What did you do with the dice?

This is a digression. Anyway, the recruitment of workers at the processing plant went smoothly and ended at the end of summer. Autumn is the farming season, so the mayor Shapaero and the tax officer included this part of the labor capital flow budget. They also looked at the tax returns of previous years and thought that this year seemed to be a good year. The business here seemed to be good in autumn and winter. The fish were fat, so they could catch a few to try. So they ordered a seasonal tax to be levied on several groups.

The tax itself is not much - if you choose a suitable street lamp, rename it "income tax", and then distribute it evenly to each worker's salary, it would be only a few copper coins per person per month.

The money earned here is not invested in public utilities, and it is of course a waste of time to collect taxes without being able to do so. However, as a traditional manager of Sinidi and a senior mayor of Ropa Town, Shapaelo did not follow the tradition of Ropa County to collect residence taxes here. This is the result of his "reformation".

The town of Test has been doing so well, so I, the mayor, must have contributed to it, right? It's okay for me to take some of the bonus myself, right?

If he could resist taking this, Shapaelo felt that he might really awaken the holy light like those paladins next door.

Doug Chamber of Commerce pays taxes, but it is still afraid of Sunny Tower. Anyone with a discerning eye knows that Sunny Tower's policy is "people-friendly". If you distribute taxes to residents and exploit the people, it may make him dissatisfied. Although the processing plant has a contract, they are the lord here. Wouldn't it be easy for them to deal with you outside the contract?

You see, they sent the Maosi Chamber of Commerce, and as a result, they could no longer monopolize this good place, and a large part of the profits were taken away at once. Can you say that they did not abide by the contract?

But Allot had no intention of haggling with the mayor about the amount of tax. He was on his way to a meeting at the eastern headquarters and didn't want any complications before leaving. If he wanted to collect taxes, let him collect them, and leave it to Crown to negotiate. If it was less, he would make some money, but if it wasn't less, it didn't matter.

Anyway, the small town of Test is a gold mine, and Sani Tower obviously wants to continue investing in expansion, so it has a bright future.

After further expansion, it might become a small city. The Chamber of Commerce would be making a lot of money, so it wouldn't need this small tax. The final instruction was, "Deduct less from the workers and don't cause any trouble. I see that the senior executives of our Chamber of Commerce in the processing plants are making a lot of money on a daily basis, so we take the lion's share of their wages."

This decision is also quite reasonable. Most of the people from the Chamber of Commerce who came here to work as factory managers are shrewd people. They have already taken bribes enough on a daily basis. Even if they heard that their wages would be deducted in the past few months, they all put on an attitude of "We unconditionally obey the president's instructions. It's just a mere salary. If it's for the development of Doug Chamber of Commerce, I'm happy to work for free."

Of course, I definitely don't want to work for nothing, I'm just expressing my sincerity verbally.

If this matter had been implemented properly, it would have been over, but human diversity is unpredictable, and there are always some people who have completely illogical ideas in their heads.

Qi Hengfei, the person in charge of transportation at the Lotte Processing Plant, holds a lucrative position here and will receive some kickbacks. If you do the math carefully, you will find that his daily salary accounts for less than half of his total income, and the bulk of it comes from some shameful little operations.

But when he thought about the fact that the Chamber of Commerce deducted a lot of his guaranteed salary (actually only about 5%) because of this inexplicable new tax, he felt furious. When he thought about the mayor's face, which was even more unscrupulous than that of a profiteer, and he kept saying "I was sent by the Lord of Pearl Tears, so I have to increase taxes for this matter" to hint at bribery in both explicit and implicit ways, he got angry. It was really painful to see him making money than to lose money himself.

Not to mention that this time he really made his own money, how could he tolerate this?

Okay, I can only endure it. What else can I do? If he goes to complain to Lord Pearl Tear, no matter if he gets into trouble or not, I will definitely be finished.

People always don't care about other people's suffering and only see their interests; but when they look at themselves, they don't think about how much they have earned and be content, but only complain about how much suffering they have suffered and how it is not worth it.

So the more he thought about it, the angrier he became, and finally he decided that he couldn't suffer the loss in vain, and he had to share the loss with others.

