People in the Middle Ages, draw cards to get promoted - Chapter 860: One City, One Country

In the evening, Alexandria, the pearl of the eastern Mediterranean, welcomed back its master.

Although Alexandria's geographical location is not suitable as the capital of Egypt, in Losa's mind the importance of this city is even greater than that of Cairo.

In the Governor's Palace in the west of the city, Losa, who had just come back from a banquet to entertain Duke Leopold, was sitting on a silk cushion in his bedroom, flipping through the account books on the table.

Today, trade in Alexandria has gradually returned to normal, and merchants who were disturbed by the war have returned here after realizing that the new owners here also welcome them.

Based on an average tariff of 10%, he could collect a full 35,000 dinars.

Calculated at 4.25 grams per gold dinar, the customs revenue of Alexandria Port alone this month has reached 0.15 tons of gold, and there is still a lot of room for growth in the future.

After all, the war had just ended not long ago, and under the Ayyubid dynasty, the tariff rate in Alexandria had long been maintained at a high rate of 15%. After Saladin was defeated twice in succession and appointed Adil to rule Egypt, the rate reached a huge rate of 20%.

For certain commodities such as spices, this figure is much higher.

At this time, Philip the Fox, as the King of Gaul, had an annual income of only 200,000 livres of silver coins, including royal estates, vassal taxes, commercial taxes, etc.

In total, it is equivalent to one month’s tariff at the Port of Alexandria!Its annual military expenditure was not even a fraction of what Saladin spent on a large-scale battle.

In his previous life, King Richard the Lionheart was captured by Leopold and handed over to the Holy Roman Emperor. The ransom demanded was an astronomical figure of 150,000 silver marks, forcing Eleanor of Aquitaine to levy taxes across the country and even take the jewels from the crown, and barely raise the money by scraping together the money.

If they had Alexander, the tariff revenue in just one year would be enough to offset the sky-high ransom.

He pointed his finger at the page of the account book, which recorded that a Venetian merchant ship alone paid 800 denarii of pepper duty at the customs, a figure equivalent to the annual tribute paid to Philip by three medium-sized earls in Gaul.

His territory as King of Gaul was indeed fertile and rich in resources, far superior to Germania and Iberia, but how much could he collect in taxes from his vassals?

There is no comparison at all with Losa's current practice of setting up checkpoints and collecting taxes on the entire Maritime Silk Road.

Now, Losa's resentment towards the Venetians became even deeper.

Originally, he thought that Alexios I of the Komnenian dynasty, who granted the Venetians tax-free concessions in order to deal with the Normans who were plundering along the coast, was simply ignorant of economic affairs, and that he himself was a wise ruler.

Now it seems that he is just a huge spendthrift.

It is clear that the Venetians' hegemony over the Mediterranean grew by drawing nourishment from the Eastern Empire.

It's ridiculous that he used to laugh at the emperors of the Eastern Empire for being keen on playing power games and not being grand and dignified, which led to the infamous Latin Massacre. If it were him, after learning that the Venetians had quietly stolen so much money from him, he would probably be so angry that he would want to pick up the butcher knife and kill them all.

Lothar closed the account book and said with some emotion: "Before, I wondered what kind of magic this holy land had. Now that I am about to retake Egypt, the most powerful king in Europe wants to come and get a piece of the pie."

Now looking at it this way, it seems that he should just eat some meat porridge.

Apart from economic affairs, there was little progress in the war in Egypt.

After all, it only took him one month to leave and take over the entire island of Cyprus.

The governor there, Turanshahr of the Ayyubid family, emptied out half of his family's wealth in order to support the defense of Cairo. When he learned that Cairo would fall at any moment, he was terrified and immediately retreated to the eastern port and crossed the sea to Hejaz.

Now, Hans was attacking only the local forces in the Nile Valley who were still resisting stubbornly. The progress was quite smooth, but it would take some time.

As for the Western Army led by Veneto and Lord Raymond the Younger, they have now passed the narrow Cyrenaica Corridor. Apart from repelling several waves of attacks and harassment by Berber nomads, their biggest enemy is the long march.

bang bang-

Without even looking up, Losa said, "Come in. It's not easy to settle those noisy guys, right?"

Andreas, then the guard officer of Alexandria, walked in and said with a wry smile, "Your Majesty, it is just as you said, but I am used to dealing with them."

Andreas had served as a guard officer in Hebron, Alander and Port Ella, and later received the First Embrace from Kurus. He learned government affairs under him for a long time and is now the most talented internal affairs officer under Lothar, second only to Kurus.

"Oh, indeed."

"Your Majesty, you must have been exhausted from the journey. I have asked the maid to prepare hot water for you. When do you plan to take a bath?"

Losa waved his hand: "No hurry, just prepare the hot water, there is no need to keep someone to serve."

"As you wish, Your Majesty."

Andreas silently retreated into the darkness. The blood of Tsepesh inherited from Kurus enabled him to blend perfectly into the shadows.

After reviewing all the major and minor events that had taken place in Alexandria over the past month, Losa stamped it with his own personal seal. Andreas had done a good job, and the seal represented that Losa approved of all his actions.

The matter has come to an end.

Losa went straight into the misty bathroom. The hot water that Andreas had asked people to prepare had become a little cold, but when Losa jumped into the bathtub, it soon began to boil again.

He rested his head on the edge of the bathtub and fell into a deep sleep - he used the Voice of Babel.

There was a man and a woman in the cabin, both of whom were potential targets for Losa's "telephone recruitment".

One is a five-star attendant, named: Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph.

The other is four stars: Baroness Mary Visera.

"Rudolf..."

Of course, he knew that Rudolf's death was not just due to love. Family disharmony, his own political ideas that were inconsistent with his father's, and the strict family education were all reasons that led him to this step.

In fact, Lothar had always felt that the family education problem of the Habsburg-Lorraine branch was huge, otherwise there wouldn't have been such liberal monarchs as Maximilian and Rudolf one after another. If it was all because Princess Sissi was unreliable, there was no reason why it would affect her brother-in-law.

Ultimately, this conservative, classical court education can no longer keep up with the rapidly changing times.

Seeing that Crown Prince Rudolf had kissed his mistress goodbye with tears in his eyes, he picked up the shotgun and stuffed the black barrel into his mouth.

"Who are you, the messenger from hell?"

Rudolf opened his eyes and looked around in a daze. People who commit suicide cannot go to heaven, and he knew very well what his fate would be.

"Sorry, I'm not."

Losa smiled bitterly in his heart. He didn't expect that he had originally planned to do a phone recruitment before going to bed, but he never thought that he would have to play the role of a "psychologist".