Urban Sims

Chapter 55 Free Business Alliance
September late fall.

In the golden maple leaf forest in front of the castle, amidst the blessings of all the guests and friends, after solemnly swearing an oath in front of Brother Robert, the couple officially became husband and wife.

This couple is naturally Zhou Ming and Fanny.

As a newlywed, perhaps because of the guilt left over from the previous life, Zhou Ming temporarily put aside the troubles in his heart, rode a horse, and took his wife Fanny outside for a honeymoon that lasted more than a month.

For more than a month, the two went to see the snow-capped mountains in the east and the grasslands in the north together, hunted in the forest together, and went to the lake to play together. Lingering, obliterated the worries in the heart, and also forgot the glory of the world.

This time was the happiest time in his wife Fanny's life.

……

Shortly after the honeymoon.

With some clear thoughts in his mind, Zhou Ming walked to his father Baron Connor's study with a roll of parchment full of words.

"This... can this really work?"

After spending more than an hour reading the densely packed hundreds of lines of text on the parchment, Baron Connor patted his swollen brain, but he hadn't fully digested the huge amount of information on the parchment.

"Father, it will definitely work! As long as there are three baronies who are willing to join this plan, within five years, our Granland will become the richest territory in the entire Kingdom of Voris!"

Zhou Ming is full of confidence!

This "Free Business Alliance" plan that he spent more than a month tossing about, as long as it is launched to the outside world, as long as it gets the response of three to five surrounding territories to join, after tasting a certain amount of sweetness, it probably won't take long. Even the most greedy and stingy lord will involuntarily join this plan under the inducement of huge interests.

In the "Free Business Alliance" drafted by Zhou Ming, the main plan is to set up a business alliance led by Granland, and then integrate the surrounding Bodoland, Yokenland, Nathanland, and Pattonland (belonging to the Northern Territory) Earl of Merlin) and other territories are all drawn into this business alliance!
For this business alliance, Zhou Ming also formulated several core rules that all members of the business alliance must strictly abide by. If these rules are violated, they will be bound and severely punished by the business alliance!
The core rules of the "Free Trade Alliance", there are five main rules——

1. All commercial activities involving the lords among the territories shall follow the principle of tax exemption.

(That is, Lord A sells all his goods to Lord B who lacks the goods. Lord B will not pay additional taxes to Lord A after purchasing these goods, and vice versa)
2. Among the territories, all commercial activities involving the lords shall follow the general principle of tax exemption.

(That is, when lord A sells all his goods to lord B who lacks the goods, if there is a lord C between the two territories of A and B, then this lord C, as long as he joins the Free Trade Union, will not be able to To collect taxes on these goods, these goods should pass through their territory free of charge. Conversely, when the goods of Lord C pass through the territory of Lord AB, Lord AB shall not be taxed.)
3. Each lord's territory should allow other lords to establish a fully functional sales and storage center on their territory, and to conduct regular information updates and exchanges with the commodity supply and demand information exchange center. If goods transactions occur here, the local lord, Only a maximum of 20% commercial tax can be collected. If the local lord conducts transactions here, he should abide by the first principle of tax exemption.

4. Each lord's territory should formulate a unified tax rate in response to traveling merchants from all over the country. For example, when traveling merchants from various places transport foreign goods into the merchant alliance area for sale, each lord can levy no more than 50% of the commercial tax. Goods within the alliance will enjoy the second territorial tax exemption policy if they are shipped to non-commercial alliance areas for sale.If the goods of the business alliance are sold within the business alliance, the merchants will enjoy the third preferential policy, that is, only 20% of the business tax will be collected at most.

5. The lords of each territory should abide by the various agreements of the business alliance. They must not buy or sell by force, levy taxes arbitrarily, or violate the regulations. Lift sanctions.

Around these five core clauses, Zhou Ming also formulated some supplementary clauses to ensure that under all circumstances, all members of the Free Trade Union can strictly abide by these core five clauses and dare not go beyond half a step.

"Dear Edward, how can you guarantee that these terms you have formulated will be strictly observed by other lords? Moreover, the lords everywhere seem to have no goods that are worth trading with other lords. These terms you wrote, In most cases, it is useless, and these terms are so cumbersome and troublesome... I don’t think that baron will join your Free Trade Union.”

