"I ride a white horse and pass through three checkpoints. I change into plain clothes and return to the Central Plains. I leave Xiliang behind. No one cares. I am determined..." Wu Lai hummed and sang while using a homemade wooden hand-made cigarette-rolling machine as "inventory". Don't think that Wu Lai can only draw some weapon structure diagrams and make some crossbows. He has very dexterous hands. In the last memory, when he was in the third grade of elementary school, he studied a photo in a magazine, and then used leftover wood to split, grind, and wedge, and he made a wooden boat that was more than 80% similar to the treasure ship in the photo. Studying hand-made cigarette-rolling machines was, of course, a piece of cake for him.
El was accompanying him with a smile on her face, her eyes full of admiration when she looked at Wu Lai, and of course, a hint of shyness. However, she was not idle - every time she rolled twenty sticks, a small wooden plate would be full, and she would immediately replace the empty one for Wu Lai, and then carefully place the twenty rolled sticks in a wooden box at hand.
The wooden box was a gift from Baker. Ever since he knew that Wu Lai had a thing called a cigarette that could produce smoke, he thought that he could do something to honor Wu Lai. Then he went to El with a lecherous look on his face to inquire about it. Then, he sent two specially made cedar boxes, one cubit long and wide, and half a cubit high. In addition, he also sent a small flat cigarette box, which was made of pure silver and gilded. It could hold ten cigarettes at a time and was perfect for carrying around.
It is particularly worth mentioning that Baker even put a lot of thought into the pattern on the small cigarette case - he engraved the Woolley family emblem of a single dove with spread wings in the middle of the front, and the edge was surrounded by winding branches of golden bells. According to the divine scriptures, the golden bell is the favorite flower of the god Amon.
Wu Lai happily accepted it and rewarded Baker with a glass mirror on the spot. Although Wu Lai's glass mirror craftsmen have not been able to start production due to certain environmental restrictions in Salt Marsh Town, they brought more than a dozen samples when they came here. For example, Wu Lai used two small pieces to make a pair of rearview mirror, which then played a big role in the battle against the Fox Wolf bandits.
Although the mirror workshop is not yet in a position to start formal production, the mirror craftsmen are not idle. During this period they have been making some small gadgets for Wu Lai, which are purely for Wu Lai's personal use.
When Baker took the glass mirror with joy, he thought that the palm-sized object that Wu Lai handed him was a plaque of maxims - the great nobles in the Assyrian territory liked to do this, making gold and silver plates with some aphorisms that they thought were good, either for rewards or for self-encouragement, but Wu Lai did not have the leisure to do so.
But after turning around and taking a look, Baker rubbed his eyes subconsciously, and then he was stunned.
"Lord Wu Lai, this, this is a treasure." Baker said excitedly. El on the side couldn't help but rolled his eyes secretly after hearing this, thinking that it was terrible to be ignorant.
El's thinking was a bit pretentious. She served Wu Lai personally, so she would naturally know about any new things Wu Lai had faster than anyone else. For example, this glass mirror. She was Wu Lai's assistant when he made the rearview mirror, and after Wu Lai finished making the rearview mirror, he also made one for her. It was twice as big as the one Baker had now. As for the one that Wu Lai was giving to Baker as a reward, it was made by craftsmen. Wu Lai would go back to Assyria City for work in a while, and there would always be some new and old friends to meet, so he had to prepare some souvenirs.
But this glass mirror can really be considered a treasure at present - the Assyrian territory is rich in copper, and most of the weapons and armor and household items are made of copper, and mirrors are naturally too. However, the clarity of that thing is still acceptable, because a skilled mirror polisher can polish the mirror surface to be smooth and shiny. But it is copper after all, and the faces and clothes of the people reflected in it are all yellow.
So, today was the first time in his life that Baker could see his face clearly. How could he not be excited? If Wu Lai hadn't been there, he would have wanted to take a hundred more photos to see every wrinkle and every pore on his face clearly.
El could not forget the look of Baker's eyes red with excitement, so every time she thought of it, she couldn't help laughing.
Just as Wu Lai gradually began to relax and many infrastructure projects in Salt Marsh Town began to enter the final stage one after another, the power of Salt Marsh Pure Salt Shop was gradually revealed.
People who received the gift salt packages became repeat customers of the Salt Marsh Pure Salt Shop. Compared with pure salt, other salts taste much worse, so after tasting pure salt, they all agreed that the salt they had eaten before was simply garbage.
The difference in quality is so obvious, but the price is the same. How to choose is still a problem? The first people to be interested are naturally the citizens. After tasting the salt, many people immediately drove their cars with money boxes and rushed to the Salt Marsh Pure Salt Shop.
What are they doing? Buying up! Hoarding! Reselling at a high price! However, all those who had this idea were severely discouraged.
