Chapter 102: One Hundred and Two Money Comes, Money Comes
Hearing this, Fanon was a little confused. After listening to Olivia's detailed explanation, he finally understood what he had to do.
"Leave this matter to me."
Fanon knew very well how he got his food, clothing, shelter and transportation. He thought, if he didn't repay it now, when would he be able to repay it?
After taking a few people to visit the church, Olivia returned to the fortress.
…
A few days later, inside the barracks, Baron Renault was touring the port barracks with several of his attendants.
The port barracks were expanded very quickly. The new recruits knew that they were building dormitories for themselves, so they would not cut corners and worked hard.
The servants led by Baron Renault are exchanging experiences with the retired soldiers of the Knights Templar.
His retainers were all captured Lenian soldiers recruited from Dunfermline.
At first, these captured soldiers were kept in the workshop by the rebels. There were forty or fifty of them in total, and their daily job was to forge iron for the rebels.
Now we are following him and doing our best.
Since he acquired a ready-made town, his family fortune has accumulated rapidly.
There are several hundred residents in the city. The terrain is rugged and there is no need for so many soldiers, so the population is concentrated in the city.
As for the family wealth, it was managed by Narcissa and her husband. They were both very dedicated and accumulated a lot over the past year.
As long as there is land, there are many ways to make money. They choose to develop animal husbandry, forestry, explore minerals, and cultivate land in river valleys.
Although it is not as blessed as Eindhoven, it is enough to earn thousands of gold coins every year.
Most of the businesses in the territory, such as selling clay and trees, were done with Einweiton, which naturally brought a lot of benefits.
Most of the time, Narcissa and his wife were his staff and the ones who did these things for him.
After a thorough inspection of Einweiden's highly efficient internal affairs and military system in the past few days, Baron Renault also plans to follow suit.
However, it needs to be slightly modified to be more suitable for Dunfermline.
He thought that there was nothing worth building in his area, and it was not a region suitable for developing a large population.
Instead, animal husbandry can be separated into a separate department, with standardized management and more livestock reserves accumulated.
After he thinks about it and figures out how to change, he'll ask Olivia for advice.
Anyway, this piece of land will belong to her in the future. If she was not in poor health now, he would have handed over the government affairs to her long ago.
As for military affairs, he could also follow this model, separate the army from the clerical work, and use salaries instead of distributing land and manors.
He doesn't need too many knights, a dozen or so will be enough.
As for Einweiten, with only one or two thousand people, he was still recruiting soldiers continuously. He also wanted to station troops outside the city and recruited so many officers to manage them.
Sometimes he didn't even know whether his son-in-law had any rebellious intentions.
As a baron, what exactly is he going to do with thousands of soldiers?
If it is simply for coastal defense and garrison areas, this is already the limit, and any more would be impolite.
However, a baron who can command thousands of soldiers is bound to become the target of competition among all parties.
But if he favored any of the Earl's sons, it would be enough to keep the other one, as well as the old Earl himself, awake at night.
When Baron Renault thought of this, he couldn't help but remind Caesar a few more times.
Caesar was well aware of his father-in-law's reminder and agreed very obediently, determined to be cautious in his stance.
However, although he agreed verbally, he thought in his heart that he still had to listen to Olivia's ideas.
If she wanted to side with either side or be loyal to the Earl, then he could only follow her and could not disobey.
Baron Renault felt relieved when he saw that he agreed, but there was still something he had to wait for.
He sent two leather merchants to escort goods worth a thousand gold coins south by ship, and they would return around mid-June.
It is now June and the ship is on its way back.
Meanwhile, Jagabu was packing his bags at home.
Now is the reclamation period after the spring plowing is completed. Every manor has to reclaim dozens of acres of land in June.
The tenant farmers in the manor were already familiar with these basic tasks and did not need him to teach them step by step.
He checked the crops on the territory: wheat and potatoes, corn and soybeans; they were all growing well and there didn't seem to be any problems.
If the crops were harvested in September, he would have just made it back from the south.
Jagabu packed his luggage and planned to follow the arrangements and take a boat south in late June to inspect the work on the island and plan crops for the 20 hectares of land on the island. The round trip would take three months.
By the time he arrived, the twenty hectares of land on the island had probably been almost cultivated by the guards and local hired islanders.
When he arrives on the island, he will have to plant crops according to the soil conditions.
Twenty hectares of land is a total of two thousand acres, and you can plant anything you want.
Jacopo plans to plan some areas to grow tropical favorites such as olives or cocoa, as well as various tropical fruits such as grapes, oranges and lemons, figs and pomegranates.
If these things are grown on the islands, they will be loaded onto ships as soon as they are picked, sealed with ice at low temperatures, and can be delivered to the north in more than a month.
Once they reach the north, fresh southern fruits can be sold at sky-high prices.
