Chapter 68: Expanding Territory
In less than half a day, all the managers brought their accounts.
There were notes and files written on wax tablets, and accounts written on parchment slips. Olivia moved these things into the study by herself, closed the door, and sat there for a long time.
After nearly a year of changes, the entire manor has reached a very high level of development, which can be seen from various indicators.
First, the estimated income of the estate for this year.
The produce of the land is nearly 20,000 pounds of corn which can be sold this year.
Add to that a variety of cash crops, such as plant dyes, herbs, and fruits, and the total value is eighty gold coins.
After sorting out the local products, what remains is the income from animal husbandry.
There are ten sheep available for sale, and one hundred roosters were bred in a year and are currently available for sale.
The total value of these two items is about twenty gold coins, depending on the market conditions this winter.
In the past six months, three hundred chicks hatched from eggs have been sold, with a total income of three gold coins. Lucy kept the account and gave the gold coins to the butler.
Other miscellaneous livestock are small in number and are not included.
As for butter, from the beginning of the lactation period after the cows gave birth this year to the end of September, a total of five gold coins worth of butter have been sold.
The butter was processed in the kitchen, so the bill was kept by Graya and the money was given to the housekeeper.
The total value of livestock is less than thirty gold coins.
The total cost of animal husbandry and agriculture is currently more than 100 gold coins, but after deducting labor costs and other expenses, there may only be 20 to 30 gold coins left.
Compared with previous years, this is already very good.
However, Olivia also developed a workshop in the past six months of this year.
This can be seen from the financial report provided by the construction trio.
The first three workshops.
Fishing, weaving, pottery.
The total profit each month is eight gold coins, among which textiles have the highest profit. The unit price of textiles is higher than that of pottery, and woolen processed products have the highest profit.
Fishing is the least, and you can earn a little more than one gold coin every month.
After paying the dividends to the construction trio, Olivia earned a total profit of thirty gold coins in the past few months.
The carpenter workshop, leatherwork workshop, brick kiln, charcoal kiln, blacksmith workshop, and dry goods workshop added later had different profits.
The largest blacksmith workshop has produced weapons and ironware that have been equipped to soldiers. It has not yet started to make a profit, but it is more cost-effective to make weapons by yourself.
The leatherworker's workshop and the carpenter's workshop are similar. Since they have to produce military supplies, the remaining goods can be sold with enough money to buy enough raw materials and pay the processing fees, so they can break even.
The workshops that can generate two gold coins of income each month include the dry goods workshop, brick kiln, and charcoal kiln, which is a total of six gold coins. A total of twenty gold coins have been earned in the past few months.
The above is all the income of the manor in the past six months, which is about 180 gold coins.
This number is not surprising, and it is considered very good for a manor owner.
Olivia began to calculate the expenses again.
She checked the housekeeper's expenditure flow one by one.
The first and biggest expense was paying the tenant farmers' wages.
Excluding a group of minors who could only work part-time in workshops, the exact number of tenant farmers was sixty, regardless of gender, who were receiving a salary, and the salary was only enough to buy food and have enough to eat.
These sixty people cultivated 120 acres of land, and reclaimed another 20 acres in the previous month. On average, every two people worked together to manage more than two acres of land, and they were divided into six large groups.
From the beginning of spring plowing to the present, tenant farmers have been paid a basic salary of thirty gold coins.
After this autumn harvest, the tenant farmers will be given performance rewards, with the highest being three silver coins and the lowest being a few gold coins, for a total of twenty gold coins.
During the fallow period from the end of October to March, a basic salary of about ten silver coins will be paid.
The total salary is sixty gold coins.
There is also animal husbandry, which is cheaper than you might imagine. Military horses are not included, and the feed for cattle, sheep, chickens, and pigs is mostly alfalfa and bran produced by the manor, so there is basically no expense.
Another big expense is the salary of the servants in the manor, which costs about two gold coins every month.
The purchase of kitchen ingredients and miscellaneous supplies costs two gold coins every month.
The kitchen purchases are mostly oil, salt, sugar and other items, and most of them are self-sufficient.
