Free Web NovelChapter 1200: Chapter 1128: Ten Thousand Ships Bound for the Holy Alliance
Whether in Windmill Fields, Dawn Island, or other parts of Leia, there were plenty of people making moves similar to Mossley.
Whatever their reasons, they were all heading toward the Holy Alliance together.
Including the Falan.
In streets and alleys—not just in Huaqiu City, but also in places like Lilac City, Wolf Den, and Fat Bird Fort—everyone was spreading related news.
Especially the mechanical horse race, which drew a lot of attention.
Over these past ten years, plenty of people had visited the ry Court Barracks or fought on the Holy Alliance’s battlefields.
Compared to complete unfamiliarity, people’s understanding of spring guns and spring machines had improved quite a bit from before.
But as the saying goes, "Everything from before I was born is an unshakable truth, everything before I turn thirty is a roaring new trend, and everything after I turn thirty is monsters and demons."
Aside from the younger generation, the older generation of Falan—who made up the current backbone of Falan—looked down on machines with utter disdain.
The reason was simple: tell them a lever can hoist up a millstone, and they’ll believe it.
But saying machines could outrun galloping horses was just too ridiculous.
Simple as that: machines don’t even have brains, so how are they supposed to run?
"Is this what they call rationality? It’s hysterically funny." Folding up the newspaper in his hand, the merchant Buslifon from the South River Region clasped his hands behind his back and launched into a critique of "pure reason."
Purely critiquing reason, using nothing but emotion, without a shred of reason.
Across the coffee table, Madam Midus, the Workshop Master of the Flower Dew Grand Workshop and also a baroness, spread her folding fan to cover her mouth and chuckled. "I heard that quite a few people on Dawn Island and in the Holy Alliance’s homeland have opened betting pools, putting their money on the machine winning?"
Buslifon hurriedly bent at the waist, looking every bit the fawning sycophant. "Yes, it’s clearly an attempt to curry favor with the Pope—utterly unwise."
"And what about you?"
"Haha, someone as insignificant as me would never catch the Pope’s eye, so I put five hundred gold pounds on the horses."
"Five hundred gold pounds." Madam Midus’s cherry lips parted in what looked almost like a coy scold. "That’s no small sum."
"Hahaha, it’s nothing really. What did you bet on?"
"I put a little on the machine and a little on the horses. After all, we’ll still have to do business with the Holy Alliance in the future, won’t we?"
Buslifon spoke with a tinge of envy. "With an enterprise as large as yours, of course you can catch the Pope’s eye."
"If I could share a night of springtime with him, that would be even better. I hear this Pope is still a virgin."
Sharing a night of passion with a higher-ranking noble was an entirely natural aspiration for noblewomen.
Among commoners in Leia and Falan, traditions of chastity and fidelity still lingered, but after over a hundred years of "civilizing," Falan’s noblewomen had long since lost any shame in this regard.
"Hahaha, ha..." Buslifon let out a few awkward laughs, while bitterness spread through his heart.
No matter how rich they were, before the King Pope, they were nothing but small fry.
For the sake of the Holy Alliance’s face, for the sake of all sorts of new-product perks and the fun of watching a spectacle, they still decided to go and take a look.
As for their reasons—merchants make their living off information gaps.
Swing the stick whether there are dates on the tree or not; who knows what might fall?
Even if nothing came of it, they could still expand their network and broaden their horizons, and after they got back they’d have bragging rights and material to mock the Saint’s Grandson. Why not?
Besides, traveling to the Thousand River Valley, they could take advantage of convenient river transport.
At least in the café Buslifon frequented, everyone was talking about going to the Thousand River Valley.
Most were going to watch a joke, a smaller number to talk business.
And another group—including scholars and aristocratic artists—were going to admire the dragon head and the Holy Cabinet.
The noisy hubbub shook the tables, the coffee cups, and the wisps of steam rising from the cups.
At that very moment, the Falan King’s Palace was just as noisy.
"’The Pope coldly snubs queers, the King tsundere’... What the hell is this!" Charles slammed his palm heavily down on the newspaper. "Which paper printed this? Shut them down."
