Volume 8 Chapter 28 Building a new city
That’s right, perhaps Xu Yi didn’t have any hopes of taking over, perhaps it was like he said and he wanted to change the lives of everyone on the continent with the magic machine industry, perhaps he really didn’t plan on replacing the two empires, perhaps……
But this was only the speculation that others had about him. No one was certain if he would do this and they weren’t certain that he would keep these ideas.
If someday his ideas changed and he wanted more power, who could stop him?
As the emperor of the Candra Empire, of course he couldn’t pin all his hopes on Xu Yi’s will and hoped that he could control this in his hands.
So whether Xu Yi was willing or not wasn’t important, the more important thing was what he could do about it.
Only if he had power, then other people, especially people like Emperor Candra who stood at the peak wouldn’t be able to calm down.
But this was something that they couldn’t do anything about.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce was countless times stronger than ten years before after developing for ten years. Just the Frestech Chamber of Commerce guards had surpa.s.sed a hundred thousand people, with seventeen naval fleets and thirteen Magic Airship fleets.
No one knew the specifics, but they were certain that they had the best military magic machines. The Frestech Chamber of Commerce had a battle power that could crush all other countries.
So even if Emperor Candra was worried, he couldn’t do anything to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and Xu Yi for now.
With the Candra Empire’s current military power, perhaps they could be above the other countries of the continent, but they were helpless against the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
“Your majesty, I feel that…..we shouldn’t consider this question for now.” After Duke Giarbot hesitated a bit, he said, “No matter what Xu Yi chooses to do, it isn’t much of a difference for us. Moreover, I don’t think that his ideas would change this suddenly. Not to mention that his current goal is only the Curani Kingdom and if he really had this idea, he wouldn’t need to waste this time, right?”
Emperor Candra gave a long sigh and slowly shook his head, throwing out all the chaotic thoughts that this news brought.
Indeed, no matter what Xu Yi wanted to do, he couldn’t do anything right now. The most important thing wasn’t to care about what Xu Yi was doing, but rather finding a way to do his own things.
“Duke, the Lampuri Kingdom’s people have already arrived at the Troll Valley. Find some time to take a trip and pa.s.s down my ideas.”
“Yes.”
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“Other than that, I want to increase next year’s investment budget for Troll Valley by 30%. What do you think?” Emperor Candra asked.
“30%?” Duke Giarbot knitted his brows, “Your majesty, we’ve already invested over seventy million gold coins into the Troll Valley last year. If we increase it by another 30%, wouldn’t that be close to a hundred million gold coins? This amount…..I’m worried that the parliament and department of finance will have their objections.”
Emperor Candra waved his hand and gave a cold snort, “Based on the financial report, the empire’s financial revenue this year will be over six hundred million gold coins. A trivial hundred million spent on an important matter isn’t that big at all. Could it be that they don’t understand this? Without this thing as a backing, even if the empire is magnificent now, it’s just an empty display. Couldn’t we be overthrown at any time?”
Duke Giarbot gave a bitter laugh as he clearly knew what the emperor was referring to.
From the perspective of the empire, the emperor wasn’t wrong at all. Otherwise, the prime minister, the parliament, and the department of finances wouldn’t have agreed to his increase in funds and manpower over the years.
“Alright, I will properly discuss this matter with the parliament and work out the numbers. As for Troll Valley……I have some time in four days and I’ll go see them. Your majesty, is there anything you want to pa.s.s down to them?”
Emperor Candra shook his head, “There’s nothing special to say, you just need to represent me.”
“I understand.”
The two discussed some other policies for the Candra Empire before Duke Giarbot left.
After leaving the royal palace, Duke Giarbot entered a pure black luxury Magic Sedan, but he didn’t go to the parliament. Rather, he slowly headed out the west gate of Wimbledon City.
Today was the eighth anniversary of Wimbledon City’s first steel mill and also the day when the ten millionth ton of steel products would be produced.
On this memorable day, the first steel mill had invited Duke Giarbot who had put the steel mill plan in action back then, which obtained his happy approval.
He had been delayed because he had been summoned by the emperor, so the people at the steel mill should have been waiting for quite a bit.
Thinking of this, Duke Giarbot told the driver to drive a bit faster.
