Chapter 83 Common Prosperity
Breakfast is perhaps the most relaxing time of the day.
After breakfast, around nine in the morning, the first guest arrived with his entourage.
Olivia met the guests in the living room, served them drinks and snacks, talked for a while, and then asked the butler to take them to visit the dock or the fields on the estate.
Then, we wait for the next batch of guests to arrive.
In one morning, the five sheriffs who had been appointed came to the manor with the mine owners and merchants from their respective territories.
These sheriffs are from five towns: Harnege, Waldo, Silinya, Dopjones, and Ilerit.
In what are now the counties of Roslingey and Constantia, there were two earldoms and sixteen baronies.
The sheriffs invited to the manor today are all the poorer ones among the sixteen baronies.
In most places, the land is barren and rugged, there is little flat arable land, the population is sparse, and the grain production is low.
There are only two or three towns like Lavosen that are relatively prosperous in all aspects among the sixteen baronies.
However, most of these towns with bumpy terrain have rich timber and mineral resources.
Not only iron ore, but also cassiterite, chalcopyrite, quartzite, limestone, clay and various rocks.
Besides, the lords of these towns are relatively honest and live in peace in a remote corner.
That's why Olivia wrote to them, summoned the sheriffs of these places, and brought their merchants and mine owners to her estate to discuss cooperation.
For many territories with minerals, if there is no large market demand, even if there are minerals, they cannot be sold for much money, and they will just mine them intermittently.
At present, the demand for minerals other than gold and silver in the North mainly comes from the merchant class.
These merchants are scattered and cannot gather a large demand.
But Eindhoven is different.
In the eyes of these sheriffs, there are not only directly controlled lands, but also directly controlled workshops.
These workshops have the advantages of people and location, high efficiency, good technology, and wide sales, so the demand for minerals is huge, and the demand quantity is beyond the reach of any other businessman.
These sheriffs are all very clear about this matter. They are not jealous of Einweiton's good development.
No lord was willing to pay such a huge cost to support these industries and take the risk of concentrating on developing industrial production.
And they also knew that their lord simply did not have this ability.
For them, buying raw materials from these places is a way to get a share of the profits.
In the morning, we talked about some family matters and got to know each other's situations. After lunch, we invited these people to go fishing in the manor and talked about business for the whole afternoon.
Although there is an idea of achieving success by uniting these people to work together, the price still needs to be negotiated.
By the time of dinner, the business was almost done and everyone left with a full bag.
After dinner, a group of people went back with the merchants and mine owners, those who lived nearby.
Those who live far away will stay in the manor with their entourage for one night before leaving.
The next day, after seeing off the guests, Olivia checked the accounts in the study with two or three maids.
She placed a large order for mines. Five barons controlled seven mines, each of which had a three-month mining capacity.
They were 36,000 pounds of chalcopyrite, 66,000 pounds of clay, 40,000 pounds of gypsum, 60,000 pounds of limestone, and 40,000 logs.
Olivia held the account in her hand. The purchase volume of these minerals was not large for her.
Compared with the huge amount of steel, the cost is just a drop in the bucket, less than a thousand gold coins in total.
The most expensive chalcopyrite costs more than 200 gold coins, while the cheapest clay costs only more than 100 gold coins.
Although it is also an income for other barons.
The deposits for these mines have been paid and the accounts have been settled.
Olivia returned the account to the maid with a flair for business and asked her:
"Is there anything else on the list that Adam and Ethan sent back that they haven't purchased yet?"
"Ma'am, everything has been ordered."
The maid who spoke was counting the labor costs and loss costs of the quarry outside Einweitten in July.
Olivia taught me the format and method of bookkeeping step by step.
These three people were the wives of Caesar's cavalry guards.
Two of them had been working on the new manor house since it was built some time ago, and one was selected recently.
The three people are named Sarna, Renni and Sarah. The first two can read because they often study scriptures with the priest.
After entering the manor, Olivia once developed it on a large scale using props of commercial talent, and two of them were developed.
