I Became A Black Merchant In Another World-Chapter 199: If you keep telling a lie, it becomes the truth (1)

In the Middle Ages, guilds played a dual role, like the two sides of a coin.

After the Frankish kingdom dissolved, a hellish world where looting, murder, robbery, and rape were commonplace.

In such a horrific society, people banded together in groups to preserve and pass on skills, achieving some progress.

After the wars ended, guilds played a significant role in stabilizing and growing society and the economy.

‘Without the guilds in the early Middle Ages, Europeans would have had no way forward.’

“Sebastian, isn’t it interesting?”

“What do you mean?”

“Guilds. They used to be like lights that illuminated the world, but now they’ve become nothing but trash that all the nobles and officials of the Empire call ‘the rotten system.’”

Everyone in the Empire’s nobility and administration says this.

They claim that guilds, in their effort to protect their own interests, have become addicted to overpricing, merely charging excessively to maintain their control.

Everyone wants to fix this system, but...

Those who don’t know any system other than the guilds fail to find another way and eventually give up.

There are those who don’t give up, though, and try to come up with ways to replace the guilds.

But when that happens, guilds across the Empire go on strike, ready to bring the economy of the Toscanian Empire to a halt.

‘Trying to eliminate a cancerous tumor by euthanizing the patient would be the same as trying to get rid of guilds.’

Sebastian sighed, letting out a lament.

“But there’s no way to remove them, is there?”

Then, he smiled subtly.

“Unless, my lord, you’ve come up with some out-of-the-box way to get rid of these rotten corpses? It would be a huge help to the Empire’s national interest.”

Honestly, if there were no stock market, I wouldn’t have been able to think of a way to deal with them.

But with the power of stocks and a little bit of malice...?

With the wisdom of the British Empire to "divide and rule," I could tear apart the guilds.

“The national interest of the Empire is important, but more important is our family’s interest. To put it bluntly, if our family falls, what good is the Empire?”

This isn’t the Joseon era, where people sacrificed themselves for the king and the royal ancestors, hoping to bring glory to their descendants.

Why should I sacrifice my family, my life, and my family’s wealth for the country?

I can’t openly say this in front of others.

But Sebastian is a long-time vassal who lives and dies with me.

“That’s very much a Baronet’s perspective.”

“If I die, what use is the Empire, no matter how prosperous it is?”

If I were to give up all my wealth for the Empire, I might save tens of thousands, or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people from poverty.

But over 90% of those who received that money would forget about me quickly.

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No, they’ll remember, but...

‘I’ll just be a fool who lost all my wealth at that time.’

Even if I dedicate my life, in the end, I’d quietly be forgotten.

It’s better to live happily while I’m alive, rather than trying to secure honor after death.

“So, what method do you have in mind to dismantle the guilds? Please tell me.”

“First of all, I have no intention of asking for help from other nobles, officials, or the Emperor’s power.”

If it were possible to solve this problem with political power, the guilds would have been abolished hundreds of years ago.

I won’t foolishly repeat the same failure by using the same methods.

“Even if we ask for the Emperor’s power to dismantle the guilds, it would come with a huge burden, and even if successful, we’d have to pay an immense price. It’s an incredibly inefficient approach.”

Using the political power of high-ranking officials to dismantle the guilds?

It’s not even worth trying.

Even if I assume that dismantling the guilds could work?

‘It’s like trying to make oil from squeezing coal.’

In a country ruled by a bald octopus, they tried to make oil from squeezing coal, but the efficiency was so bad compared to directly extracting or importing oil that even Nazi Germany had to reluctantly rely on that technology.

I’d be exactly the same.

It’s not like I’d die if I didn’t make oil from coal, so why waste time on such an inefficient effort to dismantle the guilds?

“But let’s look at it from another perspective. The guilds are incredibly good at protecting themselves from external threats.”

When it comes to withstanding external threats, these guys could probably fight the Emperor or even the entire Empire.

When asked to dismantle the guilds, they would lie down and say:

“Fine, we’ll die. But you’ll die with us.”

