It was dawn in the morning in the royal capital when Susan woke up from her sleep. After taking care of the housework as usual, she went out to buy food for the next few days.

The streets were bustling with caravans coming and going in an endless stream. Sturdy camels were pulling wooden carts loaded with various supplies on the widened cement road. Several wealthy businessmen who were visiting the royal capital for the first time were commenting on the huge rotating waterwheel in the distance, and bursts of exclamations could be heard from time to time.

Accompanied by a slightly shrill whistle, a gorgeously decorated alchemy vehicle drove past quickly, with billowing steam spewing out of the chimney on the front of the vehicle, attracting envious glances from the townspeople and merchants.

This steam car that can run on its own without the need for horses or camels costs hundreds of imperial gold coins. Only people of real status can own one. It is a new fashion among the wealthy merchants and nobles in the capital...

As for the wizards, they ride in an iron box that does not need to emit steam and runs faster. It is said that it requires witchcraft and magic to start.

As Susan was thinking, an oval shadow suddenly fell, and it turned out to be a huge and majestic airship that passed over their heads, covering the scorching sun in the sky.

On the street, groups of children were chasing and playing happily in the shadows cast by the airships...

Even though Susan saw all these bizarre things every day, she still found it difficult to get used to them.

Over the past year, she felt as if she was living in a dream.

First, according to the church's propaganda, an evil wizard led his army to occupy the royal capital, brutally killed King Bazel, razed the sacred church to the ground, and arrested a large number of devout believers. The people of the entire royal capital were in panic, fearing that the minions of the evil spirits would target themselves.

However, what happened next was beyond their expectations. The wizards did not perform evil human sacrifices, nor did they rush into their homes to rob money. Instead, they began to repair houses and roads, and opened many magic workshops, recruiting workers for iron smelting, glass firing, and musket making at high prices.

At the beginning, no one dared to join the workshop. There were even rumors that this was a means for wizards to confuse them. The magic workshop was recruiting workers on the surface, but in fact it was conducting all kinds of evil human experiments. The wizards extracted people's souls, corrupted the flesh into skeletons, and threw them into the abyss!

However, since the bold Haydn joined the wizards' workshop, lived an increasingly wealthy life, and was even allocated new housing, such rumors were naturally dispelled.

Susan was very glad that she and her husband were among the first few groups to join the workshop to work.

You know, even though the magic workshop expanded several times, the number of workers that could be recruited was still limited.

Those poor people who wake up too late can only build roads and mine - although the salary is not low, it is much harder than working in a workshop.

Now, she and her husband together can earn a total of twenty silver coins per month in the musket-making workshop. This would have been totally unimaginable a year ago!

It was also the first time that Susan knew that there was a day off during each work week.

This place is exactly like the paradise described in the Bible, but it was created by wizards...

As Susan was thinking, she soon arrived at the most prosperous street in the capital. Her eyes couldn't help but look at a newly opened clothing store. Behind the glass wall were colorful dresses. The fabrics and colors were even more luxurious than those worn by noble ladies in the past.

The price was not expensive, about ten to fifteen silver coins. Susan counted the coins in her pocket, but thinking that she still had to raise money for her two children to enter the wizarding academy, she gritted her teeth and walked towards the bakery nearby.

"Still as usual, three bags of white bread and two portions of bean curd." Susan took out a small bag of copper coins from her bosom and handed it over.

The baker, Kom, shook his head. "A total of one silver and ninety coppers..."

"Why is it so expensive?" Susan widened her eyes and looked at the other person in disbelief.

She remembered that a week ago, a bag of white bread cost only about fifteen copper coins, and a portion of bean curd cost only ten copper coins.

"You probably don't know that the price of wheat has been rising recently, so the price of bread will naturally increase as well." Kom muttered. In just a few days, the price of wheat has nearly tripled, and what he sells is already considered cheap.

"As for the reason...it might be because of the war."

