Since the second day after Woolley's triumphant return, Baker has replaced Woolley and become the busiest person in Salt Marsh. You know, in Salt Marsh, what you are responsible for is not determined by your official position, but by Woolley.
Therefore, Baker, who held the title of civilian tribune, was not only responsible for the town's public security, but also had to manage the warehouse, assist Woolley with accounting, allocate supplies, coordinate relationships, raise horses, manage armor making and supervise the repair of weapons. In addition, he also had to patrol the defenses and supervise the construction of watchtowers.
Baker worked happily because he felt at ease. Following Wu Lai not only brought him material benefits, such as the two hundred gold coins for medicine, but also earned him unprecedented respect. Wherever he went now, people would greet him warmly and try to get close to him. They were just as respectful to him as they were in front of Wu Lai. He would never have dared to hope for such treatment in the past. In the past, the townspeople would subconsciously avoid Baker when they saw him coming, because Baker was a person who was particularly good at finding fault. He could always find a reason to fine him, and they could not question him. If they questioned him, the fine would double immediately.
But recently everyone has discovered that Baker has changed, like a different person. He works diligently, seriously and responsibly. Not only does he no longer extort townspeople, he also occasionally gives some food to the poor and elderly in the town, or gives them two silver coins.
However, if you think Baker has really changed his personality, you are absolutely wrong. He works diligently and responsibly to please Wu Lai, and he helps the poor and the elderly because when Baker proposed to split the 200 gold coins with Wu Lai to pay for the medical expenses, Wu Lai said, "Since you only plan to take half, then you can give the remaining half to anyone in the town who needs help."
To be honest, every time Baker helped the poor, he felt a pain in his heart, and driven by his stingy nature, he decided to divide the one hundred gold coins into many "giveaways", so the pain in his heart was inadvertently prolonged.
As for why he no longer extorts the townspeople, the reason is even simpler - because he knows that Wu Lai hates others doing so, and besides, it is just a small amount of money, which is a far cry from the benefits of following Wu Lai.
While Baker was busy, the others were not idle either. Ellette was "personally appointed" by Nils to assist Wu Lai, and it was his duty to do well the tasks assigned by Wu Lai. In addition, Ellette was not a person who liked to meddle in other people's business, and he had a strong sense of superiors and subordinates. He was able to make requests and reports in a timely manner without making Wu Lai feel disgusted, and he did not have any aristocratic airs. He got along well with the staff of various departments, and made Wu Lai very satisfied with his character and work.
Another busy person is Tours. He is no longer indifferent to the town like before. Since he has chosen to follow Woolley, he naturally has to act like a follower. Apart from being as diligent as Ellette and doing his job well like Baker, he also told Woolley everything about the salt field.
However, when in public, he was still indifferent to Wu Lai as before.
Some of the information revealed by Tours surprised Woolley. For example, the annual output of the salt field was not the 40 million shekels that Renwinton reported to Assyria, but nearly 70 million shekels... However, he did not show it. After all, it was not yet time for him to really intervene in the salt field. Now he only needed to get his 5% in full.
In this regard, Tours performed better than Woolley expected. When he showed Woolley the daily register of salt production for that month, he smiled and said, "Master Woolley, I have prepared this year's semi-finished salt production for you. It is calculated based on the average daily production from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, and I have selected the best salt for you, a total of 3.5 million shekels."
Three and a half million shekels of salt, converted into the measurement unit that Wu Lai was familiar with, was about 200,000 kilograms. According to the price of salt at the Assyrian salt shop of five shekels to one silver coin, these more than 100 tons of salt could be exchanged for 700,000 silver coins, which was equivalent to no more than 10,000 gold coins. Such a small amount of money was obviously a drop in the bucket for military expenses.
However, the Assyrian salt shop refers to the one jointly opened by the temple, the Senate, and the Supreme Council. According to Woolley, it should be called "official salt". The so-called five shekels for one silver coin is nothing more than a guiding price.
In fact, the Assyrian salt shops, which are jointly owned by the three giants for the convenience of the people, are not only limited in purchase, but are often out of stock. On the contrary, private salt shops have sufficient supply, but the price is much higher - the average price is one silver coin per shekel. Do you think it is too expensive? You can choose not to buy and just go to the "official salt" to queue up and wait.
In other words, the price of one silver coin for one shekel is the real price of Assyrian salt. According to this price, Wu Lai now has 3.5 million silver coins, equivalent to about 58,000 gold coins.
This way, it would be enough for him to form a standing army of 500 people. Although this amount of money sounds like a lot, weapons, armor, horses, food, training, military pay, and daily maintenance are all expensive businesses. Compared with the standard military expenditure of 160 gold coins per person per year for each legion, Wu Lai still has to be frugal.
