What embarrassed Jeffries most was that the nickname matched his image of a lean and hunched man, with pale skin that flushed like steamed shrimp in the sun, so much so that it quickly became popular, and now the celebrities of Bethlehem's court followed the example of the odious Parini, calling him "The Old Lobster" behind their backs.

"If I were a shallow and impudent person, I would have replied to you a 'dead fat' to your face, but I don't want to be the kind of person I hate, Monsieur Parini, so I beg you to either speak to me well or keep your mouth shut." Jeffries expresses his inner anger in a restrained way.

Parini glanced at the coldness in the old man's gray-blue eyes, convinced that today was not a good day to joke, shrugged his shoulders and got up to pour him a glass of wine.

"Honorable Viscount, please forgive me for my faux pas, and if you are willing to accept my apology, let's talk about the troublesome incident that recently occurred on the border between the Far East and Canaan."

Jeffries clinked glasses with him, touched the wall of the glass to accept his apology, and said solemnly: "Mr. Parini, this is the reason why I have hurried to meet His Majesty Joshua, and you are ahead of me, and you must be better informed than I am, so please tell me what you think of the border conflict between Canaan and the Far East." ”

"To be honest, it came very suddenly, and I didn't notice the slightest sign until I received the urgent message from Patus this morning." Parini smiled bitterly, "As the ambassador to Canaan, I didn't know anything about the conflict between Canaan and the Far East, and I didn't learn that something serious had happened until the moment His Majesty Constantine personally wrote to inquire about it, so I was scolded by our grumpy majesty. ”

Jeffries secretly breathed a sigh of relief. In fact, it had only been two hours before he had received a magical message from Avalon, the capital of Phigen, that the night before, there had been a fierce clash between Canaan and the kingdom of Korath in the Gobi region on the border of Mount Mochizuki. The battle lasted all night, and the result was even more unexpected: the kingdom of Kolas, which had just regained sovereignty over southern Xinjiang, defeated the Canaanite border guards who had crossed the border and won a complete victory in the unfavorable situation of being inferior in troops!

In a letter to Jeffries, the Prime Minister confessed that he had only recently received a letter from the Kolas authorities to learn about the matter. The Far Eastern side only briefly summarized the beginning and end of the conflict, and did not mention the causes and consequences of the conflict and the details of the confrontation, and the focus of this official letter was to inform the Fizhen authorities that the conflict in southern Xinjiang could turn into a full-scale war, and in order to resist the possible retaliation of the Canaanites, the kingdom of Kolas had to make preparations for war in advance, and had to temporarily shelve the grain trade agreement reached with Fizhen not long ago, and transfer the grain originally planned for sale into military food reserves, and hereby write to the Fizhen authorities for understanding.

Marquis Carlos Osbel, the contemporary monarch of Fijgen, received this letter signed by Rudolf I himself while lying in bed, and immediately fell asleep, and convened his cabinet ministers overnight to discuss countermeasures. Why was Carlos III so anxious about a small military conflict on the Far Eastern frontier, thousands of miles away, which seemed to have little to do with the Fijen people? Jeffries knew this, of course, and the key was the food supply.

In order to compete for the magic crystal deposits in the New World, Fizhen clashed fiercely with the colonial forces of the Assanian Empire in the Jotunheim region. Just two weeks ago, the Imperial Cabinet made a decision to increase its troops, and Marshal Zygmunt, known as the "Imperial God of Arms", personally led 30,000 troops to the New World under the cover of the naval fleet. In order to deal with this elite division, Fijgen also had to send additional land forces to Jotunheim to protect the interests of the colony. The army sent grain and grass first, and the army of tens of thousands of people plus war horses consumed a terrifying number of grains every day. The year-long military investment had already put a great deal of pressure on the finances of the Fijin government, and the expansion of the colonial war would inevitably bring even greater financial pressure, not to mention the budget for military rations, and it would be difficult to procure sufficient grain even if it had money.

Fizhen is an island country with a territory area of only 800,000 square miles, mountainous and hilly, and rainy all year round, and the population on such a small island with scarce natural resources and barren land is surprisingly dense, as early as the beginning of this century, it exceeded the 40 million mark, becoming the most populous country in the world after the Yashan Empire, and also the country with the least per capita land in the world.

In order to feed the explosive population in the country, the Figzhen government took the lead in the process of magic industrialization at the end of the last century, and devoted itself to developing colonies overseas, moving the surplus population of the country to the New World, establishing settlements in the vast and fertile wilderness, and then establishing the government-controlled "Wilnoa Colonial Company" as an agent of the royal family to monopolize the trade between the New World and the mother country. After nearly half a century of colonization, the local population of Fizhen has now dropped to 32 million, and the total number of residents in overseas colonies is approaching 20 million, which is comparable to the Yashan Empire, which is also committed to colonial development.

The overseas economy of Fizhen was based on agriculture and mining, and the colonists established large and small mines and plantations on the fertile fields of the New World, which produced food that not only met the needs of the colonists and their conquered indigenous slaves, but also imported large quantities into Fizhen itself, saving the country's compatriots from starvation.

After the outbreak of the colonial war, most of Feizhen's farms in the New World were destroyed by the war, grain production was sharply reduced, grain ships were frequently attacked by the imperial navy, hundreds of thousands of tons of grain were transported to the mainland with the ships that were shelled and sunk into the sea, resulting in an emergency supply of local grain in Feizhen, and the price of grain in the market skyrocketed.

In such a dire situation, the Fijin government could only hope to buy grain to make up for the domestic food shortage, but the number one seller in the international grain market was the Yashan Empire, which accounted for nearly half of the grain supply, and the Fijin people were at war with the empire, and they did not want to buy a grain from the empire. The Grand Duchy of Pausswarth was also a traditional grain exporter, but the Grand Duke of Pausswar, who had close ties to the royal family of Assan, openly professed his support for the Empire to defend its interests in Jotunheim, and would not lend a helping hand to the Fijen people. At the critical juncture, the kingdom of Koras, which had been founded for less than two years and had not been taken seriously by the Fizhen government and the opposition, stood up and extended a helping hand to the Fizhen authorities, expressing its willingness to supply 500,000 tons of grain at a low price and without paying cash.