Because the receptionist at the Pure Salt Shop said with a smile that the salt shop has a permanent sales limit and each person can only buy one shekel per day.
"Why?!" someone asked in surprise, wondering how could there be a sales limit? "I don't know, this is a rule set by our boss, so, sorry, we dare not go against his wishes." The receptionist explained.
"Your boss?"
"Yes, that's what our boss decided. He is a special attendee of the Supreme Council, the current governor of Salt Marsh Town, and a person favored by God..."
"Okay, okay, now that I know your boss is someone important, does that mean that anyone can buy one every day?"
"Yes, we have an adequate supply of pure salt. The reason for the limited sale is that our boss wants everyone to be able to eat pure salt."
——This kind of conversation would be repeated from time to time, and then the nobles and wealthy families would start to take advantage of the situation. They would say, "Didn't you say that each person gets one shekel per day? I have a large family, so each person can come once." As a result, every pure salt shop in Woolley would be crowded with people...
One day, two days, three days, four days, five days...
The wealthy and aristocratic families with large populations could buy at least hundreds of shekels of pure salt from the pure salt shop every day. Some scheming people even paid some money to attract people from the street to buy it, and sent people to watch outside the shop. However, after a few days, the pure salt shop sold nearly ten thousand shekels of pure salt every day, and there was no sign of running out of stock...
Seven days, ten days, fifteen days...
The nobles who were deliberately hoarding the goods to make a profit were so determined that they worked harder for several days in a row, doubling the sales of the Pure Salt Shop. However, the shop still welcomed customers with a smile and did not even interfere when someone sneaked in to buy twice...
Of course they would not interfere, because Wulai released 4.2 million shekels of pure salt in the first round of "war", an average of 700,000 shekels per city, which was enough to block this level of malicious purchases for more than 30 days. In addition, the salt workshop had a daily production capacity of 20,000 shekels and the pure salt shop in Assyria had a reserve of 1 million shekels of pure salt. They would replenish the salt wherever it sold quickly. Want to hoard and make a fortune? No way.
After the sixteenth day, almost all those who intended to stock up had given up. There was nothing they could do. They wanted to buy more but the other party wouldn't sell them. Also, the owner of the pure salt shop was someone they couldn't afford to offend considering his background. If they didn't give up, would they continue to work so hard to fight to the death?
As soon as these guys gave up, the daily sales of Pure Salt Shop dropped a lot, but it also stood firmly at the benchmark line of 10,000 shekels calculated by Wu Lai. After all, if the nobles and rich people stopped buying, the common people would come to buy. As I said before, why not choose good salt if the price is the same.
The Salt Marsh Pure Salt Shop was doing a booming business, but other private salt shops couldn't handle it.
In the Assyrian territory, only super cities like Assyria have a population of over three million. Cities like Ronwenton, although they have been trying to imitate Assyria in all aspects, have a population of only about one million.
In the other four cities where Wulai's first wave of Salt Marsh Pure Salt Shops were opened, the populations were between 600,000 and 800,000. Based on the healthy intake of one shekel for every six people, the daily consumption should be between 100,000 and 150,000 shekels. By this calculation, the Salt Marsh Pure Salt Shops would not have too much impact on private salt, but the reality is just the opposite.
There are three reasons. First, there are many private salt shops and their reserves are ridiculously sufficient. Only by hoarding salt desperately to create a shortage can the price be raised.
Secondly, the groups that consumed the most salt were the nobles and the wealthy. The daily intake of ordinary civilians was much lower than what Wulaina called the health standard. Therefore, although there was sufficient salt in the Assyrian territory, the per capita intake was about one shekel for every twenty people. In other words, the salt consumption in an ordinary city was about 40,000 per day.
Thirdly, the pricing of pure salt is disgusting. Your quality is obviously much better than other companies, but you still sell it at the same price, and you also act as if you will never run out of stock. Anyone would know where to buy it.
Fourthly, there is inferior salt sold on the market at prices lower than the average price. They are private goods from salt workers in some salt fields. Although they contain many impurities and are of poor quality, their prices are more than half cheaper than private salt. Such prices are enough to attract a number of ordinary families.
Therefore, Wu Lai's Salt Marsh Pure Salt Shop only needs to sell more than 10,000 salts a day to firmly occupy 40% of the market share.
If that were the case, the private salt shops might not panic too much, because they only needed to lower the price a little bit, such as four silver coins and five shekels, to grab some market share from Woolley by reducing profits. However, Woolley's second plan was also thrown out immediately -
On the twentieth day after the opening of the Pure Salt Shop in the Salt Marsh, the Assyrian Salt Shop, jointly run by the Temple, the Senate and the Supreme Council, did one thing at the same time in the cities with Pure Salt Shops - it opened for sale of salt and copied the limited sales method of the Pure Salt Shop.
For this day, Connor had been hoarding salt for nearly half a year despite the public's complaints. Now that he had released all the salt at once, all the private salt shops were immediately panicked...
