From a long time ago, Colbert, even Fouquet, or Bishop Mazarin, had discovered that, unlike Louis XIII and the kings before him, their young kings never seemed to intend to seek military or royal expenses from the common people, whether in exile or back to Paris, the king was like an acrobat walking on a thin tightrope, and the countless gold louis on the side of the rebellious family or those who needed the king's forgiveness flowed to the treasury, and from the treasury to the army and the loyal ministers Bontang could understand the king's anger at FouquetPerhaps Fouquet had seen Bishop Mazaran enrich himself in this way, but the problem was that Bishop Mazaran had left this sinful world and had given the king a staggering sum of money that should have been given to the Church.

Of course, if Monsieur Fouquet had been willing to die and leave all his possessions to the king, the king would have missed him, but even then the king did not sign his death sentence, and now the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in the Bastille, enjoying his life as a prisoner, and asking Bontang to say that he was still better off than more than ninety percent of the French.

After the seizure of Monsieur Fouquet's property, it also became a great help for the king to support the government and the army, but for Bontang, it is impossible for any one person's property to complete this difficult and long task, although it is rich, but the property of Monsieur Bishop and Fouquet is like a lake, it seems that the reserves are considerable, but under the continuous absorption, there will always be a day when it will dry up, only the taxes of the common people, although it falls on everyone very little, but the strength gathered by tens of millions of people is like a rushing river, and only they can support the great ship of France。

Louis knew what Bontang was thinking, in fact, there were already bankers, magistrates, and lords who had come to test the king's idea of fighting for the position of tax collector, and the lucrative benefits of this position would even allow them to fill the Louvre with bribes, but the more they did, the more wary the king became, and do not forget, these people who were for the purpose of collecting money, they gave one now, and they would get a hundred in the future.

Therefore, the young king would rather even suspend the construction of Dunkirk's infrastructure, rather than increase the taxes of the people or appoint new tax collectors, or sell the taxes of a certain area directly to the bankers, Bontang believes that the taxes on the French people are not heavy, and after several years of civil war, the king has not even raised taxes or added new taxes, which can be regarded as benevolent, but Louis is not the kind of king who has never left Paris or even the Louvre, even if he does rarely go out now, but the spies he scattered continue to report to the king at his request。

Let's put it this way, the war has depleted a lot of the French population, especially adult males, if it were not for Louis's intention to promote the cultivation of potatoes and sweet potatoes, then there may be a great famine in France now, and now, it can only be said that the people have only got a little respite, not that they have withstood another crazy exploitation.

Fortunately, two successive foreign wars, one deterrent, against Spain, and one real, against Italy, were victorious, Louis did not hesitate to extort a large sum of money from the Spanish court and the Roman Church, and the Church alone in order to redeem the benefits of the Pope is not comparable to the poor Leyard of the commoners, but it may be only Louis for the time being, as for the other kings, they will still choose to squeeze their own people, after all, these two wars, once the slightest carelessness, will cause a total annihilation, in this case, why don't they knock on the soles of the feet of those lowly peopleThey don't know how to resist, and they don't dare to resist.

Really? Louis thought to himself, is it true that any creature with intelligence, no, should it be said, possession of the instinct for survival, will not show its fangs and claws when it is oppressed to the last step? When Charles I of England was guillotined, the wrath of the kings of Europa was still focused on Cromwell, the Lord Protector, and perhaps for them their noble gaze would never look down.

In fact, not only the world of the table, but also the world of the inside, little Luciano is still a toddler, but he has already had a place in the council of wizards, and the coat of arms and emblems of the Duke of Cologne have become familiar to the people of the inner world, and Madame Milady's walk in the crowd as a duke's maid is more respected and convenient than her previous walk as a free wizard. Louis remembered the reward she gave not long ago, in the inner world, there are many poor people like Wizard Varro, but after hundreds of years of operation, the solidified class and traditional education methods have also nourished a group of cowards, not only do they not want to change the fate of themselves and their descendants, but they don't want to see others do this, there are more people like Wizard Varro, they can make some small resistance, such as escaping, but their minds are still fixed in youth and even adolescence, but if Louis wants, he can still ignite a fire。

But he doesn't, can't, he doesn't want to, he stands here, as a king, he is doomed to a class that cannot completely betray him, he is the ruler, and his rule will inevitably continue, from yesterday to tomorrow, from the surface world to the inner world, so that he will not create a revolutionary, but only a new, more benevolent monarch: "Grow up quickly, little Lucy." He said in his heart, and then returned his attention to the paper in his hand, and the submission of Spain and the Roman Church filled the king's purse again, which the king had arranged when the French army entered Rome.

