Chapter 1174: A Permanent Currency Solution

Somebody in the room sniggered.

With the rapid expansion of the Administrative Office and the establishment of a graduation exam system, the average age of governmental officials reduced by years. Since youths were naturally more willing to accept and learn new things than old people, it was common for a young man to finish school at the age of 20 and elevate himself to a key position in the government at the age of 25.

In fact, Roland saw many young officials in the conference hall.

He curled up his lips as he saw some new officials flush fugitively and lower their heads.

Although these young men were relatively inexperienced compared to the old generation, they injected hopes and energies into the institution, which were essential for a newly-established governmental body.

"Anyway, you all need to do your best to increase the population of Neverwinter. Obviously, we'll need more residential buildings and facilities to accommodate these new residents. Doubling the population isn't our ultimate goal, as I'm not going to set a target for this project. All you should know is that the more, the better. Everyone is obligated to make a contribution." Roland concluded after the laughter died down, "To make it easy to memorize, let's round up the number and call this project the 'Project of A Million'."

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

The officials all clapped their hands over their chests.

The next few executive orders were all supplementary orders to the Project of A Million, such as the exploitation of the resources underneath the Fertile Plains, the establishment of day schools and specialized ones, as well as the further regulation of universal education. Roland also intended to outsource medical professionals from the public instead of recruiting from the army while setting up clinics in various neighborhoods to reduce the pressure of the hospital. Correspondingly, the Ministry of Education should add another subject to the middle school curriculum, medical science, and train semi-professionals working at the field medics using the textbooks collected from the Dream World.

It would not be very easy to expand a city with a population of 200,000 into one with a population of 400,000 or even a million. With the increase in the population, they would, inevitably, had to improve the infrastructure of the city to prevent pollution from waste water and human excreta. The epidemic prevention work would also become more demanding due to the dense population. Although Lily could help with disease control, Roland still had to find a way to establish a monitoring and prevention system.

Education was another key to further development. Illerate population would only impose a huge burden on the system as opposed to providing assistance to the industrialization.

That was why Roland only laid out the basic frame of the plan because he knew a large city with a population of over a million would not instantly invent itself just after one meeting. The Administrative Office had to figure out how to execute the plan themselves through constant exploration and practices.

While everyone was excited about the future of Neverwinter, Barov suddenly asked, "Your Majesty, are you planning to send all these people to the plants?"

Roland said with a nod, "Or the construction team, the First Army or the laboratory. Anywhere that needs people."

"But the Administrative Office probably isn't financially capable of supporting these people." Barov said hesitantly, "The main revenue of the Administrative Office comes from the sale of Chaos Drinks, perfumes and steam engines. You know that the Joint Chamber of Commerce pays us the bill for the steam engines every three to six months. However, we have to pay subjects their salaries every month, which was around 80,000 gold royals in total. There's no need to worry about any financial problems at the moment because we earn much more than we pay out. However, if the number of the subjects doubles, I'm afraid..."

"You're worried that if the payment is delayed for a few months, the municipality won't be able to pay their people, right?" Roland asked with some interest, his eyebrows raised. He was very pleased that Barov, the former assistant to the Treasurer, quickly foresaw a potential financial crisis.

"Exactly," Barov said as he wrote frantically on his notebook. "As salaries increase annually, the expenses on payroll will only grow higher every year. However, the annual production of Chaos Drinks won't change much, and with the residents in the Kingdom of Everwinter and the Kingdom of Wolfheart swarming into Neverwinter, they'll no longer need to purchase products from here. I'm afraid that the treasury of the Administrative Office will soon be exhausted when our revenue rapidly decreases. I made a rough estimate here. If we take in more than 100,000 people each year, our financial risk will increase by 30%, unless you could find some other sources of revenue..."

Nightingale's eyes instantly glistened. She whispered to Roland, "There's an unexploited gold mine within the domain of our family."

Roland replied in amusement, "I'm not that desperate yet."

"Who cares? Use it if you like."

"Well... don't worry, I'll use it when it's absolutely necessary, but not now," Roland whispered back, then turned to Barov and said, "I've thought of that, and I find you a solution that could solve all the problems you're worried about."

"An ultimate solution?" Barov said, a little taken aback.

"Correct. I see that the cause of these problems is insufficient funds. If we could generate indefinite revenues, there won't be any problems."

Printing notes would be the fastest way to get rich.

When the industrialization of a city reached a certain point, the current monetary system that was heavily based on precious metal currency would inevitably cease to work. Due to the rapid development of technologies, eventually commodities whose values were much more than precious metal itself would emerge. When customers could no longer provide enough precious metal currencies to pay for the values of those commodities, the monetary system would automatically collapse.

However, credit currency did not have such a problem.

Roland had conducted a pilot project before by distributing the witches nominal notes. He noticed these notes were extremely hard to counterfeit because they were printed in Darkcloud's ink, pressed with Anna's moulds and attached with an anti-forgery mark made out of the rubber worm's slime.

Otherwise, the witches would have forged notes on their own to snap up the Chaos Drinks in the castle convenience store.

Further, Neverwinter now had the capability to distribute credit currency.

Roland had planned to discuss the details about the currency format, currency value, and rules pertaining to currency exchange with Barov after he drafted a basic guideline. However, since Barov had raised this question, he would not mind slipping some information.

While Roland was explaining the principle of credit currency to a group of bemused, flabberghasted ministers, the door of the conference hall was flung open and Phyllis burst in.

"Your Majesty, we made a new discovery. Pasha wishes you and your party to come down to the underground hall immediately."

"That urgent?"

"Yes," Phyllis confirmed while knitting her brows. "We've already deciphered the Magic Slayer... no, the demon lord, Ursrook's letter!"