Chapter 407: Copying Roosevelt's New Deal

Although Ethan was not going to use [Locust Grace], the Duke of the sixteen regions was not going to let Ethan go.

And they had already taken action and began to deploy heavy troops at the north and south borders of Maro City. In just ten days, the total number of troops had exceeded 20,000.

The nobles of Maro City who learned of the news were immediately in an uproar, and then all kinds of people were staged.

Due to concerns about the outbreak of the Lord War, many rich, powerful and capable people left with their families.

There was no hesitation when they left, and they didn't care at all about the situation of Maro City, where they were born and raised.

And those who were incompetent could only stay and leave it to fate.

In fact, those who couldn't leave were not completely leaving it to fate.

Many of them were very angry about this provocative behavior, most of them were young people, after all, they were still more passionate.

Ethan had always been indifferent to the chaos in Maro City.

This made Lyon very anxious, after all, the entire Maro City was nominally his territory.

Now that the territory has been provoked, it is obviously not okay to do nothing.

So he went to Ethan.

Ethan can avoid seeing many people, but Leon is not one of them.

As soon as they met, Leon expressed great indignation and said that he would organize troops to go to the border.

If the other party wants to fight, he will fight to the end with his last man.

At the same time, he asked Ethan's opinion.

Ethan nodded and expressed his support for Leon's idea, but he would not send anyone to help, letting Leon do as he pleased.

Lyon was very angry on the surface when he learned that Ethan verbally supported him, but Ethan knew that he was actually very happy in his heart.

The next day, Leon began to recruit soldiers blatantly, and the main recruits were those magicians.

Because he had a lot of dragon blood, this thing had a fatal attraction to magicians.

Therefore, it didn't take long for him to recruit a large number of people.

Among them were not only magicians, but also a large number of wandering knights and pioneering knights.

In a short period of time, he greatly expanded his strength.

If this had happened in the past, his behavior would have been considered as an attempt to overthrow the parliament, and Ethan would never have allowed him to do so.

However, the border situation is tense now, and even if Ethan knows that he is playing tricks, he can do nothing about it.

After all, those so-called allies all have hundreds of troops, but they only bully others.

If you really ask them to go to the front line of the battlefield, none of them are willing.

On the contrary, Lyon, although he has tricks, really sent people to the front line, and a stalemate has been formed at the border.

Since the other party's layout is just for better economic suppression, and there is no real intention to take action, although the situation looks very tense, there is actually no risk of war.

For most nobles in Maro City, they just made a little less money, which did not have much impact on their overall life.

The only ones affected may be the civilians in Maro City.

Due to the sluggish business, many people lost their jobs and lost their source of income, so life became very difficult.

Of course, compared with the good economy, life is more difficult, but it is not impossible to live.

This situation lasted until winter, and it will continue to this day.

Ethan seemed to be indifferent to these things, but he was actually looking for solutions to the problem.

First, winter was coming. Considering that many civilians might not survive this cold winter, he began to distribute food to the civilians in the four cities controlled by Maro City for free in early December.

His approach was strongly opposed by Sofia.

However, Ethan still insisted on his approach, because Ethan believed that population was more important than anything else, and he had plenty of food.

Even if 1.4 billion people came to eat, it would be enough for a year.

What's more, these only one million people would not be able to eat them all for decades, so why save so little food.

Ethan not only sent food, but also purchased a large amount of beef and mutton from the Casillas family, and a large amount of wine from the Carlos family.

Due to economic sanctions, both items were unsalable, so the prices were much cheaper than usual, and Ethan sent them all to the front line.

He asked the soldiers on the front line to set up a big pot in front of the other side, eat big pieces of meat, and drink big mouthfuls of wine.

At the same time, Ethan also began to purchase a large number of heating items such as cotton clothing, charcoal, tents, etc.

First, they were transported to the front line, and second, they were distributed to civilians.

In addition, a large amount of funds were raised for the parliament through taxation and the issuance of bonds.

Then, in the name of the parliament, a large number of infrastructure projects were started.

For example, taking advantage of the current dry season, a large-scale and planned construction of water conservancy and irrigation systems.

Or building walls for the free port, and repairing the dirt roads that extend in all directions in Maro City, replacing them with smooth brick and stone roads...

In short, it is to revitalize the entire economy with the power of the rulers.

In fact, these plans have achieved remarkable results.

Although exports have been greatly restricted due to sanctions, people have got job opportunities because of the launch of various major projects.

Countless people are running around at the first site of various projects, and there is even a shortage of manpower, and they have to keep recruiting people from other places.

This winter in Maro City is just like the northern territory last year. People are working hard and everyone is laughing.

And this laughter and joy not only dispelled the clouds of war, but also blew away the enemy's tricks.

The enemy's sanctions not only did not have an effect, but deepened the cohesion of Maro City and made Maro City's economy even better.

Imagine, once the water conservancy irrigation system and roads are built, what kind of benefits will it bring?

On the other hand, the soldiers of the sanctioners are almost ignored on the front line. Not only are they freezing, but they may even be hungry.

At this time, I saw the soldiers defending on the opposite side. Not only were they fully equipped with cold-proof equipment, but they could also eat meat and drink wine. What a pain it was.

And the people in the sixteen regions, they should be frozen or hungry, and the sanctions did not bring them any benefits.

This is not only the case for civilians, but also for the nobles.

The longer this stalemate lasts, the economies of both sides will not only not shrink, but will only grow bigger.

Of course, the advantaged side is naturally Maro City.

The root cause of all this is that Ethan is willing to spend money, but those hostile dukes, they would never spend a penny for civilians.

Even the soldiers' money, if they are not afraid of mutiny, they don't even want to pay the military pay.

And those dukes certainly know what Ethan is doing, they are all laughing at Ethan's stupidity.

Spending a lot of money on civilians will definitely not last long.

As for Ethan's behavior of spending a lot of money, not only those dukes don't understand, even Sophia can't understand.

For this reason, she has found Ethan several times.

Ethan was annoyed by her, and finally convinced her with one sentence, that is: "I pay now to get more in the future!"

...