It just so happened that there was a batch of goods to be shipped to Silver City recently. He decided to use his power to sell inferior goods as good ones and make a profit from the difference. Then he could say that the goods had been shipped to Silver City. The lord of Silver City was fighting outside recently and had so many things to deal with. He would definitely not care about the quality of a mere batch of goods.

He acted immediately and contacted a black market arms dealer who had recently purchased weapons and equipment at high prices. On the day of transportation, he arranged for his own people to get several trucks of fake goods as a decoy, and secretly brought the real goods to the black street to trade with the other party.

This situation is actually a bit extreme. This 5% salary is only 1 silver coin, and his vote has to be calculated in gold coins. The risk-benefit ratio is already a risk that can only be created by someone who is carried away by the pressure.

And then? Then, due to insufficient preliminary investigation, I didn't realize they were members of the Brotherhood. By the time I found out, it was too late—the goods had already been delivered, and you still want me to pay? Dream on.

Not only was he robbed by a gangster, but no one knew what happened in the middle. It was possible that he still thought that the Brotherhood was the soft persimmon that could be easily bullied, so he sent provocative words such as "Just wait, our Doug Chamber of Commerce will definitely destroy you", which angered the other party and ultimately killed no one alive.

A batch of goods was lost for no apparent reason, and a group of people went missing. The Lott Processing Factory will definitely know about it soon. A simple check will show that the goods ended up in the black market, so they must demand an explanation.

So Crown, who was still in the small town at the time, was the highest person in charge. His subordinates asked him how to solve this problem. Losing money was a small matter, but losing a whole batch of armaments was an absolute big deal. If the tax collector knew about this, he would not be able to protect himself.

The worst part is, the person who made the mistake is dead. Even if the crime is exposed, there has to be someone to take the blame, right? Who should we blame?

After some thought, Crown decided that he had to negotiate with the desperate gang of the Pitko Brotherhood in the black street to see if he could buy back the goods with money and treat it as a losing business.

At this point, I can't switch to Crown's first-person perspective. What kind of place is the Black Street? It's a lawless place! If they dare to kill a member of the management here, maybe they will dare to kill me too?

So Crown was too timid to go, so he sent his subordinates to go instead, and later he heard about some of the details.

The leader of the Pitco Brotherhood received us with great respect, but was very cold in the negotiations. He said that this matter had nothing to do with them, and that if there were any problems with their transportation, they would be responsible for it themselves. What did their brotherhood have to do with it?

If you have the guts, why don't you ask your Clown to come over to our warehouse and check it out?

The attitude is very clear. They have eaten the goods but refuse to admit it. If you have the courage, ask your boss to come and investigate in person.

Then Clown gave in. He didn't have the courage, so the matter ended in a whimper. This is why Clown explained that he didn't dare to give an explanation to Rusalka and blocked the town by the way, because they were still trying to recover the goods from the black street for Lord Pearl Tear and prevent it from flowing out.

At this point, the situation was just a conflict between the Doug Chamber of Commerce and the Brotherhood. Rusalka was still very curious about how the Ward Group next door, which had nothing to do with the matter, got involved.

Crown's mouth felt a little dry as he spoke, so he finished the milk tea in the cup in front of him, smacking his lips and wanting to ask if there was anything that could quench his thirst, but when he thought about his current status, it seemed inappropriate to ask such a question, so he poured himself another cup and drank half of it. He drank more beverages to deceive his body that he had quenched his thirst.

The two elves have been adapting to local customs lately. They used to dislike the quality of tea leaves, but after trying Rusalka's "invention" of milk + tea = milk tea and drinking it a few times, they now have a "I won't drink tea unless it's milk tea" attitude. Every time the maid serves tea, they always ask, "Where's the milk and rock sugar? Quick, pour it in!"

The two of them openly order the servants around every day, and Sanitieta is too lazy to care, and Rusalka doesn't think there is anything wrong. Then the servants will guess that the status pyramid of these two people should have moved up, and Rusalka and Sanitieta acquiesce in them doing so. Maybe they also like this way of drinking?

