“Marquis Descartes, we meet again.” Count Didamans looked at Marquis Descartes with a smile which had a deep meaning to it.
Marquis Descartes could only give a bitter laugh in his heart. After greeting Count Didamans, he turned to Xu Yi.
“Chairman Xu, I am representing the empire this time with absolute sincerity. If your Frestech Chamber of Commerce and Rudson Kingdom have any conditions, we can definitely discuss this. Even……”
Xu Yi raised a hand to cut him off and then nodded to miss Sorel standing beside him.
Miss Sorel took a document from her bag and placed it in front of Marquis Descartes.
“These are the terms of our company.” Xu Yi looked at Marquis Descartes who was staring at the document in a daze and explained.
Marquis Descartes reached out to take it and with just a single look, he immediately said in a shocked voice, “This is impossible!”
On the ceasefire treaty, it requested the Candra Empire to completely open themselves to the Frestech Chamber of commerce. It didn’t allow the Candra Empire to interfere with any of the financial activities of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, not even giving them any management rights.
If the Candra Empire agreed to this, it would be like letting a monster enter the Candra Empire.
With the strong communications and development potential of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, as long the Candra Empire did this, then Marquis Descartes was certain that it wouldn’t take long before the Frestech Chamber of Commerce controlled every part of the Candra Empire’s magic machine industry.
For the current Sines Continent, the magic machine industry was important for any country.
If the magic machine industry was controlled by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, it would mean the Candra Empire would be controlled by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
How could the Candra Empire agree to this condition?
However, when Marquis Descartes kept reading, he found that the first one was actually the only one that they could barely accept.
Not to mention the third condition.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce actually proposed that the Candra Empire would stop all studies into the military magic machines!
Gods! All the countries on the continent knew that the military magic machines were the key to deciding battles.
If the Candra Empire gave up on researching military magic machines, wouldn’t that mean that they would be passively attacked on the battlefield in the future? Just like how they were when they fought the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and Rudson Kingdom’s allied army?
This would mean that the Candra Empire would forever lose the hope of standing up again, losing the right to be an empire!
“Chairman Xu, these conditions are going too far.”
Because of the experience from last time, even if Marquis Descartes was trembling in anger from these conditions, he did all the could to control his tone and not directly refute them.
“Not to mention our Candra Empire, I’m afraid not a single country on the continent would accept these terms.”
“Just the opposite.” Xu Yi revealed a faint smile, “Before you all came, our company had already signed the same treaty with seventeen different countries. Including the Windsor Kingdom and the Torea Dominion.”
Hearing the two terms “Windsor Kingdom” and “Torea Dominion”, the faces of all the Candra Empire delegate members including Marquis Windsor turned red as their eyes filled with rage.
The so-called “Windsor Kingdom” and “Torea Dominion” were the southern province and the Torea Province of the Candra Empire.
After the southern province declared their independence, Duke Windsor had announced that he had established the Windsor Kingdom and he would be the first king of the Windsor Kingdom.
Although the Torea Province had merged with the Stantine Duchy, after the Stantine Duchy national assembly convened, they agreed on making the Torea Province an autonomous dominion, turning it into the Torea Dominion. It was under the Stantine Duchy in name, but it was actually governed by an assembly formed within the Torea Dominion.
Almost all the members of the assembly were very close to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, one could even say that they were the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s representatives. So everyone knew that it was the Frestech Chamber of Commerce who controlled this assembly.
To put it in other words, it wasn’t a problem to call the Torea Province territory under the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
Xu Yi had mentioned the Windsor Kingdom and the Torea Province at this time to slap the faces of the delegates and Marquis Descartes, so naturally it put them in a poor mood.
But even then, Marquis Descartes did all he could to suppress his anger and forced himself to say to Xu Yi in a calm tone, “Chairman Xu, I don’t think that the emperor and the senior ministers will agree to these terms. I hope that you can be more serious and propose some more realistic terms so that everyone can have some leeway to discuss, right?”
Xu Yi blinked, “This means that you’re not willing to agree?”
“It can’t be said like that, everyone can slowly discuss this.” Marquis Descartes could hear the unkind tone in Xu Yi’s voice and immediately added, “If your Frestech Chamber of Commerce insists on these terms, then I have no way of making a decision. I can only pass these conditions to the emperor and the senior ministers to let them discuss this.”
Xu Yi looked at Marquis Descartes with a ghost of a smile, “You can do that. But Marquis Descartes, I must remind you that I will only give you a week to consider this. I can’t guarantee anything if you exceed this time.”
