Chapter 57: The Banquet in Valencia (Part I)

The afterglow of the setting sun cast long, elongated shadows across the ground. A round of stern shouts rang out as pedestrians hastily retreated to both sides of the street. A squad of unarmed soldiers hurried past them; although their steps were neat and clearly showed they had undergone a period of training, their faces still retained a youthful immaturity and an eager, restless excitement. This was a clear indication that they were newly enlisted recruits. After all, veterans who had been baptized by blood and fire understood the cruel nature of warfare and had long since lost the naive enthusiasm of their initial enlistment days.

Indeed, this was a squad of fresh recruits just stepping out of the training camp. Led by their commanding officer, they had gone to the armory to collect their military supplies and were now hurrying toward the assembly point on the outskirts of the town. There, they would be incorporated into active service, becoming official soldiers of the Landian National Army. The ordnance depot would uniformly issue them combat weapons and ammunition, and then the troops would march north, further north, and ever further north toward the northern border, where they were needed.

In fact, before this batch of soldiers, another group of reservists had already completed their training, been incorporated into active service, and set off for the north. That poor yet respectable young man was among them. Before leaving, Armango had still been worrying about Wei Wuji and Cécile, but a loftier ideal inspired him, allowing him to temporarily set aside his worries and shoulder his rifle.

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Mr. Martin delivered a speech pointing out that the Church should face the demands of the believers and carry out reforms! The Northern Kingdoms issued a joint statement condemning our country's crude rejection of the Church, warning it will lead to divine punishment..." A newsboy scurried like a butterfly behind the squad of soldiers, stopping from time to time to hand a newspaper to a nearby pedestrian, collect a few coins, and then run onward without looking back.

Newspapers were a novel creation, currently appearing only in the south. The northern countries strictly rejected such items, deeming the random publication and sale of news on mere paper to be not only irresponsible but entirely uncontrollable. Both the stern Church and the monarchical states viewed this commodity with cautious eyes, even secretly banning it.

Yet in the south, this creation was wildly popular. Merchants used it to advertise their goods, while ordinary citizens—anyone who was literate—supported it without exception, for they urgently needed to grasp news related to their own interests. Even the housewives of the middle-class families welcomed it, as they could occasionally find their favorite debates and gossip amidst the miscellaneous articles.

A hand suddenly grabbed the running newsboy, while another hand extended a few coins, deftly taking a copy of the newspaper directly from the boy's satchel before releasing him. The entire movement was executed with such fluid grace that it was completed before the newsboy could even react. The boy stared in utter astonishment at the dark-skinned man standing before him, his usual quick-wittedness having vanished into thin air. In the end, the boy said nothing at all, clutched the coins tightly in his palm, and scampered off, though he stopped at a considerable distance just to look back at the big-bearded uncle.

However, Crow had no energy to spare for the newsboy's astonishment. He unfolded the newspaper in his hand. The first section was an intelligence bulletin containing entirely commercial news, though it was still limited to the vicinity of Valencia. Moreover, compared to the rapidly shifting market conditions, some of the information on these pages was already outdated. There was no helping this, as communication methods remained limited and insufficiently timely. Yet even so, this newspaper remained immensely useful, for observant individuals could glean emerging trends from the gossip columns—such as the black ivory from the New World, which was currently all the rage in the Eastern Kingdoms, a luxury that officials and nobles alike took immense pride in displaying.

Small merchants were also avid consumers of this medium. As mentioned earlier regarding market trends, although small merchants could not obtain the latest news in a timely manner and were merely sharing the leftovers of others, regional trends did not vanish overnight; hence, secondary business opportunities still existed.

Newspapers were not something that had only just come into existence, but previously, people had not paid them much attention. There was always a process of acceptance required for novel things, and even in the case of intelligence bulletins, major merchants had initially resisted them, believing that business opportunities should be kept exclusively to themselves. Yet regarding this, as the recently sensationalized Mr. Spielberg had remarked, only when an entire region was brimming with commercial opportunities could one's own interests be maximized. Commerce prospered through the circulation of information, not through momentary gains. It was said that the birth of the intelligence bulletin was partly made possible by a generous donation from that elderly gentleman. In return, the bulletin dedicated its front-page headline for three consecutive days to promoting the new industrial bank established by the old gentleman's Heldasin, and rumors suggested he intended to establish a branch in Valencia.

Initially, however, few people possessed the foresight of a Spielberg. Even the great Prime Minister Fahrenheit, who had always been quick to embrace emerging trends, seemed never to have previously expressed any opinion on newspapers. It was not until this current Church crisis arrived that people desperately needed a vehicle, a platform to express their own views and to examine the event from diverse angles, no longer satisfied with merely gathering on street corners or shouting in public squares. The government likewise needed an organ to voice its stance and rally the public's hearts. Thus, as the crisis loomed, the government finally signaled its support for the development of this nascent medium, and newspapers sprouted like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

In truth, regarding this novel phenomenon, those merchants who had initially attempted to monopolize trade initially felt a sense of resentment. Yet the astute among them, much like Spielberg, realized that an overall prosperous market best served their interests. Consequently, once the government declared its tolerance for the continued development of this medium, pragmatic merchants shifted their focus to how they could utilize it rather than continuing to resist, knowing they could at least extract useful intelligence from it. As for the businesses that genuinely required a monopoly, major merchants relied on far more than merely getting information a step ahead of others; in reality, their under-the-table connections with various factions were the true guarantee of enjoying the lucrative profits unique to exclusive enterprises. Furthermore, merchants believed that if they could control newspapers, they might leverage this newborn medium to serve their own ends. The booming trade had bolstered the merchants' self-confidence, convincing them that everything in this world had a price.

The organizations and guilds that had truly profited enormously from intelligence trading were the ones that ought to have felt genuine resistance toward newspapers, as the publication of various types of news evidently threatened to undermine their interests in certain aspects. Yet, astonishingly, the large and small guilds that had hoped someone else would take the lead in crushing this new creation were left bitterly disappointed. Among the continent's most premier intelligence-peddling networks were Panner and Stanko. Stanko maintained silence, while Panner acted the fastest. To everyone's utter jaw-dropping amazement, Panner chose not opposition, but rather to launch a newspaper of its own, preparing to utilize its extensive network across the continent to distribute it. It was rumored that someone had privately inquired with a senior executive of Panner and learned that the leadership believed the emergence of newspapers was simply unstoppable. Since it could not be stopped, it was far better to enter the fray immediately and seize the initiative.