Whether in the past, present or future, Yanhuan Town needs to have a standing force. Although Yanhuan Town can now resist the attacks of bandits one after another, firstly, the attacking bandits know nothing about the defense methods of Yanhuan Town; secondly, the number of bandits is limited after all; thirdly, bandits do not have diverse tactics and siege equipment like regular troops.
That is to say, if the attack on Saltmarsh Town was by a large number of regular troops, Woolley would have no way of winning - the twenty-cubit wide and deep moat, with the inner bank higher than the outer bank and equipped with chevaux de frise, was useless to the regular army, because they would not lack siege ladders shorter than twenty cubits. The circumference of the Saltmarsh Town moat, which was more than ten miles, allowed the attackers to easily launch multiple breakthroughs. This was also the reason why some guys in Lovington scoffed at Saltmarsh Town's new defense system.
It takes time to "tame" a standing army that is good at fighting. Fortunately, Wu Lai does not need to be too anxious now. At least in the near future, he is not worried that bandits or others pretending to be bandits will come to disturb Saltmarsh Town. The annihilation of the Fox and Wolf bandits and the death of Bill can serve as a wake-up call to some people in the city of Lovington. At the same time, it can also remind those bandits who are powerful but accustomed to picking on the weak that Saltmarsh Town is a thorny guy.
Wu Lai originally thought that Tours would not give out the salt until the end of the year, but the other party was so tactful and well prepared, and the things on hand were not too complicated, so Wu Lai didn't mind advancing his army building plan a little bit.
Building an army costs money, and maintaining an army costs even more money, but Wu Lai would not just transport 3.5 million shekels of salt to some city-state to cash it in. Firstly, it would be too troublesome, and secondly, it would be too wasteful.
The reason why it feels wasteful is that Wu Lai has a way to increase the price of salt by one liter, such as doubling it, or even tripling it...
Wu Lai's way of raising the price of salt is to improve the quality of salt - since I can't have the final say in a large market, then I will build a small market where I have the final say.
Objectively speaking, the salt quality of Yanhuan Town is very good, but this "good" refers to such civilized conditions and relative to other salt producing areas. In fact, it is still far from Wulai's quality requirements.
The reason why the salt from Salt Marsh Town was crowned as high-quality by Assyria was that the Salt Marsh Town Salt Field not only had high-quality brine, but also had the most experienced salt workers in the Assyrian territory. As the earliest place to produce salt in the Assyrian territory, the salt worker trade had become a tradition of many civilian families, and thus, various experiences had been passed down through words and deeds.
Salt marsh town uses the flat pan method, also known as the "open pan method", which is the most primitive artificial frying method - using a shallow flat pot to hold brine, the bottom of the pot is directly heated with high fire, and the water is boiled dry to form salt crystals. The faster the brine evaporates, the smaller the salt crystal particles, and vice versa.
The salt particles in Yanhuan Town are very small because the salt workers are skilled in salt-boiling techniques, and they boil salt indoors and are not affected by the weather. Of course, there is no shortage of firewood when boiling salt - this is particularly important. Therefore, there are nearly a hundred people chopping wood in the salt field every day. They drive ox carts to the forest area dozens of miles away from the town, cut down trees, saw them into suitable lengths, and then load them onto trucks and transport them back.
After returning to the salt field, these newly cut woods will not be used in a hurry. They will be chopped into pieces of appropriate thickness, and then stacked layer by layer on the open space until they are formed into large woodpile. In the following three years, no one will touch them because they need wind and rain to make their flames purer.
Therefore, a saying has been passed down from generation to generation in the salt field: the woodcutters cut firewood three years later, but the salt workers burn firewood from three years ago.
Woolley had been "coveting" the salt from Saltmarsh Town for a long time, and his improvement of Assyrian salt can be traced back to the White Stone Tower period. It is not that Seneca City cannot buy salt from Saltmarsh Town, but that salt is definitely the lowest quality salt produced in Saltmarsh Town, with large particles, grayish white color, and a smell of saltpeter when it enters the mouth.
Of course, Wu Lai was not happy to consume this kind of salt every day, so there were some copper and pottery utensils in the White Stone Building, and a clever and studious slave was responsible for processing this coarse salt into fine salt. His name was Jiaduo, and he was also in Salt Marsh Town. His arrival was naturally due to Wu Lai's designation. Wu Lai felt that this smart guy was qualified to be a salt maker.
However, the title of salt maker was coined by Woolley himself. Not only in Assyria, but also in the entire continent, there is no such title.
Along with Gadu were also some metal objects, which were iron sealed cans of varying sizes, several crushers with copper gears, and even two upright drum washing machines like the ones in Wu Lai's last memory...
