The one who brought Elena and Otto back to Glen, was the one who was hit hardest, of course, his wife Fanny. Fortunately, she was pregnant when she was about 30 years old. Soon after, she gave birth to an eight-pound boy. The mother was noble because of her son, and the countess finally settled down. Moreover, people always mature, and women even more so. Fanny, who had a son and regarded him as the focus of her life, had to do at this time not to compete for favor with the common wife and concubines around her husband, who were destined to be indispensable, but to cultivate her children into the best and most legitimate successor of the Burns family.

In the past ten years.

Zhou Ming, who mastered an earl's leader and most of the Iron Fort Kingdom, took the land and the resources under the land as the basis, embarked on a path of farming violent soldiers, constantly launched foreign wars, and expanded wildly.

First, he did not struggle to destroy the Duke Milton of the western border of the Iron Fort Kingdom, controlled the entire territory of the original Iron Fort Kingdom. After digestion for another two years, a large amount of shallow oil was mined in the black moors in the western border. After fractionation, some secondary raw materials distilled can be used as fuel for high-power steam engines, some can be used as lamp oil for kerosene lamps, horse lanterns, and asphalt that can lay "highways" to make paraffin, the value extended by the petrochemical industry is not weaker than the huge profits brought by the three industries of coal, steel, and tracks.

Three years later.

After the thief Jero, with three batches of mercenaries and a large number of slave workers, used up all the black powder in Zhou Ming's inventory, he finally built an easy-to-pass "S" trench passage in the Dafeng Pass of the Ural Snow Mountain. In order to build this passage, the number of deaths paid was twice as many as the number of slave workers who died when the 100-kilometer transport wooden tracks in the plateau corridor. It can be said that under each meter-long trench passage, there was a corpse of a worker lying.

After opening the trenches, Zhou Ming, who came from sulfur and saltpeter, naturally did not want this passage to the New World to be placed under the nose of the Tongshan Kingdom every day, causing him to spy and covet.

In addition, mass production of muskets and cannons requires a large amount of copper. At this time, the Copper Mountain Kingdom will not be destroyed. When will it be destroyed?

Zhou Ming used the 100,000 troops to use lightning tactics. In less than two years, he controlled the Tongshan Kingdom, which had 47 earl leaders, in his own hands.

With a large amount of copper, it took only one year to use the Guards as the foundation. Zhou Ming trained a pure firearmed unit with a number of 10,000 people and practiced it with several surrounding kingdoms. In each battle, he won a complete victory with single-digit casualties, and then used artillery to bombard the city walls. Several surrounding kingdoms fell one after another.

At this time, Zhou Ming saw on the [World Map] that excluding the New World, he had controlled a huge territory of more than 5 million square kilometers and controlled a population of more than 30 million. The achievements he achieved were not much inferior to Alexander the Great.

but……

Zhou Ming was not satisfied with this, because after the death of Alexander the Great, the empire he established quickly fell apart, and the huge territory he controlled also had some hidden forces.

For example, the seven Counts who started a business with him, the dozens of fence-headed countries surrounding him who surrendered, and the backward lord feudal system, dozens of neurotic lords jump out every year to block the free flow of the territorial people, destroy the local trade routes, intercept passing mercenaries and wandering merchants, and want to close the country, so they are self-punished.

After killing a group of jumping clowns, Zhou Ming discovered that as the scope of interests continues to expand, various internal contradictions caused by uneven distribution of interests, different personal pursuits, and different ways of thinking are no longer something that can be solved by making the interest cake bigger, designing a brand new upward channel, and conducting influence and induction.

For example, the seven earls who have been working closely with Zhou Ming over the years have fulfilled their promises and have indeed granted each earl a medium-sized kingdom with more than 20 earls, and paid dividends to each earl with 2 million gold coins per year.

Logically, the seven counts should be very satisfied and willing to accept it. However, people were not satisfied. Seeing Zhou Ming holding tightly in his hand, including the 36 count corpses of the United States of Iron Fort, 47 count corpses of the United States of Tongshan, and dozens of surrounding territories, there were inexhaustible coal mines, iron ore mines, endless copper mines, oil and other resources on the land, and when Zhou Ming brought more than 50 million gold coins every year, how could he balance the income of the seven counts of their kingdoms who could not even catch up with this fraction?

As for Zhou Ming’s dividend of 2 million gold coins per year... although it is quite a lot, it is only a small part of what they deserve. Compared with their potential losses, it is really not worth a penny.

Under the resentment accumulated over the years, after one of the seven counts died, after his son came to power, the newborn calf actively connected in the name of the elders of the United States Elders Parliament, and in the name of the elders of the Elders Parliament, he launched a proposal to impeach the Chairman in the Elders Parliament, hoping to oust Zhou Ming and divide the interests of the two United States and the Free Trade Union - this idea is very good, but in addition to his own vote of approval, the other six counts (actually, they should be said to be kings, but this title is more convenient) all expressed their support and voted abstention.

