In the Northland, January was colder than usual, but not much snow fell, and it was likely to be another disaster year.

In Charles's cottage White House, Coriander, who helps Charles run the family business, is stamping a large stack of parchment more than a meter high.

The parchment was the McCaden family's grain pick-up vouchers, but the pick-up date was in May this year.

Since the end of last year, the growth of grain prices has accelerated again under the influence of news that this year's drought is very likely to intensify and the southern elves will not be able to provide grain exports.

At the end of last year, the large and small aristocrats engaged in the speculative grain business in the north cleared the Mecaden family's grain delivery coupons to the prince of the Hohen Kingdom in the south, Kang Ladin, and the prospects for the coming year were uncertain, so they did not panic when they had food in their hands.

Later, some of the nobles wanted to make a small amount of money from the Maccaden family, but at this time Coriander told them that because of the cold weather and difficult transportation, they would either give the Maccaden family money to the account of the Harvest Temple at the current price of grain, and then get the corresponding amount of grain delivery vouchers with the remittance voucher, but the delivery time would be April.

Taken together, the price of grain is now four to five times higher than it was last year, and it is expected that by April it will rise to more than ten times that of the same period last year. Just one in and one out, the profit is very objective.

Some aristocrats believe that the Maccaden family is tearing down the east wall to make up for the west wall, and using the proceeds of the April pick-up coupon to make up for the shortfall of the February pick-up ticket.

But in this way, the deficit will snowball, and maybe the McCaden family will fall into this pit and fall to their deaths.

But not many people were willing to care about the life and death of the Maccaden family, except for Charles's grandfather, Duke Redking, and Auston I and Linda, who were doing their best to receive the victims, all the Northland nobles who had a little spare money - and even the southern nobles who came from the south to make a fortune - sent money to the Maccaden family's account in the Harvest Temple.

As a result, the front of the church of the Harvest Temple, which had been in decline for two or three hundred years, was crowded with carriages for a while, the big nobles had butlers out of the horses, the small nobles went out in person, and even many ordinary merchants were not afraid of the cold to transport boxes of gold coins.

The priests at all levels of the Harvest Temple, who had been in the cold for many years, looked confused, although they had received a notice from the Pope before, they were still a little scrambling in the face of so many people who had come to send money to the McCaden family.

At this time, the speculative market in the entire Northland was almost chaotic, and in the end, even a few or a dozen families of ordinary people pooled their money to sell a few Maccaden family grain pick-up coupons. They are not for speculation, but just to add a guarantee to their home during the green season.

And the aristocrats thought more about how to bite off the flesh of the Maccaden family, or bite it to suck the blood.

When the Maccaden family is unable to pay for food, if the delivery voucher is converted into a long-term bond, based on the profitability of the Maccaden family in previous years, it is an excellent investment in the medium to long term.

It would be a good thing to make people laugh until their jaws drop if they could take a stake in some of the Maccaden family's properties, such as the White Jade Meat Factory, in the form of debt-for-equity swaps.

Powerful and ambitious, they sought to get a hand in the wool trade between Charles and Linda, and this year the Maccaden family took over almost all the wool purchases on the prairie.

And some well-informed people are thinking further, and they are aiming at the peace shopping mall that Charles has invested in and is about to start construction in Greentown. If the debt-to-equity swap can be made at that time, it will undoubtedly buy a family business for hundreds or thousands of years for the family.

There were so many people who had various ideas that they sent money to the McCaden family's account.

This caught Charles off guard, and after listening to Diana's analysis, Mira fainted on the spot, and Melidi asked Charles if he would like to hide on the island in their territory in case of emergency.

When Mira woke up, she was dizzy again when she heard Charles' decision to refuse to come, but the delivery of the next pick-up voucher was delayed until May, and the pick-up location was changed to the churches of the various Harvest Temples.

For in the month of February, and a few months later, in April and May, the House of Maccaden had to provide enough food to feed all the people of the Northlands (excluding slaves) for a month.

Because the news in this world does not spread quickly, when Charles went to Greentown at the end of January, the nobles and merchants of the Northland, who had gathered information from all over the world, were shocked.

"The Earl of Maccaden is mad!" was the consensus of the people.