After trying this milk tea, I found that it is really good and very easy to make. It is not like the baked cookies or baked World of Warcraft steaks that Phoenix makes by herself. These are cooking skills that only she can make. For a time, the Pearl Tears Milk Tea trend became popular.

All the tea leaves brewed at home, no matter whether they are red, green or black, are habitually added with milk and sugar by the servants to make milk tea before being served.

Sanita: "What's missing?"

Clown: "Um... some armor and stuff. I was worried that the gangsters would be even harder to deal with after getting them, so I've been preparing for this for so long. I was just about to close the net when you showed up. I'm a little scared."

----

Sanita: (He must be hiding something. First of all, his part about "trying to pass off inferior goods as genuine goods without being discovered" is completely untrue. Do they really think the quartermasters in Silver City are blind? Standard military equipment is always marked and produced on an assembly line. And there's only one processing plant nearby. Where can he find so many blacksmiths to instantly provide him with low-cost substitutes? Or armor with complex production processes?

If you ask me, this batch of goods must be excess, and they want to secretly sell it and divide the profits, but they dare not tell us. And it is probably not armor, but other weapons and consumables, unmarked things that are difficult to recover.)

Rusalka didn’t think too much about it, but she agreed with whatever her brother said.

Even if it turns out to be wrong later, he plans to use his invincible Ranger team to make it right.

The dragon slayer eventually becomes the dragon, the White Horse Ranger! Forever the God! Everyone who uses it praises it!

Rusalka: (He's a typical example of someone hiding information. From what I hear, it's like a case of thieves robbing each other, a loss for the unscrupulous. We can go there and investigate and settle the score later.)

The two of them were right. Crown didn't tell the whole story. He certainly concealed part of it on purpose.

Sani Iron Tower had already guessed part of it. The output of the Lot Processing Plant this quarter had increased, and the production targets issued by Silver City had long been exceeded. Therefore, this batch of goods was not for Rushaka at all, but was taken by the Chamber of Commerce to settle the accounts, and then privately dispersed and transported to the weapons market in Silver City or Pearl Tears Territory to share the spoils.

After the negotiations ended, he did not take immediate action, but instead sent someone to ask Arlot for help.

Arlot was also a little depressed at the time, but he was a veteran in this field, so he said that this matter was not too bad. First of all, this batch of equipment was originally extra equipment. Its disappearance out of thin air meant that you guys just lost some money, which was not a big deal.

If the black streets use it for their own use, that's not the worst. It's just that they are a little stronger. No matter how strong they are, they can't storm the processing plant by force, right?

The worst-case scenario is that they resell this batch of goods to nearby markets, and the people of Silver City find out about it. That would be the end of them.

So, you close the town and block the intelligence. If you are sure that they are just using it themselves and not looking for another buyer, then just pretend nothing happened.

If they want to find the next buyer, they can either get rid of the next buyer and make an example of him to tell them that whoever dares to buy this batch of goods will die; or they can pretend to be the next buyer and spend money to take over the goods.

Crown did so.

His luck was actually very bad. Normally, since he was already an arms processing factory, he would occasionally smuggle some inferior armor and weapons, or even steal some, and everyone would turn a blind eye.

But as luck would have it, this batch of goods was a batch of "military one-handed crossbows".

The military crossbow is a relatively powerful individual long-range weapon in this world view. Unless the nobles are in financial difficulties, they will basically not sell it to the nearby people. Even if it is thrown into the warehouse to collect dust, it is better than selling it to civilians, because its usage is too simple and crude, and it is highly concealed, which is too destructive to public security management.

If you go out with a weapon or wearing armor, the guards will be wary of you. Adventurers are more recognizable by their attire, but it is really hard to spot a crossbow tucked inside your arms, and you can easily ambushed armored guards when you encounter a battle.

Especially in the town of Test, which has mafia, brotherhoods, and various violent groups, the low-quality crossbows made by ordinary people themselves are not accurate and powerful, which is not a big deal. But now a large number of military standard crossbows have been leaked and given to these desperadoes, which is likely to lead to an escalation of armed conflict.

