Urban Sims

Chapter 56

After a heavy snow falls, the season of winter is coming.

The ground was covered with a thick white blanket.

It stands to reason that in this kind of cold weather where it is difficult to travel, the best way to move is to stay at home with closed doors and windows, sit by a warm fireplace, roast a fire, drink wine, talk to family and friends, and sleep well Get a good night's sleep and get through this cold winter.

But unexpectedly, there were strangely shaped carriages parked in front of the gate of Granling Castle.

These horse-drawn carts are pulled by a strong horse, and a square box is dragged behind it. In the box, there are 20 heavy bags of grain weighing about 20 talents.

The wheels of the carriage are not the original pair of circular symmetrical spoke wooden wheels, but two wooden boards with upturned ends and smooth bottom surfaces—this is the sleigh cart invented by Zhou Ming.

In front of the castle, there are as many as 400 sleigh carts filled with grain bags. With so many sleigh carts, 8000 talents of grain can be transported to Paton, more than 60 miles away in the north, with the efficiency of one trip every two days. Lead the merchant station, and then let another group of people stationed at the merchant station drive a sleigh cart with a similar structure to transport the grain from the merchant station to various places where there is a demand for grain purchases.

From the nearest Earldom of Merlin, to the Earls of Gargan and Tingen in the west... the last grain sales outlets are almost spread across the seven earldoms in the north.

Zhou Ming was very surprised that because the Northland was poor, the environment was harsh, and there were very few business contacts, the earls and barons in these seven earldoms heard that as long as they joined the "Free Trade Alliance", they could buy them. After the urgent shortage of food, perhaps because of poverty, most of the territories joined this free trade alliance after a little thought.

In one month, the number of members of the Free Trade Union has increased from the initial 4 to more than 60. There are still many members who volunteered to join after seeing their neighbors buying a lot of food.

Therefore, when the horse-drawn sleigh cart transported bags of grain to the gates of the castles of various earls and baronies, unloaded the grain and put it into the warehouses of each territory, immediately after that, tens of thousands of grains would be moved out of the warehouses. The animal furs, precious wood, and savage ore weapons (the nobles of the North have fought against the northern savages all year round, and captured a lot of ore weapons) were moved to the side of the sleigh for the caravan leader to choose.

"This fox fur is not bad. It should be an old fox fur with a lifespan of more than 20 years. Hey, why are there two holes in the head? It's a pity, one hole is fine, but two holes are worthless. I don't want this fox fur. It's gone." The leader threw this fox fur, which was extremely rare in the Southern Kingdom, enough to sell for hundreds of gold coins, and threw it aside like trash.

"This white bear skin is okay. It should be an old bear skin over 30 years old, and the color is also very good. Hey, why are there a few yellowed stray hairs here? It's a pity, it's pure white, it's okay, there are stray hairs It’s not worth much anymore, I don’t want it, and I don’t want this one either.” The white bear skin, which is worth less than ten thousand gold coins, but can be sold for at least a thousand gold coins after removing the miscellaneous fur, was also regarded as garbage and was thrown aside.

"This piece of wood should be a cold fir tree over a thousand years old. The color should be bright golden red, but due to improper storage, the color has turned dark. Don't!"

"Hey, this savage's ax looks good. It's golden in color...it should be copper! I want this ax!" The shrewd leader inadvertently put the dog's head gold into the sled box.

In the warehouses of the various territories in the Northland, there are too many furs, wood ores, but according to the trading rules of one cart of grain for one cart of things, the leaders of the grain transportation teams of various business alliances can only buy from these mountains of piles. Among the goods, pick out the goods with the best integrity, the longest age, the purest color and the highest rarity, and put them into the sled box.

This selection process is critical, selective, and extremely picky!The owners of the goods I saw wanted to get angry and hit people.

After picking out the goods, the sleigh carts full of furs, wood, and ores returned to Granling. Due to the extreme shortage of craftsmen, Granling did not have the ability to further process these goods. Therefore, except for all the ores And part of the wood remained, and the remaining pieces of precious animal fur and precious wood were sold to several wealthy kingdoms in the south through the hands of a large number of traveling merchants who joined the Free Trade Alliance, and sold to the dignitaries of these kingdoms .

Relying on the good operating mechanism of the Free Trade Union's internal regular coordination, concentrated and capable manpower, and unified planning and sales, nearly a thousand sleds were divided into dozens of transport teams throughout the winter at the transfer base with Granling as the core. Carrying out transportation, with hundreds of knights accompanying them for protection, the originally quiet and deserted business activities among dozens of territories suddenly exploded with unprecedented vigor even in this severe winter.

sold out.

Everything that could be sold was sold out.

Take Grandling as an example. In just two months, the 20 talents of grain in the castle's granary, together with the black and rotten old grain underneath, were all sold out. The large amount of dried meat, cheese, and sausages accumulated in the field, the tens of thousands of barrels of ale brewed by the brewery over the years, and the thousands of Taren’s dried apples left in the orchard are all in short supply and sold cleanly!

The surplus grain in the warehouse in Nathanling, the dried beef and mutton in Youcanling and the specialty nuts (a kind of nut in Youcanling with thin skin and thick flesh, similar to walnuts) were sold out after only three or four trips.

In the later stage, in order to continue to meet the strong demand in the north, Zhou Ming had to send people to greet everyone in the Earl of Rhodes. Even Baron Garcia in the west had lured him many times with a lot of money, and finally sent the remaining 9 people in the Earl of Rhodes. All the excess food in the territories (including the immediate territory of Earl Lausitz) were brought to the north, which was enough to meet their food needs.

