Chapter 289 The End of the Wine Merchant (Two in one! Please subscribe!)
However, while looking at the thriving Idar County, there was one thing that Earl Dale could not understand.
The improvement in the living standards and consumption capacity of the people of Idar means that the Stuart family, as the rulers, will have to spend a lot of money for a long time.
But... where did the Stuart family get so much money? It was incredible that a small earldom in the eastern part of the empire could have built such wonders as the Hanging Gardens, the Fortress of Namur, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Baths of Caracalla and so many more.
What's more, Idar County also maintains a huge army with a total number far exceeding that of ordinary noble territories! Building wonders, maintaining the army, plus Idar County's investment and expenditure on education (Two Point Academy) and medical care (Idar Temporary Maternity Hospital).
As a nobleman, Earl Dale knew very well that the total cost of all these expenses would be a huge one!
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would rather believe that pigs can fly to the sky! So... he was getting more and more confused about Idar Territory.
In fact, the Idar County is indeed very "rich".
Or in other words, you make money quickly and spend it quickly.
Since Bruno Stuart came to power, the average wage of the people of Idar has nearly doubled, suddenly changing the living conditions of the vast majority of the people from "not starving to death" to "having enough to eat".
The construction of a large number of public infrastructure and great projects has provided a large number of jobs for the people of Idar, and has also made the treasury of Idar territory like a floodgate opened, with gold coins flowing out continuously.
But... Idarling's speed in making money is unambiguous!
The eastern part of the empire, which is located near the Merlin Bay, has the advantage of salt fields. The widespread use of seawater salt in Idar Territory has directly led to a sharp increase in Idar Territory's salt production and a surge in income.
Of course, the profits earned from selling sea salt alone are still not enough to make up for the huge expenses incurred by the Idar Territory.
Therefore, through the various skills from the Earth that Bruno exchanged from the system mall, products such as strong liquor and rose essential oil can be said to be hot-selling in the Kingdom of Basel.
The profits that Moore Wine Industry distributed to Viscount Conte in the second half of the year alone amounted to thousands of gold coins, not to mention the other highly profitable industries that were completely controlled by the Stuart family.
Every day, a large number of caravans belonging to Idar Territory, carrying large amounts of gold coins, pass through Mann Fortress and enter the land of Idar Territory.
The sale of wine, rose oil, and other Idar goods in the Kingdom of Basel created a huge trade deficit between the Territory of Idar and the Kingdom of Basel.
Massive amounts of gold coins quietly flowed from the pockets of Basel nobles into the Stuart family's treasury, making Bruno almost regard his neighbor, the Kingdom of Basel, as his own ATM.
For example, during this period, the threat from the Odins forced Idar to spend more money on military expenditures, which led to a significant shortage of money in other areas of Idar.
In order to make up for the tight financial situation in Idar, Bruno had to produce a lot more rose essential oil, and then...
Just as expected, the nobles of the Kingdom of Basel once again snapped up all the rose essential oil, causing Bruno to have more money in his hands.
In the final analysis...
Compared with exploiting the poor people at the bottom of society, Bruno prefers to squeeze money from the nobles.
Because whether it is the noble lords of the Norman Empire or the noble lords of the Kingdom of Basel, as long as they reveal a little bit from between their fingers, they can get more money than squeezing hundreds of thousands of people.
and,
The leeks in the Kingdom of Basel grow one after another, and no matter how hard Bruno tries to harvest them, he can never finish harvesting them.
Although some time ago, wine merchants in the south of the Kingdom of Basel joined forces to suppress and exclude the wines of Idar, hoping to regain the occupied market by copying the sales methods of Moore Wine Industry, but...
How could it be easy to make the Idar people vomit out what they had already eaten?
…
Kingdom of Basel.
Ever since the Norman family was "forced" to remove all wines from Moore Wines from the shelves, the wines with the Warcraft wooden boxes, which were once loved by the nobles, suddenly disappeared from the city of Basel.
Unlike the Norman family that had always been under the protection of Queen Alanna, Moore Wine Company, as an outsider from the earldom of the Norman Empire, was suppressed by the southern nobles of Basel. The sales of Idar low-alcohol wine were difficult in the city of Basel.
No store dared to sell its storefront to Moore Wines, which meant that Basel's local wines, whose sales had been shrinking, were finally exposed to everyone again.
New packaging, higher pricing.
With the joint efforts of Halle Santa Cruz and Ernie Mfila, these wines produced in the south of the Kingdom of Basel finally have a new look.
Although these wines are almost all copied from Moore Wines, this does not prevent these wines from the south of Basel from re-occupying the wine market in Basel at lightning speed.
Seeing a large amount of gold coins flowing into his pocket, Harley Santa Cruz, who had been worried before, finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The weather is clear and cloudless.
Harley Santa Cruz stood at the door of the store, greeting customers warmly.
"My lord the Earl is going to hold a banquet tomorrow, so you need to prepare thirty bottles of wine!" The speaker was a nobleman's steward.
"Don't worry! I'll have someone arrange it right away!" Harley agreed quickly.
There was a constant flow of merchants coming and going in front of the shop. As the nobles' favorite drink, wine had long become a necessity in the lives of all Basel nobles.
It wasn't just the shop run by Harley Santa Cruz. Almost all wine merchants were doing surprisingly well after Moore Wines was forced to leave.
Especially after they copied Moore Wine's product marketing strategy exactly, their monthly wine sales revenue reached a new level.
only……
This joyful feeling disappeared when he saw the accounts from other parts of the Kingdom of Basel.
“Can anyone tell me why? Why has the sales of wine dropped by more than 80% in all regions except Basel?”