This was definitely something they would never dare to explain to Rusalka. No matter how stupid Clown was, he would never tell the truth. After all, they were planning to ship this batch of crossbows to the central region to sell. Now he could only hurriedly think of a solution and say that they were originally going to ship them to Rusalka but were stolen. Anyway, everyone else kept this matter to themselves. The tax collector was also dead. Sanita couldn't read his mind and tell him, right?

He now hates those corrupt subordinates so much that he really wants to turn into a messenger of justice and report them all and lock them up. If he had known this would happen, he should not have turned a blind eye to this smuggling activity. This damn flattery and gold coins really did a lot of harm!

Clown swore to God that if he could get through this difficult time, he would definitely clean up the atmosphere in the processing plant and never be greedy for such a huge sum of money again!

Chapter 179: Changes in Tester Town (5)

After eating something, Crown continued to talk about the things happening in the town of Test.

So, continuing from the last time, after this batch of equipment was stolen, this was originally a conflict between the Doug Chamber of Commerce and the Pitco Brotherhood. What does this have to do with the Ward Chamber of Commerce?

This requires some background information. After sending people to the town, the president of the Maus Chamber of Commerce, Bi Jones, discovered that the local military industrial processing projects were really rich, and the town was thriving and had a great market prospect. You know, there is a world of difference between "doing business in a city" and "doing business in a place that is slowly becoming a city". The natural appreciation of the land value alone is enough to make money without doing anything.

He had been jealous of the fact that the profits from Tester's processing plant area were monopolized by the Doug Chamber of Commerce. He also heard about Sunny Tower's recent expansion plan. In fact, he had been thinking about finding an opportunity to see if he could acquire some "equity" in the second phase of the new processing plant area.

But according to common sense, this should be absolutely impossible. The Doug Chamber of Commerce has done a good job and exceeded its targets every year. You don’t care how much they have embezzled. After all, the Lord of Pearl Tears himself has only been here a few times, which means he doesn’t care about the environment here at all. He is just a hands-off boss who only cares about output. If there are no mistakes, why not let the Doug Chamber of Commerce continue to do it?

But this kind of thing happened suddenly recently. The town was suddenly under martial law, and the Doug Chamber of Commerce sent a lot of people to carry out the "public security rectification" work in Test Town. How could the Ward Group not know the inside story of this matter?

This sudden incident would definitely be reported to the Ward Group's financial backers. When Bi Jones heard this, he was so happy: Hey! Isn't this just a pillow for when you're sleepy?

If he could get hold of this batch of materials and then hand it over to Rusalka as evidence, the Doug Chamber of Commerce would immediately go bankrupt. Although the contract for the first phase of the processing plant could not be pried open, he had been keeping an eye on the developments of the second phase of the new factory next door, and he also knew that the second factory, which had already laid the foundation in advance, had not yet signed a contract.

As long as he could cede some of his profits at this moment, and then give some gifts to that staff member called Sanita, the mayor, and the tax collector, and have them put in a few good words for him, wouldn't the contract belong to him? Lord Pearl Tear, a hands-off boss who didn't understand the ins and outs of the business, wouldn't it? As for the processing methods and workmanship quality, Bi Jones didn't worry at all. Wouldn't it be better to just copy the ones next door?

Bi Jones acted decisively and immediately sent a group of mercenaries to support the Ward Group, with the excuse that "the output of the forest farm has been robbed frequently recently, so more security personnel are needed."

By the time Ward's equipment arrived, the people in the black street knew that it was too late to hand over the equipment, because Doug Chamber of Commerce wanted to recover it while Ward Group also wanted to take it. Giving it to either side would offend the other side.

So they made a harsh statement: This batch of goods is not in our hands, but if you continue to frame us, no one will have an easy time.

The implication is that if everyone pretends nothing has happened, then the Black Street will make a profit from a batch of military crossbows, Doug's Chamber of Commerce will suffer a loss but will not tell anyone about it, and the Ward Group will not lose anything in the first place, it just doesn't make any profit, so everyone will continue to maintain a balance.

But that is impossible. In this world, the business principle is: no profit equals loss.

