Chapter 272 Special Economic Zones, Immigration Wave

“Your Highness Noah, a bishop of the Glorious Order protested to us, saying that the governor of the Voyager Harbor you appointed treated their believers harshly.”

“profound!”

Noah responded nonchalantly.

The Word Spirit Emperor can allow him to descend to any node of faith at will, so the golden dragon statues in densely populated cities and towns can accommodate Noah’s consciousness.

But the role of the Emperor of Words does not stop there. Noah recently discovered that those dragon fairies that have been influenced by his life breath, evolved multiple times in succession, and whose life forms have been completely changed, are walking nodes of faith for him.

Every dragon fairy can carry his consciousness, especially those dragon fairies who have a fanatical worship of him. When he opens his words and sees the vision of faith, each of them is like a little sun.

The dragon fairy he sent to the eastern coast to serve as governor was also outstanding among the hundreds of dragon fairies in his fanaticism in belief in him.

Therefore, Noah can ignore the spatial distance and descend upon her, but Noah is very cautious every time he descends upon her. He is still exploring how to use this word spirit.

However, even if it was only used to check the news, this word spirit could be called a divine skill. Even though it was thousands of miles away from the Harbor City, Noah knew everything, especially the series of measures taken by the Governor against the followers of Glory.

At first glance, the number of devout believers of the same faith is terrifying, and the number is still increasing. The most reasonable solution seems to be divide and rule, that is, to accept all these believers and then migrate them to different places separately.

As long as the number of believers gathered in one place is small enough, then as mortals, no matter how devout their faith is, their only use is to provide power to the gods they believe in. Apart from that, they are useless and cannot cause any trouble.

We can divide and rule them. In addition to intervening through administrative means and dispersing these glorious believers geographically, we can also alienate them economically and materially.

Differential treatment is always the most effective means of differentiation. People are not worried about scarcity but inequality.

When devout believers discover that the rewards for their daily prayers to the gods are not as good as those of the laborers, won’t they be shaken in their hearts?

The mouth can firmly declare the belief in the gods, and the brain can imagine the glory to be enjoyed after ascending to the kingdom of God after death, but the stomach that is not filled or is stuffed with pancakes that make it choke will not be polite.

Of course, this is not the case under normal circumstances. Believers with devout faith can obtain a quota of material supplies from the local church. Basically, if one person believes in the religion, the whole family will not have to worry about food and drink – believers are at least devout believers, but ordinary shallow believers can forget about it.

But the problem is, these believers are here to escape, and they are lucky to have something to eat, so how can they be picky? The harbor city where they landed is a sentry post that was built not long ago and does not even have the basic functions of a city.

Under such circumstances, it is not an exaggeration to say that being able to eat bread is a gift from the gods. After all, a piece of bread has to travel a distance of thousands of kilometers, and the transportation cost is there.

First ensure the survival of the believers, and then gradually improve their living conditions. Normally, there is no problem with this. However, there happens to be a goblin governor who does not play by the rules, and a group of profit-seeking businessmen.

As a result, a group of glorious believers appeared in the Harbour City who sold their labor every day and even reduced their prayer time to make money. Their lives were better than those of the devout believers who prayed devoutly every day.

This kind of situation would be impossible in areas where the church’s power is strong. It is only in a special area like Harbor City where even the most basic food supply cannot be guaranteed that such a strange sight would occur.

However, the most interesting thing was that a devout believer who was greedy and angry was whipped three times in the street by the goblins in charge of law enforcement because he committed theft. He was half dead, and the remaining twelve whips would be continued after his wounds healed.

Although some local believers gathered to protest, all the protesters were arrested by the governor on charges of disturbing local public order.

Finally, a holy knight couldn’t stand it anymore and stepped forward to rescue them. As for the believer who stole the fish cakes, they were unwilling to do anything about it.

After all, the believer who was beaten was guilty of theft, which was in conflict with the Paladin’s belief in fighting evil and maintaining order.

Although only a few fish cakes were stolen, it was still a crime in nature, and the last time was a robbery of a more serious nature.

However, the Holy Knight was not completely without opinion, because although the local governor was acting in accordance with the law, her law was only effective when punishing thieves. As for the treatment of local laborers, it was clearly illegal, but the governor did not intervene.

“All of this is for the development and future of the Harbor City. If we forcefully raise the income of these workers to the same standard as inland territories, then which businessmen will come here to build factories and provide jobs? How will the economy here develop? And who will work hard to transport food?”

Facing the paladin’s questioning, the local governor made a convincing argument.

The merchants who employed the followers of Glory did exploit and oppress them, but it is also undeniable that the supplies they brought greatly improved the situation of these refugees.

So that they no longer have to live on bread every day and in tents made of rags, but can live in spacious and bright wooden houses and drink hot meat porridge.

But it was also because of this that the Glorious Order came to Noah to file a complaint.

Because the Glorious Order that had taken root in Noah’s territory had become accustomed to the living atmosphere of the people in Noah’s territory, and when they sent people to Harbor City to take a look at the living environment of their compatriots from the other side, no one could stand it.

Although Harbor City does not practice slavery, the lives of the Glorious believers are more miserable than those of slaves. Not only is the salary they receive after working hard only enough to maintain their daily necessities, but also their working environment is not secure.

Be it illness or injury, those despicable businessmen don’t care at all, and these poor believers of glory have to deal with it all themselves.

Because in the eyes of these merchants, Glorious Believers are inexhaustible. After the first large ship full of refugees arrived at the shore, there was a steady stream of refugees landing, and refugee ships could be seen on the sea every now and then.

I don’t know what happened on the other side that forced a believer in the true God to flee across the sea.

“Archbishop of the Glorious Order, Hercules hopes to be summoned by you to discuss the living and working conditions of the Glorious believers in Harbor City.”