Halley stared at the messenger from outside the city with bloodshot eyes.
Originally, he thought that if he could regain the wine market in Basel City, the nobles behind him would look up to him, but now...
Looking at the sales revenue collected from all over the Kingdom of Basel, he felt that his little heart could not bear the number in front of him.
It was fine before, but this month...
Wine sales across Basel plummeted, even causing Halle Santa Cruz to wonder if all the nobles in the Kingdom of Basel had quit drinking.
At this moment, Ernie Mphela pushed the door open with a gloomy face.
"Have you seen the accounts compiled from all over the kingdom?" he asked in a deep voice.
"Is there a problem with the sales of your wine?" Harley Santa Cruz said quickly.
Although the two men reached a consensus on suppressing the Moore Wine Industry, they represented the interests of different nobles after all, so they did not have much interaction in their daily lives.
Therefore, Ernie Mfela's sudden arrival made Harley fully aware of the seriousness of the problem.
Ernie Mfela nodded affirmatively and said, "We were careless. This is all the work of Moore Wine Industry!"
"What?!" Harley Santa Cruz was extremely surprised. "After the sales channels were cut off, didn't they all leave the Kingdom of Basel completely?"
"No! They contacted the McCaughlin family and the Goethe Chamber of Commerce!" Ernie Mphela said gritting his teeth.
Hearing this, Harley Saint Cruz immediately understood.
That’s right!
Except for the south of the Kingdom of Basel, the rest of the Kingdom of Basel is not suitable for the growth of grapes.
Therefore, before this, the wine sales of the entire Kingdom of Basel were controlled by the interest groups formed by the southern nobles. Although other nobles knew that there were high profits, they could not intervene at all.
But……
The existence of Moore Wine Industry provided a great opportunity for the Basel nobles who were eyeing the huge profits in the wine market to get involved in the wine market! "You mean... Goethe Chamber of Commerce started selling wine for Moore Wine Industry?" Halley said solemnly.
"Not only the Goethe Chamber of Commerce and the McCollin family, Moore Wine Industry has also contacted a large number of small and medium-sized nobles scattered throughout the Kingdom of Basel to help them sell wine!"
"Damn it!" Harley groaned for a moment, and finally gritted his teeth and said, "Why not... just like we did with the Norman family, give up a small portion of the profits and try to get them to stop selling Moore Wine Industry's wine and sell our wine instead?"
“Impossible…” Ernie Mphela sighed.
"Why?!"
"I have already tried the method you are thinking of, but... when the local merchants heard our identities and the conditions we offered, they started to coax and scold my people out! No matter how much I raised the conditions, they turned a deaf ear to it."
"How is this possible?!" Harley said in surprise.
"Those Idar people from the Norman Empire are very smart. The more they buy, the lower the price. As a result, the nobles have a lot of wine inventory in their hands, so..."
"So those nobles were firmly tied to the Idar people's chariots, and even regarded our wine as a scourge..."
Thinking of this, Harley Santa Cruz, who was always pretentious, took another breath.
Instead of selling in Basel City, they established a sales network covering most of the Kingdom of Basel through the nobles scattered across the country. They also tied the interests of the local nobles to Moore Wine Industry through extremely simple inventory pressure...
The interest groups formed by the southern nobles can force the Norman family to compromise and give in, but they cannot make the vast majority of the nobles of the Kingdom of Basel, headed by the Maclean family, compromise!
What's more... at this moment, Moore Wine Industry has obviously built a huge wine sales network! I don't know what other tricks the person behind Moore Wine Industry will use...
…
Khalid Fort.
Since formally establishing a cooperative relationship with the Goethe Chamber of Commerce and completing the apparent and thorough separation with the Norman family, Julian Heaton, the head of Moore Wines, has made Khalidburg the base camp of Moore Wines in the Kingdom of Basel.
Every day, a large number of carriages and horses travel back and forth between Khalid Castle and Idar Territory, transporting money and wine.
"If my guess is correct, the wine merchants in the Kingdom of Basel will most likely start a price war with us by lowering their prices!"
Inside the room, Julian Heaton said in a deep voice.
Standing in front of him were the Idar "sales managers" who were responsible for the specific operations of Moore Wines in various regions.
Julian Heaton is now full of confidence since he had a discussion with Count Bruno Stuart of Idal.
When the wine merchants of the Kingdom of Basel realized that they could not force Moore Wine to make concessions through political pressure from the nobles behind them, price war seemed to be the only means available to local merchants in Basel.
only……
How could Moore Wines lose when both sides were raising their prices through exquisite packaging and wooden boxes of various styles?
The packaging and wooden boxes of Basel merchants are all produced by manpower. Although they can employ child labor and forced labor like the Eagle Sauce,... Moore Wine Industry's Warcraft wooden boxes have already entered the mechanized production stage.
Magical industrialization has brought to Idar Territory not only an increase in steel production and mass production of weapons and equipment, but also the production of simple primary labor products such as Warcraft wooden boxes can now be achieved with the help of machinery.
Although this involves extremely complex array structures and magical knowledge, under the stimulation of the magic industrialization, the wizard apprentices in Idar County have long been like chicken blood, and have thrown themselves into the research, improvement and application of arrays.
The output is large and the cost is low, so...if there really is a price war with the wine merchants in the Kingdom of Basel, Julian Heaton is not worried about the final outcome at all.
No matter what, the Idar people will be the ultimate winners.
Furthermore...
From the moment the wine merchants of the Kingdom of Basel began to unite, a bomb that could explode at any time was planted next to them.
So…
He has enough confidence to ensure that Moore Wine Industry's wine will firmly take the top spot in the wine market of the Kingdom of Basel!
Not today
(End of this chapter)
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