Chapter 727 — Open the Door, Free Trade

"Your Majesty, it seems matters are indeed as I surmised," Patrick said, lowering his head. "Typhon is building markets in the southern part of the continent. The Highland Kingdom has likely already opened its doors to them, and the Silver Empire will presumably establish trade relations with Typhon to some degree as well. Though we enjoy good relations with the Silver Empire and have technical cooperation, that will not stop the elves from buying Typhon goods. On that foundation, the various city-states great and small attached to the Silver Empire and the Highland Kingdom need hardly be mentioned—they will all become markets for the Typhonians.

"Typhon will establish extensive commercial activity across the western and parts of the southern continent. In those regions, all trade participants will settle in Typhon currency. Apart from the Silver Empire, which has the strength to contend with Typhon, Typhon will hold economic dominance over every other nation.

"I call it the 'Typhon Settlement Zone.'

"And what we are doing is much the same as Typhon. We are expanding the scale of trade with the Augustray Tribal States; you have already planned to lay railway into Augustray. And in the north, Grand Regent Victoria is establishing exchange with the Violet Kingdom and attempting contact with the Holy Dragon Duchy.

"The many city-states of the northern wildlands have already begun purchasing our alchemical potions. Their city-states may be small, but the city-state confederation as a whole is still a vast market.

"Without question, the Cecil Empire will become the 'economic leader' of these regions, and these regions will settle in our currency.

"Following the model of the 'Typhon Settlement Zone,' most of the northern and western continent will become the 'Cecil Settlement Zone.'"

Patrick had said all this in one breath, and at some point his face had flushed red; his somewhat portly frame trembled faintly with his panting, and in the eyes of this Minister of Commerce and Finance, a certain indefinable light was glimmering.

Gao Yang stared fixedly into Patrick's eyes, and before he knew it his body had leaned slightly forward.

"Then... this is no longer merely a matter between Cecil and Typhon," he said, his tone low and measured.

"Yes, Your Majesty, this is no longer merely a matter between Cecil and Typhon. Typhon is building their settlement zone, and we will certainly build our own. These are two settlement zones, a contest of two currency systems—and in the long run, amid commercial activity on a massive scale, flowing at high speed, spanning the continent and set to grow by leaps and bounds, fiat currency... has a higher 'capacity' than representative currency, and can better withstand disaster."

Here Patrick stopped, and Gao Yang said softly, his tone steeped in meaning: "When the day of the bank run comes, representative currency will collapse all the faster."

Amber looked at Gao Yang, then at Patrick.

To be honest, though she had an exceptional gift in the field of intelligence, in the field these two were discussing she was utterly lost.

Yet suddenly she felt a chill run down her spine.

"So long as the Cecil Empire does not collapse, so long as there is no international credit collapse, so long as our industrial and economic systems continue to develop steadily, so long as the Grand Wall does not fall and we ourselves commit no folly of unlimited over-issuance, then fiat currency will amount to having something close to unlimited capacity to pay," Gao Yang continued. "Whereas the gold reserves of Typhon and its commercial partners will eventually hit a bottleneck—and the larger the market they build and the faster it develops, the sooner that bottleneck will arrive. The gears of a factory are a wheel too heavy to stop; that wheel will force them to over-issue currency. And what we must do is—before Royan Augustus reacts, before the Typhonians plug their holes—do everything in our power to make the gold of the Typhon Settlement Zone flow to our side..."

"May their noble investors keep up the good work," Patrick laughed.

Gao Yang smiled too: "May the present 'peaceful situation' hold for a few more years."

He rose and went to the place by the bookshelf where the map hung.

Ansu's full territorial map had once hung here, but the old map had now been taken down, replaced by one depicting the entire continent.

The Gondo Wasteland occupied a striking position on the map, and around the wasteland—Cecil, Typhon, the Augustray Tribal States, the Highland Kingdom, the Silver Empire... nation upon nation interlocked like dogs' teeth, each holding its stretch of land handed down from the ancient forebears.

For a thousand years, these nations had each developed in comfort and tranquility, and though there had been some exchange between them, an invisible barrier seemed to divide all the realms.

For a thousand years, the stories had all been of knights, princesses, castles, and open fields.

Quiet, peaceful, pastoral.

But the times had changed.

Open the doors. Free trade.

His gaze drifted slowly across the map of the entire continent, a map he had drawn himself by reference to satellite imagery. Amid those precise lines, his eyes gradually passed over the Gondor Wasteland and came to rest among the jungles and cities of the Silver Empire.

"If only north and south could be connected across the continent..."

"Your Majesty?" Patrick had not caught it clearly and asked curiously.

"No, nothing," Gao Yang shook his head. What he was weighing was not something Patrick, as head of commerce and economics, could resolve. "Let us return to the matter of issuing currency. However necessary credit currency may be, issuing it... will not be so easy."

"Yes, Your Majesty."