On the second day after the Assyrian salt shop limited the supply, the price of private salt dropped to one silver coin and three shekels.
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On the third day, the price dropped to one silver coin and four shekels. Even so, all the private salt shops were still deserted.
On the fifth day, some private salt shops began to sell off their stockpiles of salt. At this time, members of the Seneca Kiwanis League appeared with smiles on their faces. "Boss, do you have any salt to sell? Oh, the same price as the Assyrian salt shop? Great, I'll take as much as you can get."
However, what did the Seneca Alliance need so much salt for? The answer is naturally to hoard it - the Assyrian salt market is not small, whether it is used as a raw material for pure salt or as a strategic material reserve, Woolley is happy to build a few more salt warehouses outside the scope of Lovington.
After a few more days, Connor was completely relieved because, judging from the current situation, Wu Lai's plan to block the smuggling of salt was effective.
However, the Duncan family was not happy about this, because by doing this, Wu Lai not only cut off the Duncan family's money flow, but also increased Connor's momentum and reputation. Therefore, Nils soon received a personal letter from Qi Yuan, asking him to go to Saltmarsh Town immediately and ask Wu Lailin to give a reasonable explanation.
After reading the letter, Niels did not leave, but wrote a reply to Qiyuan, because Wu Lai had informed him before launching the plan to block the private salt, and he made it clear that everything he did now would belong to the Duncan family in the future - even Lunvington belonged to it, so how could Saltmarsh Town escape? More importantly, Wu Lai also listed some evidence to prove that nearly half of the profits from the salt production in Saltmarsh Town did not belong to the Duncan family, but were embezzled by certain people. If the Duncan family increased its supervision, the income...
All of this was written by Nils in his letter to Qiyuan.
…
Three days before the New Year, Wu Lai held another meeting. However, everyone had already gotten used to it and had gradually come to appreciate the benefits of holding meetings. They even felt that this was not a bad thing. Anything could be discussed at the meeting, and everyone could judge what was important and who should be put first. After setting the goals, everyone had the energy to work together, and it was clear who had responsibilities and who had jobs. It was not like before Wu Lai came, when everyone did their own thing and ended up in a mess with nothing accomplished.
However, this meeting was not a discussion, but an announcement. It should have been announced long ago, but because the affairs were complicated and not so urgent, Wu Lai postponed it to the end of the year.
What Wu Lai wanted to announce was the reform of the official system. Although this reform was not completed in one step due to certain constraints, and even the abolition of the seven original bureaus seemed to be a step backwards, it was essentially a big step forward.
Because of the cold weather, the meeting was held in the dining room of the official residence. Because he had already thought about these things many times in his mind, Wu Lai simply did not even use a speech script -
"Officials are the core of municipal administration. As the construction of Yanma Town is booming and the new Yanma Town is gradually taking shape, the existing official system will become less and less adapted to actual needs. Therefore, based on the actual situation of Yanma Town, after careful consideration and after submitting it to the Supreme Conference for approval, I have decided to make the following adjustments to the titles and responsibilities..."
"…First, establish a civilian assembly to encourage civilians to participate in politics…"
"Second, there will be two aldermen, one executive alderman and one civilian alderman. They will be responsible for managing streets, water supply, drainage, garbage, sanitation, transportation, public buildings, markets, entertainment, etc. The executive alderman will be the former civilian guardian Becquerel. The civilian aldermen will serve for one year each and will be elected by the civilian assembly."
"Third, Gulukochi will continue to serve as the financial officer, responsible for the management of the town's public warehouses and financial matters, as well as military and combat expenses."
"Fourth, the tribunes are still divided into military and civilian. The military tribune will no longer participate in civil administration, but will serve as a staff officer in the Salt Marsh Army, but will not directly command the army. The civilian tribune is elected by the civilian assembly, and each term lasts for one year. They are responsible for the town's public security, daily patrols, and defense."
"Fifth, the title of the Peace Officer will be abolished, and the title of the Law Officer will be added. The former Peace Officer, Eliette Benson, will be appointed. The Law Officer's position is second only to the Archon, and he will have the power to judge and adjudicate legal cases within the scope of Salt Marsh Town."
"In order to adapt to the new structural arrangement, all the original departments will be abolished and all duties will be redistributed. From the new year, the town will have four departments: municipal administration, finance, protection of the people, and legal affairs. They will be managed by municipal administration, finance, protection of the people, and legal officials respectively and will be responsible to me..."
"...I have said everything I need to tell you. If you have any opinions or ideas, you can say them now." Wu Lai smiled and sat back in his chair.
Everyone frowned and thought about it. Wu Lai had a bad temper when he presided over the meeting. You could keep silent, but once you opened your mouth you had to speak with facts and evidence. If you talked nonsense you would be punished.