As for the third Sarah, she just came to the manor this year and was originally the daughter of a small vendor.
Each of them is now responsible for calculating the accounts of not just one project.
Sarna was responsible for summarizing and inventorying the various expense accounts sent from the manor's farmland and livestock farm. She originally helped Lucy with livestock farming.
Renni is responsible for summarizing the various accounts sent by the workshop, which is also the expense account.
For example, Sarah had accounts of expenses for urban construction.
Each week's subcategories are listed in a summary, and each number has the specific date, person in charge, and specific item details.
The most complicated income account was done by Olivia herself.
She uses a big ledger model, instead of having each project be independent and have dedicated funds for specific purposes.
Every income, regardless of its source, is rent, land tax, trade tax, port transit tax, head tax, fine, land transfer fee, or late payment fee.
Whether it is the profits from workshop trade, animal husbandry and forestry, or agriculture, all of these are included in one public account.
For example, for taxes, every week Caesar would send people to bring back the tax money and details collected from various places and deposit them in the warehouse for safekeeping.
These land taxes, port taxes, head taxes, trade taxes, and fines were all collected proactively by Caesar's new sheriff, Tani.
The money and accounts only passed through their hands once, and if they were not warm to the touch, they had to be returned intact.
After the income was classified and recorded into major categories, the funds were almost all gathered together as public funds and concentrated in her hands.
The total amount of public accounts has now reached five figures.
The real money is directly stored in the manor vault, guarded by Olivia and the soldiers, who supervise it closely.
After receiving the weekly bill, I would check and sign it to Olivia.
The payment is settled once a month, and only with the signature above can the money be paid to the person who comes to collect it.
Whether it was recruiting soldiers, paying their salaries, or buying mines, all the money came from this public treasury.
Mines have many uses, such as limestone, which is needed for urban construction and workshops. These expenses cannot be counted in a single project, so using a large account book model is better than earmarking funds for specific purposes.
But at the same time, Olivia also had a spending budget.
For example, wages, this part of the account does not change much within a month, and the expenses are also small. The budget is reserved for tenants, recruited soldiers, servants, and city construction teams. Two hundred gold coins are reserved each month, which is enough.
In addition to wages, the other relatively small expenses are farming and animal husbandry expenses.
Seeds, bone meal fertilizer, tools and equipment, transport livestock, and livestock seedlings are not expensive, and only a few dozen or a hundred gold coins per month can be set aside in the budget for these.
The church's expenses are currently used to support clergy and build churches. It is also based on a budget system and is not much, just a few dozen gold coins each month.
The largest and most unpredictable expenses are in urban construction and workshops.
The labor costs that each workshop needs to pay each month are similar.
However, several more direct-leading workshops and many new projects are built every month.
Olivia continued to look through the workshop's accounts.
The reason why Adam and Ethan sent the list to purchase the limestone and clay was because they had successfully developed a new research project, artificial stone mud powder.
Simply put, it is the raw material of cement, mud powder.
These two kids are not needed for running errands outside, as the technology in other workshops has been almost upgraded.
They stayed in the mixing room of the tile workshop all day, helping the workshop owner with research and experiments, hoping to make tiles that were more convenient and had lower firing costs.
So they used limestone, clay, sand, and gypsum, ground them into powder and fired them, adjusting the proportions over and over again.
Finally, mud powder is made. This mud powder is mixed with fine sand, and after being molded and hardened, it can be used to make tiles as delicate as traditional black and red mud tiles.
They also found that this mud, mixed with gravel and sand, could be used to cast stones of any shape.
Mix it to a suitable moisture level for shaping and it can be made into stone bricks and slabs.
This is also a project with great revenue-generating potential.
Traditional tiles, cheaper ones cost one suri, better ones cost two suris.
Olivia bought it right after she entered the game.
The cost of each clay tile is divided into two parts: raw materials and firing.
The raw materials of cement tiles are mostly fine sand, and a small part is mixed mud and hay fiber.
