Chapter 478: Agent Stanford changes career
In just a few days, the Tarantan Undead who had accepted the mission of the Night Watch killed a lot of people... and ravaged all directions. They plowed through the entire northern part of Tachia at a speed as fast as flying, and almost wiped out all the lackeys of the original nobles who had taken root in the countryside.
This kind of result... is quite normal. More than 90% of the abnormal incidents in Taqiya Territory were caused by the rebellion of cultists.
A sect that is able to cause chaos without being held accountable and that the Night's Watch has no way of investigating must have some inextricable connection with the feudal nobles - the wild sects active in the central region that were the first to be eradicated by Yang Qiu when he marched into the north, if the feudal nobles there had not fled at the first sight of the incident, they would have inevitably brought disaster to the fore.
The remaining 10% are abnormal cases that occur "naturally".
While the night watchmen in the city were working hard to earn Undead Coins to pay their wages, Yang Qiu was squatting quietly in the Lord's Mansion (formerly the residence of the Geketan family) where the blood had just been cleaned up, reading the investigation reports submitted by the players.
Yang Qiu was too lazy to read the perfunctory case closing reports written by ordinary players. He would only read reports written by players who played the game "immersively" and really got into the role of the Exorcist, such as those written by players with brilliant writing skills, no increase in entropy, simple and honest underworld style, and only hard work can win.
What Yang Qiu was reading at the moment was the closing report written by a professional player with the ID "Only those who work hard can win".
Due to the overly strict approval process for the game "Another World", very few studios can successfully enter the game, and there are only a handful of professional players who can enter the game. "Only those who work hard can win" is one of the professional players who successfully joined the player army in the early days.
This guy is also a scheming person, in the beginning he pretended to be a strong individual player, and hung out with Lahong Ge and Qin Guan, making both sides "heart-moved" and enthusiastically recruiting him into their own blood alliance; but as a result, this Neptune was ruthless and poached some people from the two big blood alliances and formed his own blood alliance which was semi-studio in nature.
When Yang Qiu logged into the forum to provide cloud players with a one-stop service of deleting posts, banning accounts and silencing people, he saw a hot post in which the angry Qin Guan wrote a short essay to mock this guy...La Hongge, Qin Guan's mortal enemy, even left a message in the post.
Of course, although it has attracted a little hatred from the two major blood alliances in the current game, the blood alliance of this player who loves to fight has indeed developed well; it has attracted many daily players and semi-professional players, and is doing well in selling gold, training and taking tasks, and is also very enthusiastic about participating in various activities and tasks.
In the eyes of Yang Qiu, the black-hearted planner, he is a high-quality player... ahem!
This time, there were a lot of night watch missions in Creek City. I took orders from several boss players and asked them to give me the Exorcist Badge - this thing can only be obtained by completing several night watch missions perfectly, which is still a bit difficult for ordinary players.
The case closing report in Yang Qiu's hand was a ghostwritten work for the boss player who only works hard can win.
The writing style is slightly worse than that of Miaobishenghua, but the organization is very clear. At least the doubts found during the investigation and the process of resolving the doubts are clearly written. It does not simply write down the results and leave it at that like ordinary players do.
“…It’s quite interesting.”
After reading the report, Yang Qiu packed it into an extra box he had prepared... These were all ready-made materials, which would be useful when Innadeli Radio Station prepared a new anti-cult propaganda program.
He was selecting materials in great comfort when Agent Stanford, with a pair of exaggerated panda eyes, came to his door.
"Mr. Yang, when will the Archon of the Undead arrive?" Agent Stanford sat down and asked this as the first question. "We spread the news of the Archon of the Undead's arrival to calm people's hearts, and also randomly posted photos of the undead in front of the city hall - ordinary people can't recognize the appearance of the undead anyway - but there are too many government affairs backlogs, and some of them are beyond the capabilities of Miss Phoebe and me."
"Don't be anxious, Stanford. If nothing unexpected happens... tomorrow, no, the day after tomorrow, the undead wise man invited by Ms. Zhao will be in office." Yang Qiu said slowly.