Cutting off someone's financial resources is like killing their parents. Under the instructions of Bi Jones, the Ward Group directly chose to become a troublemaker, repeatedly directing and acting out scenes such as "goods being robbed" and "subordinates clashing with others", and putting all the blame on the Brotherhood.

Finally, he made a rather rude request: "Is your Black Street the same as the Doug Chamber of Commerce? You're stockpiling things you shouldn't be stockpiling. Why are you so powerful? We need to investigate the Black Street's armaments!"

On the Doug Chamber of Commerce side, Crown was still as short-sighted as ever. He hadn't even considered issues like the processing plant contract. When he saw that the Ward Group next door had declared war on the black street, he was overjoyed. Then he thought to himself, this is not a coincidence, it's really karma. If I hadn't been a little timid at the beginning, I would have also wanted to publicly inspect your armaments!

Although I don't know why the Black Street would provoke the Ward Chamber of Commerce again at this critical moment, but now that they have publicly named and stated that they want to investigate the Black Street, I just want to investigate too. In his opinion, this cooperation between competitors is a good thing, so he immediately followed suit and ordered the issuance of a notice, saying that they would also investigate the Black Street.

This reckless move by Crowne instantly intensified the conflict, disrupting the original "three-way checks and balances" and turning it into a "forced two-on-one" situation. Even the Ward Group couldn't understand why their neighbor was so foolish as to even consider collaborating with their rival. Even if they joined forces to investigate, would they simply divide the spoils afterwards? Put yourself in the shoes of the Doug Chamber of Commerce. How could they possibly give us this equipment?

But now that it has been said, the Pitko brothers can no longer sit still and begin to actively prepare for the battle.

This incident caused quite a stir. Almost the entire town felt as if a storm was bearing down on it, and a conflict was about to begin. Word quickly reached the tax collector and the mayor. The tax collector wondered, how could this be a conflict? And were the two families really planning to shut down the Black Street? That would be unacceptable. Who would make up for the missing tribute? And if the Lord of Pearl Tears investigated, losing his lucrative position would be one thing, but being held accountable would be a serious matter.

So he hurriedly stepped forward to mediate and arranged a three-party meeting in the name of a middleman.

This meeting was originally absolutely safe, because in such a place with unstable security, the tax collector and the mayor have the right to apply for the secondment of the "Ranger Squad" to temporarily help maintain order. Even if there were 10 or 20 people, it would be absolutely safe.

However, the 500 Rangers led by Ono happened to be borrowed by Mingyue City at that time. This was another very subtle coincidence, which forced the tax officer to bite the bullet and go to negotiate alone.

Crown was a bookworm, unaware of the stakes involved. He thought that since the tax officials had shown up in person, based on past experience, everyone would probably just get 33 lashes and go home. Besides, a top leader like him didn't need to attend such a meeting in person, so he handed the matter over to his subordinates and went out to take some orders to change his mood. He had been worried about so many things in the past two days that he had lost a lot of hair. Fortunately, the matter was over soon, so he could relax.

As a result, when he came back, he found that the town had been bombed and the three-party talks had turned into a three-party fight. Not only that, but some idiot on one side accidentally killed the tax collector.

After the death of the tax collector, the three leaders of the fighting faction calmed down all of a sudden, quickly called on their subordinates to cease fighting, left a pile of corpses behind, retreated to three sides, and immediately contacted their own bosses.

It was in this place with corpses scattered all over the ground that the second round of talks began in a very depressing atmosphere.

Since Crown was not there at the time, the decision on Doug Chamber of Commerce had to be made by Ya Dangdai.

The rest of the story is what Crown heard after he returned. According to the subjective opinions Crown heard from his subordinates, the reason why the tripartite talks broke down was that the Ward Group deliberately wanted to cause trouble, refused to cooperate in any way, and made all kinds of unreasonable demands.

After all, for them, this batch of goods only serves as "evidence". Their fundamental purpose is to make Lord Zhulei lose his trust in Doug Chamber of Commerce, so as to obtain the operating rights of the second phase of the processing plant. It is also a good thing for them if the news of the breakdown reaches Lord Zhulei.