Baron Kang'an is not optimistic about Zhou Ming's plan. All the territories in this world are basically self-sufficient and closed. Only gold, silver, copper, salt and iron cloth, these items with attributes such as currency circulation, human body necessities, and wars are used. It has certain flow characteristics.

Like food, cattle and sheep, wood, stone, other territories are not in short supply, only in certain special circumstances, such as war, famine, etc., will become in short supply.

Therefore, if Zhou Ming wanted to make an idea on these goods, he would only get frustrated.

Zhou Ming smiled mysteriously, and said confidently: "Dad, it doesn't matter who said whether it is useful to establish a free trade alliance. You have to try it before you know. How about this, Dad, you put the 20 talents accumulated in the castle's granary Leave all the food to me, let Teacher Morris and the others be my helpers, I am sure that within six months, I will use the power of the Free Trade Union to sell all the food!"

20 talents of grain, sold out in half a year?

Baron Connor shook his head in disbelief, seriously questioning.

Although he admits that sometimes, this son is indeed a little smarter than him, but he can't believe it if he sells out the grain stored in the castle's granary for more than 10 years and kills him.

Because it is Baron Connor himself, through the channels of countless traveling merchants, he can only sell up to 2 talents of food a year.

But no matter what, since the son is so confident, it seems that he has never let him down since he was a child, so let him give it a try. Selling out a large amount of grain that will rot every year can be regarded as a reward for him. A piece of heart disease.

……

So, for the next month or so, Zhou Ming carried out a series of "diplomatic" activities, tried his best to win over the surrounding lords, and invited them to join the "Free Business Alliance" of Granland.

"What? Free Business Alliance, what the hell? Not interested, see off." Baron Garcia of Bodorland was very unimpressed with Zhou Ming, and drove him away in a bad temper.

"Boy, join this free business alliance, within half a year, can you really earn more than [-] gold coins? Are you sure that if you don't have this amount, you will give me back it? Okay, I will join, as long as I can get this much money!"

Baron Howard of the Youcan Territory has always been very concerned about managing his territory. His Yocan Territory is very large, but there are many barren lands. He has been plagued by financial crises every year. Now he has a chance to make money at his door. Naturally, he Will not let go.

"Good son-in-law, you can do whatever you want, you don't have to give me a guarantee, you can earn as much as you can! Also, your idea of ​​this self-business alliance is very good, I support you to try it!"

Baron Sean has nothing to say. His son-in-law wants to do something big. As a father-in-law, he must support him. Moreover, since he introduced some advanced agricultural technologies such as centralized treatment of manure and improved farm tools from Granville a few years ago Later, Nathan also had the problem of unsalable food, and now Zhou Ming said that he could help him solve it, which would be even better.

With the addition of two members, Zhou Ming's final wooing target was placed on Patton's collar in the Earl of Merlin.

Parton Territory is a neighbor to the north adjacent to the border of Gran Territory, but because of the "North-South Dispute" problem at the upper echelon of the kingdom, the relationship between the two territories is not very good, and they will not fight every year, but there are very few contacts.

"Edward Knight, are you really willing to accept my son and let him be your knight attendant when he is 12 years old?"

The lord of Parton Territory, Baron Romon, hated all the "Southern Men" very much, and thought they were even more annoying than the northern savages. After hearing the intention of Zhou Ming who came to visit, he wanted to drive him away. But before he could speak, he heard that Zhou Ming wanted to take his 8-year-old son Eric as a servant and train him to be an excellent knight. Baron Romon immediately changed his mind and had a detailed interview with him.

Different from the warm and affluent south where the "Nanxie" live, the cold and long winter in the north has always been synonymous with poverty, and often faces the harassment of northern savages, so the northern knights are known for their bravery, because they are too poor. Although most of the baronial territories in the north were very large, they supported very few knights.Even for a nobleman like Baron Romond, although he doesn't have to consider the future of his eldest son, he often doesn't know what to do with his second son.

Considering the economic situation in the Northland, if you want to buy a set of knight equipment, you need at least several generations of accumulation. In a family, you can provide more than two knights, which is something that the Earl can only do.

Therefore, once the eldest son inherits the title and territory, the exiled second sons often have a very miserable fate. They either become mercenaries, or become lumber farmers or horse groomers.

