Chapter 206: Crazy Tuttle
From a simple personal emotional perspective, what Yang Qiu wanted to do most was to drag out the more than 20 local nobles who monopolized more than 60% of the wealth in the Innadeli territory one by one and hang them on street lamps.
The Bartles family also took more than they ate, but at least they maintained a city defense force to keep the area safe; the church, which also benefited from the people's money, at least stood on the front line of the dark invasion.
And what did these nobles below the Bartles family do?
Land annexation, manipulation of grain prices, opening casinos and lending at high interest rates, forcing women of good families into prostitution, exploitation of workers, exploitation of farmers... They did not do anything that people should do, and did not leave out anything that people should not do.
Unfortunately... the plate is big, and Yang Qiu is not young anymore, so he doesn't have the nerve to do anything too willful.
The most important point is that all the more than 20 towns in Nadeli's territory are fiefs of these small nobles. It is easy to eliminate the nobles in one go, and it is just a matter of issuing a few more tasks to the players, but there is really no manpower to fill the power vacuum left - this is the real fatal thing.
However, just because Yang Qiu cannot kill them for now doesn't mean he will let these nobles go... He will just fatten them up before killing them.
Rex sat there thinking for a long time, and it was unknown whether he had figured out the reason. He gave Yang Qiu a resentful look and left.
Yang Qiu ignored him. As an old man, there was no way he would bother with a kid. He just sat there calmly playing with his phone.
"What a lousy hand!"
After a while, Yang Qiu cursed under his breath and quit the game.
"Well... my leisure time is over." After looking at the Earth time displayed on his mobile phone, Yang Qiu stretched and stood up slowly.
Currently, the average potential value of large groups of players is between 130 and 150, and the number of people who have gained enough reputation to take on second-level tasks is almost in the three digits.
Yang Qiu is a man of his words. He said that he would make these guys stuck in their second job transfer for at least half a month, so he would definitely cheat these idiots who would drag him out and scold him every day for no reason...
Of course, no matter how bad it is, the job transfer upgrade should still be given. If there is no difference between before and after the second job transfer, the players' enthusiasm for reputation will plummet, which is not conducive to long-term development - we should always take a long-term view!
After deciding to start the work, Yang Qiu first activated the mental field - the mental realm formed by the external mental power of high-level spellcasters - to cover the entire City Lord's Mansion.
Before advancing to the great magician, Yang Qiu's mental field could only cover an area of ten meters around him. After the advancement, his mental field increased dozens of times, which was more than enough to cover the mansion of the former Bartles family.
Only by turning the entire City Lord's Mansion into his own "domain" could Yang Qiu perform black magic without any burden, so as to avoid causing those people in the church to overreact...
The great magician can cast forbidden spells instantly, and even most of the casting gestures can be omitted. Yang Qiu raised his hand and drew a line in the air. Immediately, a brilliant and slowly rotating pentagram magic circle appeared on the spacious living room floor.
This magic circle, which is similar to the semi-permanent spell of the teleportation point used by players, is a formal undead summoning technique - of course, it does not summon players, but real undead from the demon world who have no self-awareness and only fighting instincts.
Soon, black fog rose from the center of the formation, and a genuine undead wearing tattered armor, holding a scarlet spear, with faint green fire flashing in its eyes, appeared in the black fog.
Yang Qiu snapped his fingers, and the authentic undead that appeared in the magic circle with murderous aura instantly disintegrated into countless tiny bone fragments, and the broken undead armor and scarlet spear turned into black mist and dissipated.
Under the sweep of Yang Qiu's spiritual field, these bone fragments made from genuine undead materials that met the specifications slowly floated up, while those that did not meet the specifications turned into black mist and returned to the demon world.
Next, Yang Qiu patiently created semi-permanent rune skills for the second-level players...
When designing the player's profession, Yang Qiu had already decided on the rune skill direction to be provided to the players.
After completing the second transfer, warrior players can choose between the weapon master and the berserker branches. The former focuses on survival, so a powerful defense skill must be arranged; the latter focuses on output, so a new burst skill must be prepared.
