Empire of Shadows

”What place’s land do you want?”

”How much?”

”I can make the decision, it’s all yours!”

As Diego spoke, he even took the initiative to consider things for Lance. ”If you plan to plant crops, I can have them transfer all the land on both sides of Rapa’s main rivers to you.”

”This land is very fertile!” Diego seemed to know this subject well. ”I don’t know how to put it, but the land on both sides of the river banks has very good fertility. It’s no problem to plant anything.”

”Just sow the seeds, and then wait for them to bear fruit. You don’t even need to manage it much.”

While he was speaking, Lance maintained a smile. After he had said his piece and listed several plots of land for Lance, he seemed to realize something.

Lance hadn’t said a word yet.

He just suddenly closed his mouth, then looked at Lance, his eyes carrying some confusion, and some ”encouragement.” ”Choose one!”

”I promise you won’t encounter any trouble, and the land will be given to you as much as possible!”A few more smiles appeared on Lance’s face. He pursed his lips and shook his head. ”Your Excellency President, this land you speak of, how much is it worth?”

”I believe there are also land transactions among the people of Rapa. This land you speak of, how much is it worth?”

”Ten dollars, twenty, or fifty?”

He showed a somewhat regretful expression. ”We all know that Rapa’s land is not valuable. The transaction price for the land you mentioned is probably only...”

”...a few dozen Federal Sols, and that’s for cultivated farmland.”

”That uncultivated wasteland might only be worth a few Federal Sols.”

”What you want is ninety million Federal Sols, Mr. President. This money could buy you a small half of your country’s area.”

Diego seemed to have calmed down as well. He realized this problem. Rapa’s land wasn’t valuable.

In fact, it wasn’t just Rapa’s land that wasn’t valuable; the Federation’s land wasn’t valuable either.

Like the wilderness in Likalai State, if someone was willing to reclaim it, the Likalai state government might only symbolically charge some fees, very few fees, fees that anyone could afford.

The ten or twenty dollars Lance mentioned was even a bit high. Wasteland in the wild didn’t cost any money at all. Just give a farmer a set of reclamation tools, then give him a week, and a week’s wages, and he could open up the land.

Rapa, like other countries, held an encouraging attitude towards reclaiming wasteland.

They encouraged the reclamation of farmland. The wasteland reclaimed by individuals belonged to them, but every year, for each mu of land, a portion of the grain must be paid, about one-fifth of the total income.

Apart from that, there were no other fees or taxes, which was pretty good.

So the land here wasn’t valuable. Lance brought this up, and he seemed to have a bad premonition.

”Then you...” He looked directly into Lance’s eyes. The eyes hidden in the slits shone with a trace of luster. Although his eyes were small, they were quite spirited.

Lance tilted his head slightly, not quite straight. ”You know, I’ve recently invested in a large number of factories and related supporting facilities in Zhuolan.”

”We just talked about this problem,” Diego nodded, indicating he knew.

Lance pursed his lips again. ”So what I want is this land.”

Diego still hadn’t reacted. ”Of course you can, this land is actually... not very valuable. I can give you some extra compensation...”

Lance raised his hand, stopping him from continuing. ”Actually, you didn’t understand, Mr. President. I want to buy this piece of land, as a federal citizen.”

”In other words, I want to buy it away from Rapa’s main body. The moment we reach an agreement, the land within the range I’ve demarcated will no longer belong to Rapa, will not belong to you, but will belong to me personally.”

”A private piece of land, unrelated to Rapa. You can see it as a country within a country.”

”I will exercise my own laws on this land, not Rapa’s. Do you understand now?”

When Diego heard this, his mouth was already slightly open. He looked at Lance in disbelief, and directly slapped the table and stood up. ”This is impossible!”

His face was full of anger. His fat cheeks were trembling slightly because of the anger. He glared at Lance, but although he had already put on a very fierce expression, in Lance’s view, it didn’t show much.

He just continued to look at him with narrowed eyes. The slits of his eyes were a little wider than before, that’s all.

Lance shrugged. ”You don’t have to be so angry. Even if you don’t agree, it doesn’t matter. I’m here to talk business with you.”

”As long as I agree, and you don’t, or you agree, and I don’t, this deal can’t be done.”

”You don’t have to be so agitated. You just need to continue to maintain your attitude.”

Diego didn’t speak, just stood behind the desk, looking at Lance.

Lance put down his crossed leg, then stood up with a face full of regret. ”It seems we can’t reach an agreement this time. But it doesn’t matter. As long as you change your mind, come find me anytime.”

”Anytime!”

He bowed slightly as he spoke. ”Then I won’t disturb your work, Mr. President!”

”No need to see me out!”

He turned and left as he spoke. Mador stared at the president and the butler beside him for a while, and only then did he follow Lance out.

In the courtyard of the Presidential Palace, the convoy of more than ten armored vehicles made many people look over.

