495: Chapter 475 Accelerating the Pace of Unification

Avril's refusal was so firm that it even surprised Zhang Mu.

Zhang Mu understood that she didn't want to abandon Teacher Potter; if she had the power to save him, Avril would try without hesitation even if there were only a one-in-ten-thousand chance.

But the reality was that the chance of success was zero.

Through the fragmented clues gathered over time, it was clear that Potter's house arrest by the Empire was orchestrated by the Church. Avril didn't know why the Church hadn't harmed Potter, but one thing was certain.

If Zhang Mu went to the Church Holy Mountain, they would never treat him as mildly as they did Potter. Instead, they would mobilize all their strength, and every member of the Divine Officials would come out to ensure Zhang Mu was slain.

Avril wanted Zhang Mu to live and didn't want him to go to his death. To her, going to the Church right now was synonymous with suicide.

Zhang Mu tried hard to explain to her that he wouldn't go immediately. There were many affairs he had to settle before he could set out.

Lake was Zhang Mu's foundation. He didn't want to see Lake besieged and destroyed while he was entangled with the Church and unable to escape.

Zhang Mu set a goal for himself. Before departing, the Kingdom must be completely eliminated, and the eastern Kingdoms and the Ganno Empire must be cleared—at least to the point where they were powerless to shake Lake's rule. If small pockets of forces like the Resistance Army remained, they weren't worth worrying about.

Once the Ganno Empire fell to Lake, Zhang Mu believed no neighboring country would dare to rashly attack Lake in the short term.

Of course, defeating the Ganno Empire and annihilating its first-tier elite legions and the various Professionals serving the royal family would be no easy feat, especially since Ganno possessed an Epic powerhouse.

However, if Lake was to restore the name of Ice and Snow and wear the crown symbolizing the continent's number one power, toppling the Empire was a hurdle that had to be cleared on the road to revival.

Avril believed Zhang Mu wouldn't deceive her. Upon hearing his promise, the chill radiating from her body slowly receded.

Afterward, the two chatted about daily life to ease the heavy atmosphere. By noon, they stood up and walked side-by-side toward the study. Zhang Mu wanted to check Lake's development progress, preparing to devote all his energy to pushing it forward rapidly.

By browsing the reports from various city lords and listening to Avril's supplementary details, Zhang Mu had a general grasp of Lake's current situation by late night.

The various new projects within the country were being implemented steadily. As the new generation of construction teams trained according to Zhang Mu's concepts graduated, the construction of the Kingdom's highways became faster. Most cities were now connected by highways, and branch roads were currently being extended to towns and rural areas.

The establishment of the Medical Squad had yielded remarkable results, and Domit had been equipped with several squads for this expedition to the Kingdom.

After the war ended, specialists would review the Medical Squad's performance in actual combat, analyze systemic loopholes, and continuously improve them.

Factories in various cities were rising at an average rate of one per week. These factories could not only produce military supplies for the legion but also provide jobs.

With jobs, the citizens had another channel to earn a living. The commoners in major cities welcomed this and actively participated in workshop construction.

At the same time, the high-yield crops brought by Zhang Mu were being promoted in villages throughout the Kingdom.

Thanks to the monarchical system of the Saul Continent, the Kingdom didn't have to worry about how to get the Farmers to accept government orders; they simply had to enforce them forcefully.

Admittedly, if there were too many harmful decrees, the Farmers would revolt or flee the country, but Zhang Mu had experience from the Blue Star and could foresee that the outcome would be positive.

The only trouble was that the seeds of high-yield crops were usually only usable for one generation. The seeds saved by Farmers after harvest could not maintain that terrifying yield. Therefore, Zhang Mu had to return to the Blue Star once a year to purchase enough seeds to provide to the Lake Farmers for sowing.

As Lake's territory and population continued to expand, the demand for seeds grew higher and higher. It was certainly difficult for Zhang Mu to provide them all by himself.

Fortunately, solving this wasn't too troublesome.

The Saul Continent had "experts" who studied species—Apothecaries.

To ensure the potency of their Potions, Apothecaries had the habit of analyzing the attributes of herbs. They knew how to understand and refine plants.

Because Potions was passed down through a master-apprentice system, no systematic science of Potions had appeared on the Saul Continent yet, but its essence was consistent with the agricultural masters of the Blue Star.

Zhang Mu planned to personally compile textbooks and recruit a group of Apothecaries to teach, hoping that in the near future, Lake's own "agricultural specialty" would be successfully born.

Zhang Mu closed the documents. While he was delighted by Lake's rapid progress, he also keenly noticed a drawback of this fast development—the royal treasury was empty. The annual tax revenue had already been allocated before it was even collected.

Simply put, the Kingdom was very poor, which was a very dangerous signal.

The legion needed funds to wage war, building factories required funds, and constructing highways also required funds.

Where would the money come from?

Should he borrow from the financial systems of modern nations on the Blue Star and issue fiat currency?

The moment the thought popped into his head, Zhang Mu shook his head and dismissed it.

True, the Saul Continent had not developed financial concepts due to the unique factor of Professionals, but that didn't mean those nobles were idiots.

Once Zhang Mu popularized financial concepts, he believed it wouldn't be long before various loans introduced by the nobility would spread frantically throughout the Kingdom. By then, Zhang Mu would have to struggle to create a regulatory system, otherwise, those parasites would surely gnaw the Kingdom to collapse.

It was even possible that a Saul Continent version of "real estate speculators" would emerge.