Of course, he also plans to grow herbs and spices that can only be grown in the South.
Jagabu, who has always loved farming, was so excited that he couldn't express it in words when he thought about being able to farm on a piece of land that is suitable for farming all year round.
That's a full twenty hectares of tropical sandy soil! It's much better than the frozen soil in the north where crops can only be grown for half a year!
When his family found out about his idea, they ridiculed him.
It is said that wandering artists travel around to perform, but he, an official from the Grain Administration, has to travel around the entire continent to farm.
However, they all hope that Jagabu can succeed and enjoy fresh fruits in the future.
By mid-June when the ship returned to port, Eindhoven still didn't feel hot at all. There was a cool breeze in the evening, and you even needed to wear a coat.
The army's small boats had been out to sea two days ago and were lined up in a row in the northeast direction not far from the port, guarding against sporadic pirates and preventing their ships from being targeted.
This time when the ship returned to the port, the crowd of onlookers was even larger than last time.
Some of them were big merchants waiting to receive goods, and others were small merchants from the north who came to purchase the goods on the ship.
Small merchants prefer to purchase goods belonging to the Baron's Mansion.
First, several small ships entered the port and took a whole day to unload their cargo.
Only then did two large ships arrive at the port. It took three or four days and hundreds of people to unload the goods and transport them into the warehouse.
All the cargo in the ship's hold was transported to the barracks warehouse.
Each merchant declares the goods and quantity, pays taxes, and then receives a receipt to pick up the goods.
This can absolutely prevent the smuggling of undeclared goods into the country and avoid tax evasion.
Given that there are currently one or two thousand troops stationed in the port barracks, no one would question this process.
Even the goods of other barons must follow this rule, but members of the association can get many tax discounts.
This time, Letilen went south with 5,000 gold coins in cash and goods worth 10,000 gold coins.
After the goods were sold, he received four or five new orders in the south, and received a total of 3,000 gold coins in advance payments.
He used the 18,000 gold coins to purchase various supplies in the south.
Judging from the documents that Olivia got at the first time.
Just the inconspicuous vanilla pods among the spices were purchased for 200 pounds, worth 500 gold coins, a total of 18,000 pods.
At the wholesale price of seven koli each, it could be sold for at least 1,300 gold coins.
The vanilla pods, which were purchased at a price of seven koris, were sent by wholesalers to spice shops in towns across the north, and the retail price was around one silver coin.
When Olivia saw these accounts, she couldn't believe that a great noble like a king or an earl could earn an astronomical amount of money every year just by participating in trade.
Even so, it was not enough for them to squander, and in the end they had to scrape together tens of thousands of gold coins for military expenses.
This trip to the sea allowed her to accumulate her first pot of gold.
Goods from the south that were worth 18,000 gold coins could be sold in the north for 50,000 gold coins.
If she scraped together a little more, she would be able to afford a military operation large enough to annex an entire county.
However, Olivia, who was not going to fight for the time being, put the money into the treasury first.
Now is not the time for her to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
With the money in hand, Olivia began to approve the funding proposals that had been sitting in the office for a long time.
She was holding a stack of memorials made of white linen paper, and the first thing that caught her eye was military spending.
The first item is 400 military horses, which will cost 1,700 gold coins.
But the cost of military horses is not just about the horses, there are also the matching saddles, monthly feed expenses, and the expenses of the grooms who serve the horses.
It will cost at least two or three thousand. The details written by Caesar in the budget sheet at the back are very clear.
Olivia signed the note and stamped it with her seal.
With the signature and seal, the note instantly became worth 1,700 gold coins and could be sent back so the army could exchange it for the money in the treasury.
She processed the bills one by one, and in just a few minutes, she spent thousands and tens of thousands of gold coins.
In the past, this was something I would never have dared to think about.
She shook her head and took back the big talk she had just said about mocking the Earl for still having to raise tens of thousands of gold coins for military expenses.
After settling the bill, Olivia rang the bell on the table.
After a while, Vansh came in and asked her if she had any instructions.
"Send old Declan and Gosley over."
After saying that, she took a sip of water, and Vansh gently closed the door and went out.
After a while, the two men arrived at the office and stood there respectfully.
Olivia pulled out Gosley's note from a pile of bills and asked him to come forward first.
"The money for building the second dock, expanding the smelting workshop, and developing new ships is all here."
Gao Sili took the receipt but was not in a hurry to leave. It seemed that he had something to say and had to stay for a while.
As for the head of the Food Department, Declan, he hoped that he could also receive funding.
"Declan, how much is left in the granary?"
"Madam, there are still 90,000 pounds of grain in the granary. It was stored after last autumn's harvest, and not a single grain is missing."
"After the autumn harvest this year, each tenant farmer on the estate will be given a quarterly ration of 400 pounds of grain per year, at a price of one souri per pound."
Declan looked up in confusion.
…
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