Especially since some of these armored vehicles were even installed with machine guns, which made these strange-shaped armored vehicles, all at once, have a very special flavor.

The smell of iron and blood!

This kind of thing was particularly attractive to people’s attention in times of chaos. Some people seemed to want one too.

Even if they didn’t necessarily want to do anything, at least it could guarantee their own safety, couldn’t it?

If it weren’t for the fact that these federal people looked like they were not to be trifled with, they might have already gone over to ask how much such a car cost.

Soon, the convoy left the Presidential Palace under the gaze of the people. Diego watched their departing backs, his face so dark that water could drip from it.

”These damn federal people!” He clenched his fists. Of course he knew what Lance meant by ”buy”!

This was fucking ”ceding territory” under the guise of ”purchasing.” If he really did this, tomorrow more people would stand up and want to overthrow his regime!

Although the Ravila family’s rule had many problems, this and that, the people were poor, couldn’t eat their fill, couldn’t dress warmly, many people didn’t have stable jobs, a family’s monthly income might only be three or four hundred Paras, and now, of course, the actual value was even less.

This country had many problems, but at least it could continue.

It was like a ship. Although it had been patched up many times, and was full of patches, this ship could still sail on the sea, instead of sinking.

But if he agreed to Lance’s request, and ceded a piece of land in a place like Zhuolan, then this ship would sink.

These arrogant federal people!

His fists made a ”creaking” sound. He had used a lot of strength, and his nails had dug into his palms, but he couldn’t feel the pain.

Because there was a pain that was more painful than physical pain, psychological, spiritual, and personal!

These people looked down on him!

Sooner or later, he slammed his fist on the wall, and the wall also made a ”dong” sound.

The butler at the side watched quietly, watching the blood flow from the place where his fist and the wall were in close contact.

Sooner or later, Diego would make the federal people pay the price for their arrogance!

He swore!

This deal, naturally, was not concluded, but no one would feel too surprised. If it could be concluded on the first try, then there would be a problem.

No one knew what Lance and the president had talked about in the Presidential Palace. Those who knew did not dare to casually speak.

In the blink of an eye, a few more days had passed. In these few days, the intensity of the civil war had not decreased, but on the contrary, there was a tendency to increase. And the intensity, the severity, were all rising!

Previously, Fernandez’s idea was very simple, which was to use more advanced combat command techniques, and weapons that were more advanced than the anti-government armed forces, such as field artillery, to form a generational strike against them.

Using artillery bombardment to destroy their will and morale to resist, and then to fight. This way, the chances of winning would be very large.

But now it was troublesome.

Because artillery shells were also on the list of prohibited exports, and the thing about artillery shells was much more expensive than bullets. A country like Rapa couldn’t possibly store a large amount of these shells. They were not like Slad or Dantra, where there was always military friction on the border, and they needed to be ready for war at any time.

Although Rapa had many problems, before the federal people had arrived, this place was still relatively stable and peaceful.

So they had not stored too many shells.

Now, if all the shells were fired, it would be very difficult to get supplies later.

Among the entire Yalan League, there were only a few countries that had shells. A small country like Makan, let alone artillery and shells, their army didn’t even have many people. It was one of the few countries that could make Diego find a sense of superiority.

And those countries that had shells were not likely to sell all their shells to Diego.

Their days were not very good either. This famine was not just happening in Rapa, but in the entire Yalan region.

The federal government had promulgated a new wartime policy. For those who bought grain from the Yalan region and returned to the Federation, the government would give some subsidies.

This would allow them to buy grain in large quantities in the Yalan region. Even if it was bought at the market price, they could still make a profit through the financial subsidies.

Many countries had not realized that this was essentially an open conspiracy of the federal government. After all, in the past, grain that was only a few cents Federal Sol a pound could now rise to ten cents. For many agricultural countries, this was an irresistible temptation!

Originally, they were mainly exporting grain. Now that the price had risen so much, they would not wait and see, but would quickly hand over every last grain, not leaving any at all.

This had led to the fact that this famine had almost covered the entire Yalan region. Everywhere there were refugees who could not eat their fill.

The tropical jungles of the Yalan region had suffered. Places that people had rarely set foot in before, now you could also see traces of people.

Some of the animals that were only found in Yalan were heading for extinction at a speed that humans could not understand.

It wasn’t that something had happened to nature, it was just that there were too many hungry people!

There were many hungry people, but it couldn’t be said that there were no hungry people in the upper class, only that there were very few, extremely few.

So the class conflict at this time would also become more obvious. Under the promotion of some people, uprisings and the like had appeared in various places.

They themselves found that their ammunition was too little, and not enough. How could they possibly sell it to Rapa?

So these cannons had now all returned to the defense area of Zhuolan, to be used as a final resistance.

Once there was no first round of artillery fire, and the soldiers were directly allowed to fight in the places where the anti-government armed forces had an advantage, naturally the intensity would go up, and the casualties would also continuously increase.