The second-level choices for knight players are Death Knight and Holy Spirit Knight. The former gives curse skills and the latter gives healing skills.
Mage players also have two advancement paths to choose from, Dark Warlock and Dark Prophet.
As for walkers, they can be divided into long-range bow users and close-range dagger users...
It takes a lot of energy for one person to handle such a complex project, otherwise Yang Qiu would not have designed only four career paths... ahem.
In addition, just like the universal skill "Appraisal" that all first-level players have, we need to design a universal skill that can motivate casual players to strive for the second level - those life players who log in every day and do nothing are too lazy. They would rather stay in the city and paint randomly than do tasks to improve their reputation. Isn't this just occupying the toilet without doing anything? I can't tolerate it!
While Yang Qiu was conscientiously performing his duties as a game producer, Tattle Joe, the newly appointed lord of Westram, was doubting his life.
"...In other words, ever since I took over the position of Lord Westram, I owed Yang tens of thousands of gold coins? Are you kidding?!"
In the finance office of the town hall, Tattle looked at the undead mayor Ji Tang with a confused look on his face.
"Yes." Ji Tang nodded. "Please rest assured that this debt of Westham Town Hall does not require immediate repayment. We have already worked out a work... um, repayment plan. Please see here. This is our goal for the fourth quarter of this year, and it has been roughly achieved -"
"What a joke!" Tattle couldn't stand it any longer and jumped up from his seat. "I quit. Find someone else. I didn't want to be this puppet in the first place!!"
"Mr. Tuttle, your personal debt has exceeded one hundred gold coins, right?" Ji Tang said calmly, "Although Lord Yang does not allow puppet lords to use public assets, if the performance is excellent, the lord can get a very high performance bonus. Rex does not owe Lord Yang a penny."
Anyway, everyone inside knew that Tattle was pushed here just because of his good image, so Ji Tang just went straight to the point.
Tuttle was silent for a while, then sat back down silently.
In fact, Tuttle had about a hundred gold coins on hand, and he had not yet spent the money he made from Hal last time; but if he was asked to take out his old banknotes to repay the "debt" that Yang had forced upon him, he would not be willing to do so no matter what!
After pondering the words of the undead mayor, Tuttle still felt something was wrong: "Wait a minute, if Rex has money, why haven't I seen him spend it? Doesn't he still live in the dormitory like those clerks?"
Ji Tang didn't say anything, just looked at the "NPC" in front of him with a little sympathy.
Tuttle himself reacted.
"——The so-called performance bonus, in fact, is not given a penny, and is directly deducted for some reason?!" Tuttle was going crazy.
Ji Tang still said nothing, but his eyes were more sympathetic...
How should I put it... Lord Yang is a guy who would never spend a penny if he could avoid paying. It is indeed a pipe dream to expect to get free benefits from him .
For example, the dumplings provided to the prisoners who worked on the road construction were the dark dumplings that Ji Tang and Zhao Zhenzhen would never dare to sell to ordinary people in the Undead Delicatessen. Not to mention the skin, the dumpling fillings were made from the leftovers from the feed processing plant. If anyone dared to sell them in China, they would be invited to have tea in no time...
It's not that these scraps from feed (also used to make cheap canned cat and dog food) are inedible to humans. American food manufacturers have been using this stuff to make hamburger patties and selling them in fast food restaurants for years. It's just that normal Chinese people can't live with it.
Tuttle knew what kind of person Yang was. He was depressed for a while, then waved his hands at Ji Tang with a frustrated look on his face: "Come on, keep talking. Let me die with a clear mind."
Ji Tang then readily explained the financial (debt) situation of Westham Town Hall to Tuttle in a clear and orderly manner, bit by bit.
The debt situation of the Westham government is indeed serious, but this debt is not owed now. Some of the debt is expected to be owed - such as the cost of building railways.
Lord Yang only paid for half of the railway from Westham to the exile town deep in the Tarantan Wasteland, and the other half had to be paid by the Westham government.