Not long after, under the attack of Zhou Ming's 50,000 troops, the head of the newborn calf was cut off, and the seven counts became six counts.

With the force of subduing everything, Zhou Ming established absolute authority on this huge territory, but what he wore was still a crown obtained by bribing the cardinal Thomas, the Northeast Diocese of the Church (not big in size, with three-legged gold edges on it, worn by the king of the small country). The land he controlled and the number of small countries that the surrounding countries surrendered to him were enough for him to crown him as the emperor (the emperor was one level higher than the king, and he could be said to be the king of the king), but the church only added a small king crown to him?

Not only that, with the continuous expansion of the territory and the rapid entry of the semi-industrial capital tide, the territory controlled by Zhou Ming is not only extremely powerful in military strength, but also economically, because of the existence of the Free Trade Alliance, Mercenary Union, and well-connected rail transit network, the degree of development is at least 50 years ahead of the hundreds of kingdoms in the west. Not to mention, after the mass-produced [steam engine] came out, Zhou Ming's territory was even a small earl's total economic output, which was stronger than a kingdom in the west.

Therefore, in terms of economic and trade exchanges with hundreds of kingdoms and churches in the west, Zhou Ming's territory has been in a huge "entering" state all year round.

For example, the furniture, ceramics, white paper, ironware, weapons, perfumes, cotton cloth, tea, cigarettes and other products produced on Zhou Ming's territory are much more cost-effective than the goods produced in hundreds of kingdoms and church territories in the west.

Faced with the impact of these tides of industrial commodities, and a tobacco product called "Fu Shou Paste", began to become popular when nobles in various kingdoms and church leaders. Some knowledgeable people in the church came to an extremely shocking conclusion through the statistics of economic and trade data over the past decade:

If the church continues to use 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, 50 million, …, 100 million, 120 million gold coins to exceed the speed, at most 30 years, the church's gold and silver reserves will be exhausted and there will be no money available in the end.

The tithes tax collected by the church from the Free Trade Union is just a little production on the land. The commercial tax and the mining tax do not involve it. The little agricultural products collected from the land are not enough to buy a few top-quality Patton porcelains.

Therefore, after this conclusion report was presented to the Supreme Pope, Pope Santaro I attached great importance to it. Through consultation, it decided to limit the inflow of commercial goods in the Free Trade Union. It also imposed commercial taxes and mining taxes on the Free Trade Union, and set the commercial tax at 30% and the mining tax at 20%. It was slightly higher, and the gold coins that flowed into that area over the years were reclaimed.

This was naturally flatly rejected by Zhou Ming! He originally wanted to find Pope Santaro to win the crown, but he was refused by the other party, and was asked to stop invading neighboring countries and spit out the occupied land. Now, he still has to impose 30% of the commercial tax and 20% of the mining tax on him?

Do you really want him to be a fat sheep slaughtered at will?

If you don’t pay, you won’t pay a penny of commercial tax or mining tax. If you don’t like it, you’ll fight!

The real war did not start immediately, but the trade war initiated by the church did cause heavy losses to the Free Trade Union.

After many countries in the west implemented border blockades, a large amount of goods from the Free Trade Union could not be sold. After only one year of the trade war, the Free Trade Union lost hundreds of millions of gold coins.

Another learned that the inland areas where the Free Trade Union was located was lacking in salt. The sinister church actually issued a ban on salt, which severely restricted the inflow of salt. In less than half a year, the price of salt on Zhou Ming's territory soared a thousand times, and was extremely lacking.

At this time, Zhou Ming had to send a large number of men to the plateau of the New World to find several plateau salt lakes as emergency sources of salt.

On the other hand, he had to tear apart and all expelled the priests in the territory who were still supporting the Pope's sect, and then attracted another ambitious priest. Zhou Ming had an in-depth discussion with him, modified some of the teachings of the Father's Church, founded a Protestantism, and according to Zhou Ming's request, reduced the tithe to one fifteenth tax. The church's loving worker was changed to paid labor, which greatly reduced the burden on the believers. In addition, some revised Protestant teachings were indeed more down-to-earth. For a time, the believers changed to Protestantism and were happy.

"Heaven! These heresies who should go to the Hell of Fire, fight them and kill them! All kingdoms, all believers, and all army will fight them. The holy words of the Father cannot be tampered with, the dignity of the gods cannot be blasphemed. The believers of the Father and the Lambs of the Earth, do not hesitate to pick up the sword, and now take up the sword and kill all the heretics formed by the devil!"

Heresy siege order!

This heresy order, which has only been issued three times since the church was established for thousands of years, has brought about three massive population declines, the disappearance of two large religions and the collapse of multiple giant empires, has become a heresy that is incompatible with water and fire just because of the revision of several doctrine provisions. Heresy that must be put to death!
Chapter completed!