The two sides had already begun to become ”sticky.” It was not like at the very beginning, when the battle was progressing very fast, and a city could be recovered in just three or five days.

Now there had been no change for several days, and they had been in a state of medium-to-low-intensity exchange of fire.

The war materials were thus continuously being lost. Diego had originally wanted to save ammunition, but the actual use was on the contrary, even more than before!

Fernandez knew that Diego had already contacted those arms sales representatives, but he didn’t know what the follow-up result was.

These few days, the battle was very fierce, so he had to take the initiative to come to Diego’s office to ask about the follow-up of the weapons and ammunition.

”They are willing to sell the export-model weapons and ammunition to us, but I can’t afford this money,” Diego said very directly.

He had originally still had a little idea. He had planned to use the method he had used to get the weapons and equipment from the Jede Republic, to borrow a sum of money from the Jede Republic to buy these weapons and ammunition.

He hadn’t thought of how to tell Fernandez about this, but the other party had taken the initiative to come to his door. It just so happened that he could take the opportunity to test Fernandez’s attitude.

Hearing Diego say so, Fernandez looked at him with some disbelief. ”Don’t tell me that the Rapa government’s treasury is already empty!”

Diego nodded slightly. ”Of course it’s not that exaggerated, but there isn’t much left. There’s still about 3 million-plus Federal Sols in value.”

”So little?!” Fernandez’s voice was a little off-key. He stared at Diego with wide eyes. He couldn’t believe the authenticity of this number!

A country’s treasury, actually only has a few million Federal Sols?

He was so angry he laughed!

”You’d better be joking with me!”

Before, he had not discussed this issue with Diego in detail. After all, when he had come, he had felt that a country with a population of 12 million, in its pocket, not to say it had several hundred million or several billion Federal Sols in wealth, but several tens of millions should always be there.

To not even have this much money was too inappropriate!

Now, he knew that his past guesses had been a bit conservative.

Diego shook his head. ”I have no intention of joking.”

For a moment, Fernandez didn’t know what to say. He was so speechless!

Diego also knew that this was a bit embarrassing. He took the initiative to change the subject. ”Actually... they have provided me with a new plan.”

Since he was planning to extort the Jede Republic, then he certainly had to bring out what Lance had said.

Fernandez lit a cigarette for himself. ”It had better be good news.”

Diego didn’t care about his little sarcasm, and continued, ”They asked me to contact Lance. They said Lance has this money in his hands.”

”I have contacted Lance. He does indeed have this money, and it is in cash. He can give it to me at any time.”

”But he has a request, a request that I cannot agree to.”

Fernandez took a puff of his cigarette, his attention caught by him. ”What?”

”They want me to cede a piece of land to them.”

This was the most times Fernandez had been shocked in a row this year. His eyes had once again widened, as if he couldn’t understand, as he looked at Diego, as if asking him to say it again.

”It’s just as you think.”

”They want to, from the slums in the south-central part of Zhuolan, all the way to the vicinity of the port. Because they have a need for transportation, they want to take this piece of land.”

Fernandez also couldn’t care about the cigarette that he had just lit. He threw it directly on the ground. ”You didn’t promise them, did you?”

He was a little nervous. He knew what the federal people meant by this.

Once this piece of land belonged to the federal people, then they could immediately station troops here!

Not to station troops in the Yalan League was indeed the result of the negotiations between the federal government and the Jede government.

But this did not mean that they could not station troops on their own land!

Once this opening of stationing troops was made, soon everything that Jede had paid before would become meaningless.

Diego shook his head. ”I’m not a fool. How could I really agree to them?”

”But, brother, if I can’t hold on, it’s very difficult for me to guarantee that I won’t do so.”

”Compared to being driven out or even killed, perhaps losing a piece of territory is, on the contrary, an option I can accept!”

Fernandez also knew that this was Diego forcing him, forcing the Jede Republic. But he had to admit that with such a push, it was really a bit difficult to handle.

He did not immediately agree. The person had also calmed down. ”I need to talk to the president. What is their quote?”

”Ninety million,” Diego handed over the quotation. Fernandez, as was to be expected, was shocked again!

”This is fucking many times more expensive than if we had made it ourselves!”

”Fuck, these federal people are fucking crazy!”

Looking at this quotation, even if Fernandez had a good upbringing, and education, at this very moment, he couldn’t help but to curse!

The price of all the weapons, including all kinds of ammunition, had all doubled, and some more than doubled!

He had originally thought that it would only be twenty or thirty million. Maybe the president’s side would agree to their request and would transfer this money.

But 90 million, and the ammunition was not even that much, which meant that in the follow-up, they would have to continuously buy ammunition. Even Jede couldn’t support this kind of consumption!

Not to mention, there was a high probability that the federal people would continue to support the anti-government armed forces, to let them continue to expand, to grow.

It seemed that from the very beginning, there was only one ending!