When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#527 - Salt and Ham (2 in 1)

Since leaving Enrico's house, Nagme had clearly become much more taciturn than before.

Seizinger didn't take it seriously, only thinking she was intimidated by the bustling scene of Jeanne d'Arc Fort.

In Seizinger's eyes, let alone Feiliu Fort, even Jeanne d'Arc Fort was considered a relatively large city.

For the Norse hill people who had been wandering around Langsdon County for many years, Jeanne d'Arc Fort was probably the end of the world.

After changing to a carriage in Sour Gourd Town, it only took Seizinger and others a little over a day to arrive at Jeanne d'Arc Fort.

Horn naturally led several key figures to greet them in person, but to prevent riots, they held the welcoming ceremony in the suburban area.

On the solid road paved with mortar, colorful triangular flags were inserted on the roadside, dancing with the autumn wind, and occasionally citizens or villagers passed by, looking at this side in surprise.

Seizinger got out of the carriage, and after marveling at the speed of the carriage and the road, he raised his head and saw the temporary lintels on both sides of the road at first glance.

Black and red vertical flags hung on both sides of the lintel, and in the middle was a long red cloth with the words "Welcome Seizinger Ulinotz, Friendly Person from Norse County" written in white standard Leia letters.

This welcoming ceremony, which seemed extremely rustic to Horn, was obviously extremely satisfying to Seizinger, who was also rustic.

Seeing Seizinger approaching, Horn, wearing a bishop's holy robe without the complicated patterns, walked up to Seizinger head-on.

"Welcome to Jeanne d'Arc Fort, Lord Seizinger, I have wanted to meet you for a long time."

"It is an honor to meet you, Lord Horn."

First surprised by the age of this farmer leader, Seizinger then laughed heartily and gave Horn a bear hug.

After a bunch of messy ceremonies, Seizinger and Horn and others split into two groups. Seizinger's attendants and daughter went to a special country villa to station, while Seizinger himself went to the Holy Advent Hall with Horn for detailed talks.

Pulling this Earl Seizinger to sit down, Horn took out a set of bone china teacups from the cupboard and poured him a cup of black tea.

Although black tea is the favorite drink of the middle class in the empire, especially the nobles and citizens, Seizinger doesn't like it. He would rather choose a cup of potato root wine.

To show politeness, he still picked it up and took a sip: "Thank you for your black tea... Okay, can we talk about the issue of the Norse laborers?"

"Of course."

Horn crossed his legs, took a sip of black tea, and replied faintly, "Your people can come to Langsdon County to work, but I hope to sign a contract with you."

"What contract?"

While relieved, Seizinger became vigilant.

In his concept, these high-paying jobs must be snatched by the locals, and they were snatched by these Norse hill people.

If it were an ordinary lord, they would most likely be expelled, first to win over the hearts of the locals, and second to prevent money from flowing out.

But Horn agreed so easily, which made him feel that there might be some trap.

"First, people entering the country normally need to register and be issued a labor certificate.

Second, people who enter the country illegally and work illegally will be deported and their rights will not be guaranteed.

Third, when entering Langsdon County to work, you must abide by the laws of Langsdon County. If you violate the law, we have the right to expel them. If you commit a crime, it will be jointly judged by both parties."

"That's it?"

Seizinger waited for a while before asking.

"That's it, just these few requirements."

Horn smiled and added some milk to the black tea, "Norse County and Langsdon County are both Kush people, a family."

Seizinger stared at Horn for more than ten seconds before putting down his guard, and even picked up the black tea he didn't like and drank it all in one go.

He thought Horn would ask Seizinger for compensation or restrict the number of people, but he didn't expect it to be resolved so quickly.

"Then I can rest assured... When does dinner start?"

Seizinger put down his teacup and asked, touching his stomach.

"Don't worry, let's talk about something else first, such as Norse County."

"Norse County? What do you want to talk about? That's a bitter place, otherwise so many people wouldn't come to Langsdon County."

"Haha, what I want to talk about is a solution to the poverty of Norse County for hundreds of years."

"Is it 'If you want to get rich, have more children and build more roads'?"

This was a slogan Seizinger saw when passing by some hundred-household areas, and he said it half sarcastically and half jokingly.

You should know that the poverty of Norse County is an eternal topic for the mountain people of the entire Norse County.

Norse County just doesn't have cherished mines, it just doesn't have fertile land, and it's hard to have a meadow for grazing, and you have to compete with the neighboring Kingdom of Norn.

But this young man who is not even twenty years old dares to say shamelessly that he has a solution to the poverty of Norse County for hundreds of years.

Doesn't that mean that the generations of wise men in Norse County for hundreds of years have been eating for nothing?

"Do you know what can bring wealth?"

"Farmland and mines."

"No."

Horn shook his head, "It is labor and exchange."

Looking at Seizinger's confused face, Horn knew that he had not attended the classic Eden Economics at the Baishengfu Association College.

However, the conversation time between the two will not be long, and Horn does not intend to teach Eden Economics on site, but simply summarizes it.

"Seeds will not germinate if they are held in the hand, and ore is worthless if it is buried in the mountains. It is cultivation and excavation that make it valuable. The act of cultivation and excavation is labor.

Similarly, grain and iron ingots will not magically turn into money if they are placed in the warehouse. They need to be exchanged and sold in the market before money can be obtained."

Picking up the black tea to moisten his throat, Horn continued:

"How to labor and exchange efficiently is the key to obtaining wealth. Norse County is poor for two reasons.

The first is that the geographical climate is not good, and the proven traditional efficient labor such as farming and mining are not successful.