"Well...if it's two days, we should be able to hold on." Stanford reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small steel bottle filled with alchemical potion. He drank it in one gulp and said worriedly, "Now there is one most important thing...because the City Hall announced that loans with excessively high interest rates would not be recognized, just yesterday, the Public Security Department arrested four false accusers who falsely accused legal loans of usury and tried to put the creditors in jail to evade debt."
Speaking of this mess, Agent Stanford's serious and upright face also showed emotion. Obviously, he was particularly annoyed by this kind of guy who came to cause trouble when things were busy. "We need to introduce detailed instructions on usury and ordinary loans as soon as possible. For private loans that are prone to disputes, I think we also need to regulate them."
Stanford is an Adler. In the old days (before the undead regime took over), the most serious problem in the Adler Territory was human trafficking. The population was too concentrated in the central and eastern regions, resulting in tight land resources and a shortage of daily necessities. More than 70% of the Adler people were struggling to make ends meet, so they naturally had no time to bother with other things, and the incidence of private lending was very low.
A similar situation exists in the southern part of the territory of Tachia, which is mainly mountainous.
It was different in the north... The fertile plains nurtured a large number of rich farmers and wealthy livestock herders. Coupled with the deliberate promotion of the feudal nobles, it was very common for civilians to borrow money from each other or from the nobles.
The Tarantan Undead were spread out from Creek City, and in just a few days, they caught more than a dozen loan sharks like "Master Bud". In addition, there was frequent mutual lending among the people of Creek City... It was really an eye-opener for Agent Stanford.
Agent Stanford's IQ is above average. He would never be so naive as to think that the chaotic lending situation in the North could be resolved by catching all those loan sharks who were backed by aristocrats or acting on behalf of aristocrats.
On the contrary, he could also see the hidden dangers that were right in front of him - after catching this group of loan sharks who were semi-openly active in the countryside, the next group of people who wanted to profit from it would inevitably appear, and they would inevitably be more hidden, more difficult to detect, and more difficult to control than this group of people who had aristocratic backing and dared to openly show off their power in the countryside.
Agent Stanford spoke frankly about his concerns, and Yang Qiu laughed when he heard it.
That's right, this kind of thing is bound to happen, and it is absolutely impossible to prohibit it - let alone this other world where the official institutions are not yet perfect (especially the undead regime), even China's own base camp cannot avoid it.
Lending money and charging interest is certainly more profitable than making a small profit from business...Businessmen in every dimension will do the math.
In order to lend money, or in other words, to make others owe money, people on earth have come up with countless tricky operations that are hard to guard against - not to mention the blatant lending of various loan apps that are being promoted by all platforms, there are also even more dazzling consumer loans.
Merchants use advertising and hype to drive a young person who only needs an ordinary mobile phone to meet his life and entertainment needs to buy a premium mobile phone worth thousands of yuan. They also seem to be considerate of the customers' tight wallets and launch various installment plans with low down payments... In essence, they are selling goods whose value is lower than the payment amount to customers, making the customers owe money to the merchants and honestly repay the principal plus interest on a monthly basis - this interest is calculated based on the full amount owed, which is definitely usury.
Not interested in mobile phones? Don’t worry, there are also luxury cars, famous watches, brand-name bags, perfumes, lipsticks, headphones, running shoes, computers, home appliances, etc. Countless "good stuff" are waiting for you.
The capital groups have worked hard to create a lot of so-called high-sounding concepts of "advanced enjoyment" and "consumption upgrade" to package "consumer loans". How profitable is this invisible usury that even many consumers will support?
That's a level that even "vibrant civil society groups" would be jealous of...
This group of "vibrant civil groups" followed suit with red eyes, and within a few short years, beauty loans became popular in China.
Even Yang Qiu remembered this shit… Even a poor high school student like him, a half-grown kid who nobody could mess with logically, was covered in hype about the “looks economy” in the two years before the time travel.
"I understand your concerns, Agent." Yang Qiu said with a smile, "I agree with you. It is impossible to ban usury. Even if we crack down on it this time, it won't be long before it comes back to life. There will still be families torn apart and people killed by usury."
