When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist

"Great, I hit your hello!"

"Don’t get too cocky, ’hello’ only has five letters. Guessing the second half with five letters earns you an extra 100 pounds."

"Then I have 1+2+4+8+16 equals, uh, equals..."

"31 pounds." The hat merchant couldn’t help reminding when he couldn’t calculate.

"Ah yes, thank you, brother, 31 pounds, 31 pounds, do you know what a fortune this is..."

Watching the gambler’s somewhat manic look, the hat merchant pressed down his hat and withdrew from the crowd.

But as he sat in the carriage and returned to Rapids City, he couldn’t help but think about the gambler’s remark.

pounds, equivalent to 3720 dinars.

In his hometown Leia, currently, 31 pounds can exchange for 4092 dinars.

Yes, the exchange rate between pounds and dinars has reached 1:132 now.

"Alas." The hat merchant took off his hat and revealed a young face.

His name is Solaini, born into a commercial aristocratic family in Leia City.

The so-called commercial aristocracy basically holds a lot of supply channels, enjoys special privileges, and has branch sales networks everywhere.

But for Solaini, their system has completely collapsed.

Because the pillar business of Solaini’s Calacado family is currency exchange.

Or rather, relying on stockpiling currency to profit.

Thus, Solaini has a profound understanding of gold and silver currency exchange in the market, such as the current exchange rate of 132.

This figure briefly climbed to 155 a while ago but recently dropped to around 132 and is still declining.

As for the reason, it’s easy to explain.

Dinar silver coins have increased, thus they are not worth much, and one pound can exchange for more dinars.

Later, the exchange rate began to decline, which was definitely not Leia’s national team entering the market to purchase silver coins, but the increase in pounds!

The Royal Court’s invasion of the Border Knight Territory and Bear Castle Territory brought not only political consequences but economic problems quickly appeared.

The Falan Kingdom initially controlled Leia’s coastal areas, besides itself, could implement a blockade policy against the Royal Court.

Whether to reduce the Royal Court’s dumping of food and precious metals or prevent the loss of key materials, it was all within reach.

But with the loss of the Xilan Islands, a vital stronghold, and the fall of the Border Knight Territory, the routes immediately changed.

Royal Court merchant ships could now directly dock at the Xilan Islands and then land at the mouth of the Kush River (near Golden Horn Bay).

Then go by land, transmitting related materials through the border black market into the Empire.

Norn aside, their border control, not to say perfectly seamless, can only be described as better than nothing.

Leia originally had strict border control, but with the weak regency of Duke Omes coming to power, along with several defeats, Leia basically lost control over the border areas.

Black market merchants certainly need to quickly spend the massive funds obtained by selling iron ore, artisans, and populations.

Thus, these black market merchants delivered large amounts of gold and silver currency into the Empire.

The original silver mine of Thorn Garden was hit hard with crashing prices, Thorn Garden nobles wept and wailed to enter the city.

Don’t see the exchange rate between pounds and dinars gradually moving towards normalcy, but just looking at prices, you find that the single price of bread has surged 15%.

And continues to grow at almost 3-5% per month.

Plus the price hikes over the past two decades.

Initially, 1 dinar could buy 12 pounds of grain, now 1 dinar can buy only 8 pounds or even less.

Not to mention the price increase of other daily goods, prices across the Empire are skyrocketing.

Even Falan Kingdom couldn’t spare time for vampires, all went to deal with internal affairs.

As for Duke Omes, he’s thrown up his hands, let prices soar, exhausted, let it be destroyed.

Thinking of this, Solaini sighed and suddenly knocked on the carriage board.

"What’s up, Mr. Solaini?"

Solaini pointed to the notice stuck at the market street entrance outside the window, and said to the valet: "Copy the price list for me, and bring me a half Dinar’s worth of bread."

The valet, perhaps thinking Solaini was hungry, brought him bread first, then took the paper and pen to copy the prices.

"Half Dinar can actually buy 10 half-pound long baguettes..."

