Chapter 20 The City of Commerce
The bright sunshine of late spring and early summer shines on the crowded docks of the Bangala Freeport, dyeing the harbor with an even faint golden glow. However, the dock workers who were running around didn't care to appreciate this, and the piled up of goods kept them busy and didn't have time to look up.
The harbor is crowded with ships of all colors, and the color of the sea is almost invisible. In fact, Bangala Bay is not small, but Freeport is so bustling that rows of dock walkways stretch neatly along the wide bay into the sea, and the moored ships almost fill the gaps between the walkways. Each boat needs to be pulled by a slender man on the pulley of the dock for half a day to get in and out smoothly.
The Benjara Freeport is the largest commercial port in the southwest of the pan-continent. At the same time, the city's teleportation facilities are an extremely important support point in the pan-continent, and if the teleportation array in Bangala fails, then there is no telling how many teleportation lines in the pan-continent from the extreme south frost land to the extreme north glacier sea will be paralyzed.
Relying only on the teleportation array of Bangala, it brings the city a tax that ordinary cities dare not ask for, and this is only a small part of the total income of Bangara. The bigger ones come from the bustling seaports and the city's well-developed financial industry.
And the Ziero Chamber of Commerce, which controls Bangara, is almost equivalent to the central political axe of the United Commercial States. Their business spread throughout Anfaron, and the countries of the pan-continent relied heavily on their trade routes. The business rules issued by Ziero are consciously followed by other chambers of commerce in the United States, which is also quite peculiar in the United States of Commerce. There is no unified law, but there is a unified business order, and the most unshakable one of this order is: money determines the right to speak.
As Heras walked down the congested cobblestone sidewalks of Bangara, he was almost dazzled by the variety of shop signs and advertisements adorned with magic crystal lamps. In fact, the streets of the city are quite wide, a little wider than the main thoroughfares of Daronville, but they are still too narrow for the huge flow of people. The middle of the road is reserved for horse-drawn carriages and some rapid transport, and pedestrians who cross the road in an accident will not only bear the consequences, but also have to pay for the damage.
Just now, Heras saw a magic apprentice who couldn't bear to cross the sidewalk and was hit by a galloping iron-armored rhinoceros and died, and then the members of the Ziero Chamber of Commerce came to deal with it, and after a glance, they ordered the apprentice's relatives to compensate the owner of the rhinoceros. The rules of the world of capital are so ruthless
Just as there is no uniform law in the country, there is no uniform overall style in the city of Bangara. The city is like a hodgepodge, with buildings of different styles from various countries piled up on the roadside. Many of the merchants of the United States came from all over the world in Anfaron, and in addition to the lack of a unified plan for the town hall, the rest of the country was a model of illegal construction, except for the necessary space for the roads
Those dazzling slogan ribbons are hung everywhere in the city's high points, fluttering trademark ribbons have a kind of obscuring feeling, sometimes too much business information is also a trouble, the more choices, the more tangled, and I don't know how many traps there are. Businessmen who are not very discerning will only be completely overwhelmed by this information, and it is a fool's dream to make money from it.
"If I can promote the Internet, then I will definitely become the biggest super-rich man in all human planes," Heras fantasized. But he also thought about it, having seen the space financial city of the Federation, he was only surprised by the novelty of Bangala, and was not shocked by this great commercial capital. And he was far more interested in magic than in wealth.
"Even with the assistance of all kinds of extremely expensive medicines, the rich people will not live to be two hundred years old, and as long as I advance to the ** master, I can live for about three hundred years. Besides, I'm a man who wants to advance to the rank of legend," Heras thought unashamedly.
Compared with his calm and calm expression, the female elf Sally who followed behind was already stunned by the city, one after another visual impact and a dazzling array of goods made her mouth have no chance to close now, Heras felt that if she opened her mouth like this, her jaw might be dislocated.
After they identified the location in a small town near the Wall of Wind and Sand a few weeks ago, Heras decided to go to Bangara, in fact, there are three cities in the United States that have teleportation arrays to the Principality of Borati, and Bangala was chosen because they control the chambers of commerce in the other two cities, one is inextricably linked to the Quicksand Empire, and the other is simply Odin's spokesperson in the Commercial United States, and their teleportation arrays are all teleportation starting points, and they will sort out the teleportation records in detail. The Bangala teleportation array is a large transit site, where many teleportation sites are cross-diverted, and it is impossible to record them in detail for the huge flow of people. Moreover, the Ziero Chamber of Commerce promises with credibility that as long as money is given, no matter who it is, it can be transmitted casually, and no record will be left.