There are rumors in the royal capital that the wizards have already entered the empire, and the subjects of the newly added territories can also work in the workshops like them and live a life of eating white bread every day.

But where did all that bread come from? Although Kom heard from merchants who came from afar that wizards had created an alchemical creation that could automatically till the land, it was unlikely to be able to supply food for millions of people in the kingdom.

Even more unfortunate is that there seems to be a famine in several territories in the northeast of the kingdom, so now there are rumors in the capital that there is not enough food.

Many savvy businessmen have already started hoarding wheat, and Kom is no exception. He then reminded Susan that it would be better to buy more today, because the price might be higher tomorrow! Susan looked at the high price and hesitated, but thinking that the price of bread might continue to rise, she still counted out the coins and sighed.

"Five more bags of black bread, please."

"Five bags of black bread, a total of sixty coppers!" Comm was so happy that he couldn't stop smiling. After tasting the delicious white bread, not many people would be willing to eat the hard and difficult black bread again.

Now we can take this opportunity to clear out the inventory.

After paying three silver coins with great reluctance, Susan took the purchased ingredients and couldn't help frowning. Not only had the price of bread increased several times, but it had also become visibly smaller. Originally, a piece of bread was the standard four fingers thick, but now it had shrunk to about three fingers.

Susan couldn't help but feel a little worried. Ever since the wizards took control of the royal capital, famine seemed to have become a thing of the past. But the continuous increase in food prices made Susan quite worried.

Even if I can still afford it now, what about a week or even a month later?

Susan held the last few silver coins in her hand, hesitating whether to buy more? ...

With the joint efforts of a group of nobles and wealthy businessmen, rumors of famine quickly spread throughout the kingdom. The price of wheat was increasing almost every day, and the panic caused even affected the City of Fire Oil! Lin En, who was in the laboratory, thinking about how to change the large nuclear explosion technique to the large hydrogen explosion technique, was forced to stop his research and was pulled into the conference room.

After reading the report, Lin En couldn't help but frown.

In just half a month, the price of wheat per kilogram in the kingdom increased from two copper coins to ten copper coins, which is more than five times the original price! "Such a big thing, why didn't anyone remind me before?" Lin En asked in confusion.

He could tell at a glance that someone wanted to disrupt the entire kingdom by manipulating food prices. The best way was to nip it in the bud as soon as there was a sign of it. Once it evolved into a chain reaction, it would be difficult to deal with.

Due to the production of the nuclear fusion reactor, all the speakers and great wizards are extremely busy. Unless it is an extremely urgent matter, there is no way to hold a meeting to discuss it.

Moreover, successive wars often lead to higher food prices. It is very normal for the price of wheat to fluctuate in the short term, or even double.

It's just that they have been controlling the price of wheat by collecting and releasing grain, so it has only increased by about 50% over the past year. Compared with the poor people's wages which have increased several times, it has not caused any waves.

This led to the fact that Laud did not pay too much attention to the rising wheat prices at the beginning. He dispatched more grain to various places to stabilize the grain prices as usual, until he found that the situation was completely out of control, and then reported it as an emergency.

Alva, who was in charge of trade, also added that just the day before yesterday, the church suddenly set up outposts in the border cities of the empire to strictly check the departure of caravans. Suddenly, the number of caravans coming from the empire decreased by 80%, which meant that they could no longer buy large amounts of food from the empire!

The two consecutive pieces of bad news made the congressmen worried.

Even though most wizards have no theoretical foundation in economics, they can all understand the importance of food. The subjects can wear torn or worn clothes, and they can choose not to buy those new and exotic alchemical creations, but they cannot go without food!

After pondering for a while, Raphael suggested implementing a rationing system, stipulating a maximum amount of bread each person could buy, and punishing those who exceeded the limit.

Some lawmakers even suggested saving some food by cutting lunch supplies in the workshops.

He had heard the wizards in the alchemy workshop complain before. Because the parliament stipulated that only one meal should be provided every day, many extremely stingy poor people would deliberately skip breakfast and dinner and eat until they were full in the workshop.

