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The vast and magnificent city of Skoti is bordered by the world-class port of Cuawati, which is located in the northwestern part of the entire Wraeclast continent.

The Kuawati Inland Sea, which resembles two blue-black palms clenching each other, squeezes deeply into the continental territory of the AIDS Kingdom, forming a world-class deep-water port that stretches for hundreds of miles, and is nearly 13 times the size of the Red Sea.

The Skoti Peninsula resembles a pearl of the sea, set in a gemstone ring on the palm of a blue and black hand.

The castle of the king's cousin, Grand Duke Edmund Dundees, is located on the beautiful Skoti Peninsula.

Decades ago, actually.

The entire circular inland sea was surrounded by fishing villages and towns, but the ocean-going commercial trade was not as prosperous as it is today, and many places looked like small fishing villages in the countryside.

The hundreds of miles of coast around it were already part of the duke's fiefdom. Although Archduke Edmund Dundees was still the same as the little prince at that time, as a happy slug following the old king, the favored child in the royal family was always different from ordinary commoner families, and he had a noble title and his own family background from an early age.

Decades ago.

The previous generation of old AIDS kings invaded the country by blockade and expulsion of their maritime trade, attacked and plundered their fishing boats, and launched commodity dumping and commercial plunder. Launched a huge naval battle of sail battleships on a scale that is "not unprecedented, but certainly 'unprecedented'" in the history of the kingdom, in order to defeat the syndicate ocean colonial fleet that blocked the kingdom's access to the sea.

Outcome.

However, the navy of the Aizimai Kingdom was led to the open sea by the other side, and was invited by the enemy to besiege their sail warships by a group of nearly 10,000 mercenaries from the Mermaid Kingdom, and cooperated with a large number of middle and high-level wizards to bombard, fly kites and chisel through the bottom of the ship through long-range spells.

It only took more than three hours to directly bury all the large naval ships in the entire country that could sail and fight in the ocean.

At the same time as the news of the defeat was learned, the enemy's assault fleet had already broken through the blocked entrance to the sea, and the old kings of the previous generation almost fled into the inland cities without looking back.

The Syndicate, which had won a complete victory in the naval battle, was not ready to take out the frightened old king.

Instead, while besieging the royal city, Yan Ming took a fancy to the geographical location of the AIDS Inland Sea in the center of the outer island chain, as well as the excellent deep-sea ports along its coast. They sent envoys to sign a humiliating treaty of betrayal with the Old Kingdom, and leased the coastline and surrounding land from the royal family for 500 years at a symbolic price of 1 gold coin, while retaining only the kingdom's symbolic right to collect a very small percentage of commercial taxes, including trade import and export duties, territorial toll taxes, business taxes, commercial income taxes, etc., all of which include all business-related taxes.

This is actually the way it should be.

Although the Syndicates who came across the ocean were powerful, their logistical supplies and personnel were limited, and it was impossible to directly conquer the entire kingdom.

Caught in a long-term land war, the short-term revenue and expenditure and maintenance input costs are disproportionate to the various interest groups behind them. On the contrary, it is similar to the "cannon knocking" business method done by the East Indian Ocean Company, which is more in line with the method of their capital merchants to plunder the entire land trade market with small sizes.

The Syndicate established trade routes linking the ports of the colonized territories through several surrounding subcontinents, and gradually spent decades building a huge international port by virtue of its important trading status as a turnover port in the Kingdom of AIDS.

So~

Although the AIDS people live in the royal royal city, which is not far from the east of the World Port, they have less than half of the control over the port, and even other income such as poll tax needs to be collected with the cooperation of the syndicate, which is not unaggrieved for the high-level of the kingdom.

The two are connected by a large number of shantytowns, slums, earthen buildings, docks and warehouses, and large and small vertical and horizontal roads.

Even the sea around the port area is inhabited by fishermen's families who cannot afford to live on the shores of the inland sea, and who depend on the sea for their livelihood – their houses are floating wooden boxes made of fishing boat sampans as "foundations", and then tied with simple wooden planks and hemp ropes, which are called "Tan people".

If you look down from above, you will find that the two cities are a bit like the shape of a goblet placed horizontally to the left, and the cup is filled with that piece - it is the inland sea that ~ the AIDS people call "Kuawati" in the ancient language.

The vast Kuawati Inland Sea, which is shaped like a handshake by the Syndicate, has been called a model of international trade cooperation and a symbol of friendship between its own forces and the Kingdom of AIDS.

In fact, the syndicate has monopolized most of the city's trade income through various means, and has also secretly bribed the king's important ministers - driving up the prices in the fiefs of the nobles, bankrupting the small and medium-sized nobles and officials at all levels, borrowing their usury, and then controlling these people to obtain greater profits; and then affecting the variety of grain crops planted in the whole country; manipulating the types and prices of imported and exported goods; monopolizing all profiteering industries; and gradually mixing sand into the entire internal affairs system of the AIDS Kingdom.

Let the decree of a king become waste paper in some places, or the content is used by cool officials to expand infinitely, and becomes an excuse to exploit the flesh and blood of the people. Let the freedmen sell their farmland and become serfs, and let the small merchants and local people destitute.

All this was a deep disgrace to the entire kingdom and royal family in the eyes of Archduke Edmund Dundees, who secretly vowed to endure the humiliation and seek to regain all rights and interests in the coastal ports and his own territories.

It's just that the new king seems to have followed the previous generation of AIDS kings, who are deeply afraid of the huge power of the Syndicate Federation, and for several years in power he has only been having fun all day long, and has not talked about dealing with the Syndicate Federation, but has a cowardly appearance of long live peace.

However, this also made the radical Duke Dundee win the support of most of the hardliners in the army, and there seems to be a faint tendency to oppose the conservative forces that support the king.

Right now.

The overcast sky over the harbor, like the sea around Skoti, took on a very oppressive blue-gray hue. The clouds before the storm and the black inland sea formed a vast and boundless gloomy iron cauldron, which struck the hearts of all living beings heavily, and it seemed to indicate that the weather and the situation in the city were extremely unstable.

Archduke Edmund Dundees stood at the window of the castle and gazed with deep gaze at the busy and brightly lit harbor, until a chamberlain came and whispered that the king had summoned him to the palace for an audience.