The Sea of Death route pinned Duke's hopes on him, because he understood that the ocean was the future.

To put it more intuitively, Stormcastle is not financially in crisis for the time being, but this is based on the fact that all workers are free. Once Storm City is built, Duke will not be able to use free labor forever, and once the displaced people have a place to live, it is impossible to treat them as displaced people, and they will have to pay for their work.

There is also the sale of porcelain, which has almost reached a bottleneck stage, after all, Stormcastle has always been in large-scale production. At present, there is a state of saturation in Andorra, and the price of a porcelain plate has dropped from 10 gold coins to 5 gold coins. And the entire French Empire has also been affected by the war, the demand for this luxury has been greatly reduced, and the price is about fifteen gold coins, and the sale of Alpine City in China has been at a loss.

If you want to make enough profits, you can only sell farther, but the cost of land transportation is staggering, especially in this era of underdeveloped transportation, the price to pay is too great. Whether in terms of quantity or speed, sea transportation is far more than land transportation in this era, time is money, time is life, Duke has heard countless times, as long as anyone can take the lead in opening the Age of Discovery, then there is the capital to challenge the Holy See in the future!

Under Duke's strong pressure, Alpine City did not reduce prices and cut off porcelain sales channels for the time being. However, if this continues to lose money, Alpine City is bound to be unacceptable. Although Duke is not used to seeing Alpine City, he also understands the first principle of doing business, that is, mutual benefit, eating meat and giving others some soup, and everyone can make a fortune together.

oppressed Takayama City too much, and the final result was that Takayama City was dead, and everyone turned their faces and stopped doing it. Moreover, as a family territory that has lasted for hundreds of years in Andorra, Alpine City still has a foundation. Duke also heard that after Count Fili of Alpine City came back this time, he was also recruiting troops on a large scale, and the entire city lord's guard had exceeded the scale of five thousand, and the Rock Knights had also reached three thousand.

This is only the data on the surface, the defeat of the Third Legion of the Empire has reduced the control of the central power of France in Alpine City, and it is said that taking advantage of the reorganization of the Third Legion of the Empire, Count Filip continues to install his own people in the Third Legion.

In the event of another war with Takayama Castle, it is very unlikely that the Third Legion will still be on the sidelines. And Duke vaguely felt that Count Filip was involved in the Third Legion, not only because of the threat of Storm Castle, but because he also felt the smell of gunpowder in the French Empire and even on the Europa continent, and wanted to enhance his own strength.

Whether it is self-preservation or ambition, this means that it is almost impossible for Duke to conquer Alpine City as before. At present, porcelain sales are almost the only source of financial income for Storm Castle, not to mention being cut off, even if it declines, it may not be able to support the current development of the big stall.

It seems that he has taken a big step and is starting to pull the eggs! Duke sat on the main seat in the living room, and there was a faint pain in the eggs. Originally, I wanted to get 10,000 or 20,000 displaced people to solve the problem of insufficient labor for spring ploughing, but now that 60,000 people have come at once, including dwarves, and a new city has been built, why did I suddenly make a big leap forward?

While Duke was pondering how to solve the matter, Fasqi had already arrived in the parlor with Magner, the former royal guard.

"Your Excellency Fasqi, what kind of attack have you suffered, and are there any enemies in the sea?"

Duke didn't choose to go around the bush, but asked straight to the point, because the Sea Clan did not have so many vain courtesies as the nobles on the mainland, which was very in line with Duke's style of efficiency in later generations.

Fasqi was slightly stunned for a moment in the face of Duke's direct inquiry, but she quickly reacted and said: "Your Excellency Duke, we have been attacked by the Fish-People in the northern part of the Sea of Death, and they have not only prevented us from continuing to explore the route, but according to the information we have received, they are fully prepared for war and are ready to start a big war. ”

"Aren't you all under the rule of the Atlantean Empire, and the biggest enemy is only the Alien Beast, why would the Fish-Man attack you?"

Duke asked in surprise, because the understanding of the Sea Clan on the entire continent is very limited, Duke only knows that the Sea Clan belongs to the Atlantean Empire, and it stands to reason that they are all from the same country, what the hell is this northern Fish-Man attack?

Seeing Duke's surprised look, Fasqi understood that the humans on the continent still knew too little about the Sea Clan. After all, compared to other races, the Sea Clan has almost no intersection with humans, and a few ports don't have much in-depth understanding except for trade, let alone a remote place like Storm Castle.

So Fasqi could only patiently answer, although the entire Sea Clan was nominally under the rule of the Atlantean Empire, but in fact the influence of the Atlantean Dynasty was very weak, except for the Central Dynasty region, almost every big lord was actually independent.

Of course, these things are generally not known to humans, because it is necessary to create the illusion that the Sea Clan is still unified and powerful. After all, humans have ruled the continent thousands of years ago, and who knows if they will rule the oceans again after a thousand years?

I have to say that these sea tribes are still very prescient, with the opening of the Age of Discovery, in a sense, human beings are indeed moving towards the pace of domination of the sea.

At present, the entire Sea of Death actually has three powerful forces, namely the Wave Tribe, the Sea Giant Tribe, and the Shark Tribe of the Northern Fish-Man Clan.

Among these three forces, in fact, the sea giant tribe is the most powerful, but it is precisely because they are powerful that they do not need to be too afraid of the alien beasts in the sea, so they live at the far end of the sea of death, and they have almost no intersection with humans.

The Shark Tribe is medium-sized, and the Wave Tribe to which Fasqi belongs is actually the weakest, and they are located in the north and south of the Sea of Death, distributed along the coastline. And this time, the route that Fasqi intends to explore is to go from the Fran Empire in the Sea of Death to the Warsaw Empire in the north, passing through the Shark Tribe.

As was customary, the passage of water was allowed except for cities ruled by rival tribes, as all sea tribes still nominally belonged to the Atlantean Empire. Moreover, there is no major conflict between the Wave Tribe and the Shark Tribe, so Fasqi thinks that as long as he guards against strange beasts and draws a good chart, it will be fine.

But what she didn't expect was that this time the fish-man warriors of the Shark Tribe actually took the initiative to attack the exploration troops, and they were still preparing more actively, showing that this was not an accident, but a well-prepared act of war!