Come to another world and become a lord

This may be the most peaceful period since he became a baron. After quelling the rebellion in Porter Village, Carl can finally start his own business. And the first task for him is to make money. Although the ransom of Iren allowed him to temporarily balance the military expenses, it was only temporary after all.

Although he now controls the huge Reikland, which includes 4 villages and a castle with a town attached, theoretically, he can basically maintain his daily life through taxation. However, considering the production mechanism and technological level of this world, the real time to collect taxes from farmers is during the harvest season, and it is only early spring now, so there is a huge window period. As for last year's taxes, they are naturally in the hands of the king, and he does not keep any of them. So now he still has to face a long period of poverty, and if he only relies on basic taxes, he can only maintain a normal state. However, Reikburg has just experienced the baptism of war and the town has been destroyed. If he wants to rebuild, he needs sufficient funds, and general taxes alone may not be enough.

Of course, all this is just considering future development issues. The most terrible thing right now is that Morton has made it clear that he wants to take advantage of the opportunity to deal with him. If he continues to use this window of opportunity to do bad things, he will find it difficult to cope with it, and the crisis has not been resolved.

Money, there must be money, there must be additional income to make up for it, whether it is to redevelop Rickburg or prevent others from invading.

With this idea in mind, he asked people to find a lot of bottles and jars, then went into the study and started his own experiment. This level is to stay at home for several days. If there were no servants to deliver meals regularly, people would even think that the lord had died in there.

Before traveling through time, Carl had read those so-called time-travel novels, which relied on technology to defeat the ancient times, such as inventing gunpowder, and then making modern firearms, and various weapons that could achieve dimensionality reduction attacks. He had thought about these things, but the production of these things not only required high craftsmanship, but also the production cost was not low at all.

This was not his primary need. His thinking was clear now. With Arya and her Rose of Fire Guard, they were basically enough to deal with Morton. What was more important than weapons was a strong economic foundation to maintain or even expand his army. According to this idea, he should start with the simplest but fastest-growing items.

Therefore, the purification of alcohol was put on the agenda. In Carl's opinion, this was the easiest to achieve and required the lowest cost, and the products produced: highly distilled liquor and disinfectants were very popular in any era.

The simplest method is to directly use the low-alcohol wine available in this world to purify it. Of course, at the same time, he also began to try to make his own wine yeast. In fact, the production process is not difficult. It is mainly based on local barley, and the collected wild grass and leaves are chopped and mixed into a ball, and then covered with straw and placed in a cool place for fermentation. After that, the finished wine yeast can be obtained, and then these wine yeasts can be used to start brewing their own wine. In theory, it is not difficult. The key is to be familiar with the operation, and gradually become familiar with the production process through trial and error, and finally a qualified product can be made.

As for the purification of alcohol, it is even simpler. You only need to heat the finished high-proof liquor in a distiller to evaporate it, then condense the steam into liquid through a condenser, and finally store it in another container. After about 2 to 3 distillations, you can get alcohol with a purity of about 95%. Mixing it with distilled water in a ratio of 3:1 will produce the traditional disinfectant alcohol.

In addition to the huge value of alcohol itself after it was successfully refined, Carl actually thought of something more profitable, which is: perfume.

The simplest method is to collect various herbs and flowers, and then mix them with alcohol to make perfume bases with different scents. Of course, in order to fully mix the scent with alcohol, this process usually takes months or even years. However, if you want to speed up this process, it is not impossible. The most brutal way is to boil it, and the base can be quickly prepared through high temperature.

Finally, by mixing and matching different scent bases, we can formulate a perfume with three notes: top, middle and back. The principle is that the perfume can have different smells in different time periods based on the release rate of different scent molecules. Generally speaking, the top note is the scent with the fastest release rate, which usually lasts for 1 to 3 minutes, and then it will turn into the middle note. The scent at this time evaporates at a moderate rate and is the main scent of a bottle of perfume. It usually lasts long enough for the user to attend a dinner or a dance. The base note after that uses fragrances that evaporate more slowly and have a fresh and elegant smell. This aftertaste can often last for more than a day or even longer.

In his memory, during the European Renaissance, with the emergence of alcohol perfume, it was almost immediately snapped up by the nobility and became an indispensable item for the upper class. Both men and women needed to use perfume to suppress their body odor. Today, the world is similar to the Middle Ages in Europe, just as dirty and backward, so eliminating body odor is basically the most urgent problem for most of the rich in the world.

Of course, this world is not without perfumes, but most of them are made directly from natural animals and plants. The most common ones are musk and honey. This kind of natural perfume cannot be compared with modern perfumes refined from alcohol in terms of smell or concentration, and the fragrance is single, not to mention the so-called top, middle and base notes.

Just like that, Carl was thinking about all this, and immediately began to plan in his study. He spent several days of trial and error, and except for eating and sleeping, he focused almost all his energy on the production.

When Alia pushed open the door and walked into the study, she was overwhelmed by a strong smell of alcohol. Apart from the smell of alcohol, there were also various strange smells, including flower petals soaked in wooden barrels, unknown moldy objects that unfortunately failed in the process of making koji, and... the strange smell emitted by Carl who had not washed for several days and nights.

The girl covered her nose, trying not to vomit:

"What does this smell like?"

"Alia?" Hearing her complaint, Carl turned around, "What's the matter?"

"I'm here just to tell you that the clothes Aaron customized for you have arrived. There are 10 sets in total, 8 sets of casual clothes of different styles, 4 sets for spring and summer, and 4 sets for autumn and winter. And 2 sets of dresses for attending banquets." Alia said.

"Well, this is good news!" Carl smiled.

"So, you can change this now~" Alia pointed at Carl's tattered clothes with some contempt. Rather than clothes, they looked more like rags draped over his body.

"Oh, of course." Carl replied readily.

"I really don't understand you. Why have you been wearing this tattered outfit for so long and don't even know how to change into something else?" Alia complained.

"That's called a special liking." Carl smiled. Indeed, ever since he became the lord, he has been wearing only the serf's clothes at the beginning. It's not that there is no decent clothes in the castle. Although there are no luxurious clothes of the nobles, there are still ordinary civilian clothes. The only problem is that most of them are worn by servants. There are no new clothes, and many of them are worn by others and no longer needed.

And this is the crux of the matter. As a modern man, Karl is not used to wearing clothes that have been worn by others. Although the serf clothes on his body are torn and old, they are his own after all. But now, with the arrival of the custom-made clothes, this problem no longer exists.

"Okay, finally I don't have to see you looking so sloppy anymore." Alia sighed with relief, then thought of something and continued, "Oh, and Baron Henry came to visit unexpectedly and is waiting in the reception room now."

"Henry is here?" Carl shouted, looking a little excited. "We have to entertain him well."

After all, if it weren't for Henry's release, the crisis in Porter Village would not have been resolved. So he is his benefactor, Carl said to himself.

Just as he was about to rush out, Alia grabbed him and shook her finger and said:

"Don't be in a hurry. Take a shower first, then change into new clothes. You are a baron after all. Don't meet others in this manner again."

Carl looked at his whole body, sniffed his cuffs, then spread his hands and nodded.