For the last business order, Zhou Ming, who still hasn't forgotten the "ore weapons" in the hands of the northern savages, went out in person, with a grain cart containing [-] grains, dried meat and dried fruits, and [-] carts with nothing. The empty car I brought (in fact, it was not empty, I brought food and grass for people and horses), according to the optimal route planned by the [world map] in my mind, I crossed the thousands of miles of white ice field, and arrived at a few old people who were discussing eating. Well, it's still a tribe of savages who eat women and children, good guy, if these savages were not so hungry that they couldn't hold weapons, the hundreds of people Zhou Ming led would have been swallowed up by these savages.

When Zhou Ming returned from the savage tribe, the convoy of hundreds of sledges brought by Zhou Ming, except for a dozen damaged due to various accidents, the remaining more than 80 sledges were all filled with gold or black. , or all kinds of shiny silver metal ores, as well as some beautifully colored and huge gemstones (there is a diamond the size of a human head, which is crystal clear and has no impurities. Zhou Ming exchanged it with a catty of grain), and returned with a full load. land, back to Granland.

At this time, in the large granary of Granling Castle, after the old grain was swept away, it was replaced by countless animal furs, a large amount of precious wood, and all kinds of metals that had no place to store and could only be placed in the castle room. Raw ore.

How to deal with these three types of items became the biggest problem in front of Zhou Ming.

For others, this problem must be a big problem, but for Zhou Ming, who has already made up his mind, it is just a drizzle in his complete plan, which has been predicted long ago.

"The key point is to get rid of all those furs first. With so many precious furs, it is impossible to sell them to customers with thousands of gold coins one by one. Rare things are more expensive, and things that are not rare can only be sold by Quantity is the top priority. Wholesale those of lower quality, 50 to 100 gold coins each, to those traveling merchants who deal in fur. The highest quality is sold at a slightly higher price to the nobles of the wealthy kingdoms in the south, graded Make sure that the nobles in the south, whether it is the lowest knight or the most honorable king, each buy a few pieces! The weather is so cold, the demand will not drop..."

"As for some valuable wood, we should put it in our hands first. After the beginning of spring, we will recruit a group of carpenters, as well as carpenter apprentices with ordinary skills! In the next few months, a large furniture workshop in Granling must be established. It's..."

"There are also those ores that should be kept in your hands. These ores are natural and non-corrodible rare metal raw ores. After being smelted in the blast furnace, various metal ingots are made, whether it is to make alloy armor, Whether it is casting currency in circulation, it can play a huge role..."

After making the above plans, Zhou Ming personally brought a small caravan with thousands of top-quality furs to the Kingdom of Iron Castle in the next month.

……

Early spring in February.

After returning from Iron Castle Kingdom.

Zhou Ming invited the three members who joined the business alliance at the beginning, the three lords from the Yuecan Land, the Nathan Land, and the Parton Land, to the Castle of Gran Land, and asked the healthy servant to carry three unusually heavy treasure chests. In front of the three lords.

Walking all the way, opening the treasure chests under the feet of the three one by one, a dazzling but very delicate and soft light radiated out, Zhou Ming said to them:

"Baron Howard, the 25000 gold coins in this box are my reward for you and your knights. Thank you very much for your strong support for the work of the Chamber of Commerce in the past few months. Please accept these gold coins. They belong to you. Something deserved in return.”

Hearing this, Baron Howard squatted down impatiently, his eyes showed the unique brilliance of a money fan, stretched out his hands, grabbed the gold coins in the box one by one, grinned brightly, and murmured: " A lot of gold coins, all mine, all mine..."

"Dear father-in-law, the 30000 gold coins in this box are for you. You have provided 10 talents of food and more than 2 talents of dried meat and dried fruits to the Chamber of Commerce. The knights under your command, this It’s been a lot of hard work following me for a few months, don’t forget to share some of the gold coins with them when you go back, this is the reward they deserve.”

Hearing Zhou Ming's words, Baron Sean nodded, feeling very excited, 3 gold coins, he has never seen so many gold coins in his life, this time he earned them in only three or four months, he now has a It feels like a dream, is it real?
In the end, Zhou Ming walked up to Baron Romon, who couldn't stand still, his eyes drifted away, and his eyes occasionally peeked at the two treasure chests full of gold coins next to him. He opened the treasure chest that belonged to him to see how many gold coins it contained, it was his reward...

However, this Baron Romon, who has never been afraid of going forward on the battlefield, still dare not open this treasure chest, because in the Free Trade Alliance, he contributes the least, and he can't take out any food, dried meat, etc. To make more contributions to the merchant alliance, at most he can send some knights and farmers to help the merchant alliance.

Now that he sees Edward Cavaliers, he wants to give himself some extra rewards. He dare not think of 2 or 3 gold coins. He will be very happy if he can have a few thousand gold coins. After more than 100 years, the armor has been sewn and repaired countless times, and this time it should be possible to replace it with a new one.

brush!
What a dazzling golden light.

Baron Romon's eyes couldn't help but narrowed, and he heard a voice beside his ear saying: "Dear Baron Romon, in the past few months, if you hadn't been in the various territories of the Northland to provide convenience and help to the business alliance, the free trade alliance would have , it is impossible to sell so much food and goods, I am very grateful here! Here is 20000 gold coins, I hope it is not too little, believe me, as long as everyone works together, next year, you can earn more gold coins than this !"

"Hmm~"

Baron Romon nodded lightly. For some reason, his eyes turned red and his nose became slightly sour for this upright and straightforward man from the north.

He thought to himself, this free business alliance is really very interesting.

(End of this chapter)