There are three types of miscellaneous supplies: needles and thread, lamp oil, and tool maintenance.
I spent about a hundred gold coins on renovating the house this year. This was not included in the housekeeper's public account.
There is also interpersonal communication.
There were always three or four times every month when there were celebrations at the homes of the ladies or merchants who had visited my house.
Olivia didn't really appreciate the gifts they gave her.
Shuffle the order and send the ones sent by the east family to the west family, so that the income and expenditure are roughly even.
However, Olivia still had the habit of sending small gifts to the Baron's Mansion and the people around the Baroness every month, such as snacks, and the monthly expenditure was also a gold coin.
Therefore, the fixed expenses for the internal operation of the manor are less than six gold coins per month, and twenty-five gold coins have been spent in the past six months.
Her usual shopping expenses are not from public funds and are not counted.
As for maintaining soldiers and purchasing horses, these are separate expenses and are not covered by public funds.
Equipping soldiers with weapons requires a large one-time investment, but the subsequent investment is small.
This year we spent ten or twenty gold coins on equipping the soldiers.
Equipment repairs cost about one gold coin per month, and this is paid from the public account.
There are also miscellaneous farm expenses, such as borrowing livestock for breeding, hiring good craftsmen to come and repair the horses' hooves and replace the shoe nails. These things cost one gold coin every six months and are also public expenses.
The total amount of public account expenses for the past six months is about one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty gold coins.
Not to mention the construction of roads in the manor, the purchase of livestock, and the care of the priest's incense.
There are only about fifty gold coins left in the public account this year.
It was just noon when she finished calculating the accounts. She took a blank piece of parchment and listed the public account expenses and income. She called the housekeeper and checked them slightly.
"It's pretty good to have these left this year."
The butler felt a little relieved. In the hands of the late old knight, it was difficult to have five gold coins left in a year, let alone fifty.
Sure enough, the difference between this leader's behavior and just lying down is huge.
Olivia doesn't have any requirements for the public accounts, as long as they can operate normally.
The housekeeper then asked her if she needed to buy more cows and sheep this year.
She shook her head again, her tone somewhat indifferent:
"We're going to have a war this winter, and we don't know what the situation will be like yet, so it's better to keep some cash."
After that, she asked the housekeeper to sell all the roosters and sheep that should be slaughtered in early October, and to sell the grain when the grain market opened in early October.
"This rainstorm came so suddenly that wheat might still remain at the same price as last year, three souris a pound."
This was the housekeeper's intuitive estimate.
It would have been a good year, and grain prices would have fallen, but after a rain, grain merchants would not buy the waterlogged grain.
If grain merchants collect less, the price of grain will be higher.
Olivia took the initiative to check the accounts, which actually reduced a lot of work for the housekeeper.
However, the housekeeper later secretly checked it carefully and found that there was no mistake at all.
After a tiring morning, Olivia left the study and planned to go to the kitchen to open the blind box and see what dishes were for today.
The cook has been obsessed with soybeans recently. After making tofu pudding, she started making soybean paste, pressing bean skin, picking bean curd sheets, and smoked tofu blocks.
Some of these practices were suggested by her intentionally or unintentionally, while some were discovered by the cooks themselves.
A while ago, my aunt's family sent me half a lamb, and I braised the lamb in a pot. The meat is almost finished, but the marinade is still preserved. Today I used it to braise bean curd skin and yuba.
In the evening, when Caesar returned from the barracks, he saw the kitchen bringing out some more tofu dishes.
He could feel that Olivia really loved eating these beans.
At dinner time that day, Olivia instructed Caesar to build a small prison in the barracks.
Although this happened rather suddenly and without any reason, Olivia just said it was to be on the safe side.
When she gave such an order, Caesar could feel the control that had to be carried out, so he was sensible and did not ask any more questions.
He plans to make arrangements early tomorrow morning.
A few days later, October arrived.
The primary market for grain auctions is open only from the end of October to the beginning of the next year.
Grain transactions in these few months can affect grain prices in the following year.
