"I knew it." The Lackey turned Interim War Minister could not hide his smile and he had to use his hands to cover his mouth so that it would not be so obvious. After which he gave out a cough. "It looks like Linus' information is on point and we can be sure that this might be the turning point for us." He said to himself
He thought to himself as Linus had told him that this particular King was not only a king that had the strength and power to rule Ress, Jin had the ability to think as well. It was as if he was destined to rule over a kingdom or had ruled over a kingdom before. They would never know that he not only ruled kingdoms, but he saved multiple worlds from destruction quite a number of times.
And then there was a knock on the door.
One of the Guards opened the tavern door, indicating that they were the lackeys of those ministers who were in the meeting with the King. The guard stated the lackeys came collectively because there was some missing documentation which might be vital for a discussion with the key. And it was imperative that they give it to them and if necessary, narrate it to the king.
At that point, it was pretty obvious to Jin that the lackeys were orchestrating a not so subtle coup. "Well hmmm, coup is not exactly the word. Perhaps, defiance?" Jin thought to himself as he nodded and allowed them to come in.
"What information is so vital that you think it's necessary to disturb this particular meeting? If your answer is not satisfactory, I might consider removing one of your fingers as compensation for interrupting this meeting." Jin said and the rest of the lackeys started to sweat for those who had interrupted this meeting.
But all of them knew the consequences and were prepared to face them if Jin felt that it was not reasonable enough. So, the first to speak up was the Ministry of Finance, giving the report that the kingdom's gold reserves had dried up significantly prior to the closure of the trade routes.
If not for the impromptu seizure from the nobles who wanted to run away, they do not think they were capable of providing the salary for this month.
Jin nodded and asked what are the possible solutions to solve this issue. "Do include the current situation at hand as well, with the Central Square activities as well as the dungeon portals," Jin added and hoped that this hint was sufficient to spur the lackey to give a solution that was appropriate or maybe even to his liking.
Of course, Jin had already had the idea of creating a brand new currency and most likely would want to go through with that idea but he could still lend an ear and see if there were differences between their proposals and his.
"What I -erm the Finance Ministry had proposed is that we reduce all the taxes instead of increasing it. With the dungeon portal and with your permission, we will mine and mint new coins so that these coins can be in circulation."
"But we do know the implications of this minting if we were to open the barrier. The outflow of money would definitely allow Ress to buy a lot of things in a short period of time but this will also cause artificial inflation throughout the nations and kingdoms."
"That is why the Finance Ministry needs to know how long is the barrier isolation or if we are going to invade or expand into the northern lands so that the increased circulation of money would be sufficient to pull through the rough times." The lackey said and the Finance Minister was dumbfounded. He had no idea that his men had such ideas for the Finance Ministry moving forward.
"How will you do that?"
"Maybe exchange some of my current coins for this new currency and then buy the sword," Topharm said and Jin nodded his head.
"Your Majesty, I did not know you are an expert in finance as well." The lackey suddenly kneels down and bows to him. "I, En Moy, will forever be loyal to you," he exclaimed loudly but the rest still did not understand the example even Topharm who gave the correct answer.
Even though Jin knew that En Moy was merely blowing his trumpet, the King understands that he is no expert and merely uses only what he knows of his modern world to teach this backwater kingdom a little about economics. (But he would not lie, this kind of 'I am loyal to you eternally!' the kind of scene out of those murim books was something that he enjoyed.)
"Get up and tell them the reasoning," Jin responded and En Moy nodded his head. "If the Finance Ministry controlled the rate of currency that we are selling and enforced it strongly, we might be able to sell the Ress Currency for a certain amount of coins as well."
"And if the people are interested in our products, and we demand the currency to be collected to be of New Ress Currency, then the price can be artificially increased as well because we have the goods in hand...wait, my king!
Is that why you closed the kingdom??" En Moy suddenly had another enlightenment and Jin smiled, knowing he got it already while the Finance Minister was still confused with the entire situation.
It looks more and more like Jin would be handing over the new Finance Minister position to En Moy instead.
"Go on, explain my possible rationale."
"Your Majesty is isolating us not because of the possible war that would ensue by cutting all trades but because you want to create self dependence (even though we are currently dependent on you), you are making us self sufficient such that any products that we make will be of our own and by introducing a new currency, that includes new items such as the cutters, we can sell at a high price and we can guarantee the adoption of our own currency.
Not to mention that we are not reliant on gold, silver, and bronze and longer..." En Moy continued to mumble to himself for the last portion but did not know that everyone was looking at him, amazed as well as King Jin who had this in mind when he made this.
"Complete dominance of the market when we opened up..." Topharm nodded with some excitement.
"But our goal is not just that. It's secondary." King Jin said as he took a chicken drumstick and bit at it. "My end goal is the eradication of the demons whether I have allies or not. But that does not mean, I cannot manipulate my end goal to do things to my advantage."