On December 31, Qin Xiaobai, Drawing a Sword and Asking the Sky, Ruyi Wolf Army, Snow Demon Girl and others led 7,000 grain soldiers of the logistics corps to return to Zhoushui Walled City, and immediately began to prepare the next batch of various military supplies to the front line. The grain transport soldiers came and went back and forth in Zhoushui City and Beishui Spring for almost two days, and if the weather was bad, it would take three days, and there was basically no time to rest, and they had to go back and forth all the time to supply the 50,000 nbsp of Shangbei Water Spring; However, even though the logistics corps is desperately trying to raise supplies, the military supplies are still beginning to be seriously insufficient. Among the five major categories of military supplies, such as food, tools, medicines, stone arrows, and ordinary ordnance, there is a serious shortage of tools and medicines.

The Sheep Chamber of Commerce has to devour nearly 2 million units of copper ore raw materials on the market in one day, and the price of copper ore has skyrocketed, from 1 copper coin and 5 units of copper ore to 1 copper mine and 2 units of copper ore, approaching the 1:1 mark.

That's a staggering price, and if a player tribe can mine thousands of units of copper in a day, that's thousands of copper coins. Suddenly detonated the fanaticism of the players of the entire Zhoushui City Walled City to find copper mines, and many players ran into the mountains to frantically find copper mines, wanting to make a lot of money. But it didn't work, there were still too few copper mines that could be found every day, and even a small part of the sheep chamber of commerce was not enough. There are also merchant players who take the opportunity to stock up on some copper ore raw materials in an attempt to sell them at a higher price.

Given that there are too few copper mines in the market and the prices are extremely high, there is no profit to be made in this way. Moreover, the price of copper weapons and equipment is already quite high, it belongs to high-end luxury goods, and if the price is increased on it, no one in the market is willing to buy it at all.

Several players in the Bronze Unified Price Alliance, God King, Mountain and Sea, Becoming a King, Rogue is Not a Sin, Gray Liuli, Xiaoyu and others are all complaining, if they continue to buy high-priced copper mines to produce copper weapons and equipment. That is the production at a loss - their capital is already small, and if they produce at a loss, it will end up faster.

Qin Xiaobai's situation is slightly better, his capital is the strongest, and he can support it for a longer time. Moreover, he temporarily gave up the copper equipment market, but went all out to make copper axes and other tools to rent and supply to the 50,000 troops on the front line, and make profits from the army's local military expenses, which naturally lived more nourishingly than the other six.

They found Qin Xiaobai one after another to seek countermeasures.

Qin Xiaobai was also very helpless. This is definitely not his use of copper mines to attack the six copper producers in other places, it is completely because there are too few copper mines in the market, and the few are very serious for his own losses. But. After thinking about it for a while, he reached a joint decision with the other six families.

January 1.

A shocking thing happened in Zhoushui City.

Seven bronze merchants, including the Sheep Chamber of Commerce, the Shenwang Shops, the Shanhai Chamber of Commerce, the Wang Chamber of Commerce, the Liuli Chamber of Commerce, the Rogue Shops, and the Xiaoyu Shops, jointly announced that they would suspend the purchase of more than 1 copper coin1. 2 units of high-priced copper ore. and drastically reduced the production of copperware. Conduct a short-term correction and wait for the copper market to return to normal lower levels.

For Qin Xiaobai, this was definitely a painful decision. The reduction in production means that the number of copper tools and equipment is growing slowly. It also means that the production capacity of Zhoushui Walled City is growing slowly. This has directly affected the core goal of other places - to let the Zhoushui tribe enter the virtuous economic circle of "bronze as the core".

With the announcement of the joint announcement, the speculative businessmen of Zhoushui City Wall were also hit, and the raw materials of copper ore suddenly fell into a very embarrassing situation.

Only these seven companies in the Zhoushui Walled City market are buying raw materials for copper mines. If the price rises again, the seven companies will not buy it at all, and if it does not rise, they will have to sell it to the buyer at this lower price.

But. The hearts of the players are still hot and energetic. Even if it is 1 copper coin 1. The price of 2 units of land is already a very good price for them, and mining copper mines can definitely make money. The key question is, where to find the veins.

According to the current information, it is the only place near Zhoushuicheng that has a large number of copper ore veins. It's the Eagle Hand Mine. But the place was occupied by the Shanjung army. And the player's army of 50,000 has not been able to defeat the Shanjung army for a long time.

This makes it very annoying for players who want to mine to make money, which clearly cuts off their financial means. ran to the Executive Yuan. It was strongly demanded that the four corps of the front line quickly eliminate the Shanjung army and vacate the space for their own army; The same thing happened to the herb producers.