The price bottom line will not be updated until the next autumn harvest.
Olivia was specifically waiting for the grain auction in the Baron's territory.
The baron's territory produced 200,000 pounds of grain this year. I heard that due to heavy rain, water seeped into the lower level of the baron's granary.
In the end, only 170,000 pounds of grain were successfully traded.
The grain was divided among five grain merchants, with the price of wheat being three souris per pound.
Rye and oats are two souris per pound, and all kinds of beans are the same price as in previous years.
After the market price came out, small landowners began to ship goods on a large scale.
The housekeeper found the grain auction house that he had always cooperated with, and took all the grain to be sold in the manor to the auction house's warehouse to count and sort it.
The owner of the auction house will spread the news and organize the auction.
Each grain merchant will pay a deposit to enter the market to view the goods, and once they have viewed the goods, the auction can proceed.
The auction lasted the shortest, only half an hour, during which the price of 13,000 pounds of wheat went from 32 gold coins to 45 gold coins.
The average price of wheat per pound was three and three-quarters souri.
Other kinds of food, such as 5,000 pounds of oats, sold for twelve gold coins and five silver coins.
All sorts of beans amounted to five thousand pounds, and were sold for nine gold pieces and five silver pieces.
Rye yields 40 percent more than wheat, but rye is prone to toxic pathogens, so Olivia didn't let anyone plant it this year.
The remaining cash crops, such as apples and pears, were not auctioned. A total of one thousand pounds were given to wine merchants to make wine and sold for three gold coins.
Fifteen hundred pounds of turnips sold for four gold coins.
This year the estate produced two thousand pounds of hemp, which was given to his own workshop for processing and not sold.
As for the vegetable dye woad, a total of 800 pounds were collected and sold for four gold coins.
Five hundred pounds of garlic were sold for three gold coins, five hundred pounds of onions were sold for two gold coins, and the remaining vegetables were sold for five hundred pounds for two gold coins.
After selling these things, Olivia had completed 85% of her task.
After the grain was processed, my uncle came to collect the sheep, and the poultry merchant also came.
Ten sheep and one hundred chickens sold for a total of twenty-one gold coins.
This price is considered relatively good, and they offered this price only after they came to see the quality of the livestock.
Olivia treated them both to dinner and they talked about the recent autumn harvest in Lavosen and exchanged some news. After seeing them off in the evening, she refreshed the dungeon mission.
Congratulations on completing "Gold Master. Beginner"
+35 XP
Congratulations on unlocking the "Event"
She opened the system interface and found a new event button next to the map.
She clicked to view, and a place similar to an information screening hall instantly appeared in front of her eyes.
All NPC events in the lit map area are scrolling in the lobby.
Even the king in the royal capital was planning to spread rumors about a certain earl.
Down in the town of Kalon, a small cloth merchant planned to burn down his fellow merchant's warehouse.
In the filter bar, she can filter events by region, class, occupation, and by entering the NPC name.
Olivia chose La Watson.
Then I chose "Lord" from "Lord", "Free Farmer" and "Tenant Farmer".
All the events concerning Lord Lavosen were displayed.
I flipped through the book for four or five pages.
For example, Mrs. Stuart planned to spread rumors about Mrs. Real in the city.
Mrs. Real plans to manipulate the outcome of a judicial case and is planning to bribe the sheriff.
The Baroness planned to secretly execute a maid.
After reading it, Olivia was stunned for a while when she found that there was no incident related to herself.
She really didn't expect that the little Lavoson was such a villain. Although everything seemed calm on the surface, they were actually fighting to the death.
The prison is still under construction and will be completed in about a week.
Since unlocking "Divine Blessing" and "Condemnation", two churches have generated two "Divine Blessings"
She planned to save the money and use it when she encountered a conspiracy that she needed to deal with in the future.
Afterwards, Olivia refreshed the dungeon mission.
