As the chief logistics officer of the war theatre, General Skri was very interested in setting up a bank for the war theatre.
The lack of funds put him under a lot of pressure. A third of his hair had turned white because of it and he looked miserable all day, wondering where he could get more money or how to be more frugal.
With a bank under the control of the theatre, the pressure on funds would be greatly reduced. That was why Skri and Viscount Gooditch felt like old friends the moment they met. They got along well and left Claude to the side.
Especially when Viscount Gooditch proposed to change all the copper coins to gold notes, General Skri applauded him even more.
In the Aueran financial system, the smallest unit of black iron coins was the penny, which was equivalent to a cent. Next were the bronze fennies, which was equivalent to a dime. Ten fennies were equivalent to a copper sunar, which was equivalent to a dollar.
Ten sunars were a small silver riyas, which was equivalent to ten dollars. Ten riyas were a large silver thale, which was equivalent to a hundred dollars. Above the thale were crowns. Five thales were a gold crown, which was equivalent to a five-hundred-dollar bill.
It had been more than 80 years since Stellin IX set up the metallic system. Due to the rapid economic development of the kingdom during his reign, black iron coins and pennies no longer existed among the common folk. The smallest currency used in transactions was mainly the bronze fennies.
For example, a boiled apple the size of a fist was sold for three fennies, which was equivalent to thirty cents. A pot of fresh milk was sold for one sunar, which was equivalent to a dollar.
But just because the common folk didn't use black iron coins didn't mean that they didn't exist. The foundries in the royal capital had to produce a batch every year for the national bank, which didn't mind. Even though the coins were small, they were heavy and quite heavy to carry in one's pocket.
After the war in the east five years ago, the kingdom's economy didn't recover for a long time. As a result, black iron coins started making a comeback among the common folk.
After all, when the common folk wanted to buy a needle or thread, they would do so in the smallest currency. Sometimes, they even complained that a fenny was too big and wished for five black iron pennies.
Anfiston was the largest mining colony out of the eight colonies. The Mining and Commerce Association, which controlled the mining of the colony, had secretly smuggled a few scrap coins from the kingdom's mainland to be minted into coins in order to solve the colony's shortage of cash.
At the same time, it would bring the war theatre 500,000 crowns in revenue every year and ease the financial burden on the colonies.
But the problem was that in terms of profit, the most profitable and profitable way of minting gold, silver, and copper coins was gold crowns and silver thales.
The profit from the small silver riyas was very small, only about 20%. However, the most popular currency in the colonies was the Sunar and Fenny, which were lower than riyas. The Mining and Commerce Association couldn't get their hands on the useless Sunar and Fenny, so they could only make Fenny.
In the end, the final calculation showed that Finney was practically losing money. The cost of labor and materials had already exceeded the value of Finney itself.
The mining and commercial association didn't want to make the fennies, but the basic currency for the common folk was the fennies, sunars, and riyas.
(The Mining and Commerce Association) did not want to mint the fenny, but the basic units of currency for private transactions were the fenny, the sunar, and the riyas.
The mining and commercial association didn't want to make the fennies, but the common currency was the fennies, sunars, and riyas.
In the past, it was used to facilitate the settlement of trade between the two continents. Now that the kingdom's two kings were fighting for the throne, the ocean trade routes were cut off. Even if the mining and commercial association made countless gold crowns and silver thales, they wouldn't be of any use.
Now, the mining and commercial association used the profits from the riyas to subsidize the losses of the fennies. They even mocked themselves by saying that they had become an excellent foundry agent for the national bank.
They were glad that they did not manage to get their hands on a useless version of Sunar. Otherwise, they would have created more trouble for themselves, doing something that would not earn them any money.
Therefore, Viscount Gooditch's suggestion happened to solve the urgent problem of the lack of copper coins in the war zone. Replacing copper coins with paper of the same denomination would not only free the Mining and Commerce Association from the situation of losing money by minting the bronze coins, but it would also save the minting of the small silver coins, Riyas.
Metallic currencies below thales could be replaced with paper.
The Aueran citizens had the habit of saving money in private. They could gather a thale worth of paper and exchange it from the war theatre's banks. That way, they could circulate the paper in the colonies.
