Chapter 523 – The State of the Human Merchants
Zhao Hai was very satisfied with Ah Tai’s work ethic. This may be because of his personality. It explains why he was able to thrive here in the Prairie. He also heard from Ah Tai that he was able to make many friends among the Beastmen.
But Zhao Hai kept calm, he knew that since the Beastmen were getting ready to fight the Humans, the chances of Ah Tai’s plan with the Tiger Race succeeding wouldn’t be big.
However, Zhao Hai didn’t say anything since he didn’t want to dampen Ah Tai’s enthusiasm. It wouldn’t be good for Ah Tai, if he doesn’t have a spirited att.i.tude, he wouldn’t have a lot of Beastman Friends.
After eating their meal, Zhao Hai and the others didn’t leave. They entered one of the tents that Ah Tai arranged and rested. At the same time, Ah Tai’s wife also offered them some milk tea.
Although ordinary tea was available, milk tea was instead served. This was because since they had eaten meat, milk tea would be better for them. Another reason was because they were in the Prairie, ordinary tea was rare, Beastmen weren’t used to drinking it.
Zhao Hai had interacted with the Beastmen for quite a long time, so they were already used to drinking milk tea. Zhao Hai took a sip and sighed, “I didn’t have the opportunity to get a tea tree all this time. I really want to plant one in the s.p.a.ce.”
Laura smiled and said, “What’s wrong, Brother Hai? Do you really like to drink milk tea?”
Zhao Hai smiled faintly, and didn’t respond. He cannot tell Laura that he didn’t really like drinking milk tea. What he wanted was cla.s.sic green tea.
Megan didn’t care about any of these, so she turned to Zhao Hai and asked, “Big Brother Hai, what do we do now? Now that Ah Tai told us that the war between the Humans and the Beastmen is about to start, do we stay here or do we return to the continent?”
Zhao Hai smiled and said, “Don’t worry, at this point the continent should be very chaotic. Father-In-law has already arranged to inform all of the people in the continent about the Radiant Church’s hand in the Prairie’s food shortage. And because of their move, the Beastmen are now planning its big attack on the Aksu Empire. All of Aksu Empire’s residents know that if the Beastmen wage war against humans, the Aksu Empire would be the first to suffer. The Radiant Church should have fallen in favor right now, but not to a point where they can’t control it. We can wait for a moment until we confirm that the Beastmen would indeed attack the Humans, then we can return back to the continent.”
Megan became confused, “Why would we return to the continent at that time?”
Zhao Hai smiled and said, “Only when the situation starts would the continent go into turmoil. If we there at that time, there would a possibility for us to get some people. Don’t forget, we are friends with the Purcell Family and the Iksa Family. Their territories are bordering the Beastman Prairie. At that time, we can go to them and recruit some talented people into our territory.”
Laura smiled and said, “I’ve heard that the Purcell Family hasn’t been doing too well these times. When you helped them in the past, the Aksu Empire came to know about your relations.h.i.+p. Because of that, the Empire went and fully suppressed them. At the same time, your relations.h.i.+p with the Iksa Family has been revealed as well, which led to them also being suppressed. The two families have had it hard these past few months.”
Zhao Hai’s expression turned cold, then he snorted and said, “If the Aksu Empire didn’t do this, I might have helped them in this crisis, I might even prevent the Beastmen from attacking. But now, it seems like they needed to be taught a lesson.”
Laura and the others understood what Zhao Hai meant. Since he had a lot of Bread Trees as well as the Farming Ground, Zhao Hai can definitely provide food for the entire Beastman Race. If the Beastmen have food, then they would naturally stop their plan of pillaging the Human territories. Even if the Beastmen are hot blooded, they also know that wars bring death. They know that war wasn’t a good choice.
But Zhao Hai didn’t want to give the Beastmen a lot of food. He wanted this war to happen. Not only would the upcoming conflict deal a heavy blow to the Aksu Empire, it would also bring bigger trouble to the Radiant Church.
In the following days, Zhao Hai and the others stayed inside the store. He brought out some Bamboo Rice as well as some Bread Fruits and daily necessities. He stocked the store full of goods.
