Volume 8 Chapter 40 Mana Magic Kingdom in chaos
Duke Nasusis was glaring at Count Joshua in front of him who had the same sunken expression.
If eyes could kill, he definitely wouldn’t have minded killing Count Joshua eight or ten times.
If it wasn’t for this fellow who was in charge of the logistics department not being able to meet the needs of the troops on the frontline in this war, how could he have been repelled, finally forcing the kingdom to accept that shameful peace treaty with the Ensfarlan Kingdom?
Count Joshua could naturally feel the hatred in Duke Nasusis’ eyes, but he could only remain silent as he had a bitter look on his face.
As the one in charge of the Mana Magic Kingdom army’s logistics department, not being able to supply the frontlines was something that he couldn’t avoid responsibility for and couldn’t refute.
But this time……he really couldn’t do anything.
No one would have expected that after the Frestech Chamber of Commerce left the Mana Magic Kingdom, it would have such a large impact on the Mana Magic Kingdom. It far surpa.s.sed his expectations and everyone’s expectations.
Their loss to the Ensfarlan Kingdom this time, the main reason was because their logistics couldn’t keep up. There were many reasons why their logistics couldn’t keep up.
To give the most clear example.
During the battle, in order to transport large amounts of supplies to the frontlines, many roads of the Mana Magic Kingdom couldn’t take the sudden increase in traffic and were overloaded.
This overloaded traffic caused many problems.
For example, there would be breaks in the road and would seriously impact the speed of transport.
For example, a certain bridge had even collapsed and caused two large transport Magic Cars to fall into the river, which also blocked several other supply lines.
For example, in the transport squads of the logistics department, there were transport Magic Cars that broke down because of the rushed transport. However, because they didn’t have the support of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s staff, they weren’t able to fix these vehicles.
Even because of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s complete withdrawal, there was no way to get proper parts to fix these transport Magic Cars with since they were all produced by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
Or for example……
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There were just issues with the transport of supplies alone.
When it came to producing the supplies, because of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s withdrawal, many problems had occurred.
For example, the factory that was a cooperation between the Mana Magic Kingdom and the Armani Chamber of Commerce which produced cotton jackets for the soldiers.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s complete withdrawal didn’t seem like it was related to this factory.
But during the actual production process, there were some parts that were affected.
The most clear example was that the production lines of this factory lacked maintenance from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, so breakdowns of various degrees happened. This greatly decreased the production efficiency and affected the quality of clothing sent to the soldiers.
This war had been fought during winter, so whether the soldiers had enough clothing or not would naturally affect their battle power.
Other than this, from the military magic machines they were equipped with to the canned food that the soldiers ate each day, there were varying degrees of shortages.
Even if Count Joshua could solve the transportation problem, he couldn’t do anything about the production problem.
Just letting the border army hold on for four months before declaring their defeat had cost him quite a bit of effort, there wasn’t any intention of shirking his responsibilities at all.
However, Duke Nasusis who was in charge of leading the soldiers and suffered the pressure of losing absolutely didn’t care about this.
The Mana Magic Kingdom, who was also the only Great Magician out of all the Sines Continent’s rulers, Great Magician Constantine lowered his head to look at the angry Duke Nasusis and Count Joshua with his bitter smile before feeling an ache in his head.
As the king who had a full grasp of the total situation, he naturally knew that the reason they lost to the Ensfarlan Kingdom was because of their logistics.
But the logistics problem couldn’t be blamed on Count Joshua.
Because in the recent months, other than problems with the army’s logistics, there were also countless issues with the Mana Magic Kingdom’s economy and livelihoods of the people that popped up. It made it so that he didn’t have a single day of peace.
Just now, the kingdom’s agricultural department had submitted a report. They indicated that according to their stats, the kingdom needed to buy at least three thousand agricultural magic machines to be able to barely meet their demands for this year’s spring plowing.
However, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had already withdrawn from the Mana Magic Kingdom, which caused the Mana Magic Kingdom to lose their main channel for buying agricultural magic machines.
Although in the recent years, because of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce selling their technology that countless companies had grasped the ability to manufacture various large magic machines, including the agricultural magic machines, compared to the Frestech Brand agricultural magic machines, the quality and stability of the agricultural magic machines from other companies were far lacking. They couldn’t replace the Frestech Brand agricultural magic machines at all.
Moreover, because the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had announced that they were withdrawing from the Mana Magic Kingdom, the other companies started raising their prices. It caused the low price of agricultural magic machines to increase by several times. This caused the agricultural department to be filled with complaints, but it also increased their budget for next year by more than double.
However, this wasn’t the main problem.
They could find subst.i.tutes for the agricultural magic machines outside of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, but the fertilizer that was also deeply related to planting couldn’t be replaced. Only the Moon Shadow Tribe produced it.
Properly speaking, the Moon Shadow Tribe was the Moon Shadow Tribe and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce withdrawing from the Mana Magic Kingdom shouldn’t be related to the Moon Shadow Tribe at all.
