Lord of Rot

KNOCK, KNOCK. A light knock on the door.

The door to the council hall had been left open.

Leech and Lacy looked up at the door at the same time. Hay, sticking out his large belly, had a smile plastered on his face. ”Yarrn, my lord!”

”You’re just in time,” Leech said, beckoning him over. ”What’s the food situation?”

”At most, we can last for another half a month.”

”Hmm, half a month... The grain shipment should have arrived by then,” he said with a slight nod. ”You’ve done well.”

Hay immediately replied, ”It is the blessing of the Four Gods, and your glorious guidance that leads me, my lord!”

Leech smiled. He didn’t mind the flattery, as long as the man did his job.

His gaze fell on the paper tube in Hay’s arms.

”My lord!” The instant Leech’s eyes landed on the paper tube, Hay unrolled it and presented it to him. ”These are the statistics I’ve compiled.”

”This fast?” Leech glanced at Hay.

This fat manager was different from Gelan of Porcupine Territory. Gelan was meticulous and exhausted every ounce of his effort, but his work efficiency wasn’t very high, and many things required Leech’s personal approval.

Hay, on the other hand, was much faster. Although he lacked Gelan’s precision, he always managed to fulfill Leech’s requests.

This was also why Leech continued to entrust him with important responsibilities.

”I told you to find people who are willing to work,” Leech said, glancing down at the document. ”Not to force everyone to work for me.”

Leech deeply understood the saying: a melon plucked by force isn’t sweet. He wasn’t afraid of some people choosing not to follow him. After all, if everyone receives a handout, then no one truly benefits. It was far more meaningful to make people realize that following him was the right path than to simply force them all into submission.

But Hay said, ”If you could delay the grain shipment by another half a month, I think they would volunteer to work for you.”

”Are you suggesting I deceive the people who work for me and are loyal to me, tricking them out of their labor?” Leech looked at Hay with cold eyes.

Lacy Sith, standing to the side, had long since found Hay disagreeable. He was just waiting for a command from Leech to kick the man and burst that increasingly plump, greasy belly.

”No, my lord!” Hay shook his head at once, the flesh on his jowls slapping together. ”It’s not about tricking them, but about stabilizing the market. Perhaps you aren’t aware of what’s been happening. Because you saved Iron Valley so quickly and the roads to the outside are opening up day by day, some people have been deliberately conserving their food stamps. If a large amount of grain enters the market now, it won’t actually help. It will just encourage some people to stop working, since they have enough food stamps saved up to live for a long time without a job.”

Printing so many food stamps was a necessary evil. People who worked had to be paid, and grain prices skyrocketed during the war. But with the war over and contact with the outside world re-established, the price of grain was bound to plummet.

Some people were hoarding their food stamps.

There were only two methods left for Leech. One was to abolish the food stamps outright and declare them worthless.

The consequence of that would inevitably be public outrage.

The second was to make people willingly spend most of their food stamps.

”Iron Valley needs to be rebuilt as soon as possible,” Leech said. ”I can’t have them working on empty stomachs.”

”No one will go hungry, my lord!” Hay said with a smile. He knew Leech had approved of his plan.

”The grain will be delivered at the end of May.”

”Thank you for your benevolence, my lord!”

Hay departed quickly. He hadn’t gone far when Lacy said angrily, ”My lord, Hay has been privately selling food stamps! The current hoarding of stamps is inextricably linked to him!”

Leech shook his head gently. ”While he did take a cut of the profits, the money from the food stamps he sold was delivered to me.”

It wasn’t that he was unaware that the fat manager, Hay, was skimming off the top. But the man was smart about it, taking only a small cut for himself and delivering the vast majority of the profits to Leech.

With Leech focused on development and accumulating wealth, Hay’s approach was to lower the price of the food stamps he held, encouraging people to spend their money to buy them.

Driven by the desire to secure more grain, the people of Iron Wall Castle naturally emptied their savings.

It was precisely with this money that Leech was able to buy grain from Lady Jie Lin and even support a short period of subsequent development.

”Alright, Lacy,” Leech said. ”Iron Valley is a complete mess right now, riddled with holes. If we want to rebuild it quickly, we have to use talented people. If you can find me a few helpers when you go to East Port, I won’t have to be so desperate, grabbing anyone I can.”

”Rest assured, my lord. I’m on good terms with a number of nobles.”

Leech said with great sincerity, ”I have complete faith in you!”

’A true scoundrel like Hay is useful and profitable, but when it comes to trust and major responsibilities, it has to be someone upright like Lacy.’

The writing of the Iron Valley Development Plan (Phase One) did not end there.

The war had turned Iron Wall Castle into a refugee haven, but the dilapidated wooden huts on the training grounds and the shanties occupying the main roads did not belong here.

Aside from a small group he planned to select and send to the three villages, building a small trading town not far from Iron Wall Castle was also a top priority.

’It’s not a problem for people to earn more money. The biggest problem is how to get them to spend it all.’

’Otherwise, if they just hoard their money to simply eat and drink their fill, it will be just like the current situation with the excess food stamps. In the end, I’ll just be supporting a bunch of freeloaders, and my territory has no need for slackers right now.’

’A trading hub to stimulate consumption is therefore essential.’

”Dig a tunnel!”