Joseph smiled wryly: "Your Royal Highness, I couldn't figure out the question you raised at the beginning, and I went to Philip to question him face to face, but I was blocked from the door...... After all these years of reflection, I have finally figured it out now. ”

Roland picked up his teacup and motioned for him to continue.

"In the two years I have been the mayor of Mochizuki City, I have mainly done two things, the first thing is to introduce a variety of policies, including tax cuts, to encourage the residents of the border region to reclaim wasteland to grow cotton, in order to ensure a good yield in the cotton fields, I reached an agreement with Ms. Sha Rose from Sweetwater Town, and hired her as an agricultural consultant in the region to help small and medium-sized cotton plantations improve planting techniques and apply spells to repel pests...... Ms. Sand Rose accepted my offer, but made a condition that she refused to cast spells for those estates that used slaves, and I accepted her terms, according to our agreement, these new plantations were not to use slaves, but to hire local people to plough the farms, and Sand Rose and her disciples were responsible for casting spells for the cotton fields for free, so as to increase the cotton production to compensate for the cost of the hired laborers, and I thought that this agreement was reasonable and beneficial to everyone, and I never expected that I would get into trouble because of it. Joseph sighed.

"Lady Sand Rose is a high-ranking druid of the Harvest Ring, whose faith does not allow her to serve the slave masters, and you have allied with her and hired her to preside over the cotton plantation in the Territory, which may offend the great plantation owners led by Hurd." Roland calmly analyzed.

"Indeed, my work with Sand Rose aroused the hostility of Hurd's party, and I was too confident to heed their warnings and focus on my work, and the second thing I did afterwards was to rearm the frontiers, train the Imperial border guards, and fight the harassing sand bandits who entered the country." Joseph slowly exhaled a breath of turbidity, and his voice turned low, "In order to crack down on the sand bandits more effectively, I personally led people to patrol the Gobi Desert, and counted the frequency of sand bandit invasions and the locations of attacks in the past five years, and the conclusions I came to analyze were very suspicious. ”

"Tell me, how suspicious?" Roland asked with interest.

"First of all, when the cotton is about to be harvested, the bandits harass them are more frequent than usual, but instead of looting, they go straight to the cotton fields and set fire to the cotton that is about to be harvested. Secondly, the cotton fields attacked by the bandits were all newly cultivated plantations in response to the call of the border government, but they never attacked the large plantations that forced slaves to work. ”

"So what do you draw from this?"

"Obviously, these bandits had an ambiguous relationship with Hurd's party, and it was likely that the big slave owners hired them to sabotage, and when the newly cultivated cotton fields were burned, the big plantations could monopolize the cotton industry in the border region and make huge profits from it." Joseph smiled bitterly and continued: "I was very angry to discover this secret, but I did not lose my mind at the time and went about it, but told only two men, one of Sand Rose and the other of the commander of the border guards, but soon after the news reached the ears of Baron Hurd, and he decided to open the way with money and oust me from power. ”

"Was it the commander of the border guards who betrayed you?" Roland guessed.

Joseph nodded heavily, "In fact, most of the military and political bureaucrats in Mochizuki City were bought by Baron Hurd, but I was unaware of this, and it was strange not to fail, the most disappointing thing for me was that Archbishop Philip also accepted a bribe from Baron Hurd, gave up his support for me, and instead sent this moth to a high position, so that the people of the border region could endure the oppression of this person, and they still cannot be freed to this day......"

Roland took a sip of tea and smiled slightly: "According to what I know about Philip, it is not surprising that he made this decision, if you do a good job in the Frontier and succeed in making the local cotton industry flourish and increase the fiscal revenue of the imperial provinces, this is of course a good thing, but there is no direct benefit except for adding some political achievements to himself; On the contrary, handing over the territory to the villain Baron Hurd, he can take a lot of bribes from it, which is far more affordable than those dispensable political achievements, after all, he is already the archbishop of the Far East, and no matter how good his political achievements are, there is not much room for improvement, so it is better to earn more money while he has not yet retired. ”

"Yes, it took me a long time to realize the true face of Philip, who harmed the public and private interests, in fact, he and Baron Hurd are all the way." Looking back, Joseph looked a little depressed.

Roland patted him on the shoulder and said softly, "The Far East is no longer the Far East of Philip or the Yashan Empire, Mr. Joseph, if you can cheer up, I will be happy to give you a chance to prove your skills again in the Frontier." ”

"Your Royal Highness the Prince......" Joseph jumped up excitedly, and bowed deeply to Roland with tears in his eyes: "I am willing to die for you!" ”

Roland waved his hand to signal that he didn't need to be polite, put down his teacup and looked out of the porthole, and said thoughtfully: "Before rebuilding the frontier, we must first completely eradicate those deep-rooted tumors. ”

Joseph heard a hint of murderous intent in his indifferent words, his heart trembled for a moment, and then the pleasure of revenge arose: Baron Hurd's good days were coming to an end.

……

Lyudmila put down Veronica, who had been reunited for a long time, and when she saw Roland coming with a smile, she couldn't help but feel hot in her heart, and wanted to throw herself into his arms, but she took care of the onlookers, and just shook hands with His Royal Highness the prince reservedly.

"Mira, the Baron Hurd you mentioned in your letter yesterday is said to be very powerful in Mochizuki City, and even the Imperial Border Guards have been absorbed by him?"

"It is true that some of the former Imperial soldiers were hired by this person, but they were mainly used to hunt down fugitive slaves, and their combat effectiveness was not very strong, and Baron Hurd had other things to rely on." Lyudmila looked serious, "Just yesterday afternoon, a group of sand bandits known as the 'Blade Regiment' broke into Sweetwater Town and plundered, the leader of the sand bandits is a mantis man nicknamed 'Blade', one of the most famous 'Four Bandits' in the Frontier, Tonya and I helped the townspeople drive away the sand bandits, and through interrogation of the captives, we learned that Baron Hurd was their employer. ”

Roland glanced at Joseph, and Lyudmila's words confirmed his suspicion that Baron Hurd was indeed ambiguous with the bandits.

"In addition to the slave catchers and sand bandits, there are two private armies in Baron Hurd's castle that must be guarded against." Joseph continued with Lyudmila's words, "Baron Hurd has a guard composed entirely of half-scorpion warriors, the leader is named Seth, who is said to have been born in the desert half-scorpion 'Scarlet Tribe', and the current patriarch of the Crimson Tribe is the 'Red Widow' Jenna of the Four Colonies, this half-scorpion sorceress is the most formidable of the four Kou, and Hurd hires the Half-Scorpion as his personal bodyguard, which cannot but make people suspect that he has made some kind of alliance with the Crimson Tribe. ”