Facts have proved that Bea Jones's plan was both evil and successful. This group of desperate criminals in the black street were very bad-tempered and would fight at any time. There was no room for negotiation.

Bi Jones has the support of the Maosi Chamber of Commerce. With his wealth and power, he is not afraid of chaos. For them, the death of a few people is nothing. As long as the master behind them is happy, the matter is considered a success.

But what he didn't expect was that some young man here would dare to kill the tax collector. As a result, the nature of the matter changed from "fighting for ownership of the processing plant" to "deliberately killing local officials sent by the lord because of economic disputes."

When a local administrative official sent by a powerful lord with a large army was killed, everyone felt that this matter could not be treated like a game of house, where they would just go to the door with a gift and say, "His life is worth three times what it is worth" and then let it go.

Before someone is willing to take the blame, no one dares to expose the matter. They can only cooperate to eliminate evidence, threaten the mayor and put him under house arrest. After a period of time when there is no way to investigate, they will put forward a few scapegoats, sacrifice some interests, and try to get away with the matter so that there is no evidence.

The above is what has happened recently in the small town of Test.

Sanita: (Excellent! It fits my imagination of the local environment in Snidi very well. And Crown is quite interesting too. He openly and covertly puts the blame on the Ward Group, the underworld brotherhood, and that dead man. In reality, this is also caused by management loopholes and corruption. It's really a simplified version of "a nail dropped, an empire fell.")

Rusalka: (Awesome! Then what about our second phase processing plant?)

Sanita: (I can make it for Maosi.)

Rusalka: (Really? This is too bad. If it weren't for this troublemaker, I really don't think this fight would have started.)

Sanita: (It's good that the problem has broken out. Although the innocent residents caught up in it are pitiful, in this world, we need to look forward. If it hadn't broken out like this, we probably wouldn't have discovered the many hidden dangers in this town for a long time. The processing plant can be built for Maosi later, but it can't be built just for Maosi. We'll take this opportunity to reshuffle the town, then bring in the Kate Chamber of Commerce and let them fight among themselves.

Bi Jones is right. I only look at the output I'm aiming for. If they can build this town up, turn it into a real city, and avoid the lawless places and outlaws like the Black Street and the Brotherhood, which I've explicitly banned, then how much they take is none of my business. I'm not the God of Light, training Paladins.

Rusalka felt that the worst ones were indeed her brothers.

"That's all I have to say, Lord Pearltear. I swear to the Goddess of Fortune that everything I say is true."

It's just that I didn't say something, so it's not really a lie, Crown thought.

Rusalka laughed and said, "Really? Is it true that the cargo contained only armor and other things?"

Clown's face froze instantly. Thinking of the divine oath he had just sworn, a promise the people of this world wouldn't dare disbelieve, he could only pale slightly as he forced an explanation: "I was so nervous just now that I couldn't help but make some mistakes. Lord, please forgive me. The truth is, besides armor, that shipment should have included some weapons."

Rusalka was delighted to finally find someone she could control. She immediately stood up, patted him on the shoulder, and said with a smile, "You're quite interesting. Actually, there's no need to hide anything, Clown. It's a bit too difficult for you to deceive me, let alone this Grand Mage Sanita. If you really want to make money, why would you resort to such crooked methods? You have a tax exemption order, so why not just tell me what business you want to do? Let's put aside the Chamber of Commerce behind you and talk about you personally. You've been a great help to us in times of need."

Crown was very moved after hearing this. Rusalka's generous speech made him feel a little guilty in his heart, which was just greedy for money but not as pure as Sanita.

Rusalka seized the opportunity and used her rich experience to empathize with the other person: "I understand you. You've come all the way from the bottom before, and now you've suddenly become a big leader in Test Town. It's inevitable that you'll make some small mistakes out of vanity and lose your way when flattered by others. These are all problems of experience, and they're inevitable for everyone in life.

But we can't just regret without analyzing. Look, now something's wrong, your people are blaming you for it, and you didn't even get the benefits, and I caught you. You almost thought you were going to die, and now you're still covering it up for the Chamber of Commerce. Is it worth it? Tell me everything right here, and I promise not to tell your Chamber of Commerce.