Chapter 380

In the past two months, the tax revenue of his territory has been reduced by one-fifth compared to before.

When he checked the reason, he found that it was because of the collapse of the textile industry, which led to a large number of unemployed people in the market.

These unemployed people not only cannot provide tax revenue, but on the contrary, they will occupy social resources.

Similarly, in the huge market system, the collapse of the textile industry has led to the gradual collapse of several other industries.

The handicraft industry that the Duchy of Naples was proud of, which originally created a lot of tax revenue and wealth and formed a unique handicraft industry of the petty bourgeoisie, has suffered a serious blow.

Finally, Giovanni checked the reason and found that it was the Duchy of Aragon next door, where a large-scale and organized textile industry had developed. With a large number of commodities, it lowered prices and seized the market, and quickly destroyed the economy of the Duchy of Naples.

For this reason, he met with Duke Leon of Aragon alone and talked about related issues. As a result, Leon said he was unaware of it, and even wondered why the tax revenue of the Duchy of Aragon had risen a lot recently.

Seeing that he could not get any useful information from Leon, Giovanni had no choice but to find out the reasons behind it in other ways.

Finally, he learned that the investor behind the Aragon Textile Factory was an organization called the Lison Group. After further investigation, he found that the person in charge of the Lison Group was his possible daughter-in-law, Celinina Bonaventura.

This feeling of being stabbed in the back by a relative made Giovanni very angry. He immediately found Louis, the leader of the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce. This time, the conversation between them was not as harmonious as usual, and the conversation was full of gunpowder.

Louis was not aware of this matter, but when he learned that his daughter really set up her own business, he was extremely surprised.

The last time he sent Paul to dismiss Celinina, the representatives of the Antica branch rejected the proposal to dismiss and forced Celinina to stay. After that, the Antica branch basically became independent from the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce and developed on its own.

Although it is said to be developing independently, in fact, the Antica branch is basically an alliance with the Ali Chamber of Commerce.

Just when he thought that the matter was over, Giovanni told him that Celinina actually set up the Lison Chamber of Commerce.

"I treat you, Louis, as my own family, but you stab me in the back, right?" Giovanni said this, making Louis feel ashamed.

"Duke, don't worry, I will definitely not let Celinina have an easy time when I go back this time." Louis' tone was very apologetic.

Giovanni was very satisfied with Louis.

Compared with his cunning and vixen-like father, Louis himself is actually a mediocre in business, and even using the word mediocre to describe him is a bit of a discredit to this word.

If the market is really unchanging, then Louis can stabilize the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce, but unfortunately, the market is constantly changing.

In addition, Louis is also far behind his father in terms of being a person.

At least, his father will not show a humble look in front of a duke.

After all, the Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce is the largest chamber of commerce in the empire, with business scope all over the country. It can be said that it is an artery of the empire's economy. Its contribution to the empire is no less than that of these dukes. However, Louis is born to think that merchants are inferior to nobles. Therefore, when chatting with Giovanni, he always shows his inferiority from time to time.

Giovanni likes such Louis very much, because only in this way can he control Louis and then control the entire Silver Moon Chamber of Commerce, thereby controlling the economy of the empire.

But unexpectedly, he has not been able to control the economy of the empire, but the economy of his own territory has problems.

He originally wanted to take advantage of the issue and go to the imperial city to sue Lucius in front of the emperor, but Lucius happened to be assassinated, which made him very depressed.

...

At night, in the front-line headquarters, Orson sat at Carlisle's desk and reviewed the battle report sent from the front line.

Lit stood behind him, fulfilling his responsibilities as an adjutant.

"Lite, where is your military theory class?" Orson was looking through the war report and was a little bored, so he chatted with Lit.

"Uh... we have only learned half of the content of the first academic year, and it is mainly theoretical content. There is almost no practical explanation."

"Is that so..." Orson nodded.

Compared to himself, Lit really has no experience at all.

And in the original book, Lit has no experience of leading troops to fight.

Although there is magic in this world, there are not enough magicians after all, and the so-called magic is not so lethal when it comes to the battlefield.

There are indeed magicians who can summon a meteorite to fall down and change the situation on the battlefield, but this only exists in legends. The reality is that magicians can only release killing magic such as fireballs and lightning spears on the battlefield. Some magic can't even penetrate armor.