"But we also have to trust the Taqiya people." Yang Qiu restrained his smile and said seriously, "The Taqiya people are definitely not stupider than the Adlers or the Innaderis, nor are they more susceptible to deception and temptation. After all, people from all over the world are the same. When they have a choice and other ways to go, I believe that most Taqiya people will not be easily deceived and deceived, and will not easily take on a large amount of debt."
"And what we have to do is to give most of the Tachia people a choice." Yang Qiu stretched out two fingers and tapped lightly on the coffee table. "When someone discovers a business opportunity and wants to make money by doing business on his own, he can look for us in addition to those ill-intentioned lenders. When a family encounters natural disasters or man-made disasters and their lives become unsustainable, they can also get help from the City Hall... It is the responsibility of the City Hall to provide the most basic safety net policy for the people in the territory."
"Of course, I'm only talking about the majority of normal people. For example, those who are addicted to gambling, or those who are addicted to eating, drinking and having fun and don't want to work, are not covered by our guarantee." Yang Qiu concluded, "After all, the City Hall is responsible for the majority of normal people. If we waste social resources on people in the gray area who are out of the normal range and ignore the interests of the majority, it will go against our original intention."
Yang Qiu himself does not have any natural political talent. If he were to engage in politics, manage territory or even the country, he would definitely be beaten by Ji Tang and Zhao Zhenzhen's national team...
But in front of Yang Qiu, there is a super academic master who has already proved his achievements with his strength.
The Chinese government is definitely a top student among the top political groups on Earth. It is willing to invest trillions of fiscal revenue in people-friendly policies such as minimum living security, medical insurance, food basket projects, and infrastructure construction. However, it will never, like Western politicians, make a fuss about minority groups or do a bunch of bullshit political correctness for the sake of sensationalism. With such examples in front of them, Yang Qiu can't do the questions himself, so how can he copy them?
Agent Stanford lowered his head and thought seriously.
Yang's attitude was very clear. Tachia would continuously and long-term crack down on usury in any form and disguise, and would officially provide small loans (Zhao Zhenzhen had started doing this a long time ago, because the Civil Affairs Department of the Naderi City Hall had accumulated rich relevant experience) for emergencies.
It is enough to ensure that most Taqiya people have a way to seek help when they encounter emergencies or financial difficulties. There is no need to worry about whether usury can be completely banned... This kind of thing is impossible to be completely banned.
"I understand what you mean, Mr. Yang." After thinking for a while, Agent Stanford nodded slightly.
After a pause, this detective, who was more calm than Yang Qiu in some ways, said in a very serious and rigorous manner: "I am a little too picky... No, I just wanted to save trouble. I unrealistically thought that this kind of thing could be solved in one go. But obviously, this is impossible. As long as there is a high return, no matter whether it is legal or against public order and morality, there will be people who will do it. The only way to deal with it is to persist in long-term prevention and not to be greedy for a permanent solution."
Yang Qiu stared at Agent Stanford for three seconds, then took out his application on the spot… no, he immediately invited him to join politics: “Agent, perhaps the secretarial department would be more suitable for you than the public security department.”
An excellent staff clerk can work in the secretariat for one or two years and fully understand the operation of each department, and then he or she can be promoted to an administrative official.
Agent Stanford remained calm, without any expression on his face.
After thinking calmly for two seconds, the agent said cautiously and calmly, "I do think that I should consider applying for a transfer. Being involved in politics in the new regime led by you and Ms. Zhao is a very challenging and inspiring thing. But referring to my experiences in Lars City and Creek City, I don't think I am qualified to enter the secretarial department, which is too intense and has too many general and complicated affairs. I am not a very insightful person who is good at clarifying the complicated current situation. My career as an agent has also made me develop the habit of focusing on one thing. Handling multiple affairs at the same time is not my forte."
After a pause, Agent Stanford said in a very serious tone: "I think it would be more appropriate for me to start as an operator who is only responsible for a single matter. For my future career plan, it would be best to aim for an assistant officer as the pinnacle of my career. An independent governor is not suitable for me."
Yang Qiu: “…”