However, it was ten in the morning, when Wimbledon City was quite busy. There were many cars moving along the road and no matter how good the driver was, he couldn’t move through the stream of vehicles and could only slowly drive along.
Seeing the crowded street outside, Duke Giarbot knitted his brows. He thought about the discussion the parliament had started last year about reconstruction in Wimbledon City and he felt that they should speed that up.
With the continued growth of the industrial district outside Wimbledon City, there were already many people from the area that had been absorbed into Wimbledon City. Then adding in the grain increase over the ten years and the stable situation, causing the birth grate to go up, Wimbledon City’s population had increased by more than double in the past ten years.
In this situation, Wimbledon City, which was already crowded, couldn’t take this load anymore.
So several years ago, the empire had already considered rebuilding Wimbledon City. There were even some people who thought that they should build a new city.
Comparing it, Duke Giarbot leaned towards the latter proposition.
Because not only would there be great resistance to changing the old city, it would be very hard, and the effects wouldn’t be good. It would be very hard for them to solve the current problem with this.
Constructing a new city on the other hand might seem a bit exaggerated and would cost a lot, but when comparing it, this investment wasn’t as high as reconstruction of the old city.
Not to mention that building a new city had a great benefit, which was that they could change the plans. It would allow them to meet many more needs, so it was much more convenient than rebuilding the old city no matter how you looked at it.
It had to be known that with the constant development of the magic machine industry, the lives of the people of the continent had already greatly changed. Wimbledon City, which was a city that had lasted for several hundred years, couldn’t keep up and was even deemed behind the times by countless people.
To take a simple example, when Wimbledon City was founded, although it had been made as big as possible and the city streets could hold six horse carriages from side to side, which was considered s.p.a.cious all over the Sines Continent.
In the current Wimbledon City, there were private Magic Sedans everywhere. One could see streets that were completely filled with Magic Sedans.
Then adding in the bus system, the streets of the old city seemed very narrow and wasn’t good enough for transportation.
Duke Giarbot had suffered from this. Even if he was the duke that was at the peak of the empire, he couldn’t avoid these traffic jams.
It was also because of this that many of the n.o.bles and rich commoners in Wimbledon City moved out of the city, it was to avoid the crowds and the various inconveniences.
If they built a new city, they could avoid this situation from the planning phase and could solve many problems that bothered countless people.
Moreover, when it came to constructing a new city, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had already experimented with this back in Banta City. Then the Frestech Chamber of Commerce built a new Frestech City that had become the model of a city on the Sines Continent.
With this precedent, if Wimbledon City wanted to build a new city, it wouldn’t be that hard.
At least the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the Amrit Chamber of Commerce had clearly stated that they would be willing to provide technology and personnel to the empire. The Amrit Chamber of Commerce even stated that they would be willing to accept a contract to build the new Wimbledon City from the empire parliament. As long as the Candra Empire provided the funds, they wouldn’t need to care about anything else.
Of course it was impossible for the empire parliament to agree to this. So right now, the empire was contacting the Amrit Chamber of Commerce and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, while planning on building the new city themselves.
Duke Giarbot as the prime minister had explicitly supported the construction of the new city in front of the parliament, even requesting that the parliament come up with a solution as soon as possible.
The parliament and the department of finances had stated that because of problems with funding and technology, it would be hard to come up with a concrete plan in a short period of time, so it was trapped for now.
Duke Giarbot looked at the surrounding crowd and hoped that the Amrit Chamber of Commerce and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce would make concessions as soon as possible. That way the construction plan for the new Wimbledon City could start and it would solve their problems sooner.
Of course, there was still another solution. It was to move out the imperial facilities and even the royal palace. That way, they wouldn’t need to be in the crowded Wimbledon City anymore.
It was a pity that while moving the facilities out was easy, it wasn’t as easy to move out the royal palace.
The Candra Empire’s royal palace had been fixed since the foundation of the Candra Empire, so it had been there for close to a thousand years.
The royal palace with this kind of historical and symbolic significance, if the emperor didn’t decide to move it, it was impossible to move it.
Thinking of this, Duke Giarbot couldn’t help looking out the window and gave a sigh.
Although this ancient empire was powerful because of its age, it was also rotten because of its age. It would always bind people when it came to certain aspects.