Even high-level magicians only expand the killing range of magic a little, fighting one against a hundred or one against a thousand, and this is still based on the situation that the enemies are all low-level cannon fodder.

Just like physical strength, magic power is also easy to use up.

Therefore, in war, the number of soldiers can often directly reflect the ratio of the combat power of the two sides.

"In that case, Leeteuk, you should study with me for a while first." With that said, Orson handed all the battle reports to Leeteuk.

"I have seen all of these. Take a look and see what you can analyze from them."

"Okay." Li nodded, took the battle report and read it.

Then, her brows frowned.

Some of the battle reports here were not written by the garrisoned troops, but were sent back instead of feedback from the troops at the rear who could not contact the troops at the front.

In other words, the troops at the front were all organized and wiped out by the orcs, and not even a single living person could come back.

Orson turned around and looked at Li Teuk's expression, feeling quite satisfied with Li Teuk's reaction.

"It seems like you know, Leeteuk?"

"Hmm..." Lit nodded. "Several cities have completely lost contact. When the rear scouts reported back, they could already see the orc vanguard. So, several cities on the front line have fallen?"

"Yes." Orson was satisfied with Li Te's ability to organize information. "It looks like you understand, Leeteuk."

Then, Orson brought over the map.

"According to intelligence, these are the cities that have been lost, and the number of orcs estimated in the frontline battle report is about 100,000."

"In this case, Li Te, how do you think we can take back these five cities?"

"..." Lite fell into silence after hearing this.

Generally speaking, the combat effectiveness of orcs is indeed stronger than that of humans. When the number of people is equal and they are still attacking, it can be said that it is extremely difficult for humans to defeat the orcs.

"I... don't know." Li Te shook his head.

"It's okay." Orson smiled. "There's a lot of information you don't know yet, so that's normal."

With that said, Orson pointed to a place on the map.

"If you want to retake the city, you need to massacre the enemy's effective forces, so that the enemy feels that the losses are too great and has to retreat. This is the best way."

"It does not mean that we must counterattack or attack the city. This approach is actually the most irrational."

"But...how can we kill the enemy?"

"This is what I'm going to tell you next..."

Chapter 4: Prototype of War Criminals (5.1K)

After capturing several small towns on the border, the orcs obtained relatively sufficient supplies. All the materials originally prepared for the human soldiers to defend the city suddenly went into the pockets of the orc army.

In a captured human city, the commander-in-chief of the orc tribe alliance, Balu, the orc chief, was sitting in the office.

The battle reports from the front line are very gratifying. There seems to be a lot of contradictions on the human side. Many troops are unwilling to obey the commander's orders. In addition, Lucius, the nightmare of the orcs in the last war, has now fallen. The morale of the orcs has also been reduced. All time high.

The orc coalition has now captured many villages and towns.

The farmland warehouses in these villages and towns are just stocking up on supplies that are not available after the autumn harvest.

Although the output of the transported food is not large, it is enough to cover the expenses of the frontline troops for half a year.

The logistical problems that were originally quite tense at the beginning have gradually improved with this method of supporting war with war.

Next, every time the orc army captures a town, the looted materials can be transported to the rear to give to the women and children in the tribe. After all, they represent the future of the orcs.

As the troops penetrated deeper and deeper into the empire, they encountered more and more resistance. All this was expected by Balu. Rather, it would be better to say that the progress achieved now has made Balu overjoyed.

Looking at the map originally used to guard against the orcs, Balu's eyes were directed at Fenike City, a large city to the east of Antica City and the location of the Imperial Army's frontline headquarters this time.

As long as we can capture that place, we can get enough supplies. At that time, before the human army arrives to encircle our side, we can take the supplies back to the depths of the desert. In this way, the lives of the people behind will be comfortable for a while. .

You know, during this period, in order to plan their own revenge plan, almost all the orcs who were not participating in the battle in the rear tightened their belts to save food for the front line.

For this group of people, Balu felt nothing but gratitude.

…

In a village within the orc-controlled area, a group of about 200 orc troops were resting in the village at the moment.

As if to celebrate their victory in the battle, these orcs set up wood in the square in the center of the village and lit a big fire. They were going to spend the night around the fire.

Beside the fire, several humans were tied there, with desperate looks on their faces.

Some of these people are elderly people with inconvenient legs and feet, making it difficult for them to evacuate, and some are young men and women who stay to take care of the elderly.