“You still want to discuss such a small matter? No.”

Noah refused without a second thought. Although the arrival of the followers of Glory did not cause any damage to Noah and the territories under his jurisdiction, it also caused some merchants to go on a carnival, which in turn brought high taxes to Noah.

However, the gods’ intentions to target us have become obvious, but such targeting is carried out gradually over hundreds of years, and the gods do not intend to see results in the short term.

The immortality of gods is used here. The immortal gods can use hundreds or thousands of years as units to design a grand and upright conspiracy to suppress a certain force.

Noah, who was promoted to the ancestral dragon, also came to the brink of immortality. Having the opportunity to gain a foothold in the immortal realm, he was also interested in fighting with the gods in this regard.

The worst that could happen is that he would turn the table over. Anyway, Noah has almost no reliance on faith. After all, the Emperor’s Word Spirit cannot act on himself, and the reliance of gods on faith cannot be said to be completely inseparable, but it is absolutely indispensable.

“Then how do you plan to solve the problem of labor treatment in Harbor City? Many holy warriors have expressed some bad opinions and views on this issue.”

Lutetia reminded Noah,

“Some paladins have already volunteered to go to Harbor City to set up a court and establish a labor protection office.”

“This is indeed a problem. The way those guys are eating is too ugly. I will issue a statement and make adjustments to the policy.”

Noah pondered for a moment and came up with a solution.

Soon after, the administrative announcement issued in the name of the Holy Dragon spread to all regions of the Holy Dragon Territory, especially among businessmen, causing a great response.

Because Noah designated the Harbor City and its surrounding 300-mile area as a special economic zone, the local governor has limited legislative power and can appropriately apply laws and regulations based on local conditions.

The labor remuneration within the special economic zone does not have to be on par with that of the Holy Dragon Territory, and the reason given is very legitimate, that is, the development of the Holy Dragon Territory has been the result of hundreds of years of accumulation.

The Harbour City is extremely poor and even the arable land for basic food supply has not been reclaimed, and it does not have the production base to support high-welfare jobs.

Therefore, the Governor is allowed to formulate appropriate labor protection measures based on local conditions and local development situations.

In other words, under this executive decree, the practice of providing food but not money to workers in Harbour City is legitimate and legal, and not illegal.

However, at the end of this executive decree, Noah also made a supplementary explanation. It was a development plan that planned to increase the labor salary income of local workers to half of the current average salary in the Holy Dragon Territory within ten years, and to match it within twenty years.

It was this development plan that calmed the restlessness of many holy warriors in Noah’s territory.

More importantly, after this executive order was issued, Noah issued another decree.

A customs office was set up in the Harbor City to strictly control the flow of goods and personnel between the harbor and the inland Holy Dragon territory, and many requirements were set for Glorious believers who wanted to go inland.

The first requirement is that you must be in good health and have no contagious diseases. The second requirement is that you must have no criminal record in Harbour City and a good reputation. The last and most important thing is to get letters of recommendation from the Governor’s Office and the factory where you are employed.

The purpose of establishing these requirements is clear at a glance, that is, the Holy Dragon Territory will only accept those glorious believers who maintain a positive attitude in their work over a long period of time.

As for those believers who pray devoutly every day but do not participate in production, they cannot even pass the customs office.

As for whether setting so many requirements will cause resentment and protests, of course there will be some, but there are indeed many glorious believers who meet the requirements and want to live in the Holy Dragon Territory.

Harbor City did not set up any information barriers, and the situation in the Holy Dragon Territory would naturally spread among the group of glorious believers as more and more businessmen came to set up factories.

After the establishment of the special economic zone, believers who participated in the work were no longer satisfied with the daily necessities distributed by the factories. They also wanted to obtain the currency issued by Shenglong and then use the currency to buy the goods they wanted.

After understanding the value of money, their basic desire as biological beings will make them want to get more coins.
So, after learning that in the Holy Dragon Territory, the same job not only has easier work content and shorter working hours, but also pays at least thirty times, and sometimes even nearly a hundred times, which is outrageous.

As long as there are still some worldly desires in the believers, none of them can sit still. They will try every possible means to go to the Holy Dragon Territory, even if it means borrowing money from merchants.

All of a sudden, a huge wave of immigration appeared. Although there were devout believers who were content with poverty and were extremely indignant and criticized their compatriots who were chasing money, this had no effect on the growing scale of the immigration wave.

As a result, the newly established Customs Department, after seeing the increasingly terrifying immigration wave, had to urgently establish new regulations, set daily immigration quotas, and strictly control the recommendation quotas for special economic zones and factories from all parties, requiring them not to make recommendations at will.

“The pursuit of fame and fortune is the nature of intelligent creatures!”

After witnessing a series of changes in the voyage port, Noah couldn’t help but laugh triumphantly in his own palace.

He did not intervene in the resettlement of these glorious believers with administrative orders. Instead, he used the ugly nature of merchants and the living environment of the Holy Dragon Territory, which was far superior to that of the feudal aristocracy, to attract the glorious believers who yearned for a better life to differentiate themselves.

However, it is undeniable that those who can withstand the temptation of material things and still stick to their faith are the believers that the gods truly need.

This series of changes can be regarded as a disguised purification of the believers for the Lord of Light. However, Noah is not worried about this. After all, how long can a mortal live?
One generation is a devout believer, but can their children and grandchildren still maintain the same piety to the Lord of Light as them? Especially in such a deliberately set environment as the special economic zone.

Compared to the glory of the gods that one may not necessarily enjoy after death despite a lifetime of pious offerings, the material enjoyment that one can obtain through hard work during one’s lifetime seems to be more practical.

It’s obvious how to choose.

(End of this chapter)