Chapter 55 Fifty-Five Development Workshop
The temperature in spring is suitable, and people no longer need to wear heavy robes all day long. The maids and servants in the Baron's mansion have begun to follow the trend of Anko and started wearing dresses with flowing sleeves. The more respectable the dress, the longer the skirt is.
There were many knights' wives who came to the Baron's mansion. They were led into the garden by the maids, who said that the lady was taking a walk there and invited them to join them.
So, a group of ladies followed the Baroness to stroll and chat in the garden. Although there were not many flowers in this spring garden, the hot spring water was clear and the sculptures around could be seen clearly.
However, no matter how others mentioned that the monastery was about to be completed, they reminded people of the reward that had been promised to them.
The Baroness always looked as if she didn't understand the hint, and neither did her two maids.
The group of knights' ladies followed them for a long time, and after lunch, the Baroness still did not mention the reward.
By the afternoon, everyone realized that there was no hope, so they gave up and prepared to go home.
Baskin and Olivia were going the same way, so they rode home together. Along the way, she kept complaining that the Baroness was putting money into her own pocket without giving them any benefits.
"I even lost a lot of money!" Mrs. Baskin muttered.
Olivia smiled beside her. She had known that it was a big deal and had not embezzled any of the money from the project. However, Mrs. Baskin thought she would get more money later, so she pocketed a lot of the first installment.
Now it was time to pay the workers the final payment, and Mrs. Baskin had no choice but to take out the money she had deposited and pay them a little more or less to satisfy herself.
Olivia returned to the manor and immediately called her aunt over. She paid the remaining money and also gave her a separate reward.
This puzzled her aunt. Narcissa counted the money over and over in her mind and realized that when the monastery asked her to find a craftsman, they only gave her 180 gold coins in total.
Now, Narcissa calculated and came up with two hundred gold coins.
It turns out that Olivia didn't plan to put a penny in her pocket.
Narcissa thought about it and thought that Olivia must have borrowed the money to run the caravan, waited for the caravan to return, got the money back, and then paid it back, making a profit of more than thirty gold coins in total.
But, would these thirty or so gold coins be enough to repair the house? Narcissa thought about it, but inexplicably didn't dare to speculate further. She knew that these things were not her responsibility to figure out.
The more things become clear, the more risks you have to take. It is better to keep everything as it is.
The next day, Olivia went to the monastery with all the ladies to inspect the project.
The monastery is scheduled to open on May 1st, but many parts have not yet been completed.
However, the three most important halls have been repaired, while most of the other places are still under tiling.
The monastery was not as magnificent as the cathedrals that Olivia had seen in her previous life, but it was considered the most respectable building in this remote place.
The road outside the monastery leading into the city has also been repaired and trees are being planted.
Olivia heard from Mrs. Baskin that Sister Mo Farah was 25 years old, which was not considered young in a world where the average life expectancy was only in the 50s.
Although she had a bad temper, she did not interfere in other matters in the monastery except the cellar.
Olivia walked around the monastery with the group and came to participate in the ceremony the next day.
The ceremony in the monastery was similar to that in the church, and the Bishop of Lavossen was in charge, with Sister Mofara and a group of nuns and servants on the side.
In such occasions, Olivia blended in with the crowd and no one paid attention to her. She just sat there and silently flipped through the system.
To outsiders, it looks like he is distracted.
She first flipped through the nuns' role cards to make sure that none of these nuns had any problems, and then she felt relieved.
Sister Mofarra was just a pious but timid nun.
If any of these people were too deeply involved in the conspiracy, Olivia would not dare to let Lainie come here to study.
There was also prayer going on in the manor at this moment. Antona, who was in the fishing business, had her favorability increased by 0.1, rounding off the number to the maximum level.
Suddenly, the copy mission was completed and refreshed.
+20 Experience Points
The new copy mission piqued Olivia's interest.
Prosperity and Development:
There are three self-cultivating agricultural workshops in the territory.
Mission description: Encourage self-employed farmers to develop the economy and establish various handcraft workshops.
Farmers who produce, raise, catch, or process 500 pieces/pounds of goods per month are classified as workshops.
Mission Rewards:
Soybean production +20%
Experience +30
This system is quite humane. She had just thought about letting the self-employed farmers start businesses and develop handicrafts, and now the system has begun to help advance the process.
She had already thought about this matter in her mind. People in the village seldom go out. No matter how far they go, they just go to the town. Who would they sell 500 items to?
Of course it was her, the lord.
These days, they went to the small church to pray together. She interacted with these self-employed farmers and built up their goodwill. Naturally, she knew that many of them had some small skills at home.
I won’t mention carpenters, blacksmiths, and stonemasons, but their crafts are slow work and they can’t be turned into a workshop that processes 500 pieces or 500 pounds of goods a month like an assembly line.