Manufacturing. Primary
Task Description:
There are one hundred workshops in the territory
Task progress:
10/100
Mission Rewards:
+666 Experience Points
+＊5 blank character cards
+＊5 "Das Kapital"＊5 "The Exploitation of the Works of Nature"＊5 "Game Theory"＊5 "Treatise on Febrile Diseases"＊5 "Xu Xiake's Travel Notes"
Olivia wondered slowly.
She was sure that she had not refreshed the wrong task and that there was no bug in the system.
Isn't the difficulty of this task too great?
The previous task only cost a hundred gold coins, but now there are a hundred workshops.
What does it mean to have a hundred workshops? I guess only a barony can own so many workshops, right?
etc……
She smelled something unusual.
Could it be that the system saw that she had almost finished the map of the manor, so it wanted her to expand the territory?
She temporarily turned off this task that had no hope of progressing and turned to check the experience value progress bar.
Once the prison is built, experience points can be used to unlock mysterious game props. Olivia can only wait patiently and prepare for winter life in advance.
In early October, after two days of cloudy weather, it began to drizzle and the temperature dropped to a few degrees.
The servants in the entire manor all took out their old felt coats and put them on.
The charcoal workshop has seen a significant increase in orders this week, and the entire territory is filled with an atmosphere of forest development.
Olivia also changed into a velvet long dress and wore a cape when going out.
She rode out on horseback, strolled around the estate, and headed straight for the barracks on the river bank.
The prison in the barracks is almost finished, and Olivia wants to rush the progress of the cleanup. Fortunately, the main task will be refreshed within today.
However, as soon as she arrived outside the barracks, she met the servants sent by the Baron's Mansion.
Olivia dismounted and asked the servant what he was doing.
They exchanged pleasantries as they passed the barracks' sentry post.
The attendant said:
"Well, the Earl's second grandson and the heir of Count Constant are planning to hold their wedding ceremony in the middle of this month.
The Earl has already sent people from the city of Anko to the neighboring county of Constant, which was occupied by the rebels, intending to declare war.
The Earl plans to organize his troops and station a camp at the border by the end of this month."
The County of Constantia, which occupies a quarter of Lennia's area, was originally a small principality, but later became part of Lennia due to marriage.
But now the royal family of Lennia has gone into exile, and many earls and dukes of Lennia have declared independence and are fighting against the rebels who have occupied half of the territory.
"Where does the Earl intend to place the camp?"
"It's either La Vossen or Caron."
The attendant said as he followed Olivia to a simple hall in the barracks.
The sentries and soldiers in the barracks immediately went to the shooting range and called Caesar, who was instructing the soldiers in shooting.
Caesar was not interested in the servant's affairs, but was just wondering why Olivia came to him.
"I just came to see if the prison is repaired."
Olivia pointed to the Baron's attendant and said, "The Baron may have something important to discuss with you."
The attendant repeated what he had just said and added, "This is the news that the Baron has just received.
The Earl intends to personally command the troops at the border, with a force of over 10,000 men, and will likely station his main camp at La Voisin or Caronne."
These more than 10,000 people include all the guards, the entire knightly order, and the knights' squires.
There are also thousands of archers, thousands of spearmen, thousands of infantry, and thousands of logistics.
No matter where you are stationed, you need to build a large camp, which will consume a lot of manpower and material resources.
Therefore, the funds will be spent in the barony that controls the camp.
Baron Bergru knew very well that he fought wars to make money, so he very much hoped that the camp could be stationed in Lavosen.
Therefore, he planned to make preparations early and sent a servant to inform all the knights to go to the Baron's Palace early the next morning.
After the messenger left, Olivia spoke in a daze.
"It looks like a war is about to begin."
No wonder the copy gave her so many crazy tasks, it turns out the time has come.
She shook her head and went to urge the completion of the last construction block of the prison. The task was refreshed soon.
Congratulations on completing "Build a Prison"
+35 XP
+＊1Records of the Warring States Period of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty
Olivia gave this military talent item to George, and the experience value progress bar was refreshed again.
Adding these thirty-five experience points, her experience points are just enough to unlock the mysterious item worth 888 experience points.
Congratulations on unlocking the Skill Paster
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