The voice of Prime Minister Lorenzo, seated opposite him, drifted over faintly. "You refuse to marry; you can hardly blame people for misunderstanding."
Charles’s pockmarked face flushed red with anger. "Horn Gallar isn’t married either—why did he turn me down?"
"He has four confidantes, which proves his orientation isn’t in question. The problem is that the factions behind those four Saintesses are at each other’s throats."
Lorenzo set down the newspaper, picked up a white porcelain coffee cup from the tea tray, and took a sip. "And you? If you’d at least let a single rumor slip out about some woman, there wouldn’t be talk like this."
"Why would a perfectly good person want to get married?" Charles grumbled as he sat back down and began reading the reports from the Falan embassy in the Holy Alliance and from the kingdom’s spies.
After reading for a while, his brows gradually furrowed. "Damn it, how is the Holy Alliance’s rune craft advancing this fast? We’ve got way more universities than they do."
"There’s nothing to be done. The Holy Alliance swallowed up most of Black Snake Bay’s wizard and scholar resources, and they’ve also scooped up a large number of Leia’s best scholars and engineers." Lorenzo had long been aware of this and spoke unhurriedly.
"So we’re supposed to send people to steal technology again?"
"I’m afraid that’s our only option."
"It’s so humiliating—can’t compete with them, so we resort to theft."
"What’s more important: the country’s pride or the country’s survival?" Lorenzo’s gaze suddenly turned sharp.
Charles answered at once, "Of course survival is more important... Does this really touch on Falan’s survival?"
"Your Majesty, Falan and the Holy Alliance are in a honeymoon phase at the moment only because the cake that is Leia is too big to finish." Lorenzo tapped the map carved into the tabletop with his finger. "But a cake eventually gets eaten. Sooner or later we’ll cross swords.
Given the Holy Alliance’s current growth potential, plus our domestic issues—especially your mother...
Compared to how things stood back then, it won’t take many years before they overtake us.
When that happens, we’ll be old, and our children will be the ones in danger."
"Sigh, I actually rather like Horn Gallar." Casually ignoring anything to do with the Empress Dowager, as usual, Charles shook his head helplessly. "So about this exhibition..."
"I don’t even mind stealing; why would I mind buying?" Lorenzo folded up the newspaper. "Perfect timing—we’ll see just how far he’s gotten..."
"I’m also curious whether machines or warhorses are faster." Charles glanced toward the window. "It’s just a pity I can’t go..."
"It’s too dangerous for you to venture into the enemy’s heartland, especially when you have no heir. If you did, I’d let you go..."
"Alright, alright..." Charles reluctantly drew his gaze back from the window. "Since the Holy Alliance is advancing so quickly, we can’t afford to fall behind either. The Old Bridge district—it’s about time we cleaned it up, isn’t it?"
"As you wish." Lorenzo smoothly picked up Charles’s words.
Under the manipulation of the two highest powers in the Summer Palace, the purge of the vagrants and Pantsless Men in the Old Bridge district began.
Large numbers of troops and guards were transferred into Huaqiu City to launch a massive sweep of the Old Bridge district.
Under the "forceful, precise, and humane" expulsions by the army and police, throngs of Pantsless Men were forced to move out.
Those without capital had no choice but to board cargo ships heading to the frontier, while those with a bit of money took ships bound for the Holy Alliance.
None of this, however, stopped countless cargo ships from ferrying merchants and citizens northward toward the ry Court Barracks.
That was a land of hot money and fortune.
"Kuvasz, what are you looking at?" Moroka shouted toward Kuvasz standing at the bow. "This time, you finally get to go home."
Kuvasz gazed at Huaqiu City before him with a complicated expression. He’d been born here, not in the Thousand River Valley.
He couldn’t even speak Leia properly; if he had to name a hometown, this was it.
Only, the King of France—damn that King of France—left people no way to live.
Looking toward where the morning sun was rising, Kuvasz took one last look back at Huaqiu City.
"A country built by farmers and vagrants, huh?" Kuvasz murmured. "Is this really the Thousand River Valley my grandfather and the others were so obsessed with? Weren’t they driven out because they couldn’t survive there in the first place?"
Maybe this journey would finally give him an answer?
