took Elena and Otto back to the Grand Collar, and the hardest hit, of course, was his wife Fanny, but fortunately, when she was about 30 years old, she finally became pregnant, and soon gave birth to an eight-pound boy. Moreover www.biquge.info people will always mature, and women are even more so, Fanny, who has a son and takes him as the focus of her life, what she has to do at this time is not to compete for favor with the destined concubines around her husband, but to train her children to become the best and most justifiable successors of the Burns family.

For more than ten years after that.

Zhou Ming, who had mastered a county and most of the Iron Fort Kingdom, took these lands and the resources under them as the foundation, and embarked on a path of farming and rioting, constantly waging foreign wars, and crazy expansion.

First of all, he did not work hard to destroy the Duke of Milton in the west of the Iron Castle Kingdom, controlled the entire territory of the original Iron Castle Kingdom, and then digested it for two years, in the black marsh in the west, a large amount of shallow oil was extracted, and after fractionation, some of the secondary raw materials produced by fractionation can be used as fuel for high-power steam engines, some can be used as lamp oil for kerosene lamps and horse lamps, and asphalt that can pave "highways", and paraffin wax that can be made into bright candles -- the value of the petrochemical industry is not weaker than coal, steel, Huge profits brought by these three industries.

Three years later.

The thief Jairo successively took three groups of mercenary groups, as well as a large number of slave laborers, and after using up all the black powder in Zhou Ming's inventory, he finally built an easy-to-pass "S" shaped trench communication road in the short ten-kilometer-long gale pass of the Ural Snow Mountain, and the number of deaths paid for the construction of this passage was more than twice the number of slave laborers who died when building the 100-kilometer transportation wooden track in the plateau corridor.

After opening the trench communication channel, Zhou Ming, who had a steady stream of sulfur and saltpeter, naturally didn't want this passage to the New World to be placed under the nose of the Tongshan Kingdom every day, provoking it to snoop and covet it.

In addition, the mass production of muskets and artillery requires a large amount of copper, and if the Copper Mountain Kingdom is not destroyed at this time, when will it be extinguished?

Zhou Ming waved 100,000 troops, and with lightning tactics, it took less than two years to control the Tongshan Kingdom, which had 47 earls, in his own hands.

With a large amount of copper, and it took less than a year, taking the Guards as the foundation, Zhou Ming trained a pure firearms force with a number of 10,000, and practiced a little with several surrounding kingdoms.

At this time, Zhou Ming saw on the [World Map] that excluding the New World, he had controlled a huge territory with an area of more than 5 million square kilometers and a population of more than 30 million, and his achievements 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 there were some hidden forces in this huge territory under his control.

For example, the Seven Great Earls who partnered with him to start a business, the surrounding dozen small countries that waged their tails and submitted to the wall, coupled with the backward lord feudal system, dozens of neurotic lords jumped out every year to obstruct the free flow of the territory and the people, destroy the local trade routes, intercept and kill passing mercenaries and traveling merchants, and wanted to close off the country and self-style.

After pinching to death batch after batch of clowns, Zhou Ming found that with the continuous expansion of the scope of interests, the various internal contradictions caused by the uneven distribution of interests, different personal pursuits, and different ways of thinking are no longer able to be solved by making the interest cake bigger, designing a new upward channel, and inducing influence.

For example, the seven counts who have been working closely with Zhou Ming over the years, after he fulfilled his promise, he did give each count a medium-sized kingdom with more than 20 counts, and gave each count a business alliance dividend of 2 million gold coins per year.

It stands to reason that the seven counts should be very satisfied and willing to accept it, but the people's hearts are insufficient, and they see that Zhou Ming is holding in his hands the 36 counts of the Iron Castle United States. After the 47 counties of the United States of Copper Mountain, as well as dozens of surrounding territories combined, there are inexhaustible coal and iron ore, endless copper mines, oil and other resources that cannot be used up no matter how much they are used, and when they bring more than 50 million gold coins to Zhou Ming every year, how can the seven counts of their respective kingdoms not even catch up with this fraction of the income?

As for Zhou Ming's annual dividend of 2 million gold coins...... It's a lot, but it's only a fraction of what they deserve, and it's not worth a dime compared to their potential losses.

After the death of one of the seven earls and the coming to power of his son, the newborn calf, in the name of the elders of the Council of Elders of the United States, who had long since existed in name only, actively joined forces and initiated a motion to impeach the chairman at the Council of Elders, hoping to oust Zhou Ming from power and divide the interests of the two United States and the Free Business Alliance. The idea was very good, but the proposal, in addition to his own vote in favor, the other six counts (who should be called kings, but it is more convenient to call them as such) all verbally supported the proposal, and then abstained from voting.

