BXBX NOVEL Chapter 678 - New Shawen
Chapter 678: New Shawen
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
The Shawen Free States. What a nostalgic name. That was where everything had begun.
Eight years ago, back when I just returned to East Mist, the entire Northlands had been hostile and fully on guard against both me and the Mist Kingdom. The only place in the Northlands which had a friendly relationship with us back then was the Shawen Free States, with their significant number of mixed-blood descendants and descendants of the Mist.
Shawen was the place where East Mist reentered the stage of history, allied with the barbarians and free state domain lords, and where the entire plan to revive the People of the Mist began.
Shawen was where the barbarians transported tremendous numbers of mining resources, giving us the money to import the equally tremendous amount of food we needed. More than 40% of the mining resources and magical metals required for magical engineering came from Shawen, establishing the first Northlands supply chain.
Shawen had the only warm valley in the entire Northlands. Although this valley was quite tiny and couldn’t produce enough food to feed an entire country, Amelia and I performed countless experiments there. In the end, we successfully invented new cold-resistant crops there, making the Northlands’ food self-sufficiency no longer just a dream.
Shawen was where large numbers of mixed-blood individuals from various species lived together. Previously, they were all looked down on by the other countries, but their status rose as the entire Northlands joined the Mist Alliance, and Shawen became East Mist’s most solid ally. Due to Shawen’s unique geographical advantages, it was a great location for international trading. Shawen was now one of the richest places in the Northlands.
The People of the Mist hadn’t forgotten that Shawen had been their ironclad ally during the hardest of times. Many policies and benefits were heavily biased in favor of this relatively small country. Just Shawen’s own share of mining profits that they were allowed to keep would be more than enough to support all of Shawen’s residents. Additionally, as cold-resistant crops became more widespread, the valley became one of the few warm places in the Northlands. It would be too much of a waste to make the valley into a cropland, so the valley had instead become the most famous tourist spot and recuperation center in the entire Northlands.
Hmm? You’re asking if all of this was caused by a certain someone’s recommendations? Who knows?
Each winter, Shawen would host a grand party to celebrate peace. Royalty and major nobles from each of the Northlands countries would attend together with their families and spend winter here... Well, although this yearly party was nominally in order to celebrate peace in the Northlands and the establishment of the Mist Alliance, the main activities would actually be hunting, dancing, performances, bathing in hot springs, and so on. Serious speeches by leaders would last for less than 10 minutes, and the rest of the party would be filled with all sorts of performances and amenities.
Moreover, as the entire Northlands entered a period of peace, everyone would come to Shawen for winter. Not only was this a vacation for the Northlands royalty and nobles, this was also a way to deepen the friendship of everyone in the Mist Alliance, and as time passed, the Northlands countries actually gained the habit of engaging in diplomacy and business negotiations here in Shawen.
“First making others lower their guard with food and drink, then improving friendship through soaking in hot springs together before taking out your ace for a total slaughter on the negotiation table. This strategy really seems so similar to common business negotiation tactics from my previous world...”
Since the Shawen Free States had many different species and mixed-blood individuals to begin with, they really did have an advantage when it came to the vacation industry. Stores in their vacation districts would not only have elven artisanry, beastmen totems, unique local beast bones, and so on, but there would also be plenty of dwarven sculptures and weapons. Everything you could think of could be purchased here. People who visited for the first time would often mistake such products for imported goods, but anyone more familiar with Shawen would know that these were all locally produced products.
Singing and dancing performances by mixed-blood elves, war dance performances by beastmen, and so on were also quite common. This culture brought about by many species was quite multidimensional. Although such performances weren’t quite as authentic as the real deal, the observers would feel far more relaxed when watching mixed-blood performances. As for whether or not something “romantic” would happen after the performances... Well, it wasn’t like Shawen was the crimeless city. Wumianzhe wouldn’t directly intervene. Such industries which couldn’t be talked about in public also became one of the main draws for Shawen’s vacation cities.
Typically, the closer to winter it was, the busier this place would become. The warmest and most comfortable vacation villas would always be set aside in reservation for the various royalty from the other countries. But in this year, the Holy War began, making all the countries’ leaders and royalty much busier than before. There were many war preparations to make and issues such as war provisioning. In the first year of the Holy War, reliability would be more important than anything else. You want a vacation, you ask? Wait until next year!