"No, this will only cause greater panic. We already don't have enough food!" Harov directly rejected the proposal. He knew very well that all current strategies to cut food supply would further lead to a surge in bread prices.

Aurora turned to look at Lin En, and asked thoughtfully how much wheat they had left, and whether it was enough to supply the entire kingdom. Some time ago, she had received a report that a large area of ​​arable land in the eastern territory of the kingdom seemed to have been abandoned.

"It's not abandoned. In fact, I am planning to integrate these lands to grow some cash crops." Lin En explained.

[Hadratta] is known as the kingdom of mines, which is its advantage, but sometimes it is also its disadvantage.

The mountainous terrain means that there are few plains suitable for large-scale farming.

The scattered fields within the kingdom simply could not take advantage of mechanization.

Lynn thought that the cost-effectiveness of using it to grow wheat was too low. It would be better to plant some fruit trees or something to enrich the townspeople's diet and improve the per capita night blindness in the kingdom.

In addition, it is also to allow some self-cultivating farmers to obtain income similar to that of the subjects who enter the workshop. Otherwise, who would go to farm?

As for the food supply, it is of course sufficient! Since conquering the southern part of the kingdom more than a year ago, Lin En began to make plans. Because this area has the only alluvial plain in the kingdom, he let the musketeers and the liberated miners reclaim a lot of new land there and develop a fully mechanized large farm model!

Nowadays, more than 70% of the kingdom's food is produced by this super farm...

Although the congressmen present did not understand what the mechanized farm that Lin En mentioned looked like, they still heard one thing, that is, they still had enough food.

Realizing this, Harov and others breathed a sigh of relief, and then asked curiously.

"Since there is enough food, why do we need to purchase large quantities of wheat from the Empire?"

"Of course, it's to prevent famine caused by a large number of refugees." Lin En said calmly. "It's always safer to have more food reserves, isn't it?"

Once they defeat the Holy See, they will have to face tens of millions of poor people in the empire, so it is better to prepare early than late!

Lin En did not expect that his actions of integrating arable land in the east and purchasing large amounts of grain from the empire would cause some people to misjudge and thus launch a food war.

"Lord, have you found out who is behind this?" Lynn asked after a pause.

"I suspect it has something to do with the nobles in the kingdom." Lord replied hesitantly.

Since there are so many people purchasing wheat on a large scale, many vendors and even civilians have participated in it. In a short period of time, he has no way of determining who are the masterminds behind the scenes and who are just following the trend to make a fortune, but what is certain is that a large number of nobles of the kingdom must be involved.

However, he has already asked psychic wizards to investigate, and he believes that there will be results soon.

“Noble…” Lin En’s expression suddenly turned cold.

He had been so busy dealing with the empire and the church recently that he almost forgot that there was a group of parasites in the kingdom who relied on their territory to do nothing.

The reason why we didn't deal with them all before was because we took into account that the wizards had only recently occupied the kingdom and had not yet gained the trust of the people. If we acted rashly against these people, the situation that had been stabilized with great difficulty might deteriorate again.

In addition, not all nobles are so unreasonable. Some noble children who are flexible and knowledgeable are still willing to embrace the new era, so it is not a good idea to kill all of them.

After thinking for a moment, Lin En gave an order. "Since they are willing to pay a high price for the grain, let them continue to buy it and release our stored grain in small portions!"

He did not intend to send people directly to arrest all the merchants who hoarded wheat. Firstly, there were too many people, and secondly, there was no such law in the kingdom.

But this doesn't mean that there are no other ways to deal with these people.

This is also a good opportunity to let those businessmen who want to take advantage of the country's crisis know that the freedom of trade has its limits, and once they cross the line, they will have to bear the consequences!

'071, help me develop the artificial starch technology...' Lin En muttered to himself. He didn't want to develop this technology so quickly.

(End of this chapter)