No matter what, carrying paper was much more convenient than carrying copper coins around. Sometimes, a bag of copper coins would only be worth one or two thales, so carrying it around would be a burden.
The two of them got more and more excited as they talked. In the end, Skri decided to cancel their plans for the afternoon and brought Gooditch back to his office to discuss the plans for the war zone bank, leaving Claude alone in the dining hall.
However, Claude couldn't be bothered with that. He still had his own schedule in the afternoon.
He rested for a while after the meal before setting off in a carriage with his guards.
Cobicus Port was the capital of Tyrrsim. It was divided into the inner city and outer city.
The inner city was inhabited by the nobles of the colony and the wealthy.
The eastern and southern districts of the outer city were inhabited by the less well-off and the impoverished who migrated there.
As for the western and northern districts, they were the territory of the nikancha who made a living in Cobicus Port. They were filled with slums.
There were about seventy to eighty thousand of the kingdom's citizens living in Cobicus Port, but the nikancha in the western and northern districts numbered more than three hundred thousand.
However, there were more than three hundred thousand nikancha in the west and north districts. They did the hardest and most tiring work in Port Cobicus. Just like in the inner city, all the cleaning and sanitation work was done by nikancha. The wealthier citizens of the kingdom would habitually hire one or two nikancha maids to do the housework.
At the docks, all the porters were young and strong nikancha.
Ever since the trade routes between the kingdom and the colonies were cut off, the nikancha youths in Cobicus Port became the most unstable group. They lost the best chance to earn money working at the docks and could only wander around and cause trouble.
Had it not been for the fact that Cobicus Port was under military control, the nikancha might have already started a few more riots.
Skri told Claude worriedly that one of the biggest problems facing Tyrrsim, Mormaly and Arturas was how to deal with the nikancha.
Of the eight colonies of the kingdom, Port Vebator used to be a Shiksan colony. The Shiksans captured the nikancha as slaves and the nikancha rebelled with the war theatre's support. They occupied the coastal mountains to the north of Port Vebator and established a nikancha nation. As a result, there were no nikancha settlements in Port Vebator. The occasional nikancha who showed up only wanted to pick up some trash and stuff in Port Vebator before being chased out of the country by the patrols.
Cromwell, Balingana and Robisto, on the other hand, adopted a strategy of fortifying their defenses and clearing out the wilderness due to the war. Following that, the Shiksan army massacred the remaining nikancha settlements in Cromwell and Balingana, forcing the nikancha to flee the two colonies.
Robisto, on the other hand, was connected to the Dorinibla River Defence Line and Anfiston's Mosiraga Defence Line. So, even the nikancha were chased out after the fortification strategy was adopted. It was mainly to keep the two defence lines a secret.
That was why there were no nikancha settlements in Cromwell, Balingana and Robisto. It could be said to be a blank piece of paper.
After Port Vebator was taken, the war came to an end.
Cromwell and Balingana were the colonies that took in more than two million relatives of the soldiers from Thundercrash and Monolith. The two colonies had become the territory of the Kingdom's citizens, and there was no place for the nikancha people to stay.
That was because the people who migrated to the two colonies were relatively poor and preferred to earn their own living. They didn't have the habit of hiring people of other races.
Robisto, on the other hand, became Cromwell, Balingana and Robisto's territory, where the former citizens of the three colonies settled down.
Coupled with the 300,000 natives who migrated to the colonies with their kin, it became a colony dominated by the natives.
During the resettlement process, the war theatre refused entry to the nikancha settlements. Without a natives' guarantor, the nikancha servants of the natives wouldn't be able to enter Robisto.
That was all because of the rules the war theatre set up for the nikancha with the help of the Mining and Commerce Association.
Everyone knew about the nikancha's vile habits. Had it not been for the carrot and stick approach, the association wouldn't have had that many nikancha miners.
Of all the colonies, the nikancha of Anfiston were the most well-behaved and law-abiding. This was mainly due to the Mining and Commerce Association's years of teaching and generosity.
The nikancha miners in Anfiston were treated the best and earned the most money. They were actually no different from the natives who worked as miners. They just didn't have the same benefits as the natives.
