Chapter 358 – There is a Traitor by the Lord’s Side

Chapter 358 – A Traitor by the Lord’s Side

Once the opening was made, the voices of criticism against the merchants grew louder and louder.

Fergus shook his head to clear his mind, intending to speak up for the merchants.

“Gentlemen, although most of them are speculators, but we can’t leave them ah, without them, where do we buy those foreign goods from, and to whom do we sell the things produced in our own manor?”

“Lord Fergus has a point though.” The host of the banquet, Lord Valen, stroked his eight-legged beard.

“But even so, the people of this world are ultimately dependent on our manor houses for sustenance. The land and food are the fundamentals for us and even the entire continent to live in peace, ah! Everyone here who is around my age should have experienced famine, right?”

Master Valen’s words reminded people of a great famine that the Kingdom of Aldo had experienced a few decades ago, and the younger generation was fine, having merely heard about it from the old people, while those who were older had the slightest hint of hindsight in their eyes.

It was a terrible time, there were starving people all over the place, some people suddenly fell down while walking on the main road and then they could not get up anymore, and there were also terrible rumors of cannibalism circulating in some places. In that kind of famine, even if you have money, you can’t buy food, and those who have food at home won’t exchange it for gold or silver.

“Right, it’s still Master Valen who is right, food is what people need to settle down.”

The crowd exchanged praise for the banquet host’s point of view.

Suddenly there was someone who was indignant, “We work hard in the fields to grow food, and those merchants are digging us out. Have we all forgotten what happened last year? His Lordship even suddenly proposed to build some kind of ‘Customs Union’, to reduce or even cancel the territory’s tariffs on passing goods, of which the big head is grain. Heavens, this …… this …… this is really terrible.”

One sentence pushed the crowd’s emotions to the top.

“No need to guess! It must be those merchants who did this!”

“Yes, they’re the ones who compelled Lord Gleeman.”

Eldo emotionally slapped the table in front of him vigorously with his hand, looking like he was greatly aggrieved, “This isn’t digging into our corner, this is digging into Lord Lord’s corner, this is digging into the whole of Arda.”

Although there are a variety of agricultural machinery popularization, but at least in the last year, Alda’s food production than other food production of the territory – such as the Ferdinand family’s territory – does not yet have the advantage, once the consequences of the tariffs are unthinkable, at least in the eyes of this group of owners of the manor. The consequences of the absence of tariffs are unimaginable, at least in the eyes of the owners of the estates.

But it was different for the money-minded merchants, which meant that it cost them less to buy grain from abroad.

Ahh, these black-hearted maggots, how could they use such despicable means to fight against their fellow Ardar homelanders?

“They must be the ones who have been feeding slanders in Lord Greymane’s ears, and Lord Greymane, being so young and uninformed, accidentally fell for their tricks.”

“What customs union, it’s still not a tool they use to make money.”

Speaking of this the crowd rejoiced again.

“Luckily we all formed a rope to oppose this matter at that time! It was only then that we didn’t let the merchants succeed in their treacherous schemes.”

“That’s right, I remember it was Master Valen who took the lead at that time, let’s toast Master Valen!”

“To Master Valen!”

Old Valen, the host of the banquet, raised his cup and accepted a cup from the crowd as a matter of course.

“What treachery surrounds Lord Greymane!”

Old Valen drank a full cup, his face becoming even redder, and then said this in a pained voice.

Fergus instantly tensed up when he heard him say this, as a vassal of the Gleiman family, he was still very concerned about his lord ah. A traitor? How could that be, Alda had just won a loud and hard battle, the opponent was still one of the top Kent family, his reputation was soaring, ah, if the lord was surrounded by traitors, how could he win the battle?
“Why not?”

Laird Valen continued bitterly, “Think about it, that Hansel Abbott is no good! Whoever here has not been exploited by him for the past two years, right?”

“His Lordship wanted to consolidate the arable land, a good policy, but it’s been tarnished by this southerner!”

Old Valen’s words made everyone recall the experience of being cut by Hansel in these two years, because they basically have encroachment of public land, by Hansel as the head of the Ministry of Agriculture in the statistics of the measurement of one by one, either spit out the encroachment of the public land and then receive a fine, or pay several times the money to buy their own family planted for several generations of the field.

The people were in a great deal of pain.

“Abbott, he’s practically a pickpocket! It’s bad luck to be targeted by him.”

“This traitor must have swallowed all the fines himself!”

“I don’t think those officials from the south are any good!”

Some people are starting to widen the strike.

“That thick, wide-eyed chief secretary, what’s-his-name Bernard, is probably no good either!”

Someone stood up with righteous indignation and waved his arms, “I’ve seen it with my own eyes in Fullan Harbor, a big truckload of grain naa! And all sorts of other materials, just like that on the sailing ships to the south!”

“It must be this bunch of southerners who are channeling towards the royal capital, the dogs who are eating out of their pockets, it’s Lord Greymane who’s raising them, the vassals of my vassals aren’t my vassals, it’s Lord Greymane they should be loyal to, where in the world is there a transgression of allegiance?”

“Blackened maggots, rats crawling out of the sewers of Jingyao!”

“They are just a bunch of assholes, and if left unattended, they will sooner or later hollow out the entire Arda.”

“Occupying a latrine and not taking a shit, so many important positions in the Council of State are stuffed with these southern rats, and they’ve caused so much shit.”

“Those positions should let our native sons and daughters do it, Earl Lord …… Alas, not to say.”

Someone let out a long sigh, “There are treacherous ministers inside and treacherous merchants outside, I see this Arda ah, I am afraid to ……”

Before he finished, he covered his mouth.

Only the atmosphere in the hall has changed, at first everyone was praising how wise the lord was, now the Alda in their mouths is already suffering from internal and external problems, and it will be subverted by the villain in a few moments.

Even Fergus was unconsciously infected by the mood of the crowd.

The Customs Union, he was also against it, and those strangers who held important positions in the Council of State were also something he disliked.

His Lordship wouldn’t really have any traitors around him, would he?

He would have to find some time to go back to Lake Town to take a look and ask those old friends about it.

The banquet host, Lord Valen’s sentence hit him in the heart.

“Only we, the families of the manor, are the root of Lord Lord and Arda, ah! We must be good to protect the Earl from treacherous villains.”

(End of chapter)