However, there are also self-employed farmers doing other jobs, such as Antona who fishes and sells fresh produce.
In the month since the mission was launched, she had caught a total of 500 fish and sold them to the manor, becoming a workshop owner.
For example, there are self-employed farmers in the village who are good at weaving, burning charcoal, making earthenware bowls and plates, raising bees, making cloth shoes, and brewing wine.
They are now doing small business, supplying their own families and villagers, and bartering with small merchants. It is a great achievement if they can make ten or twenty pieces a month.
We have never shipped more than 500 pieces of goods in a month.
Olivia thought about it and decided that she could take some raw materials and ask these self-employed farmers to help her make them, and give them some start-up loans so that they could buy tools and hire helpers.
There happened to be two children with the talent of "construction" in the manor. Let them take charge of receiving goods, and maybe they could even improve the craftsmanship of these workshops.
After the boring ceremony at the monastery was over, Olivia went home immediately.
After returning home, she asked someone to pack the chocolates and other snacks she had made in the past two days into a box and take it to Renault Manor to give to Leni. In a few days, after the tiles on the monastery were finished, she would go there.
Fanon said that when he was a child and just became a monk, the first thing he did was to memorize the scriptures and then recite them, sitting there for the whole day.
Even if I have two days of free time, I just want to sleep in the dormitory and usually don’t go out on the streets.
Sansa was still young, and when she asked, she was spared from danger because she was still not accepted into such a large monastery.
Unexpectedly, just as the things for Leni were delivered, Fanny, the maid who combed the Baroness's hair, came to the outside of the manor in an inconspicuous car.
Olivia invited the person in, and saw Fanny wearing a light red fairy dress, her hair combed sleekly with oil, and a smile on her face.
Fanny came this time to give a reward.
It turned out that the Baroness had originally wanted to give everyone a reward. The project was fast and tight, and everyone was exhausted.
However, the Baron did not agree and said he wanted to buy horses. The news was confirmed that the Earl had decided to launch a northern expedition this winter.
The Earl gave money to the barons to purchase military supplies, but the barons always had to curry favor with the Earl after receiving the money, so they had to fill the gap with their own money, so the Baron's Mansion was stretched to the limit.
Olivia then asked in detail how many horses the Baron planned to buy.
The princely knights outside the city had to provide their own equipment, and when they arrived on the battlefield, they only charged forward to clear the way.
Although the knight guards in the city have no fiefdoms, they are all the baron's own family members and are also the main force with good equipment. They are responsible for escorting the earl's main force. Putting aside their combat capabilities, the weapons, equipment and mounts of these people are all provided by the baron, so they look respectable.
Funa counted on her fingers and said that they needed hundreds of sets of various military supplies, hundreds of horses, and after bribing people with the money they were given, they only had a thousand gold coins at most, which was not enough. They could only move the money that was originally intended for the monastery.
Olivia finally understood. Funa continued, "But the lady was still thinking of you. It wasn't easy to give it to you alone the past two days because there were so many people around, so she sent me to deliver it today."
As she spoke, Funa stuffed a bag of coins into Olivia's hands.
“Madam knows who does a good job and who does a bad job.
Actually, it doesn't matter how well the work is done; what matters is who is sincere to the lady."
"Yes, of course." Olivia took the money without changing her expression, weighed it, turned around and asked Vansh to tell the kitchen to cook.
She took Vu Na to eat a good meal of meat and vegetables, and left in the afternoon.
Afterwards, Olivia opened the purse and looked inside.
This Baroness is really stingy. She even got a bag of silver coins to win her over, which shows that she is really short of money.
She didn't want to go upstairs to put the small treasury, so she simply called Adam and Ethan over and asked them to call the three people in the village who were best at weaving, making earthenware, and Antona.
Adam and Ethan responded and rushed to do it, even though they didn't understand what the lady was trying to do.
The manor was planning to expand, and now was a turbulent time. The steward and the miller were marking materials suitable for making beams and walls all over the fiefdom, and even the two of them had to run errands to the town again and again.
The two of them called Antona, Old Duke, and Little Bruce to the village.
Old Duke knew how to make pottery bowls. He had a yellow clay kiln at home. During the slack season, he would go to the forest to pick up some firewood and dig some silt from the river, and then come back to make some pottery jars and bowls.
Little Bruce was a young free farmer in the village who had established his own business. His family wove the finest linen, and everyone in the village knew it.
Olivia called the three of them over and asked them what they had been doing recently and whether the spring plowing was finished.
The three of them were not nervous at all, and they all said that they had finished their housework.
In fact, the land of these self-cultivating farmers was all on the edge of the manor. It was barren and not very large. The largest was only three or four acres. They could only grow enough wheat for a year and some flax, which would not last even two weeks.