But after the Frestech Chamber of Commerce announced that they were withdrawing from the Mana Magic Kingdom, the Moon Shadow Chamber of Commerce who were the main sellers for the Moon Shadow Tribe announced that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s att.i.tude showed the untrustworthiness of the Mana Magic Kingdom. This action was what the elves hated the most, so the Moon Shadow Tribe had also decided to cut off all cooperation with the Mana Magic Kingdom.
Naturally that meant that the fertilizer was no longer being sold to the Mana Magic Kingdom.
After the Moon Shadow Tribe made this announcement, the Night Song Tribe, the Azshara Tribe, and the other elf tribes that appeared over the years gave the same announcement as the Moon Shadow Tribe.
After the elves, the dwarf tribes and beastmen tribes joined the fun and showed the same distrust towards the Mana Magic Kingdom. They stated that they wouldn’t deal with this untrustworthy human kingdom and would break off all trade with the Mana Magic Kingdom.
Of course, other than the fertilizer, the Mana Magic Kingdom didn’t rely on the unique products that the other races produced, so it didn’t affect them that much.
But as the other companies withdrew, the Mana Magic Kingdom was greatly affected. It caused them to be unable to recover the strong development of their magic machine industry and even caused great impact to the other industries in the Mana Magic Kingdom.
In recent months, the Mana Magic Kingdom was filled with resentment that had created an unstable situation.
Every time he received this kind of news, King Constantine’s heart was filled with waves of regret.
The wave of opposition towards the Frestech Chamber of Commerce in the Mana Magic Kingdom, naturally he as the king couldn’t avoid being connected.
In fact, the reason why there was this wave of opposition and even this large scale demonstration was because the upper strata had tolerated it. There were even some large n.o.bles that had pulled the strings from behind the curtains.
The reason for this was first because the Mana Magic Kingdom did have some opposition towards the Frestech Chamber of Commerce which came from the Magicians Guild. Second, it was because the Mana Magic Kingdom wanted to use this matter to indicate their att.i.tude towards the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, gaining more rights in their cooperation.
However, King Constantine and the other higher level members of the Mana Magic Kingdom never thought that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s reaction would be this decisive. They actually announced that they were completely withdrawing from the Mana Magic Kingdom!
This was something that the Mana Magic Kingdom never expected.
But even when King Constantine personally acted to restart negotiations with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, he was met with Xu Yi’s firm rejection, not giving him any room to explain.
Now that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had withdrawn from the Mana Magic Kingdom for half a year, the enormous influence of this matter started showing bit by bit. It made the entire Mana Magic Kingdom fall into a tough situation.
The influence was already big in the war against the Ensfarlan Kingdom, but compared to the influence it had on the entire Mana Magic Kingdom, it was considered the tip of the iceberg.
“Nasusis, you shouldn’t blame Joshua too much.” After thinking of this, Constantine waved his hand in a tired manner and comforted Duke Nasusis, “Joshua has already made his contributions, but with all these different issues, he really can’t do anything.”
Duke Nasusis turned to look at him, “If he can’t solve it, that is his fault! I don’t care how many problems there are, but since he is the head of the logistics department, it’s his job to solve these problems! If he can’t, change the person!”
Count Joshua’s eyes had a trace of anger.
This Duke Nasusis had never seen eye to eye with him. It seems like he was planning on using this opportunity to push him out of his position.
When he was about to refute this, King Constantine glared at him and used his eyes to stop him.
“Nasusis, I’ve already said it, this defeat can’t be blamed on the logistics department and it can’t be blamed on your frontline soldiers……”
Duke Nasusis was stunned.
If it can’t be blamed on the logistics department or the frontline soldiers, who would it be blamed on?
“Your majesty, I……”
When Duke Nasusis was about to speak, everything suddenly turned dark.
The hall was suddenly filled with voices of surprise and panic.
“What’s going on?” King Constantine asked in a deep voice.
“Your……Your majesty……it’s……it’s the Magic Crystals for the Magic Lamps, they’ve all been used up……” A panicked voice came from a corner of the hall.
“Then why haven’t they been refilled?” King Constantine angrily said.
“But……All the Magic Crystals in the royal palace have all been used up……” The servant’s voice filled with even more panic.
King Constantine was truly angered this time.
“If you knew they would be used up, why didn’t you stock up on them earlier?”
“Your majesty……that……there’s no more Magic Crystals for sale in the kingdom……”
“Why can’t you buy……”
Halfway through his words, King Constantine suddenly thought of something.
Although there weren’t many exclusive products that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce sold other than the military magic machines, there was one that seemed unimportant, but was actually very important that only the Frestech Chamber of Commerce produced.
It was the standardized Magic Crystal that all magic machines used.
Thinking of this, King Constantine fell into silence.
For a while, there was only the heavy breathing of King Constantine’s group of three in the dark hall, but no one knew what the three of them were thinking.