But restocking a shop wasn’t generally this fast. Not only the Magic Lily Shop, all other Human shops were also like this. Their s.h.i.+pments this time had gotten quite scarce, this made them very anxious.
When these Human merchants came to the Prairie, they didn’t know about the Beastmen’s food shortage. They also didn’t know that the Beastmen were going to attack the Humans. Because of this, they followed their usual practice and brought the same amount of goods to the Prairie once spring came. This was because they knew that this was the time where business with the Beastmen yielded great profits. It was the time when the Beastmen would crazily purchase goods to stock up because they had eaten their stores during the winter. If one brings some goods to sell at this time, they wouldn’t be worried of not making a profit.
But this year’s situation was different. When the Merchants came, business was doing great as usual. However, when information came that the Radiant Church was behind this time’s food shortage and that the Beastmen were going to send troops towards the Human territory, the sales volume of these Human Merchants dropped in a single day. Right now, they weren’t able to make the same amount of transactions as they did in the past. With how low their profits came, these Human Merchants wished that they could just die.
These merchants knew that if the Beastmen attack Human lands, their goods would be left unsold. This was because as long as Beastmen pillaged the Human territories, they would have enough food in their hands to merit not buying anymore.
And these Human Merchants have brought a lot of things to the Prairie this time. But now, the goods would have to rot here because they knew that they would probably be driven out once the war starts. It would be impossible for them to bring those goods back to the Human lands, they don’t have any choice than to just leave them here.
But even if the Beastmen didn’t touch the things that they left behind because of their principle, once they leave, n.o.body would take care of their goods. Before long, those things would slowly get damage, this was equal to losing everything.
Zhao Hai had also seen the situation during these past few days. He knew that the merchants had been bleeding money at this time. He was also certain that these people didn’t have any relations.h.i.+p with the Radiant Church, they might even have an enmity with the organization. Otherwise, the Church should’ve already informed them, making them avoid jumping into this fiery pit.
Upon thinking about it, Zhao Hai understood another aspect of the Radiant Church’s plan. If the Radiant Church succeeds and has all the blame s.h.i.+fted to the Rosen Empire, these merchants would detest the Empire. And when the Church emerged and the Merchants discovered that those affiliated to the organization didn’t suffer any losses, they would be joining the Radiant Church. When that happens, the Church would then control the Merchants in the Prairie. They would then have a bargaining piece against the Beastmen. The Church’s plan was truly brilliant.
If not for Zhao Hai foiling the church’s plan, then both the Rosen Empire and the Beastmen wouldn’t have any good days.
But now that Zhao Hai was aware of the Church’s plan, he naturally wouldn’t let them succeed. Zhao Hai observed these merchants for several days. The Merchants have reached a point where they were just left grasping on straws. They cannot bring their goods back, but they couldn’t sell it as well. The only reason why they haven’t left Beast G.o.d City yet was because they can still make one or two transactions each day. They hoped to sell as much as possible to minimize their losses. They only planned to leave once the Beastmen started to drive them out.
This gave Zhao Hai see an opportunity. He can buy the goods of these Merchants since they’re going to be abandoned anyway. If he buy these things, he would be solving the Merchants’ greatest problem. He can also form a good relations.h.i.+p with these Merchants. They would then be grateful to him and they might even affect the Radiant Church’s relations.h.i.+ps with other merchants, preventing the food shortage from happening again.
After thinking of this, Zhao Hai immediately told his plan to Laura. Regarding business matters, Zhao Hai always wanted to hear Laura’s opinion. Laura’s gift of commerce was something that no normal person had.
After Laura heard Zhao Hai’s idea, she immediately gave her approval, she also thought that this was a good plan. Upon arriving at their decision, they quickly had Ah Tai go out and see those Merchants as well as see their bottom line.
Ah Tai’s nickname was Silly Ah Tai. Because of this, the other merchants’ vigilance towards him was very low. Adding Ah Tai’s careless appearance to the formula made the merchants even less on guard. It didn’t take a long time before Ah Tai managed to get their bottom line.
The requests of the Merchants weren’t high. In their opinion, they already lost out. If they can just recover a little bit of their capital, then they would be happy.