When Antona saw the other two people being called, she knew that the lady must have something important to discuss with them.
She said everything was fine at home, and the other two people followed her lead.
"Each of you has some skills. How can you let them go to waste?"
Antona immediately replied: "Madam, do you mean to assign us some work?"
Olivia nodded and asked how many fish she could catch every day now.
"On a good day, we can catch more than ten. Now that the weather is warmer, it's a good fishing season until October. It's just that my net is small."
Olivia continued, "So, you can catch four or five hundred fish a month now?"
Antona shook her head: "That's not certain, but there are still two or three hundred."
Olivia thought about it and asked her if there was any way to improve efficiency.
Antona said, "Of course." She smiled shyly and said:
"I've been planning on saving up seven or eight silver coins, going to town and buying a small fishing boat. I'll row it out to the river and cast my net in the deep waters. Then I should be able to catch some big fish weighing over ten pounds."
Olivia nodded. Antona's words were exactly what she wanted.
"Well, I'll buy you this boat, and you can go fishing in the river on it.
No matter how much, please help me process it into finished products, pickle or smoke it, make it into dried fish or smoked fish, and the manor will take it all.
However, this fishing season, we must catch 500 fish every month no matter what."
Antona was overjoyed when she heard this. Olivia opened the purse she had just received and took out a few silver coins for her to do her business.
After Antona left, old Duke and little Bruce looked at her.
"Madam, then we..."
"Same to you. How much pottery and cloth can you make every month?"
Old Duke quickly answered truthfully, saying that he only made ten earthenware jars and twenty pottery bowls every month because the kiln was small and he didn't have enough manpower, so he couldn't fire more than a few at a time.
Olivia gave him money and asked him to rebuild a large kiln that could burn dozens or even hundreds of pottery pieces at a time.
If there is no one, she will hire someone. As for firewood, she asked old Duke to cut a few trees in the forest every month. In the end, she had to be able to make 500 pieces of pottery every month.
"However, since you used my money to build the kiln, these pottery are not allowed to flow out. All of them must be sold to the manor."
Old Duke didn't dare and nodded repeatedly.
After Olivia finished speaking, she realized, isn't this an official kiln?
She looked at little Bruce, who was good at weaving, and still gave him money so that his family could make bigger and more looms.
She planned to collect wool, ramie and flax from all over the place and bring them back to have the little Brussels family weave and process them.
When little Bruce heard this, he knew that the family would probably have no time to farm in the future, and they would all start spinning yarn and looms to finish their work.
All in all, she managed to make some progress in the workshop.
If we can draw high-star construction talents in the future, we will let them help these workshops reform their technology and improve quality.
As for the collected goods, they can be sold in the town. The consumables of these goods mostly come from the territory. Even if they are sold for a few Suri, there will be no loss. As long as there is no loss, the business can continue to operate.
Olivia couldn't imagine that all she wanted now was to avoid losses.
Unexpectedly, not long after, I accidentally made a steady income from these workshops.
Adam and Ethan watched the farmers leave outside the gate before entering the house and looking at each other suspiciously.
I don’t know why the lady suddenly became interested in these self-employed farmers.
How much money can they make by dealing in these worthless things?
However, the two of them did not dare to question it, but just silently went to Olivia to answer.
Architect Loschi has just sent an assistant over, saying that the architect will be able to bring the organized construction drawings tomorrow.
Mrs. Baskin, Letilan, and Narcissa each selected twenty workers, who were to be sent in three days to begin work.
Most of these workers are divided into teams of five or six people. Each team comes from the same place and has a foreman.
At that time, the housekeeper would pay the salaries directly to these foremen without going through Mrs. Baskin and others who acted as introducers. It would have nothing to do with them at all.
After hearing the reply, Olivia made careful arrangements.
For example, we are going to ask Letilen to get some tents for these workers to live in.
The workers live in the open space outside the church. Those who don’t have enough space can stay in the church. It’s not cold anymore anyway.
As for the food that the workers need to eat every day, the kitchen must prepare it in advance and clean up the stones, sand, etc.
Although worrying about these things is fun, like immersive playing house, it is also tiring enough.
Wait until the two little ones leave.
Olivia sighed and pounded her shoulders.
Suddenly, Graya came out, holding a cup of hot cocoa with milk, and said with concern:
"Madam, tonight's dinner is what you mentioned: breaded fried chicken, fried fish, and caramel pudding. The main course is pancakes, and the soup is vegetable soup with porcini mushrooms."
Hearing this, Olivia cheered up again, picked up the hot cocoa and took two sips. It tasted like pure cocoa without any technological adulteration.
The bitterness was neutralized by milk and sugar, and with the mellow aroma of cinnamon, all the fatigue was suddenly swept away.
…
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