However, the nikancha miners were satisfied when they saw the natives doing the same work and earning the same amount of money as them.
The nikancha people of Robisto and Anfiston under the war theatre's jurisdiction were rather law-abiding. They didn't have any bad habits, so they wouldn't rebel.
In fact, as long as they were treated fairly, the nikancha were not as bad as some of the natives thought they were.
However, the nikancha in Mormaly, Tyrrsim and Arturas were the real weirdos. All the vile habits of the nikancha could be found in them.
The nikancha in these three colonies were the most incorrigible race. All the worst adjectives could be used to describe them. They would often start rebellions for no reason in these three colonies. Dozens of them would be killed and they would stay quiet for a while.
After a while, they would start rebellions again and be suppressed again. They would stay quiet for a while. It was hard to understand why they were doing this.
Of course, all of this was due to the fact that the viceroys and commanders of the three colonies had disregarded the nikancha's management.
Every year, apart from collecting a poll tax from the nikancha, the local officials of the three colonies basically treated the nikancha as the lowest of lowly servants or targets of exploitation. From time to time, they would send out the local garrison to sweep the nikancha's settlements and plunder their wealth.
Secondly, the natives of the three colonies were racist when they interacted with the nikancha. They looked down on the nikancha and bullied them out of habit.
When it came to labor contracts with the nikancha, the natives were the first to go back on their word.
As a result, the nikancha in the three colonies hated the natives very much. That was the reason why nikancha riots often broke out in the colonies.
The problem was that the total population of the three colonies was no more than a million, while the nikancha numbered more than three million.
Claude believed that if it wasn't for the fact that the three colonies' garrison forces and the kingdom's citizens had advanced firearms to intimidate the nikancha, they might've long become an independent nation like the Shiksan colony of Port Vebator.
Now that Mormaly, Tyrrsim, and Aduras were under the jurisdiction of the war zone, the three colonies with more than three million nikancha people became the number one problem of governance.
In particular, the severed sea trade with the Kingdom had a huge impact on the nikancha people.
Their young laborers couldn't sell their labor at the docks, and the nikancha's brothel didn't have the patronage and consumption of the ocean-going sailors. The nikancha children also couldn't get tips or beg for money from the ocean-going merchants. This caused the atmosphere in the western and northern districts of the port, the nikancha's shantytown, to be very oppressive.
General Skri had originally planned to repeat the same trick and organize the nikancha youths to repair the basic roads and public facilities in the three colonies. He wanted the nikancha to sell their labor in exchange for food and clothing for their families.
But in less than half a month, General Skri found himself in an awkward predicament. Pinning his hopes on the nikancha was a huge mistake.
Let's put it this way. In the two colonies of Cromwell and Balingana, a thousand people would be able to complete the construction of ten miles of roads in ten days.
But here, a thousand nikancha youths worked for ten days and only managed to build one kilometre of roads. That wasn't even up to standard.
Most of them spent their days at the construction sites and ate with big bellies. The food they stole was more than three to four times the normal consumption of a thousand people.
What surprised General Skri even more was that the nikancha started protesting and going on strike after only a few days because they wanted to be paid.
General Skri tried to appease the nikancha with vouchers, but the nikancha didn't buy it.
They didn't need vouchers that could be used to exchange for daily necessities. What they wanted was cash. They wanted to use it to buy alcohol and play with women.
Skri had no choice but to give up on trying to save the nikancha. He asked Claude to think of a way to deal with the nikancha in the three colonies. Of course, he didn't want Claude to massacre them or anything like that. But at the very least, he had to get rid of the cancerous tumors in the colonies so that they wouldn't be a burden to the war theatre.
Send them out?
Claude thought of the nikancha nation to the north of Port Vebator and planned to send all of the nikancha there. It would be a way to divert the trouble away from them.
As for what the nikancha would do in their own nation, it had nothing to do with Claude or the theatre. They would bear the brunt of the trouble themselves.
However, the problem he was facing now was whether the nikancha nation would be willing to accept their own people.
That was the first problem.
The second problem was, would the nikancha in the three colonies be willing to move to the nikancha nation?
The nikancha had their own elders and leaders. They might not be willing to move for the sake of power. In the end, Claude might have to use force to help them.