Marquis Descartes looked at the peace treaty in his hand and after a moment of silence, he gave a nod before turning to Count Didamans.”
“Count Didamans, I think that you should have the peace treaty proposed by your Rudson Kingdom as well, right?”
Count Didamans revealed a faint smile. He gave a clap and a Rudson Kingdom official gave the document in his hand to Marquis Descartes.
Marquis Descartes didn’t even look at this treaty. Anyway, no one would dare to agree to any of the conditions of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s peace treaty, so there was no meaning in discussing the Rudson Kingdom’s peace treaty.
Everyone was clear that the key was the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. If they couldn’t take care of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, there would be no value in reaching an agreement with the Rudson Kingdom.
No matter what, he had to take these two peace treaties back to the emperor and the senior ministers to read over before they made a decision.
Although Marquis Descartes knew in his heart that the emperor and the senior ministers wouldn’t agree to these conditions, being able to delay for a weak was still good enough.
The empire needed time to arrange a counter attack and even a single day would make their resistance much stronger.
As long as they stalled for long enough, the empire had a chance to fight back.
The Candra Empire delegate remained in the occupied San Antonio City for a short two days before leaving with a bit of unwillingness.
Marquis Descartes had said that after he returned to Wimbledon City, the first thing he would do was give the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and Rudson Kingdom’s peace treaties to the emperor and the senior ministers. He would do all he could to give them a clear answer in a week and he hoped that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and Rudson Kingdom would keep the peace during this time, that they would patiently wait for the good news from the Candra Empire.
“Hei, chairman Xu, this Marquis Descartes really knows how to cling on for dear life. With this move from him, we’ve given the Candra Empire another three days.” Seeing the Candra Empire delegate disappearing in the distance, Count Didamans curled his lips as he said this to Xu Yi beside him with a look of disdain, “Do you believe that in a week, he will bring the two treaties back in a completely different shape and then try to stall for as long as he can?”
“That isn’t strange.” Xu Yi shook his head, “The Candra Empire definitely wants to stall for as long as they can, they are still holding confidence in the foundation of their empire. They think that they can wear us down, but they don’t know that by stalling, we’re actually becoming stronger and they are becoming weaker.”
Count Didamans gave a laugh, “These idiots aren’t willing to accept the earth shaking changes of the magic machine industry, they still think that they could rely on the advantages of this ancient and backwards empire to suppress us. They really are too stupid. They definitely wouldn’t think that although we’ve spent quite a bit of money on this war, we’ve earned even more.”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile. He thought that not only could the traditional nobles of the Candra Empire not understand this, even before this, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s higher ups couldn’t understand this. They had been worried about the enormous financial pressure brought upon the Frestech Chamber of Commerce from this war.
However, facts proved that this didn’t happen.
At the beginning of the war, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce invested a terrifying amount. They had even invested liquid assets and resources totalling two hundred million last year, which had almost affected the normal operations of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
But as the war progressed, after the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the Lampuri Kingdom, and the Rudson Kingdom had defeated the two empires more and more, the situation had greatly changed.
The main reason was that through these countless victories, fissures had appeared in the camp of the two empires.
After realizing that the armies of the two empires couldn’t defeat the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s armies even with the help of the powerful Arch Magi, the countries that had belonged to the camp of the two empires had started expressing their willingness to cooperate again with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce in secret.
The countries that had remained neutral, but took up close to half of all countries on the continent had changed their attitudes, leaning towards the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
After the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and Rudson Kingdom’s allied army took San Antonio City, there were representatives from twenty four countries that reached out to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to express their intent to cooperate.
Like this, the trend of the continent was completely different from when the two empires had steamrolled the entire continent at the beginning of the war. Rather, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce camp had gained support from two thirds of the continent’s countries.
Just with this support, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s trade activities that had been greatly affected by the war had almost completely recovered.
Outside of the war, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was still using their powerful magic machines to earn a large amount of gold coins.
Moreover, through the victories in the war, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce controlled a large number of valuable resources that had belonged to the Candra Empire, so the value that was held was hard to estimate.
So when calculating it, whether it was the Frestech Chamber of Commerce or the Rudson Kingdom, they had benefited greatly from the war.
On the side of the two empires, other than the two empires, there was only the Mana Magic Kingdom and the Drow Race Kingdom that didn’t reconcile with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, so naturally they weren’t as powerful as before.
In this situation, Xu Yi had plenty of patience and confidence to leave some space for the Candra Empire.
If the Candra Empire was tactful, it would save quite a bit of effort for him.
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