Chapter 1378 - 1294: Where Are You Running?

Chapter 1378: Chapter 1294: Where Are You Running?

The one who raised an objection was Qianqian, and his reason was quite simple: "We’re out of money, Your Majesty."

The Stag Chamber, which had been buzzing with excitement a moment ago, instantly felt like it had a bucket of ice water dumped over it and fell silent.

As the second Steward of the Holy Alliance, when Qianqian speaks, everyone still has to listen.

"How could we be out of money?" Exorcist Leader Hakuto turned his body sideways. "Our Holy Alliance’s income has quadrupled in ten years. We’re at 1.25 million gold pounds now—where did it all go?"

"Where did it all go?" Forcing down his anger, Qianqian rolled his eyes. "I’d really like to ask you where you blew it all!"

Which brings us to the current economic situation and military expenditure of the Holy Alliance.

A 100,000-strong army looks grand on paper, but if you actually calculate it, the monthly expenses are suffocating.

Qianqian stares at the ledgers every day, so anxious his beard is about to grow in, and now he raises his willow brows and scolds: "You spend money like water in peacetime, always demanding the very best, never thinking about saving, and now you ask me why we’re broke?

In non-war periods it’s still barely manageable; once there’s an operation plan, that’s 100,000 to 130,000 gold pounds going out every month.

When Roaring Corridor and Thorn Garden were fighting back-to-back, have you ever calculated how much that cost? Our highest monthly expense hit 180,000 gold pounds!"

On this topic, not just the Battle Commanders—even the Pope guiltily closed his eyes.

The soldiers of the Holy Alliance can fight, their morale is high. Besides weapons, advanced institutions, and the bonus from Holy Path-ism, the other key is that the welfare guarantees are solid.

Whether it’s the Veterans’ Home, wartime allowances, wages, or logistical supplies, Horn has never shortchanged the frontline troops.

The only times there’s a shortfall are when logistics and transport run into problems.

Under this kind of money-burning madness, the nest egg Qianqian had painstakingly saved up has basically been wiped out.

Right now the Holy Alliance is basically running on war bonds and the new real estate sector.

War bonds need no elaboration; as for property tax, it’s essentially a hidden "wealthy immigrant citizenship tax."

Those immigrants entering the Holy Alliance from all over Falanon are initially not allowed to run their own businesses.

Doing business in the Holy Alliance is very comfortable, but the prerequisite is that you must have Holy Alliance citizenship.

To operate in a city, you need city citizenship; to operate in the countryside, you need rural citizenship.

Under normal circumstances, you must reside in the Holy Alliance for three years, with corresponding tax records and no criminal record, before you can naturalize.

Once you’re a citizen, you can live in cheap public rental apartments run by local governments, and later you can even buy out those rental units.

Basically, it’s the same model as the ry Court Barracks Insula Apartment.

Most immigrants go through this route.

For many small-time Workshop Masters or New Falan Nobility immigrants with some assets, it’s impossible to just sit and eat away their capital, so they need to naturalize quickly and start generating income.

At that point, buying a house in the central district of a town lets them cut the probation period down to one year.

Fundamentally, it’s just a way to harvest the wealthy incoming immigrants.

By selling these self-built, self-marketed houses, local governments can rake in a large sum and fulfill the military orders issued by the ry Court Barracks.

As for the other components of military spending, those are mainly covered by war bonds.

For example, the Falan Kingdom often funnels large sums into the Holy Alliance by buying bonds, in order to sustain the war effort.

But as the war has dragged on to this point, Falan itself is running out of surplus and has even started pressing the Holy Alliance to repay its debts.

As for the Holy Alliance’s own core territories, things have looked booming on the surface after the war began, but underneath, the growth rate has been steadily slowing.

At present, aside from internal real estate, the growth drivers are still newly restructured external territories and market development.

The Dawn Federation and the New Gem Federation are newly acquired territories and new markets; there too are undeveloped assets and land resources.

Once the Dawn Federation and the New Gem Federation finish digesting, and you add the newly conquered half of Thorn Garden plus the Norn Region, then the Holy Alliance can barely keep its economic growth at the current level.

Besides that, the other major client of the Holy Alliance is equally unexpected.

That would be the vampires.

In vampire territories nowadays, Holy Alliance goods are in circulation everywhere.

Sometimes they even take the initiative, through the maintaining councils, to purchase Holy Alliance products and goods.

Purer, sweeter refined white sugar from the Holy Alliance, smoother Holy Alliance cigarettes, cheaper spices... not to mention all those industrial products.

Especially Dragon Blood pepper, which may be too heavy for human palates.

But for vampires, it’s just, just, just perfect.

If it weren’t for the vampires’ strong support for Holy Alliance goods, Horn’s income last year wouldn’t have reached as high as 1.25 million gold pounds.

Yet it’s undeniable that with the new Holy War starting and the emergence of the Happiness Potion, normal production and commodity circulation have both run into trouble.

If we keep fighting like this, it’s bound to shrink the entire empire’s economy and markets.