The total amount of grain in the world was consumed until the harvest, and even if someone was willing to sell grain to the Maccaden family, the amount of commercial grain in the grain market at that time would probably not be enough to meet his needs. Rather, in the current situation, no one wants to sell precious rations to fill that gap.

The first person to vomit blood in this turmoil was Kang Ladin.

In order to negotiate with Charles, he sent people to the north to buy a large number of grain pick-up vouchers, and he ordered to buy as many as there were in the market.

But then the fake lottery tickets that appeared in the lottery market made him take a blow, and the fake grand prize lottery tickets that appeared one after another made him spit out the proceeds of selling lottery tickets while earning a lot of reputation, and even posted a little money, so he had no energy to care about the food delivery coupons.

Just as Conradin looked at the pile of tickets in front of him, which he couldn't tell the difference between real and fake, a message came from the men he had sent to the Northlands that made him vomit blood.

There are regional contradictions or something, and the world also has them, and the north and south sides of the river have always been a little bit at odds with each other.

No matter how much the nobles of the Northland cheat the Maccaden family, in their eyes, it is only the internal contradiction of the Northland, and the practice of converting grain delivery coupons into bonds will not force the Maccaden family to death, but just let them make a lot less money, and it will be fine after passing this level.

But now a bullish "Southern hillbilly" is coming north to deal with Charles, and it is said that Linda, the recently rising "Queen of Wool", Auston I, the youngest and most promising king of the Northlands, and Duke Redkin, who has a high chance of seizing the throne, have all ordered this goods to be put to death. Princess Rose, who was about to become the queen, simply took the lead, and for a time caused Conradin's subordinates, who had purchased the grain pick-up vouchers, to be surrounded by a sea of feudal nobles to commoner merchants in the Northlands.

Conradin sent men to buy a large number of grain coupons from the nobles according to his instructions, and as a result, there has been a steady stream of sellers who have come to them lately, selling them at a higher price in exchange for gold coins, and these sellers have generously agreed to Conradin's men to issue IOUs in Conradin's name.

By the time the men realized that something was wrong, Conradin had to pay the total amount of IOUs that would break his bones.

The second person who wants to vomit blood in this turmoil is Aunt Coriander, those pick-up coupons need her to manually stamp them, this step neither Charles nor Coriander dares to hand over to others to do, let alone Ah Fu or Aunt Pomegranate, not even Red Leaves.

Seeing the food pick-up coupons that kept being moved from the parchment printing press to her desktop, Coriander, who kept repeating the stamping action all day long, felt that her arm had been exercised because of the stamping to kill Charles with one punch.

Fortunately, it wasn't long before the dragon sent an automatic stamping machine that only she operated, which greatly reduced her workload.

Compared to Coriander, who had to deal with the problem alone, the other five brokers who managed the Maccaden family estate together were much more relaxed, because they could send extra people to sign and stamp the food delivery vouchers.

The most convenient thing is the priest agent of the three temples, they only need to finally open the boxes of grain pick-up coupons collectively, and attach the anti-counterfeiting divine power.

During this frantic time, countless gold coins flowed into the McCaden family's account at the Harvest Temple, which aggregated the remittance data and handed it over to the White House, where freshly baked ration food pick-up coupons were delivered to the Harvest Temple churches in various places to hand over to the people who paid for it.

The only thing that will make a steady profit in this turmoil is the Harvest Temple, and the handling fee for transferring money across the temple alone is worth their income for many years, not to mention a series of good news behind the scenes, and the smiles of the priests of the Harvest Temple have never left their faces for a while.

As the days passed, and February for the delivery of the first tranche of grain vouchers was approaching, the speculative market began to quickly become deserted.

The people of the Northland set their sights on the Hohen Kingdom, which held almost all the February grain delivery coupons, and everyone was watching, and the delivery of this period of grain would become an important reference for their follow-up actions.

On the very day Charles arrived in Greentown, a piece of news spread throughout the Northland with a speed that could clearly be seen to be spread by someone with ulterior motives.

The chief steward of the House of Maccaden, Ah Fu, arrived in the capital of the Kingdom of Hohen to ask for an audience with the crown prince Conradin, but Afu was shut up, and Conradin asked Charles to come in person to be able to talk to him.