Baron Romon liked his 8-year-old son Eric very much, and was also very worried about his future, not knowing how to arrange him in the future.

But he didn't expect that today there would be an opportunity to deliver it to his door. He was a knight attendant and helped to pay for the purchase of equipment. He was a little moved.

Not only that, but after hearing the purpose of coming to Parton Territory from the "Nanxie", Baron Romon, who was tall and burly and whose face was opened by the cold wind, couldn't help but change his face and yelled. :
"Edward Knight, you said to build a trading post in Parton to sell the grain from the south? How could you think of doing this? Don't you Nankes always refuse to save us when we encounter famine in the north? ? You actually thought of selling food to us?"

Surprised, Baron Romond uttered the insulting name of 'Nanxie'.

Zhou Ming didn't care, but said calmly: "We have too much grain to eat in the granary. Instead of rotting in the granary, it's better to sell some money in the north... I heard that the weather in the north has been bad for the past two years. The hottest summer has brought several white disasters. Many tribes in the northern savage kingdom seem to be about to start eating people. Recently, they have increased their troops on the border. If His Majesty the King doesn’t give them some food, I’m afraid they will really die. Are you aggressively attacking?"

In the memory left by his previous life, Zhou Ming remembers it very clearly. Because of the white disasters for two consecutive years, the Savage Kingdom will invade the Kingdom of Voris in March next year after the spring. They went straight to the south and burned, killed and looted the seven earldoms. Even Granland, seven villages were robbed.

Hearing the words "can't finish it" and "rotten", Baron Romon, who has had a hard time in the past two years, really wants to strangle this "trench" hateful guy in front of him, but when he thinks about the current financial situation of the territory , He frowned and said: "Edward Knight, I am very grateful for your help and bringing some food that is in short supply, but what do you need? You should know that the Northland is very poor and there are no gold coins to buy those food, so ..."

"It doesn't matter if you don't have gold coins, as long as you have what you have in your territory, whether it's fox fur, mink fur, wolf fur, black bear skin, white bear skin, snow sheep skin, or birch wood, iron pine wood, cold fir wood...these things can be exchanged Food, of course, if you have some natural ores that are better, we will also collect these things..."

In the northern forest, sea and snowfields, all kinds of animal furs with excellent cold protection effect have always been a fashion rarity for the upper-class nobles in the wealthy southern countries such as the Iron Castle Kingdom. A rare pure white fox fur is worth thousands of gold coins. The white bear skin on the king's throne can also be sold for tens of thousands of gold coins.

Not only precious furs, among the forests, seas and snow fields in the north, there is also a variety of high-quality wood resources, such as century-old birch wood that is fine in texture, fire-resistant and moisture-proof, suitable for making high-end furniture, and iron pine wood that is as hard as steel. There is a faint fragrance of cold fir trees...they are precious resources that can only grow in the extremely harsh alpine environment in the north.

In addition, Zhou Ming also heard that the savages in the savage kingdom in the north, because of the backward smelting technology, many of the weapons they use in their hands are actually huge high-grade iron ore, copper ore and other weapons. Made of hard metal raw ore, it can cut with the knight's sword.

Even some savages who pursue beauty use the ore ax in their hands, which is shining with golden light, and it is a piece of ax-shaped dog's head gold.

Zhou Ming knew that the various savage tribes in the savage kingdom were also extremely short of food. If possible, he would also like to transport a batch of food to the savage tribes further north. No food could grow in the permafrost. Every year is a good year, when some food is brought over, they can be exchanged for some "weapons" they use every day, including the golden axe.

"Business opportunities are everywhere in this world. No matter what commodity it is, it is a treasure worth paying generously to those who lack these commodities." Zhou Ming once sighed.

Hearing that he could use the furs in the castle that he didn't know where to put, and the trees in the mountains that he didn't bother to cut down, he could exchange the scarce food from Zhou Ming. Baron Romon readily agreed with his plan and joined Founded the "Free Business Alliance" initiated by him.

So far, including the four territories of Gran Territory, Yocan Territory, Nathan Territory, and Patton Territory, the rudiment of a primitive free business alliance has been formally established through Zhou Ming's persuasion and lure for a month. .

　It took five hours to write a chapter of more than 4000 words, please ask for a recommendation ticket, thank you for your support!
　　


(End of this chapter)