Once we reach that stage, the Holy Alliance won’t escape unscathed either.

"We can’t even put together the funds for the Central War Army’s departure right now?"

"We can scrape it together, but then the other two battlefields will have a shortage of supplies. They need all kinds of matériel over there too, especially in logistics and transport."

"If they have shortages over there, will that cause problems?" Horn turned his head and asked Bernardo.

Bernardo thought for a few seconds. "I’m afraid it will. My guess is that Konyaz spotted exactly this weakness, which is why he launched such a fierce offensive."

"Roughly when will they finish this round of war plans?"

"Afraid it’ll be around the end of the month."

"If there’s no money, can’t we just issue a new batch of bonds?" Horn probed.

Qianqian forced down her anger and shook her head. "That’s exactly what I want to do—issue a new batch of bonds. But if we want to issue new bonds, we first have to clear out part of the maturing high-interest debt to meet the issuance requirements."

Horn rubbed his chin. "How you issue them isn’t my concern. Roughly how long until we can scrape together enough budget?"

After estimating the time, Qianqian gave her answer. "After the spring tax revenues come in."

"By the time spring taxes are in, it’ll already be early summer." Chief of Staff Petier shook his head again and again. "By then Huaqiu City will have long since been taken by the vampires."

"By the latest, when should we set out?" Horn turned his head and asked.

Bernardo answered quickly. "No later than next week."

"Then what do we do? We can’t conjure money out of thin air."

"Why don’t we just print more money?"

"Right, print more money to pay off the debt, keep the bonds unchanged—that’s basically grabbing the white wolf with empty hands."

"No wonder His Eminence wanted to push that ’Pious Notes’ scheme. So this is what he’d been waiting for all along."

"No. As governor of the Central Believers’ Bank, I firmly oppose this plan. It will inevitably trigger hyperinflation!"

"It won’t cause hyperinflation. We can raise bank interest rates and attract deposits from the new immigrants."

"High interest on bonds, high interest on bank deposits—are you trying to step on your own foot and fly into the sky?"

Listening to the quarrel around him, Horn fell into thought.

To be blunt, for this rescue operation, the Falan are definitely willing to bleed for it.

Paying the soldiers’ wages is absolutely doable; we might even be able to wrest the crown out of them.

But the problem is, some supplies Qianqian is only valuing in terms of money, whereas they simply don’t exist in Falan.

Things like clockwork rifles, bayonets, steel-capped armor-piercing rounds, moon-mercury, canned food and so on—industrial goods that, even if you give the battle groups money, they still can’t buy locally.

The only way is to spend money to place orders with the Holy Alliance, then transport them from the Alliance.

Yet for the Alliance’s soldiers, these supplies are absolutely indispensable.

And Horn seriously doubts, given Falan’s level of administrative efficiency, whether they can even supply grain in time—whether we’ll have to bring ample rations ourselves.

Letting Falan handle these logistics and war expenses is something Horn simply cannot trust.

Having Falan pay soldiers’ wages and rations in gold pounds is workable, but the main point is that we must, in a short time, obtain a stream of cash to place military orders within the Holy Alliance’s territory.

The supplies from the other war zones can be temporarily reallocated to the Central War Army, to facilitate a rapid march.

But subsequent military orders still have to be placed for them, otherwise the current war plans can’t keep running.

Horn took a deep breath and tapped the table to stop the arguing. "Catherine, I heard you’ve been investigating unfair business competition and monopolies lately?"

As the saying goes, ’one glance at the Saint’s Grandson’s raised ass and you know his intentions’—everyone present instantly understood what he meant.

Go after the oligarchs, go after the rich—especially those old money families terrified of war, who are pouring into the Holy Alliance from all corners of the Empire.

"You’ll have to transfer the Cheka to me." Catherine nodded, smoothly taking on the assignment.

"Isn’t this a bit much?" a government adviser asked timidly. "If we do this, won’t those oligarchs and rich people just run off with their capital?"

"Run? Where to?" Horn couldn’t help but laugh. "Where are they going to run? To the Royal Court, or to Norn?"

Go to Falan and you’re waiting to die; go to the Royal Court and you’re livestock; go to Norn and you’re savages. Only staying in the Holy Alliance offers any chance of survival.

Do they really take Horn for some kind-hearted gentleman? How do you slaughter a pig that hasn’t been fattened?

On at least a hundred gold pounds, Horn can still leave them five.

"Besides, the ry Court Barracks’ clockwork difference engine should stop calculating astral weak points." Horn looked at Hilov. "Change its paradigm and have it optimize logistics and transport. We ought to be able to shave off another portion of the war expenses.

This time, we’ll use trains for the entire campaign. The speed will be very high, which should cut a lot of costs.

Patch a bit here, save a bit there—that ought to be enough.

Anyway, as long as we hold on to the Falan market, once new markets like Thorn Garden and Roaring Corridor are built up, the economy can keep warming.

What do you all think? Who’s in favor? Who’s against?"

The room fell silent for a moment. Qianqian slowly raised her hand. "I’m in favor."