It is very convenient to make. You just need to make it in a mold and let it dry. It does not need to be fired at high temperature like traditional clay tiles, and no charcoal fire is needed, so a lot of labor costs can be saved.
Therefore, the price of cement tiles is cheaper than traditional tiles.
However, it is heavier than clay tiles and puts more pressure on the structural strength of the building.
In terms of service life, none of them can compare to clay tiles which are light and durable. Clay tiles do not need to be replaced for a hundred years, but cement tiles cannot last that long.
However, the low price alone is enough to attract merchants to use it.
For example, businessmen who are building workshops, shops, and developing real estate in the city have a considerable demand.
The workshop owner plans to increase the production of clay tiles and cement tiles to 15,000 pieces each within a month.
These raw materials are enough for the workshop to use for more than half a year.
Olivia continued to flip through the workshop's expense account.
On average, the expenditure and profit of these workshops can reach one to three or one to four. While maintaining normal operations, the profits are also considerable.
Apart from anything else, according to the current situation, it can meet expenses and there is still some money left.
However, urban development is a long-term project with continuous expenditure. It is very likely that money will still need to be invested in urban construction three years later.
The entire town covers 15 hectares, or 1,500 acres. It would take two years just to dig out the land from vegetation and rocks and level it.
Now, except for a few main roads, fortresses and areas near the port, the area is still a barren plain.
However, these barren areas also require drainage ditches, rainwater storage tanks, wells, watchtowers, ice storage, and leveling of land for future road construction or building bridges across waters.
Caesar's current job is to manage this progress.
The road is paved, and at the same time, a two-meter-wide open water channel is dug next to the road.
Loschi adopted an ingenious canal design, using water from high-lying rivers to flush out all kinds of domestic filth in the canals.
The filth was collected and stored in artificial pools outside the city walls, near the coast.
The structure of this artificial pool is somewhat like a huge septic tank with three levels of sedimentation. It covers a large area and is enough to accommodate thousands of people in a city.
The river water carried sewage to the first area, and the feces and mud sank into the first pool.
The remaining river water will go through two more sedimentation processes, and when the water in the outermost pool accumulates to a certain height, it will be discharged into the sea.
Normally, the water in the open channels in the city is flowing, pushed by the river, and is not likely to stink because it is open to the sky and easy to maintain.
Filthy matter like feces is flushed into sedimentation tanks, where it can be taken away and used as fertilizer after being decomposed.
The canals next to the main road are wide, while the canals on the branch roads are narrow, but they are all used to dump domestic waste, thus keeping the roads clean.
As for drinking water, it depends on the sixty wells and twenty rainwater storage tanks that are being planned in the city.
For the current population in the city, a dozen wells are enough.
But once the important infrastructure is completed, we will also slowly dig all the wells to supply the growing population.
After looking through the city construction ledger, Olivia opened the system and checked the current prosperity.
Now the prosperity has reached "20"
This means that the construction of standard roads and various public facilities has begun to take shape.
The number of workshops, large and small, has also increased to 72, with an average increase of six per month.
Most of these workshop owners who came from all directions employed their own workers.
These workers need food, drink and shelter, bringing a considerable influx of people to the town.
As a result, the market developed extremely prosperously, and the number of shops of various types reached 52.
Among them, there are twenty restaurants, taverns, hotels and public baths.
Correspondingly, the data in the "town" also changed.
The refresh rate of talents is 1/3000
The taxable amount increased by 30% from the original basis.
In the past two months, the combined amount of various taxes has indeed increased from a dozen gold coins to more than twenty gold coins, among which the most significant increase is the port transit tax.
The number of conscripts can increase by 10%, which means an increase of 120 people based on the current population base.
But in reality, not so many soldiers were recruited in the past two months. Now the total number of people in the military camp is about 250, mainly militiamen, and the regular soldiers are still the initial dozens.
The happiness index also increased from 80 to 85, reaching a "stable" level.
However, after August is over, Olivia will have to sort out the accounts for the three months of summer and then cheer up to prepare for the arrival of the autumn harvest.
…
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