These are the kinds of insane people who would actually do that.

“The internal unity of the guilds is surprisingly weak. When I dismantled the blacksmith guild last time or crushed the spice guild, I just targeted the guild masters. The senior craftsmen, who were part of the guild, pretended they didn’t see anything.”

When a war breaks out, from the top brass to the lowest-level commanders, they all say the same thing.

“The reason you’re fighting with your life on the line is to protect your family and property.”

They don’t emphasize patriotism, or national loyalty, or any other ideals.

Why don’t they order soldiers to die for the country, even when soldiers are gathered specifically to defend the nation?

‘They know that, in reality, almost no one would die purely for the country.’

Guild masters, when the high-ups try to dismantle the guild system, will resist, even if it costs them their lives.

They’re fighting to protect their “interests” that are crucial for their survival and the survival of their families.

But if you change your perspective?

“The unity of the guilds depends on whether their interests are directly at stake or not.”

It’s the same as power.

Just like how sons and fathers fight with swords in front of power, guild members will fight amongst themselves when their interests are threatened.

Why do you think there were fights over mourning clothes during the Joseon Dynasty, and ridiculous battles over human and animal nature?

Because they were fighting for their own interests, putting their lives on the line. If they made a wrong statement, they’d be executed with poison and reincarnate in another world.

“Let’s use our informants to spread this kind of rumor everywhere.”

“What kind of rumor are you talking about?”

“That the Pisa blacksmith guild is honestly much better in terms of skills and craftsmanship than the Florence blacksmith guild. The Florence blacksmith guild’s artisans, by birth, are just lazy trash living off the benefits of Florence.”

On the internet, they call this “divide and rule,” but in the British Empire, they call it “divide and rule.”

They split the powerful Indian rulers into hundreds of pieces and ruled them.

In short, the government openly engaged in regional divide and rule.

And the result? Until the day the British Empire collapsed, the rebellions of these rulers never posed a major crisis.

“But will the guild masters believe this rumor?”

“Of course, they won’t believe it. Even if they do, they won’t take any action.”

They know very well that their power, which they’ve held for generations in specific regions, comes from ‘unity.’

But if they give up their connections with other guilds from different regions?

‘They’re tightening their own necks.’

What if people from another world didn’t know how to cook and thought grilling lamb was some new technique, clapping and cheering in excitement?

‘That’s impossible.’

“But what if we keep spreading this rumor every day, relentlessly?”

I’ve heard an old saying before.

If three people spread a lie about a tiger, people will believe it.

As the saying goes, if someone keeps repeating an absurd lie, others will eventually believe it.

Even though the Chinese may argue that the defeat of the British Empire by the Qing Dynasty’s atrocities is merely a failure of the British Empire...

The wisdom that repeated lies become truth is something that even the British Empire’s efforts can’t overshadow.

“It’ll make them gradually believe that it’s true.”

Even Mencius’s mother, who firmly believed in Mencius, ran off to investigate when she heard three rumors about her son being a murderer.

That’s how effective persistent, repeated lies are.

“It’ll be good to spread this rumor when things start to get tense. A rumor that another guild master from a different city used stocks to build a large factory capable of meeting the Empire’s entire demand.”

“Such a wise, no, very smart thought. Doing this will make the guild artisans crumble on their own.”

Although it starts with a lie, in the end, they’ll have no choice but to act according to my intentions.

Once they fail to join the current flow, they’ll be the losers of the age.

‘Will big corporations just sit idly by while small businesses and local markets are swallowed up?’

“We’ll support the useful ones with the cash we have, and when the Rothschild family exerts its real control, that’ll be enough.”

The important thing here is that the visible owner should never be us.

If it’s found out, even though we’re not the evil tax collectors, the tax collectors from the finance ministry will come barging into our house.

‘Even if we falsify the accounting books, we’ll get hit hard.’

“Let’s spread the rumor nationwide first. Then, we wait for the fruits to fall.”

And soon after, the bad rumors spread by Baron Rothschild reached the guild masters across the entire country.