The bread was so full that Solaini’s thighs were hurting a bit.

He couldn’t help but marvel at the strength of the Holy Alliance currency.

Royal Court’s gold coin inflow couldn’t possibly not affect the Holy Alliance.

But unfortunately, with several four-year plans, rural town industries flourished.

Almost achieving one or two mills or farmed food processing workshops in each Hundred Households District.

The implementation and promotion of agricultural technology like slope ponds, water gates, and rice-wheat interplanting have resulted in frightening land yield increases.

Holy Alliance’s food surplus, now merely cancels some exports, first satisfies domestic demand.

Not to say Holy Alliance prices haven’t risen, they actually are.

It’s just that with paper money as a medium, the Holy Court forced inflation down to 5-10% annually.

Every time Solaini thinks of this, he can’t help but marvel at the greatness of paper currency design.

Horn may be the Holy Alliance’s top engineer, but in his eyes, the top banker is.

What if excess silver enters the Holy Alliance? Holy Alliance now generally uses paper money for any transaction over 5 dinars.

If you want to use silver coins, especially large amounts of silver coins, you must go to the border currency center to exchange them for paper money.

A large amount of precious metal is actually controlled by the Saintess Bank of the Holy Alliance.

If prices rise and money becomes worthless, then print a bit less money.

Conversely, print a bit more.

Like controlling the switch of a reservoir, add water as you wish, release water as you like, and even release it a little at a time.

At several borders adjoining the Empire and Holy Alliance, the Holy Alliance’s Boost Currency is more stable and valuable than the dinar.

Today, maybe you can buy three pounds of meat with 1 dinar, tomorrow only two pounds.

But the Boost Currency, today and tomorrow is 1 dinar for two pounds of meat.

Because Horn collected a lot of silver coins at the border but didn’t print such corresponding amounts of paper currency.

The result is that Holy Alliance’s price fluctuation is the smallest.

"A genius design." Solaini couldn’t help but shake his head inside the carriage.

Paper currency is unlike silver currency, that you can print as much as you want.

To pull back paper currency, issue national bonds or encourage savings, then paper currency returns to the bank.

Even a tavern waiter in Holy Alliance nowadays prefers paper currency.

Only those stubborn rural villages or individuals in certain cities refuse to use paper currency.

Solaini’s interest suddenly shifted to those waiters.

The Holy Alliance’s lowest-class occupation is likely tavern waiter.

The Holy Production Supervisory Bureau set the minimum daily wage at 0.75 dinars, but most taverns offer 1 to 1.25 dinars daily wage.

Assuming one works six days a week and 52 weeks a year, it’s roughly an income of 400 dinars.

In Rapids City’s Saint Ax District, the annual rent for a simplest room is about 45 to 50 dinars.

Daily expenditure on two pounds of bread with cheese, vegetables, and other food costs, is roughly half a dinar.

In a year, it would be approximately 200 dinars.

With clothes purchase and social interactions, plus some other expenses, about four or five dozen dinars might be left at the year’s end.

If replaced by Leia’s current prices, annual food expenses alone won’t hold at 300 dinars.

Not to mention the clothing!

Holy Alliance’s clothing is cheap because it backs Shattered Stone Plain ranch, raising numerous sheep for wool.

And has standardized clothing workshops, clothing prices are much cheaper than tailor shops.

No wonder Imperial People wish to go to the Holy Alliance.

"Sir, what you wanted is here." The valet handed the copied price list into Solaini’s hands in the carriage.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Holy Alliance’s agricultural products are really cheap... have they always been this cheap?"

"They were expensive for a while, it just got cheaper again this spring."

No need to say, Solaini knew it was because of reduced grain exports this spring.

Looking at the price list in hand, he momentarily became interested.

Assuming a non-technical worker representing the majority level of Holy Alliance workers, how much could he buy with the money left after living costs?

Solaini pondered for a moment and instructed the coachman: "Go to Kindness Department Store."