new magic machine industry of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

Actually, in the Candra Empire, it wasn’t just Duke Windsor that was against this large amount of importing because they thought that this would have a large impact on the Candra Empire.

But the others were just against the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. The Frestech Chamber of Commerce supported the Rudson Kingdom which was an enemy of the Candra Empire, so they were also the Candra Empire’s enemy and the empire couldn’t cooperate with then.

Only Duke Windsor was against everything related to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, so there were many things that he targeted.

With the high suppression policy of Duke Windsor, there wasn’t any product related to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce that entered the southern province. This made the southern province merchants who smelled this opportunity very depressed.

To let these merchants give up this chance was like having a cat not go after fish, it was impossible.

But these normal merchants wouldn’t dare openly go against Duke Windsor in the southern province, so these merchants directly moved out of the southern province, going to other places in the empire that weren’t against cooperating with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

Actually to be honest, even if these merchants cared about developing in the industries related to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, they didn’t give up all business in the southern province.

But now this situation made it seem like the merchants were escaping the southern province.

For Duke Windsor, the most direct representation of this was in the financial report.

After entering April, the southern province conducted its financial report for the first quarter.

In that report, it showed that the grain yield of the southern province was the same as last year and there was no change in financial gains from those grains.

But in terms of business tax income, it had clearly dropped compared to last year, dropping by 13%.

This wasn’t much for Duke Windsor because he was a traditional noble of the Sines Continent, caring the most about grain yield.

If nothing happened to his grain yield, he wouldn’t think that there were any problems.

As for the business tax, it was good as long as it wasn’t too bad.

But when they handed their first quarter report to the kingdom’s department of finance, the department had called them out.