"Currently, all the taxes in all the territories of Everta, including all the income in Elson City, may only reach the level of equivalent value of three million gold coins. This is only the theoretical value, which includes the trade share with the Kingdom of Lassiman this year and the arms sales to the Kingdom of Tasman..."

Duncan took out a table of statistics and continued: "Prime Minister, I have to sigh that Elson City's income level is amazing. If you dig out this territory, the entire Everta can provide may only be less than one million gold coins. But Elson City is in a development period, and its revenue is more and more. If you continue to invest in all aspects of R&D, our military expenditure gap will be at least five million gold coins...

"Don't worry too much about military spending. I've already thought of a solution since I decided to start this war."

Roddy found a letter, "We don't have enough military expenses, but we can borrow them. Lassiman's fleet will arrive in half a month."

Duncan obviously did not expect that there was such a method. He had heard of "borrowing money to fight" but it was extremely rare in the Kingdom of Karen. Even if there were similar situations, it was just a battle of a thousand people in a small territory. The poor lord's supervisor, the rich lord, borrowed usury to recruit mercenaries to work hard for him or not... Even so, not many people were willing to borrow money. Because the current "credit" of the lord system is very poor, and a lord is destroyed, so the money lent out is not thought of recovering. If this lord becomes bigger, it depends on whether the other party is willing to recover the money - in a word, the one who owes the money is the old man.

The truly reputable ones are the royal family and several dukes and marquises, plus the "Rose Cross". But the wealth of these forces, compared with Roddy's current work... nothing counts at all.

“Is it really okay to borrow so much money from a country?”

"There is cobalt ore as a guarantee, and Elson City's magic technology is also a deposit. With some port conditions, Lassiman is obviously willing to cooperate with me."

Roddy's move actually started to go very early. Since Lassiman's parliamentary trend changed and he frequently showed goodwill to Elson, he has been considering the feasibility of "war loans". Through the powerful and rich impression he left to them, and in conjunction with Houdini's analysis of the group of parliamentary mages, the loan that had been negotiated since February was finally settled after the new fleet arrived at the port some time ago.

The interest on the loan was suppressed very low, only 7% a year, and it would be paid off in three years. This means that Roddy has solved his "worries" - for at least 8 months, he would not have to think about tightening his belt in everything.

The battle is about economic strength. In this regard, foreign trade is almost zero, and the royal family that can only eat their old fortune is no match. Roddy's war budget is eight million gold coins, and if Charles II fights according to the traditional model, the budget will be less than one million gold coins after a year of fighting. At the same time, for the royal family that has been ravaged by orcs, it is another to say whether they can afford so much money.

Duncan calculated the calculations in his heart and suddenly felt that the huge rock pressing on his heart disappeared. He originally didn't think Roddy could have any profound insights in the economy, but he was actually a little arrogant in his heart. After seeing Roddy's ability to borrow from the "country" unit, he really admired this kind of execution ability and had nothing to say...

"If you can solve this problem, the war has won half the battle!"

This is his greatest feeling. Money is really important to war. He has witnessed many failures in wars, not because the soldiers are not outstanding enough, but because the party who fought has spent all the money - insufficient military salary, no food can be enough, and no army can escape the fate of losing without fighting.

The rest of the staff team were also surprised by the amazing way of lending and amounts, and they didn't even believe each other. But Roddy didn't feel much about such behavior - in the era he experienced, "borrowing money to fight" has almost become a common thing in modern times. However, Roddy was not a war madman with the purpose of "defeating the enemy". He always kept in mind a principle: war is a continuation of politics.

The purpose of launching this war has long been included in the strategic policy for the future. Roddy's fundamental purpose is very clear now. He has now bet on the future of Elson and even the entire Iversta.

Whatever the future will depend on what the battle can be like.

*******

On May 1, troops began to gather in the eastern part of the Karen Kingdom.

Because Count Milno died in last year's war, and Count Mur, who was dealing with the orcs, was replaced again, it was difficult for Charles II to find the most suitable candidate to fight.

In the age of cold weapons, Charles II had no choice in strategic planning. The only thing he could do was to gather troops to take down the outpost of the "Temple", the "Temple", and then head westward and step by step. Only after successfully entering the hinterland of the Iversa will he have to consider the specific division of troops to attack other places.

