Under conditions where there are no restrictions on commerce, merchants are able to multiply rapidly like locusts under existing conditions. So since Rune was founded, the development of business has been poor. Now, with Wayne's stimulation, the merchant is growing like a wild horse. The number has doubled in just five years.

Not only that, but businessmen have begun to control the lifeblood of the country. The resale of grain, the transportation of steel, the manufacture of artillery. Coupled with the sword given to them by Wayne in the Council, the merchants already had the strength to compete with the nobles. It's just that because of the old ideological imprisonment, they have to continue to obey the rule of the nobility.

However, there were already signs that the merchants were beginning to interfere with the council.

It had now been four months since the establishment of the Parliament, and the money purses of the nobles who were not very well-off had long since bottomed out. And the emperor is a place where money is spent, and of course there will be no shortage of money.

More and more merchants began to autonomousify the petty nobles in exchange for tax exemption when passing through their domains. But that doesn't satisfy their appetite.

The territories of these nobles were originally small and pitiful, otherwise they would not be poor enough to ask them for money. The territory is small, and the taxes collected are also small. This is the unspoken rule that Rune has been in people's hearts for a thousand years.

So the efforts of the businessmen are seriously inconsistent with the results. Even so, these merchants were reluctant to give up their support for these nobles. The reason is that by subsidizing these aristocrats, the merchants learned more about politics through their mouths, and were better able to grasp the real-time dynamics of politics.

The value of this information is more than enough to compensate for the loss of the merchants.

In the Nolan Center, where life is boiling, businessmen with thousands of dollars gather to discuss what will happen next. Under the appeal of all parties, Obans decided to come forward to discuss with Andro to build a concrete road from the city of Menan to Heimei Mountain. After enjoying the convenient and fast transportation network of the Northwest. The merchant suddenly felt that Rune's previous plank road was dilapidated, and that he had to waste a lot of time on the road every time he transported a kind of goods. And the cement road is much better, smoother and cheaper than the traditional plank road. At this stage, transportation accounts for a significant cost. If the road conditions are much better, you can save more costs. In this regard, the merchants were undoubtedly shrewd.

If a road to Heimei Mountain is built, the price of transportation from Heimei Mountain to Nolan Coal Mine can undoubtedly be greatly reduced. Not only that, but in the future, Heimei Mountain will definitely be an important gateway for the northwest to trade with Ortuno. The importance is self-evident.

The demands of the merchants were faithfully reflected in the hands of Orbins, and even they expressed their willingness to fully cover the cost of building the road. Obans called them tonight for no doubt for that.

Obviously, no one will come out to obstruct this kind of mutually beneficial thing. The process also went well, but with a change in one condition. Mr. Obans said the government would cover the cost of building the road, rather than the traders.

This surprised the merchants present, and some would refuse to give money! But since Orbans said that he could afford the cost, the merchants would not be polite. It's not good to pay less.

Wayne once warned Orbans not to use the money of businessmen to do what the government should do, although this can save a lot of expenses, but in the long run, the government will easily become a middleman between businessmen and the people, and thus lose its independent power. Naturally, Orbins did not allow this to happen, and tried to avoid the involvement of businessmen in the process of governance.

Even so, Nolan was the most comfortable place for the entire Rune merchants. The government here will fully consider the ideas of businessmen and will not squeeze them outright. People can't help but think that the emperor would be like Nolan, no!

Several open-air docks have been built along the coastline of Niels at the moment, and a large number of fishing boats will be launched in the future. At the same time, the clan also began to lean towards this side, and Wayne also specially introduced a tax exemption policy, for a period of one year, all seafood through Niels territory will not be taxed within this year.

The businessmen were even more big, and they frantically bought ships. At this point, a fishing vessel is already five times its cost price. Correspondingly, experienced fishermen are scarce enough to sustain a thriving fishing industry. There were many moments when Wayne had to go down and teach some of the new seafarers who came in. Wayne doesn't have a good solution to this, and the problem of development can only be solved by development. It seems that like Magellan, a trip around the world is still very far away.

While the fishing industry was growing steadily, Wayne felt it was time to start growing cotton in the territory. It's time to give industry a burst of the strongest accelerator.

This is not to say that Nolan currently lacks efficient textile machinery, nor is it that Nolan's industry is dominated by heavy industry.

This stems from a characteristic of cotton, which is not easy to transport for a long time. Raw cotton will turn yellow and hard after being stored for a long time. The cotton must be processed into yarn within a week of being collected.

And the time between the cotton producing area south of Rune and the northwest is not less than half a month. This greatly constrained Nolan's textile industry.

But Niels territory is different, as long as the Cassini Mountains are opened. This reduces the shipping time to less than two days. And he also learned that the institute was already working on the railroad tracks. If you lay the rails backwards, the time will be further compressed.

The vast amount of salty soil in Niel's territory is not suitable for growing food, and cotton is just right. In addition to grain growing areas, mountainous areas, depressions. It is estimated that there are more than 230,000 places suitable for growing cotton. It is a quarter of the southern cotton-producing areas.

It is expected to produce about 150,000 tons. That's enough for Nolan to digest.

There are two major difficulties in achieving this goal: normalizing the large number of fragmented saline land into a large block shape. In this way, high yields can be achieved in a short time.

The second difficulty is to get through the Cassini Mountains. This complex mountainous area, which spans dozens of kilometers, has a changeable terrain, large drops, and a lot of sediment. It's definitely not easy to get through here. The only good thing is that it is only 32 kilometers, otherwise I don't know how many years it will take to get through.

Of course, there is a third difficulty, in order to adapt to large-scale cotton cultivation. At this time, the land administration of the federation was obviously backward, and the administrative divisions had to follow the economic situation. This has been the same since ancient times.

So there will definitely be a lot of cities that will be removed from the map by then. At the same time, Wayne was slowly building up the concept of rules. For example, the rules and regulations of the salt factory have clearly defined the interests of all parties, and at the same time draw a warning area.