The orc team prepared to burn these people to death in memory of their ancestors who died in the previous war.

The fire was burning, and the leader of the orc team came to the human captives. He glanced at the crowd and squatted next to a village girl.

"Gu...kill me." The village girl said as she felt very uncomfortable being stared at by the orc.

"It's okay, you will die first." The orc leader said in broken common language.

He had just scanned the prisoners, just to find the one he hated the most and throw him into the fire first.

Although this village girl is not ugly in human aesthetics, and can even be described as delicate, in the eyes of orcs, women with thin skin, tender flesh, fair skin, and no muscles are unhealthy and not beautiful.

In the beauty contest among the orc tribes, the female orcs who finally win basically have very toned figures.

As for faces, as a race with different aesthetics, orcs can't tell the difference between good-looking and ugly when looking at human faces. Ugly people may even be more popular among orcs in human aesthetics.

Then, the orc leader picked up the village girl by her throat.

The village girl felt the pain of being strangled in her throat and kept struggling.

Just when the commander was about to completely cut off the village girl's neck, something unexpected happened outside.

Dozens of crossbow arrows flew out from the woods and shot at the unsuspecting group of orcs. In an instant, dozens of orcs fell to the ground, making continuous wails of pain on the ground.

Although the vitality of orcs is much stronger than that of humans, being directly hit by high-speed crossbow arrows will still make them lose their combat effectiveness.

Before the other orcs could react, another batch of crossbow arrows were shot out from the woods on both sides of the square.

Later, in the woods, a group of human soldiers came out of the woods and fought with the orcs here.

Upon seeing this, the orc leader hurriedly threw the village girl aside, then picked up his huge battle ax and joined the battle.

The mercenaries also noticed this extraordinarily tall orc, so some stronger mercenaries took the initiative to form a group to fight against the orc.

The battle situation soon became one-sided. The orcs lost one-third of their troops in the sneak attack, and the total number of human mercenaries who came out to attack them was twice that of the orcs, and because they were mercenaries, the general strength and quality ratio Those levies and ordinary regular troops are only strong but not weak, and they can not fall behind in a one-on-one battle with the orcs.

Of course, when facing the orc leader, the mercenaries remained vigilant enough and kept a distance from the big man.

After all, they are all mercenaries who have fought with local thieves with real swords and guns. They have rich combat experience. The orc commander has brute strength but cannot use it. Whenever he knocks down someone, he is ready to go. When it comes to last-hitting, the other guy will swoop in like a fly.

The big man leads the country

When the fight started to go wrong, he swung his giant ax in a sweeping motion, and after repelling everyone around him, he glanced around.

Then he discovered that he was the only one left standing on the battlefield.

After that, the mercenary captain ordered the mercenaries to retreat, and the crossbowmen who had been ambushing in the woods also came out, and aimed their crossbows at the orc commander.

Then, the mercenary captain waved his hand and fired the crossbow.

However, the more powerful the orc is, the thicker the skin is and can withstand the blows of some long-range weapons.

The orc captain in front of him has reached the fifth level of strength, but these crossbows have no effect at all when they are fired at him.

The mercenary captain wearing a helmet saw this and walked up alone.

He raised the sword in his hand and pointed it at the orc leader.

Judging from his posture, it seems that he wants to fight alone.

The orcs are a race that advocates strength. Whether it is from the racial habits or the current situation, a one-on-one fight is the most beneficial situation for them. Therefore, this behavior also plays into the hands of the orc commander. He roared, raised the giant ax and started to fight. Run forward.

Then, looking at the motionless mercenary captain, he smashed his axe.

Just when he thought that the other party was too frightened by his power to move, the mercenary captain took action. He dodged sideways and avoided the blow of the giant axe, and the giant ax sank deeply into the ground.

Before the orc leader could pull out the giant axe, the mercenary captain kicked the orc in the arm.

The orc let go of his hand in pain, and without his weapon, the orc was doomed to defeat.

Obviously, the mercenary captain was not prepared to give the orc a chance to breathe. As soon as he flicked the sword in his hand, a blood mark appeared on the orc leader's neck. Then, he fell to the ground with his eyes wide open.

On the other side, the villagers who had witnessed all this looked at the mercenary captain with admiration in their eyes.

After the last orc fell, the mercenary captain also took off his helmet, revealing the long blue hair and handsome face underneath.