Chapter 34： aftermath

After a group of pirate prisoners were taken to the basement, Paul found a stranger standing next to Schroeder. Although his face was unshaven and his clothes were torn, he could tell at a glance that the clothes were not worn by ordinary civilians. affordable.

He asked aloud, "Schroeder, who is this?"

"Oh, I forgot to mention. He claimed to be a member of the Foster family of the South Cape Alliance. He came to explore the Northwest Gulf a few months ago, but was unfortunately kidnapped by pirates."

The young man immediately made a noble salute forward, with a perfect posture: "Lord Earl, you must be the lord of this place. Please allow me to introduce myself. My father is the Marquis of Foster, and he is a member of the Council of the Horn Bay Alliance. One of them, I am his second son Quiller Foster, on behalf of the Foster family, I would like to pay high tribute to you, thank you for saving me from the pirates this time."

Hearing the young man's self-introduction, he managed to hold back a smile and responded, "You're too polite! This is my job as a lord."

This Marquis of Foster is really good at naming names. Since he is a big figure in the Jiaowan Alliance Council, he must also be engaged in business and trade. He even named his son "Louis", even though he knew it was just a good pronunciation. It's the same as Chinese, but he still can't help complaining in his heart.

"You are Quiller Foster?" After the young man reported his name, everyone in the Lichman Adventure Group looked at him in unison.

"It's right here." The young man stroked his hair and said rather narcissistically. These guys are obviously civilians, and there is no need to be as polite to them as they were to the earl just now.

The head of the regiment, Meru Highmore, was furious: "Ah—do you know how hard it took us to find you?"

Quiller Foster looked confused, with question marks all over his face: "Uh... I don't know how many of you are there?"

"Ahhh! I can't take it anymore, what a wayward young master. Your family hasn't heard from you for two months, and they are almost like ants on the hot pot. Lord Marquis entrusted our adventure group to find you, we After running here, I found out that you had fallen into a pirate’s lair, and I almost lost my life trying to save you.”

"Uh, I'm too impulsive and worried my family."

"Hey, hey! What I just said is focused on the last sentence."

"Huh? What did you say?"

"I'm so **** off! I don't care. When I commissioned it, I only said I was looking for someone, but I didn't say that I wanted to fight pirates. The commission must be doubled, no, it should be tripled."

Quiller Foster snapped his fingers, closed his eyes and said, "Hehe, what a joke! I have always respected adventurers, and the Foster family will definitely fulfill your wishes."

It doesn't matter how indifferent that attitude is.

"You don't even ask what the initial commission is!" Everyone in the hall, including Paul, suddenly felt envious and jealous of the rich.

…

While speaking, the officers who surrounded and suppressed the pirates in Fulan Harbor came to the church one after another.

So Quiller Foster and the Leachman Adventure Group were arranged to rest, and the townspeople were sent home. In a room next to the hall, the battalion and company officers were summoned for a meeting.

Staff Officer Joyce was in charge of counting the results of the battle. He stood up and reported: "My lords, this battle has achieved brilliant results. The pirate gang, the Shark Gang, was wiped out. A total of 123 pirates were killed, including the leader Shark All the others, including those who died, were captured, thirty-two people were sacrificed, and fifty-five were wounded to varying degrees."

The officers communicated with each other and were very satisfied with the results of the operation.

Paul asked: "Is there any news about the pirate group whose leader is nicknamed 'Loach'?"

Joyce replied: "We didn't meet any of them in this battle. According to the confession of the captives, they seemed to have run back to sea early."

Schroeder added: "While chasing the shark, we also recovered several boxes of coins that they brought onto the boat. It is roughly estimated that there are 2,000 gold coins, 6,000 silver coins and tens of thousands of copper coins."

"Oh!" Everyone opened their mouths to express their surprise. They didn't expect the profession of pirates to be so rich, and a small pirate group plundered so much wealth.

Paul was even more overjoyed. With so much money, he could do some things he wanted to do a long time ago.

"More cannons could be minted with that money."

"Recruit more soldiers."

"Build more muskets."

"And build our own sea power."

The officers expressed their opinions on the use of the money, and even Cecil kept giving him winks, implying that his intelligence work also needed more funding.

"But a lot of this money was robbed from the coastal residents, shouldn't it be returned to them?"

Someone suddenly asked such a question.

The room suddenly fell silent, and the lively discussion came to an abrupt end. After looking at each other for a while, everyone looked at the Earl in unison.

Depend on! Why are you looking at me, why are you looking at me? Of course I want to give it back to the common people, but I don’t know if you want to. If you want to give it back to the common people, of course everyone is happy, but if you don’t want to give it to the common people in your heart, wouldn’t it be against everyone’s will if I say it? Will, will you throw me out the window.

Heaven and man are at war in the Earl's heart Oh! I'm so anxious, who will stand up and make a statement first.

After staring at each other for nearly a minute, the old knight Schroeder finally stood up and said: "With our current means, it is difficult to accurately calculate the losses of each household, and the Shark Gang is rampant on the sea. Over the years, some money has been robbed from other territories. If the citizens are allowed to claim it, it will give many treacherous people a chance to fish in troubled waters. For example, if someone is clearly not robbed, but if he insists that he We were robbed of our only silver coin by pirates, how should we deal with it?"

Everyone came to their senses one after another, alas, what the old knight said is right, maybe there will not be much money left in the end, and even part of it will be put in backwards.

Cecil immediately said: "Yes, the common people are the worst, they are cunning and greedy. When I was in charge of the forestry, the most troublesome people were those troublemakers who wanted to take advantage of it every day."

Unexpectedly, the young earl was furious after hearing this sentence, he slapped the table, and glared at the intelligence director fiercely, so scared that he immediately covered his mouth, although he still didn't know what he said wrong.

Schroeder continued: "Therefore, I suggest other ways to compensate the people who have suffered losses. Such as reducing part of the tax, or building bridges and paving roads for the robbed villages, or sending people to make unannounced visits, only for those who are indeed A certain amount of money is given to families who rob and threaten their livelihood, of course in other names. This is better than just relying on one side of the story to get people to claim it."

"Good idea!"

"Master Schroeder still sees farther!"

"I second."

Everyone agreed with Schroeder's suggestion.

Paul was also deeply convinced. Seeing that everyone agreed, he made a final decision: "Okay! That's it."