Not long after, under the blow of Zhou Ming's 50,000 army, after cutting off the head of the newborn calf boy, the seven counts became six counts.

With the force to subdue everything, Zhou Ming established absolute authority in this huge territory, but what he wore on his head was still only a crown obtained by bribing Cardinal Thomas of the Northeast Diocese of the Church with a huge amount of bribes (not large, with three-legged gold edges, worn by the king of a small country), and the land he controlled, and the number of surrounding small countries that submitted to him, were enough for him to be crowned emperor (the emperor is one level higher than the king, it can be said to be the king's king), but the church only added a small king's crown to him?

Not only that, with the continuous expansion of the territory and the rapid entry into the era of semi-industrialized capital tide, the territory controlled by Zhou Ming is not only extremely strong in military strength, but also economically, because of the existence of free business alliances, mercenary unions, and the existence of a rail transit network extending in all directions, the degree of development is at least more than 50 years ahead of the hundreds of kingdoms in the west, not to mention, after the mass-produced [steam engine] comes out, Zhou Ming's territory is a small county economic aggregate, which is 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 state of huge "surplus" all year round.

For example, the furniture, ceramics, white paper, ironware, weapons, perfumes, cotton cloths, tea, cigarettes, and other products produced on Zhou Ming's territory are far more cost-effective than those produced in hundreds of kingdoms and ecclesiastical territories in the west, regardless of quality, quantity, variety, or price value.

In the face of the impact of these tidal waves of industrial commodities, and when a tobacco product called "Fushou Cream" began to be popular among the nobles of various kingdoms and the high-level of the church, some people of insight in the church came to an extremely shocking conclusion through the economic and trade data statistics of the past ten years:

If the church continues to exceed the rate of 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, 50 million、......、 100 million, 120 million gold coins per year, in another 30 years at most, the church's gold and silver reserves will be completely exhausted, and finally there will be no money available.

The tithes levied by the Church from the Free Merchant League were only a little product of the land, and the commercial tax and mining tax were not involved, and the little agricultural products collected from the land alone were not enough to buy a few top-quality Paton porcelain.

Therefore, after this concluding report was submitted to the Supreme Pope, Pope Santaro I attached great importance to it, and after some consultation, decided to limit the amount of commercial goods flowing into the Free Merchant League, and to impose a commercial tax and a mining tax on the Free Merchant League, the commercial tax was set at 30%, and the mining tax was set at 20%, which was set slightly higher, and the gold coins that had flowed into that area over the years were re-recovered.

Naturally, this was categorically rejected by Zhou Ming! He originally wanted to ask Pope Santaro for the crown, but the other party refused to say anything, and demanded to stop invading the surrounding countries, spit out the land that had been encroached upon, and now, he would be levied a 30 percent commercial tax and a 20 percent mining tax?

Is it true that he is a fat sheep slaughtered at will?

If you don't pay it, you won't pay a penny of business tax or mining tax, and you won't be happy to fight!

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

After the implementation of the border blockade by many countries in the west, a large number of goods of the Free Business Alliance could not be sold, and the trade war lasted only one year, and the Free Business Alliance lost hundreds of millions of gold coins.

On the other hand, knowing that the inland area where the Free Business Alliance is located, there is a lack of salt, and the insidious church actually issued a ban on salt, severely restricting the inflow of salt, and in less than half a year, the price of salt on Zhou Ming's territory skyrocketed a thousand times, and there was an extreme shortage.

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

On the other hand, he had to tear his face, all the clergy in the territory who were still supporting the pope's faction, and then co-opt the other faction of ambitious clergy, Zhou Ming had an in-depth discussion with him, revised some of the doctrines of the Holy Father's Church, founded a Protestant, and according to Zhou Ming's request, the tithes were reduced to one-fifteenth tax, and the church's love work was changed to paid labor, which greatly reduced the burden on the believers。

All kingdoms, all believers, all armies, go against them, the word of the Father is not to be tampered with, the dignity of the gods is not to be blasphemed, followers of the Father, lambs of the earth, do not hesitate to take up the sword, take up the sword now, and kill all the heretics incarnated by the devil!"

Heresy Crusade Order!

In the thousands of years of history since the founding of the Church, this heretical crusade has been issued only three times, bringing about three major population reductions, the disappearance of two major religions, and the collapse of many giant empires.

The incomparably bloody and tragic Thirty Years' War has officially begun.