But money had to be raised somehow.

After thinking it over, Zhang Mu decided to utilize one of the advantages of the Saul Continent—the absolute control of individual power over mortals: harvesting the nobility.

Thanks to the nobles' years of tyranny, the commoners' stereotype of them was greed, cruelty, and bloodthirstiness. Even using every derogatory term in The World wouldn't be enough to express how much the nobles deserved to die.

Zhang Mu did not intend to reverse this stereotype.

Picking up a quill, Zhang Mu wrote down an order on the blank paper Avril had spread out.

A brief summary.

Starting today, Lake will initiate an audit process for the nobles within its borders. Anyone who has violated Kingdom laws will have their family assets confiscated and be sentenced to death by hanging.

Avril felt a bit worried after reading it.

The existence of the nobility had accompanied almost all of human history; their influence permeated every aspect of the Kingdom and ran extremely deep. Executing only a few wouldn't cause a revolt, but if he targeted the entire class, unrest would be inevitable.

Nobles weren't just fat sheep with money and no power to protect themselves.

Their families had no shortage of High-tier Professionals, and their descendants were widely scattered, with some holding key positions in the legion and others being Kingdom ministers. The city lords of Lake's various cities were, for the most part, nobles themselves.

Zhang Mu could set the city lords aside for now, but they weren't stupid. Seeing Lake swing the butcher's knife at the nobility, how could they, as nobles, be spared? Falling to the same fate would only be a matter of time.

Avril asked, "Junior, I suggest that the first step should only target the nobles of the eastern cities."

The eastern nobles originally belonged to the Allied Forces and didn't have deep ties with the Lake nobles. By killing them first, the Lake nobles wouldn't just refrain from opposing it; they would enthusiastically join in to seize the benefits.

Zhang Mu smiled and shook his head. "I'm in a hurry. I don't have time to take it slow with them."

“Then what do you plan to do...?”

Zhang Mu thought for a moment. "This matter is indeed difficult. The most important thing is the choice of the person in charge.

This person cannot be merciful, must have the courage to not fear retaliation, and must use sufficiently iron-blooded methods.

As for the nobles banding together to resist, hmph, Lake's Saint-ranks are all with the royal family. I only need to deploy two Special Operations Squads to blow their heads off."

“What specific standard are you using for this audit?” Avril seemed to have guessed something, but she was also a bit skeptical.

“Standard?” Zhang Mu sneered. “Among those nobles, who dares to say their hands are clean?”

Avril clearly understood the nature of the nobility. She nodded in agreement, then added, “I don't deny that nobles are usually very arrogant in their territories and don't bother to hide their crimes against Kingdom laws, but there are also those with clean methods.

Proving their guilt would be quite tedious.”

“Senior, there's a proverb in my hometown: to investigate a case, you need evidence; to suppress a rebellion, you only need a location.”

“Suppress a rebellion?”

“If they don't rebel, I'll force them to. The nobility has to be cleared out sooner or later; I might as well take this opportunity to solve it once and for all.”

Zhang Mu wasn't planning to start a revolution to establish some new world of equality. The Saul Continent didn't have the foundation or environment for that. It was simply that the noble class's characteristic of putting the family first hindered his rule.

Zhang Mu placed the quill back on the pen rest. "In that case, the choice of person is even more critical. They need to have a strong enough hand."

“A strong hand...” Avril blinked. “I can think of a suitable person.”

“Who?”

“The Ninth Legion Commander.”

Zhang Mu recalled the few Legion Commanders who had gone to "The World" for the military parade. The Ninth Legion Commander's face wasn't among them. "Is he... oh, one of the two Legion Commanders stationed at the eastern border?"

“Yes.

If there is one person among the active Legion Commanders who fits your requirements, it's definitely the Ninth Legion Commander.”

Avril recounted the Ninth Legion Commander's deeds since joining the army. Zhang Mu asked with interest, “There are no prisoners under the Ninth Legion's swords?

How interesting.”

“At least that's what the battle reports say.” Avril pulled a stack of documents from a drawer. “Here, take a look.”

As Zhang Mu flipped through them, Avril continued to herself, “I heard that to circumvent military regulations prohibiting the execution of prisoners, the Ninth Legion intentionally leaves an escape route in the camp without any patrol squads, and then leaks it to the prisoners through Soldier gossip.

Oh, and they also disguise themselves as defeated troops to lure the eastern Resistance Army into attacking them, and then they don't give the enemy a single chance to surrender, only releasing the triggers once everyone is shot dead.”

After reading the battle reports, Zhang Mu asked in confusion, “Domit mentioned the Ninth Legion Commander to me. From what he said, it didn't sound like the commander had a mental breakdown leading to a hobby for killing?”

“Why don't you ask him yourself?”

Zhang Mu slapped his thigh. “Good point!

Senior, tell Grand Duke Bulova to head to the Kingdom front lines immediately to stand by. The other two are in the East, so I'll notify them on my way.”

“Has the Kingdom front line suffered a setback?” Avril asked curiously, given the sudden deployment of all three Saint-ranks to the West.

“It's going well.” Zhang Mu stood up. “I plan to destroy the Kingdom as quickly as possible so that the West is safe and our territories are connected.”

Looking down at Lake's current territory, the outline was shaped like the character ' concave' (concave). The recessed part was undoubtedly the Kingdom, which made it extremely troublesome to move legions between the left and right territories because they had to take a detour.

“Be careful on the road, Junior. I'll go to the Grand Duke's side.”

“Alright.”