Dunkirk, a city where you can see Britain as long as you stand on the beach, the reason why Cromwell, the protector of England, was willing to agree to send an army when Louis XIV was reluctant to recognize him, and formed an alliance with the French to attack the Spaniards, was only because when the Spaniards occupied Dunkirk, the city became a nest of Spanish raiders, as long as Dunkirk was there, it would be difficult for most British ships to escape the plunder and destruction of the Spanish pirates, so the question is, although this port city now belongs to Louis, Louis will not do that？

How can it be! Not to mention the Bishop Mazarin and the Prince of Condé, especially the latter, even if the life and death of the king were uncertain at that time, Condé was still a traitor who had just been captured, and they immediately decided to take the right to garrison from the British no matter what, even if it was only half, this was Louis's original plan, as for Cromwell, if he was not seriously ill at that time, I am afraid that the British conspiracy has also been carried out The next step is to cooperate with the Spaniards and seize Calais in France, yes, Oliver Cromwell's original plan was this, to seize Dunkirk of the Spaniards with the French, and then capture Calais of the French with the Spaniards, so that the British had two vital port cities, one that would ensure that the British throat would not be choked by the enemy, and the other that could threaten both France and the Flemish region, mainly the Netherlands, the great enemy of England at the moment.

Although it is said that the reason why Charles II sold Dunkirk to Louis XIV at such a low price was to thank Louis XIV for his help in exile, but anyone with a discerning eye knows that if it were not for the loss of Cromwell, the fear that he would be hanged or serve hard labor because he was a traitor, so that he had no intention of insisting on fighting, resulting in Dunkirk actually falling into the hands of the French, this seemingly frivolous and naïve monarch would not have made this decision。

He's a king after all. Therefore, Louis sighed, the British Parliament really shouldn't be aggressive with Charles II, everyone knows that the so-called deal is just to save some face and losses for Britain, otherwise, who can really recapture Dunkirk? Their war with the Dutch was imminent, because the first Anglo-Dutch war Britain was defeated, so this time the British must use a big victory to wash away their shame, in this state of intense and restless, Britain can no longer have the possibility of war with France, but out of hostility to the king, the British parliamentarians still dismissed the king's admiralty Hyde, this behavior can be said to be just to weaken the king's wings deliberately, it is too despicable Charles II complained a lot in the letter, but it is not to seek Louis's empathy or sympathy。

If Charles II was interested in seeking military help, at least for now, Louis was out of his power and the same was true for the economy, when the first money from the Duke of Parma arrived, the king immediately allocated money to Dunkirk, and he was ready to strengthen Dunkirk's defense from both land and sea, Dunkirk originally had a dock, but the king wanted it to be able to dock at least thirty warships, so it may require tens of thousands of laborers or more, and the source of these laborers is also a problem, as mentioned before, the population of France can also be said to be withered, although in Versailles and the Paris basin, many strong men and women can be recruited, but these people can be said to be the most important bargaining chips in Louis's hands, and they are also the future soldiers, or the mothers of the soldiers. He wouldn't use them for such hard but simple labor.

What about finding people from the outside? It's difficult, there are a lot of mercenaries, but at a time when the dignitaries were still relying on manors and workshops as their main source of income, they also valued manpower, and now Louis only had two attempts to find a large number of hard-working laborers, one was a slave, and the other was a slave, but one was a black man from the New World, and the other was a wizard from the inner world.

In Calais, when he was with Mary, the king also heard her complain more than once, that the population of the inner world had become more and more inflated, and some family members were forced to become overseers in the farms, but because the fields were full of mortals whose souls had been taken away, in fact, they did not need their supervision, they could only be said to have been sent there, and as for those foreign wizards, their fate was even more unpredictable and pitiful, but even so, the education and guidance they received still made them dare not leave the inner world, or rather, they absolutely disdained to live in the outer world like a mortal。

At that time, the king thought that if the magic of wizards could do something that mortals could not do now, he could hire some wizards from the inner world, and he didn't even have to worry that they would be unwilling to obey the laws of mortals and accept the command of mortals, anyway, there was the Mancini family, and if they only worked at night or in places that were not visible to mortals, then it would not affect the secrecy that those extraordinary people in the inner world and the outer world had to maintain.

Hood is a wizard, he feels that he should not be considered an alien wizard, because his grandfather was a wizard, and he was fortunate enough to marry a woman from a side branch of the family, but unfortunately, his bloodline still does not allow him to be on the family pedigree, his name does not even have any meaning, his magic is only mediocre, and the mentor is only guided step by step, he is not only a student of Hood, but also several people, all of whom he needs to be responsible for guiding, so that Hood has grown from an ordinary disciple to an ordinary wizard, and he is not even allowed to enter the shop, or the manor, let alone the parliament and the court。

Just as he tried to become a patrol member after another failure, but without success, the news of the Mancini family's intention to recruit some wizards to work in the watch world reached his ears, and he looked at the crow suspiciously, as if the news he had said before was just a meaningless croak, Hood took a silver coin from his pocket and put it in the small cloth pocket hanging from the crow's neck, "Let's talk about it." Hood said.

The crow pecked at the small cloth pocket, and waited for a while, seeing that it was impossible for him to knock out another silver coin from Hood's pocket, and then repeated it quickly and stupidly, Hood heard it clearly this time, which couldn't help but make him not moved, firstly, this time it was actually the work released by the Mancini family, and secondly, although he was going to the watch world, he could directly get the money of the watch world, and the money in the watch world was worth more than the money in the inner world, which everyone knows, even if they have to be exchanged, their value is still better than the coins of the inner world.

Then he looked down and saw that the crow was still there, "Oh," and he said, "You may go, winged fool!"

The crow pecked him viciously and flew away.