Love and passion, cutting up the wasteland

A few days later, Lu Meng was strolling through Huangshui Village.

Originally, many young people were willing to accompany him on his inspection tour, but now that the situation has changed, they have to follow Team Leader Hua to take care of the funeral arrangements.

At the usual sentry position in the village, the ones standing there now were not guards.

But one by one 'swamp ninja'.

When they saw Lu Meng coming, they secretly showed their thumbs up.

There are only a dozen or so swamp ninjas in the caravan, and it is still a bit difficult to control a swamp village of one hundred households by pure force.

However, from the perspective of Huangshui Village, they are backed by the entire Water Tribe.

This free tiger skin flag is not nonsense.

At this time, a swamp ninja of medium stature stepped forward and secretly lifted a corner of his mask in front of Lu Meng, revealing his blue-purple skin.

It's Luka, and as a Hornless Person, she can barely fit into Ze Nin's gas mask.

Lu Meng understood and whispered: "How is the situation over there with Ryan?"

The Shaks and caravan baggage did not enter the village.

During this time, they were going to investigate the planting and foreign trade situation in Huangshui Village.

Although Lu Meng can now directly inquire about the situation from Hua Yong, as the Hundred Regiment Guardsman of the Shark Kingdom, Ryan has a broader perspective and can use more information for reference.

Moreover, this matter is directly related to the interests of the swamp people, and the other party may not be willing to tell the truth.

"Beiyouda...cough, Lu Meng." Luka took out a handful of leaves from her arms, which were long and slender.

"Before Huangshui Village, we planned to destroy large areas of paddy fields and plant them instead."

Lu Meng took it and looked at it, feeling a little confused.

This was a very ancient source of addictive drugs in previous lives.

Use it, commonly known as 'flying leaves'.

Even in modern times, some countries have promoted its legalization.

The 'black extract', a common specialty in swamp villages, is also made from it, but it's just called differently in this world.

‘Others are changing rice into mulberry. ’ Lu Meng thought to himself, ‘It would be better here to change the rice into hemp. ’

"Where's the market?" Lu Meng asked.

If it was a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy, Huangshui Village would never be able to use all the fertile land to grow addictive drugs. At most, some of it would be reserved for medicinal purposes.

For such a large-scale planting, someone outside the village must have purchased it in bulk.

And the rewards promised are generous.

He has already learned from Hua Yong that this matter was promoted by the original village elder on the advice of the Stone Rat Group, and the Stone Rat Group may have been entrusted by the Black Switcher.

Hua Yong originally disapproved of this approach. The village elder who approved it was killed by Lu Meng with an arrow. There should be no problem in suspending the promotion of planting in the future.

However, the Black Converters are a faction composed of Hive Hives, and they don't have so many needs of their own.

There must be a buyer behind it.

"It's... United Cities." Luka hesitated, "But we still don't know which noble noble or which guild is in charge."

The United Cities, as its name suggests, is a country close to a confederation formed by different cities signing an agreement and joining together.

Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, many cities already existed. Customs and laws were not unified in various places, and there were many differences in the pillar industries.

For example, the city of Kaidun is famous for its weapon forging.

However, these city-states all use the banner of United City to the outside world. I don’t know which one of these city-states is from this time.

Lu Meng thought about it for a while, but couldn't come to a conclusion.

Just because the United City of later generations that he knew was completely corrupted.

Many city-states are nominally drug-free, but among the upper class circles of the nobility, the abuse of these substances is a tacit fact and even a fashion.

It would be too complicated to find a source.

But at this point in time, maybe it can actually be done.

"Nameless One, what should we do now?" Luka asked tentatively.

This incident affected not just a rural village, not even just a swamp.

You know, under the Queen's New Deal, Bayan reopened trade with United City.

What this chief consultant must be thinking about is attracting funds from Union City and introducing advanced technologies such as Kaedon Scrap Masters. But from a practical point of view, once a city-state starts the black extract business, they will be the first to flock to the Shaq Kingdom.

The administrative power of the Shark Kingdom is inherently fragile and does not have such strong grassroots control capabilities.

At that time, everyone from the bottom to the middle and high levels may be corrupted by such a small 'commodity'; the only military strength that the Sharks can currently rely on will be difficult to guarantee; and the entire country may become an economic colony of the United City. .

When Luka faced Lu Meng, she subconsciously called out his warrior title because she was thinking from the perspective of the Sharks.

"Even if we don't talk about the United City's influence infiltrating into the swamp," Lu Meng seemed to be responding, and seemed to be just talking to himself, "this matter does need to be resolved..."

In fact, it’s not just the Shaq Kingdom that will be affected.

In addition to the Holy Empire, the United Cities' trade network extends throughout the continent.

The city-state is like the heart, the merchant guild is like the blood vessel, and the swamp is responsible for production.

Once the black extract industry was established, the addictive drug was pumped around the world via trade routes.

Like Lei Bai from the Lang Ninja Group and Bayan from the Shark Kingdom, they are all doing trade with the United City. Even though he knew that he was seeking skin from a tiger, he still had no choice but to do it.

Lu Meng now controls Huangshui Village and can eradicate plantations here, but the impact on the entire industry chain will be minimal.

As long as the interest chain remains, black converters can always find alternative origins.

"And judging from the fact that the black converters were able to convince the village elders, there must be huge profits from this matter, even enough to make the swamp people give up growing food... If we want to ban it within the entire swamp, we must have great coercive power. .”

"Or find another way out for them."

Thinking of this, Lu Meng grasped a glimmer of expectation.

The few ancient science books he found in the forbidden area of ​​Huangshui Village have not been interpreted by himself recently, but have been handed over to another person.

If a breakthrough is successfully achieved, the problem can be solved much more smoothly.

This was also the cooperation condition promised in advance when Lu Meng and Huayong were discussing.

…

In the dim light of the morning, there is deep black mud and dense jungle.

A group of gangsters wearing black leather clothes, holding moon blade machetes, pushed aside the heavy fern leaves, stepped on the mud under their feet, and advanced gradually.

This is an ordinary sight, but looking at the faces of these gangsters, they are so pale that there is no blood, and the skin is rough and sallow... What's more important is that among them, some have square heads, some have flat heads, and the leader The head is slender, with fleshy tentacles at the top, and both eyes have no eyelids.

They are hive people.

These bees in the swamp looked around from time to time along the way, as if they were searching for something.

Sorry, the chapter names are wrong and I can’t change them—but the order of the text is correct. Please feel free to read it.

Thanks to moiraday and Roger Otalifus for their reward support——