"Turles, I know you have some contraband goods on hand. It doesn't matter who you sell them to, so why not sell them to me? I'll give you the same price as others. How about it?" Wu Lai asked with a smile.
Turles hesitated for only a moment and then nodded. Just like Wu Lai said, it doesn't matter where you sell it, as long as the amount of money makes sense, the people behind him won't say anything. Anyway, he wouldn't be stupid enough to tell everyone that he sold the salt to Wu Lai.
"Lord Wu Lai, actually, it adds up to almost two million shekels." Tours's previous hesitation was more due to this amount. You know, these two million shekels are not sold at the official price - its selling price is three silver coins and five shekels, which means that if Wu Lai wants to take such a large amount of salt, he needs to pay 20,000 gold coins, which is not a small amount.
"No problem." Wu Lai smiled and waved his hand. "Put them together with the other 3.5 million shekels. I'll have someone count them some other day, and then we can settle the payment."
"Lord Wu Lai, there is no need to rush about this. Just give it to me whenever it is convenient for you." When Tours said this polite remark, he was very happy, because by giving the two million shekels of salt to Wu Lai on the spot, he could save almost six hundred gold coins in transportation costs. In other words, he picked up six hundred gold coins for free, which was naturally worth being happy about.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
"You'd better hurry up and get it done. You are the one who gets the least money. If the one who gets the most money gets anxious, you'll say that I'm inconsiderate." Wu Lai said with a laugh.
"Thank you, Master Wu Lei." Turles said with a smile, "Then I will go and put your salt into your warehouse tonight."
…
A month later, Guru returned. According to the original arrangement, he should have returned twelve days ago, but Woolley sent messages by express horse twice in a row, and each time he had a new task, so Guru "enjoyed" another twelve days in the city of Longvington.
Gulu's returning team was huge - he not only brought back 120 carts of supplies, but also 540 strong slaves that Wu Lai had entrusted him to buy. In addition, there were more than 100 large grain carts and more than 200 guards brought by Gulu himself, arranged by grain merchants, and from friendly families. The total number of people exceeded 1,000, which made several groups of bandits dare not approach.
When he saw the arrow tower at the east gate of Salt Marsh Town from afar, Gulu sighed deeply. He had witnessed the "hardship and simplicity" of Salt Marsh Town for quite some time. He had gotten used to staying in Lunvington City these days. If Wu Lai had not been here, he really would not want to come back here.
It was Baker who led the team to welcome Guru at the gate. This was originally his job. When the sentry reported that a large number of convoys were coming to Salt Marsh Town, he guessed that it must be Guru who had returned. Of course, this was not difficult to guess, because Wu Lai had said at the meeting the day before yesterday afternoon that Guru would be back in the next two days and would bring back a lot of supplies, so Baker, the "temporary warehouse manager", arranged the transportation personnel and the place to put them.
"Lord Guru, it's been just a few days since we last met, and you look so energetic now." When Baker saw Guru getting out of the car, he came forward with a smile.
"Lord Baker is joking." Although Guru still had a childish look in his eyes, he had followed his father to various social occasions for the nobility since he was a child, and he was familiar with all kinds of false etiquette and courtesy. "Lord Baker is in high spirits, and his momentum is even stronger than before."
"We are family, why are we still talking nonsense?" Baker said with a smile, "Master Wu Lai missed you very much during your absence. He mentioned you several times. He even told him during the meeting the day before yesterday afternoon that you would bring back a large amount of supplies. So, I have cleared the warehouse for you and have people waiting in the town. As long as you, Master Gulu, give the order, they will come out immediately."
"Here is Lord Laubeck. By the way, where is Lord Wu Lai? Is he in town?" Gulu asked. Given his relationship with Wu Lai, as long as Wu Lai was still in Saltmarsh Town, Gulu would make time to come out no matter how busy he was.
"Lord Woolley is not here now. He took Malone to see his private salt factory early in the morning." Baker replied.
"His private salt shop?" Guru was startled. He thought, "Hasn't Wu Lai mentioned that he wanted to do this?" How come he has another salt shop in just a few months?
"Yes, Master Wulai has been busy with this matter recently, in addition to the affairs of the town." Baker leaned close to Gulu's ear and lowered his voice. "Seven days ago, I went there with the master. Wow, it really opened my eyes. Master Gulu, have you ever seen salt as white as snow and as fine as flour?"
"As white as snow? As fine as flour?" Guru couldn't believe his ears.
"Given your relationship with the adult, maybe he will take you there tomorrow. Let's finish the things on hand first." Baker smiled and said, "Once we're done, I'll take you on a tour. You've been gone for more than a month, so you may not recognize some places in the town."
"real?"
"Of course, our Lord Wu Lai is used to making a big noise."