Under the direct leadership and influence of some people in the logistics corps, the herb workshop owners jointly limited the price, stopped buying high-priced herbal raw materials, and cut the output of medicines to ensure that they would not produce at a loss.

The rapid reduction of copper axes and medicines directly affected the 50,000 NPC soldiers who were fighting in Beishuiquan, a hundred miles away. But few players pay attention to this, because they don't know about the logistics, they only know about the skyrocketing prices of various raw materials.

Only a few core players of the Logistics Corps have accurate supply data and know how much military supplies the 50,000 soldiers on the front line lack. I also know when the four main army corps on the front line will not be able to hold out because the supplies cannot keep up, and they will be completely defeated.

It is not only the copperware manufacturers and herb workshops that are in serious crisis, but also the finances of the Zhoushui tribe.

Because of the cost of 50,000 troops, the Zhoushui tribe has fallen into a state of extreme financial embarrassment - this is an unprecedented financial embarrassment. Because the initial finance of Zhoushui City was designed based on the expenses of 3,000 NPC guards, the original finance was enough to meet the needs of the army and city construction of Zhoushui Walled City for a year.

However, sending 50,000 troops to fight against the Shanjung army was a huge expense that seriously disrupted their original budget.

From the great chief of Ji Zhi, down to Situ, Sima, Sikong and other ministers and officials, the monarchs and ministers are worried about a big discussion, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening, to discuss what methods to take to save expenses, and make every effort to avoid the Zhoushui tribe falling into a situation of running out of money and food.

The various tasks in the city, such as building a new city and building a road to the Yan Kingdom, these expensive projects are not mentioned by NPCs. The various small tasks assigned by the government in the city were almost all forced to stop.

Almost all money-consuming projects have been put on hold – but this has not stopped the rapid cuts.

Finally, the ministers focused their attention on military spending.

At the beginning of the war, Zhou Shuicheng's finances originally had more than 5.3 million copper coins, but every three days, he had to invest 1 million copper coins in the military expenses of the 50,000 army. Now there are only about 1.5 million copper coins left in the treasury.

The reduction of military spending was brought to the table by NPC ministers and hotly discussed. Almost all the ministers agreed that military spending must be cut anyway so that the finances would not be depleted.

In the lobby of the Executive Yuan, Ji Zhi and more than a dozen people; Ji Zhi sat very uneasy. In order to keep the safety of the Zhoushui Walled City and avoid being supplied by the Shanjung, it is necessary to allocate military funds to support the 50,000 army to fight, which is related to the survival of the Zhoushui tribe. However, the finances were on the verge of exhaustion, and there was no military spending to fight any further.

It was a terrible headache for him.

Is it necessary to protect the finances first, or to ensure security first?

Sikong said angrily: "I think that when the Xiaobai Army Sima was the logistics army Sima, he used 500,000 copper coins to support it for 3 days. Later, Xiaobaijun Sima resigned, and was replaced by drawing a sword and asking Tianxing Sima to serve as the military Sima, and the military expenditure immediately increased to 1 million copper coins. Why is this so much as doubled? What is Szeto's explanation? If it weren't for the fact that this expenditure was too large, we could have lasted much longer and would not have had to cut costs in other ways. ”

Ji Zhi didn't say anything, just looked at Situ seriously.

Situ had a bitter look on his face, and said to Ji Zhi: "Weichen has been exhausted, he has not thought about tea and dinner day and night, and has carefully checked every expenditure account submitted by Sima of the logistics army, but there is no fraud in it. Drawing his sword and asking Tian Sima once explained to Weichen the problem of excessive military spending, he said that when Xiaobaijun Sima bought military supplies in the market, the price was very low, and when he bought military supplies in the market, the price was relatively expensive, so it was twice as high, and if there was no so much military spending, he could not cope with the expenses of 50,000 troops. This has nothing to do with Wechen, Wechen is loyal to his duties and has no negligence. ”

Ji Zhi sighed and waved his hand, "Forget it, let's talk about cutting military spending." In any case, let's reduce military spending to 500,000 copper coins every three days. In addition, pass on the order of Gu and recruit Xiaobai, a nobleman of the newly relocated tribe, to re-assume the post of logistics army Sima, and see if he can use the money to support the three-day expenses of the army. What do you think? ”

"Your Ministers agree!"

More than a dozen NPC ministers almost immediately agreed to the plan to cut military spending in half.

On the evening of January 1, Ji Zhi, the great chief of the Zhoushui tribe, and the ministers decided to reduce the military expenditure of the Zhoushui Walled City to half of the original, and urgently recruited Xiaobai to serve as the logistics army Sima to deal with the current very difficult financial crisis.