Heras tugged Sally, who had been glued to a window with various magical bows and crossbows, which Heras thought were excellent in Heras's eyes, but the price was just as staggering.
"Sir, don't you want to choose one for your partner?" said a clerk behind the counter who saw the scene and joked to Heras.
"I don't know her," Heras said with a dry smile, twitching at the corners of her mouth. What a joke to make Sally his partner that he would rather die one more time, those disgusting parchments have left an indelible impression on his mind.
With that, Heras turned around and walked on his own, and if the elf didn't follow, let her stay in Bangala, just to save him trouble.
Before she had taken a few steps, Sally trotted to follow, looking back at the store as she ran, as if she were saying goodbye to her hometown, "When will I have one of those?" Sally muttered.
Seeing that Heras did not speak, the elf continued to ask, "Am I worth even the lowest price of those things just now?"
Heras looked at her speechlessly, women like to measure their worth like this?"To be honest, you're not worth even a bowstring, but your bloodline can buy the whole shop." Heras replied casually.
Hearing this, Sally smacked her tongue, "It turns out that I am so valuable, it seems that the service fee will be a little more expensive in the future." Then she asked tentatively, "You're not going to sell me here, are you?"
"Does it make a difference to you whether you sell or not? Heras didn't want to pay attention to her anymore.
"At least I'm free, and if I am sold into slavery, I will lose my most precious thing. Sally said softly.
Heras glanced back at her, and he was a little surprised that the rude female elf could say such a thing.
No longer speaking, Heras began to intently read the signs, looking for a nearby horse stop. He was about to take a carriage to the headquarters of the United States Council of Magic, where the rich and the wealthy gathered, and for the safety of the big merchants, no one except for members of the Ziero Chamber of Commerce was allowed to fly in the vicinity of the city.
Because they felt that the taxes were too low, the Ziero Chamber of Commerce once wanted to drive the Magic Council out of Bangala and run the teleportation array on its own. The final results proved that although Ziero has strong business instincts and huge financial resources, it is a bit difficult for this chamber of commerce to maintain a large teleportation hub, and Ziero lacks experience in this area and it is very problematic to use general teleportation array maintenance methods to maintain the teleportation hub in Bangala, and during the period of operation of the chamber of commerce, there have been numerous failures, and several powerful empires in the north and south of the pan-continent have issued warnings and threats to Ziero, and the continuous failures have seriously hindered the high-end transportation network in the north and south.
In desperation, Ziero had no choice but to restart negotiations with the Magical Council of the United States of Commerce, due to the previous embarrassment of the Chamber of Commerce, the Magical Council had the upper hand at the negotiating table, and the final transaction tax rate was three percentage points lower than the original, which was the first time in the history of Ziero in the mall "suffered".
"The space around Bangala is very stable and not too sturdy, it's a natural transmission center, and with Bangala Bay, a large natural deep-water port, it's impossible for the city not to thrive. Heras thought as he looked at the signs. This is the opposite of the Frozen Cliff of a city in the extreme south of the pancontinent. The spatial barriers around the Frozen Cliffs are very strong, but the connections between those solid barriers are not very stable, and the cost of teleportation there is prohibitively high.
Heras squeezed cautiously forward in the crowd, he did not feel the notoriously chaotic state of the United States of Commerce in the city, and although the pan-continental business community did not have a unified law enforcement agency, the interests of the large chambers of commerce were the interests of the state, and the policing environment in Bangala was clearly at stake in Ziero. So the security in the city is not bad, and as for the unidentified disappearances that often occur in the suburbs around the city, it is none of Ziero's business
"Drug cartels will also maintain law and order in their own territory," Herras sneered, adding that there are some big interstellar drug dealers in the Federation, and gangsters have replaced the role of political axes in some of the corners of remote galaxes where they are entrenched.
Guided by the signs, Heras squeezed his way to a horse stop, quickly opened the door of the carriage and jumped in, then immediately closed the door as if to shut out the hustle and bustle of the city.
"Go to the Magic Council!" Seeing that Heras didn't like the noise very much, the elf Sally Fox called out to the coachman.