Chapter 626: He Said It Didn’t Matter

"And the second reason?" Gino probed.

Curling his other finger back down, Landon shrugged, "The second reason is actually quite a bit simpler. Lucas’ understanding of those reforms was vastly superior to anyone else I asked about them."

"Are you saying that boy freely explained the new policies to you just because you asked him about them?" Talia asked incredulously.

While it was impossible to hide the actually changes occurring, keeping the motives for them hidden seemed more than possible given how confusing some of them were on the surface.

What’s more, if Lucas really was as smart as her son was making him out to be, he had to have known he was being probed, and that anything he disclosed would be brought back to the Darr Kingdom by Landon eventually.

"Haha," Landon, however, laughed wryly at his mother’s question.

"What’s so funny?" Talia’s gaze sharpened, causing Landon to choke on his own laughter. He had seen that look before, and knew that if he couldn’t explain himself to her satisfaction, punishment would be waiting for him.

Thankfully, Landon was well prepared this time and casually remarked, "I actually asked Lucas about that once. I was wondering, like you, Mother, why he would so freely share his knowledge with me; but, do you know what he said?"

"Heh," Landon couldn’t resist snickering, "He said it didn’t matter if he told me, because the Darr Kingdom couldn’t use the information even if he gave it to us."

Frowns appeared on Talia, Darian, and Gino’s faces as the suddenly felt like a boy living in another kingdom had somehow reached out and slapped them across the face.

The worst part?

They knew Lucas was right.

Even if they were able to fully understand what the Rockwell Kingdom was up to and then confirm that it was of great benefit, they couldn’t replicate it in the Darr Kingdom, at least not on such a grand scale.

Through her sources, Talia had learned that Queen Summers had used a combination of enticement, strong-arming, and in some cases straight-up coercion in order to push her new project through, but it had still barely passed the Royal Council.

In fact, even now, there were many in the Rockwell Kingdom who were quietly resisting the implementation of these new policies, though how much success these forces were having was questionable.

The Rockwell Kingdom’s Second Queen seemed to have anticipated much of the resistance efforts she would face and had put in place measures to disrupt or destroy those obstacles before they truly became an issue.

It’s almost as if she could read the future, Talia thought to herself before suddenly recalling that this was precisely how Landon had just described Lucas.

If Lucas really had come up with this plan, and had accounted for all the efforts which the nobles and wealthy merchants would make in order to push-back against it, then Talia would have to agree with her son that Marquess Balfour’s First Disciple was truly unmatched when it came to intelligence, and not just among the younger generation.

Still, no matter how much faith she had in her son, the Darr Kingdom’s Crown Princess hadn’t gotten to where she was right now by acting rashly. She would need more definitive proof before drawing conclusions or taking any kind of extreme action.

In the mean time, she felt there was no reason not to satisfy her curiosity, so Talia asked, "There’s one policy the Rockwells seemed to be pushing extremely hard for that never quiet made sense to me."

"Hm?" Landon tilted his head slightly, wondering what his mother was up to.

"With so many people displaced from their South-West Province, the availability of labour must have increased dramatically," Talia continued, "By all accounts, that should have made it cheaper to hire people for simple jobs like digging ditches or hauling things."

"Oh, that," Landon quickly understood what she was talking about, "You want to know why, for all the infrastructure projects that are going on in the Rockwell Kingdom, the Royal Council insisted that wages, especially for low-level workers, be raised, rather than lowered, right?"

"En," Talia nodded, "Originally, I thought all the big infrastructure projects they started were meant to give jobs to the displaced commoners, making them useful rather than letting them cause trouble, but that doesn’t explain why salaries went up, instead of down. It should be the opposite."

Talia may not have gotten a degree in economics from a modern university in the other universe, but as the woman basically in charge of the Darr Kingdom’s finances, and head of her own merchant organization, she at least understood the rules of supply and demand.

The explosion in the Great Western Forest had created a huge surplus in available labour, which meant the price you could hire a person for should have gone down as more people would be competing for those jobs.

Yet, all the reports Talia had received indicated that wages and salaries, especially for the lowest-skilled jobs, were rising all across the Rockwell Kingdom at quite a remarkable rate.

That could only have happened if it was done intentionally, which confused Talia to no end.

Darian and Gino, both of whom were a bit less familiar with the situation, also became interested as they listened to the mother and son discuss this topic. The two men might be more military-minded, but that didn’t mean they were fools.

Why would the Rockwell Kingdom be trying to make their current construction projects more expensive, when it was perfectly reasonable for them to save money by simply paying the workers less?

Under the current circumstances, the commoners probably wouldn’t even complain as they would simply be happy to have a job right now.

It was a rare opportunity to build roads, bridges, dikes, walls, and other important public works at a significant discount, so why give up the opportunity?

Seeing curious looks on all 3 faces in front of him, Landon suddenly felt it was a bit funny.

Confined mostly to Misty City, he hadn’t actually noticed how wide-spread this wage-increase phenomenon was. He only knew that Lucas paid everyone who worked for him an extremely high salary, far higher than what was considered normal.

Only when he asked his young friend why he did this did Landon learn that the entire Rockwell Kingdom was actually doing something similar.

As for why this seemingly counterintuitive policy was being pursued, Lucas had only given him a brief answer, one he had memorized and now repeated word for word, "Gold coins sitting in vaults are no different from gold ore sitting in mines. Only coins that are being spent are actually part of the kingdom’s economy, so if you want to grow the economy, the fastest and easiest way to do so is to dig up those buried coins and spend them."

.....

After recovering from her shock at this completely new way of thinking, Talia asked her son about a few other policies being implemented in the Rockwell Kingdom, like why they were trying to do away with city entry fees altogether, as well as internal border taxes.

Both of these were huge sources of revenue for the noble families which ruled over the cities and larger towns; even the Royal Family must have earned a fortune from charging tolls to enter the capital, so why get rid of them?

Then, of course, there was the issue of the grain tax.

Talia had heard that the grain tax in certain regions of the Rockwell Kingdom had been reduced by as much as half, leaving farmers with an enormous surplus of grain.

Again, this didn’t make sense to her as there was no way those small farmers could make use of so much seed. They would have to sell it if they didn’t want to waste it.

Head taxes, another popular method for lords to generate funds from their population, were all-but outlawed under the new reforms and replaced with a land tax.

Several other types of taxes were also eliminated, while some new ones were being introduced; however, these new taxes seemed mostly aimed at the wealthy class, rather than the peasants, which might garner some good-will from the commoners, but would surely annoy the nobles.