After all, there is only one way to enter Iversa, for him to let the army climb over the mountains in the middle? That is simply a sleep talk.

Even with the support of the Dragon Clan, Charles II would not really think that these giant dragons are willing to help him transport the army from the top of the mountain. Until now, the greatest support provided by the Dragon Clan is the "Dragon Tower" Magic Academy and Magic Guidance. Although it doesn't sound much, as long as such support exists, the royal family's prestige can be established, and the surrounding lords will not have any dissatisfaction.

Under such circumstances, Charles II's mood was much better when he could not find a suitable commander - in his eyes, the battles to be fought at the moment did not have much technical content. He used to deal with the orcs because the orcs were powerful and came and went like the wind, and there must be a person who is good at field battles to deal with them in time. Now Iversa is completely on the defensive. Charles II and his nobles analyzed and all believed that Sally had no courage to take the initiative to attack and must rely on the fortress to engage in defensive battles. Therefore, the final order was to let Count Harrison, in the northeast of the kingdom, take the lead.

Count Harrison is nearly fifty years old this year. He is guarding the northeast of the kingdom. He has to face attacks from scattered bandits from the eastern mountainous areas all year round. Over the past 20 years, he has accumulated a lot of combat experience. Last year, Zoro led the orc troops to pass through his territory. Because of the timely contraction and defense, Count Harrison suffered almost no losses, which made Charles II quite concerned and believed that he was a talent.

In fact, that was because Zoro had no time to pay attention to him.

The mountains to the east are also natural barriers. The countries scattered on the other side of the mountain have been in civil strife in the past ten years, and there is no movement to send troops to fight. There are some roads between the mountains, and occasionally caravans will come to the Karen Kingdom to communicate with each other, but this situation completely disappeared after the Orc Zoro led his troops through.

Earl Harrison had gathered a lot of troops in fear, fearing that Zoro would kill a shot back. But a winter passed, and the scouts sent said that Zoro should have traveled to the other side of the mountain. Apart from the corpses of the orcs who died of illness, there was no trace of these guys in the country.

This was why the count was relieved. However, he did not expect that he would be assigned to attack Everta after the New Year - at this time he actually wanted to refuse, but thinking that Charles II now has the support of the dragon clan and the territory economy really needed special means to recover. After measuring the pros and cons, he finally took on this task.

The territory of Count Harlemson is located on the east side of the "Temple" area. Whether it is economic or faith, the "Temple" has a good influence in the territory. However, after Charles II's ban, he was forced to stop extinguishing all contacts with the "Temple". He closed the monasteries in the city. In order to avoid suspicion, the bishops and priests were directly locked up by him.

Needless to say, the economic losses caused by this series of actions have now become the leader of the "Western Expedition Army". He can only hope to resolve Everta as soon as possible to make up for his losses.

Now that the "assembly order" has been issued, the total number of nobles of all sizes and large and small under the Earl of Harrison himself was able to gather, and the total number of knights, knight entourages and soldiers they brought in exceeded 2,000. The total number of troops that were working hard to gather from other territories of the Kingdom is rushing towards here in batches.

"This fact is really too troublesome!"

Earl Harrison, who was sitting in the mansion, couldn't help complaining. The letters from various regions in front of him had been piled up into mountains. If three housekeepers had not been temporarily recruited to form a "staff team", he would not have handled this complicated information alone.

"The 20,000 army of people, eating all day is scary enough. Where can I get so much food? When the orcs passed by me, they robbed hundreds of sheep from the ranch. This Majesty is really good at raising me with problems!"

The three housekeepers were so busy that they didn't have time to talk. Earl Harrison's previous "fight" was against refugees or bandits, so there was no need to be so complicated. He directly ordered the powerful knights to lead their troops to wipe out the enemy. The largest scale was only 300 people. It was the first time for him to command such large troops with tens of thousands of people who were divided into different lords to fight... Because he had no experience, he was inevitably worried.

Of course, being able to stand in this position also means Charles II's attention to him. The war funds allocated by the royal family made Harrison's heart-wrenching for a long time - for him, he would do a few small moves and miss the gold coins in his bowl that he could not compare to for more than ten years...
Chapter completed!