What about if too few visitors came visit the Shawen royal palace? Actually, each year would see roughly the same number of guests, with very few here to actually travel. Maybe some of the younger royalty members were actually here to have fun only (very unlikely), but the nobles would come bearing missions to improve relationships with other countries’ royalty and those in power. They would all be here for various transactions. Meanwhile, rich merchants who were unable to make connections with the royalty would also come here, viewing this as a good chance for them to improve their relationship with at least the nobles, so that they could find a good opportunity to make connections among the nobles and find a way to help their children enter higher society.
Of course, it was also because of the Mist Alliance’s establishment that the royalty and nobles of the Northlands countries could all sit down together and peacefully negotiate and improve relationships. In the past, if they’d all got together, they would have immediately started fighting due to accumulated grudges both new and old.
Moreover, since the Mist Alliance was established, the member countries would need a neutral district where they could improve their relationships with each other and make deals. This indirectly helped the Shawen Free States to quickly become prosperous. Of course, the Shawen Free States’ prosperity was also related to the Mist Kingdom royalty leading things. As for whether a certain person was behind everything or not... Let me put it this way. Each year, the Shawen Free States would send a certain person a large amount of money as their way of expressing their thanks. Unfortunately, Kelly, the chief financial officer of East Mist would always take that money for “safekeeping”. I felt like I was an elementary school student who had his birthday money taken away by parents with the same excuse...
This year’s situation was rather unique. The royalty and powerful nobles of each country didn’t have time for such idle pursuits this year. The end result was that the leaders in power didn’t come this year, and even lower-ranking individuals were much fewer than in previous years. Many “tourists” who hadn’t understood the situation for this year were now really regretting that they had come.
This year, only 25% of the normal number of royalty was in attendance, and only 50% of the regular number of nobles. The villas and hot springs were thus more than half empty, giving the Shawen domain lords a serious headache because of how much effort and money they had put into this party. They realized that this year’s party would incur a major loss.
But soon, they wouldn’t need to worry about the account books for this year, because they would need to first worry about survival...
“...There’s still no word on reinforcements? Has there been a response to our request for aid yet?”
The Shawen Free States, which had been peaceful for so long, actually met with a threat—a large group of wild beasts that arrived from some unknown location. Kakagar, the ruler of Shawen, found this incomprehensible.
Eight years of peace, along with the richer and more abundant lifestyle and environment, had caused the already plump Kakagar to become even plumper over the years. Eight years ago, people would secretly call him the Frog King behind his back, but now people were secretly referring to him as the Hippo King.
“...Damn it, where are all of our guards? Where’s our Shawen barbarian elf archer squadrons and half-beastmen berserker squadrons? This is the time for them to display their skills, but where have they all run off to? We still haven’t finished gathering them?”
“Apologies, Milord. More than 70% of the warriors have become professional actors or dancers for several years already. Many of them refused our summons. Even the ones who answered our summons need time to find their weapons and equipment again...”
“Ridiculous! Our warriors have actually become clowns! This is serious governmental corruption! I’m going to have a good discussion with my generals and find just which bastard did such a foolish thing!”
“...”
The Shawen government messenger kept completely silent as he recalled how it was precisely Hippo King Kakagar who had made such a decision in the first place—over the protests of the Shawen military, at that.
Kakagar calmed down quite a bit after venting for a while. He had also recalled the foolish command he’d given back then. At that time, he figured that since everything with the Mist Alliance was quite solid, he could simply develop Shawen as a vacation spot. With the two major Mist countries as his shields, and the probability of internal warfare in the Northlands near zero, Kakagar had felt that it would be far more profitable to disband the army and make the warriors entertainers to earn more money rather than pay for a useless military.
Other countries in the Northlands now had military strength several times exceeding that of eight years ago. Meanwhile, Shawen had tax income which was several hundred times that of eight years ago, yet their combat strength was now less than 5% of what it had been eight years ago.
Not only were the Shawen nobles and domain lords busy trying to make more money, even the regular warriors were trying to make money through means other than fighting. The Shawen military was now a completely empty organization due to the warriors becoming merchants and actors. How could such a military possibly have any combat strength left?
From a certain standpoint, having no external threats or warfare would actually be one of the most toxic poisons capable of destroying a country.
Bestial roars could constantly be heard from outside. Kakagar was quite anxious. He knew that now wasn’t the time to push responsibility onto others. If he couldn’t come up with an idea soon, it wouldn’t matter no matter how much money he had to spend anymore.
His round little eyes kept spinning around as he stood in a daze on the tall wall of his mansion. He really did manage to come up with an idea, even though this idea would have endless consequences. Kakagar had formerly been quite renowned for his brains before.
“Tell the foreign nobles the truth, that we’re currently unable to protect them. Have their bodyguards and mercenaries participate in battle.”