Two years later, in the Rosa Merchant Confederacy’s Rosa City.
In a classy office that carried a breath of history, a ginger-haired middle-aged man was seated before a study desk. In front of him, at the center of the room, stood a girl with auburn hair and emerald eyes.
The man was Bruce Sorofya and the girl was his daughter, Charlotte. They were the most renowned father-daughter pair in Rosa. They were usually on good terms with one another, but the atmosphere in the room felt a little different from normal.
“Father, why did you call me here?”
Charlotte couldn’t understand what was going on. Bruce had sent her a letter using their house’s high-priority envelope to summon her back from the Land of Chaos. The high-priority envelope was reserved solely for situations where the house was in dire trouble, which was why Charlotte was alarmed to receive the summon. Without any hesitation, she rushed all the way back home, taking hardly any rest along the way, only to have Bruce ask her all sorts of trivial questions over the past half an hour.
Bruce had also noticed Charlotte’s confusion as well, and he sighed softly to himself. He knew that it had skirted around the issue for too long, and it was about time for him to get straight to the point.
“Charlotte, what do you think of the Ascart House?”
“Ascart House? Are you referring to the house ruling over the neighboring Ascart Fiefdom?”
“Yes, I’m referring to them. I would like to hear your evaluation of them.”
“Hmm… The Ascart Fiefdom itself holds a lot of potential, but it seems like the fief lord managing the territory has been quite inept thus far.”
The almost offensive evaluation caused Bruce’s eyebrows to shoot up, but before he could say anything, Charlotte had already started backing up her evaluation with all sorts of statistics, such as the progress of development of the fiefdom barely reaching 40%, its dilapidated roads, the inaccessibility of its mountainous terrain, the low border taxes that were hardly sufficient to make up for its expenditures, and so on.
All in all, it was a miracle that the Ascart Fiefdom managed to survive for the past thousand years.
The incredibly long rant left Bruce feeling a sharp migraine settling in.
“Enough. I’m aware of your view of the Ascart Fiefdom now, so you need not say anymore.”
With a wave of his hand, Bruce gestured for Charlotte to halt her analysis. He felt that he had just asked the wrong question, and it left him at a further loss as to how he should approach the topic.
The Sorofyas was a house of merchants. Even though they had strayed away momentarily from their primary trade to fight a war, they didn’t abandon their roots. Even the Rosa Merchant Confederacy, which they stood in the center of, developed through expanding its economic prowess. Due to that, they naturally evaluated others through their finances and economic development too.
The Ascart House, despite its high and lofty position over the past millennium, had horrible figures when it came to its economic development. In fact, it was regressing half of the time, which was how it managed to remain more or less stagnant even after so many years. Given so, it couldn’t be helped that Rosaians thought very little of it.
The patriarch of the Sorofya House, Bruce, had a different thought about this matter though. The Ascart Fiefdom was indeed an unqualified mess from the perspective of a merchant, but its military prowess was formidable.
Each fiefdom had its own strengths and weaknesses depending on its specialization. Rosa chose to develop its commerce, and that was why it was prosperous. On the other hand, the Ascart Fiefdom chose to grow its military might, and that was why it was stable.
From the perspective of a ruler, Bruce actually had quite a high opinion of the Ascart Fiefdom. At the very least, the latter was a neighbor that was worth maintaining friendly relations with.
And fortunately, due to more recent events, he did have several points to refute Charlotte’s opinion.
“Charlotte, have you heard of Roel Ascart?”
“Roel Ascart? You’re referring to the sole son of Marquess Carter? I heard that he was quite a tyrant when he was younger, but he appears to have gotten on good terms with the Theocracy’s princess, Her Highness Nora.”
“Cough cough. Let’s not talk about the past and his backing for the time being. You have been busy dealing with issues over at the Land of Chaos, so it can’t be helped that your information is outdated. Take a look at this report first.”
Bruce picked up the documents he had on his desk and passed them over to Charlotte. The latter received the documents and began browsing through them. Gradually, her eyes began to widen.
Bruce watched the reactions of his daughter as his lips curled into a smile.
Indeed, the content of the investigation report regarding the Ascart Fiefdom was truly explosive. Every single figure they had estimated was ridiculous based on what he knew, such that he had to dispatch another team to verify the authenticity of the first team’s report.
Charlotte’s interest was clearly piqued as she flipped through the report. She carefully read through the various policies the Ascart Fiefdom had put in place over the last two years, and the more she read about it, the more ingenious she felt they were.
To start with, they had carried out an operation named ‘Cleansing the vermin off the streets’, which involved using the powerful military might of the fiefdom to sweep away all of the evildoers. Following that, they carried out large-scale road construction in order to connect the various cities and towns in the Ascart Fiefdom together, thus improving the overall accessibility within the fiefdom.
The lowered crime rates and improved road system significantly improved investors’ perception of the fief, and this was further reinforced by the various policies put in place to promote business transactions.
But, what stood out the most to Charlotte was a policy named ‘Supporting the Poor’.
This policy was another brainchild of Roel Ascart, and as the name implied, its purpose was to help some of the poorer villages improve their financial situation. How it worked was that the Ascart Fiefdom would dispatch some merchants over to each village to aid them in the development of their businesses, including scouting for business opportunities and establishing processes.
On top of that, these businesses were also offered government loans to quickly expand their operations, and these debts could be slowly repaid over the course of a decade.
This ‘Supporting the Poor’ policy was initially treated as a laughingstock by other fief lords. They thought that Roel Ascart was foolishly squandering his money away for the sake of earning a good reputation. Yet, in just a single year’s time, the results produced by the policy made them swallow their words back down. By no exaggeration at all, the level of production in the Ascart Fiefdom increased manyfold.
And, this was only just the first year.
According to the internal documents compiled by the Sorofyas, it was estimated that this rapid growth would continue for at least 5 more years.
“How is it, Charlotte? Do you still think that Roel Ascart is an inept scion?”
“If he was really the one who came up with these ideas, he’s indeed a formidable individual. Perhaps, he might even be a genius,” complimented Charlotte.
Bruce heaved a deep sigh of relief, and he finally threw out his final bait.
“The Ascart Fiefdom has recently submitted a collaborative development proposal to us. The area they’re looking at spans their northern border region along with the southern border of our Rosa. I think that the proposal is worth looking at. What are your thoughts?”
“Assuming that the content of the report is true, it would mean that the Ascart Fiefdom will be going through swift economic growth for the next few years. I believe that we should view their proposal favorably.”
“You think so too? Then… what do you think of negotiating this deal for us?”
“Me?”
“Yes. The development of the Land of Chaos hasn’t been going smoothly for you over the past two years. I think it’ll be good for you to turn your attention to something else for the time being.”
Bruce’s grave face made Charlotte fall silent. She pondered the matter for a moment before finally nodding in agreement.
“I understand. Leave this matter to me.”
“Excellent. I’ll be looking forward to hearing good news from you. Also, there’s another matter that I should inform you of regarding Roel Ascart.”
“What is it?”
“Well…”
Faced with the curious emerald eyes of his daughter, Bruce struggled internally for a long while before he tried his best to squeeze out a forced smile.
“… he’s actually your fiancé.”
Just an interesting fact, this is how Alibaba grew to prominence in China too. Alibaba reached out to smaller villages and helped them establish their businesses on the online platform. Through that, they managed to create a synergistic relationship.
These smaller businesses benefited from Alibaba’s expertise and outreach, and Alibaba got a wider variety of goods and more income too.
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