It will take one or two years to pay back this money slowly (...), and it can be repaid slowly. The expert group has also specially found an expert in economics to develop a repayment plan for Ji Tang to ensure that the expenditure on building the railway will not drag down Westram's finances.
Currently, Westham’s biggest debt pressure comes from the industrial area on Town Avenue.
The factory building, land and manpower all belong to Westram, but the machines are provided by Lord Yang. The principal and interest of the money must be repaid as soon as possible - yes, Lord Yang is so good at doing business that he has to charge interest on debts. In this respect, he is more or less a human being, so the interest rate is not high, only 6% per year.
Tuttle had never heard of such a complicated account in the world. He couldn't hold on before Ji Tang finished introducing it. He said with a dying breath: "Please, man, stop nagging. I know I need to get into the state and participate in your work as soon as possible. I promise I won't make excuses... Just tell me what I need to do now."
Ji Tang was waiting for him to say this, and closed the account book happily: "It's actually very simple, just act as a spiritual leader like Rex."
Ten minutes later, Tuttle was dragged by Ji Tang to a workshop in a factory in the industrial zone.
Tattle was born in Kargath, the largest city in the Rhine Kingdom, which was more prosperous than Innadri. Of course he had seen machinery, right? After scanning the two production lines in the workshop and staring at what the female workers took out of the machines for a long time, he still had a confused look on his face and could not recognize what was being produced here.
Ji Tang showed Tuttle around the workshop and then took him to the warehouse. He took out a small piece of what looked like a piece of bread from the carton containing the finished products and showed it to Tuttle: "You don't recognize this, do you?"
Tuttle shook his head.
"This is called a sanitary napkin, it's used by women and has a similar function to toilet paper... Well, you know that women have menstrual periods, right?" Ji Tang said.
"......?" Tuttle looked confused.
Ji Tang had to give this guy some basic knowledge about physiology...
When Tuttle heard half of this, his hair almost stood up. He said in horror, "Wait, wait! What do you want me to do by telling me this?!"
Ji Tang said seriously: "Rex and I have done a survey. The sanitary products used by women in rural areas and towns during their menstrual period are mainly reusable cloth strips, which are not easy to maintain hygiene and are very harmful to women's health. We need you to promote sanitary napkins as a lord and let people accept this safer and more hygienic sanitary product-"
Tuttle was dumbfounded and shouted, "Wait a minute! Are you crazy, you undead? I am a man!"
Ji Tang frowned and said, "You want to say that because you are a man, this has nothing to do with you?"
"Of course! This kind of thing should be done by a woman. How could it be done by me?!" Tuttle said anxiously.
Ji Tang shook his head and raised his hand to nod at Tuttle: "Look, even you have this reaction. If you, as a lord, don't lead by example and fight a good propaganda war, how can you promote sanitary products?"
"These private matters between women shouldn't be discussed publicly!" Tuttle almost yelled.
Ji Tang had no expression on his face. He only said, "There is no textile factory in our Westham industrial zone. Other factories recruit both men and women. The only factory that recruits only female workers is this sanitary products factory. And this sanitary products factory was the first to be fully staffed. Do you know what this means?"
Tuttle said angrily, "How should I know that?"
"It means that in Westham, women have narrower employment options than men." Ji Tang said, "In a family, it is difficult for women to become the breadwinners, and they often have to rely on the men in the family to make money."
"Isn't this normal?" Tuttle frowned.
"Without an economic source, it will be even more difficult for women in the family to use the family's common property for what you call 'private matters'." Ji Tang held up the sanitary napkin in his hand. "We have repeatedly done cost accounting. Due to the immature industrial chain, this sanitary napkin must be sold at least two copper coins for ten. If it is cheaper, the factory will find it difficult to guarantee profitability and cannot achieve sustainable development."
"It costs two copper coins every month to deal with menstruation. How many women in Westham do you think can afford this money without the support, understanding and recognition of their families?"