The second is that the exchange conditions are not good. It is not only located in a harsh highland, but also has no commercial culture.

But this does not mean that there is no hope at all. If the primary industry is not good, there are still the secondary and tertiary industries, and if the road conditions are poor, you can build roads."

Qianhe Valley is said to have a high terrain, but judging from the "Imperial Geographical Atlas", Horn estimates that the average altitude of the four plains counties is only about 200 meters, and the altitude of the five mountain counties is only about 1,000 meters.

This average altitude may not be higher than that of the Jin and Shaanxi regions. Its main disadvantage is the high platform mountains in the middle and the Dragon Sleeping Mountains on the east side.

The former blocks the warm currents of the Emerald Sea in the south, and the latter blocks the warm currents of the Yang Sea in the east, resulting in the barrenness of this area.

These mountain counties seem to be large, but I am afraid that more than half of the area is no man's land. Who knows how many treasures are inside.

North Mangde, Mangde, and Norse counties are barely considered the foothills of the Dragon Sleeping Mountains, belonging to the same mountain range and the same plate.

There is no reason why the former two have rich mineral deposits, while the latter only has forests and trees, right?

"No, we have saline-alkali land and poisonous water ponds everywhere. Although there are copper mines, they are very deep and cannot be mined at all."

"That's not necessarily true..."

Looking at Seizinger's unconvinced expression, Horn did not continue to say anything, but changed the topic.

"Even if there is none of these, you can still engage in animal husbandry. You have so much land, if you can't raise cattle, sheep, and horses, you can still raise donkeys, mules, and pigs."

Horn stood up and took out paper and pen from the cabinet next to him, "Let me calculate a simple account for you. In Jeanne d'Arc Fort, 1 dinar can only buy 3 pounds of pork, while in Norse County you can buy 5 pounds or even 7 pounds.

In Norse County, 1 dinar can only buy 1 gallon or 10 pounds of grain, while in Jeanne d'Arc Fort, 1 dinar can buy 16 or even 18 pounds of grain.

Let's ignore the freight and price changes for now. In an ideal environment, you spend 1 dinar to buy 6 pounds of pork in Norse County and sell it in Jeanne d'Arc Fort for 2 dinars.

Then use these 2 dinars to buy 36 pounds of grain and sell it back in Norse County for 3.6 dinars. After 6 round trips, 1 dinar can be turned into more than 2000 dinars."

"It's feasible in a dream!"

Speaking of this topic, Seizinger's forehead obviously bulged with veins, "Do you think we haven't tried it?"

Between the words, Seizinger's resentment plan was about to turn into reality: "There are checkpoints along the way that eat and take what they want, and there is also freight. If we bring too much feed, the freight will increase, and if we don't bring feed, live pigs will lose weight.

If it is pre-cut, unless it is winter, the dead pigs will stink and spread the plague.

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At the beginning, I, my father, and my grandfather drove 300 pigs to Jeanne d'Arc Fort to sell, and along the way, either the pigs had swine fever or they lost weight.

The churches and lords along the way set up private checkpoints, charging me 15 dinars for each pig. My cost was 300 dinars. The bishops of the Japanese devils, every time I went to a place, he would charge me once, repeatedly charging.

I finally managed to transport it to Jeanne d'Arc Fort and sell it. Including the cost of bribes, I calculated that not only did I not make money, but I also lost 1,500 dinars.

Moreover, buying grain back and selling it loses even more, because you have to pay money when you go back, and the toll for crossing the road is equal to the principal of the grain.

We lost 10 gold pounds at a time, and my grandfather fell ill when he went back. Before he died, he said that in the future, we would only sell pigs to areas that can be reached in three days.

Three days! We haven't even walked out of the mountains yet. The nearest wild boar pasture is five or six days away from the nearest manor in Langsdon County.

We forcibly send the pigs there, and the road fees and costs along the way just fill the price difference. If we are lucky, we can earn seven or eight dinars per head, and if we are unlucky, we have to pay back."

"Then why not make ham or dried pork?"

Horn spread his hands and said, "You have so much wood, it shouldn't be a problem to use it to burn fire and make dried pork, right?"

"There is no salt."

Seizinger replied irritably.

With a strange smile, Horn turned around, took a roll of newspaper from the shelf next to him, flipped through it for a while, and then put a page on the table.

Seizinger looked at the word "Truth News" on the newspaper before he suddenly realized what Muir was talking about.

His eyes moved down from the title of the Truth News, and Seizinger saw the price list of Red Maple Township at a glance: rice fruit 0.6 dinars per gallon, wheat 0.7 dinars per gallon, salt 18 dinars per bushel (56 pounds)...

"Hmm?"

Seizinger stretched his head like a turtle, and suddenly put his head next to the Truth News, as if he didn't recognize the words on it.

Equivalent to 1 dinar for 3 pounds of salt, you must know that they have to pay half a dinar to buy 1 pound of salted fish from the Norn people.

Generally, 1 pound of salt is needed to pickle 10 pounds of salted fish, and Horn can pickle 30 pounds of salted fish for 1 dinar here.

"Where did you get so much salt?"

"Secret."

Horn had a mysterious smile on his face. He opened his arms to the sky, "It is the result of the invisible hand of the Holy Father moving."

This is a more religious saying. To be precise, there are 4 of Horn's ratchet pumping machines used to extract brine.

In order to be able to mine for a longer time, Horn only maintained the low limit mining that met market demand.

If the horsepower is fully turned on, an average of nearly 3.6 million liters of brine can be extracted per month, and a small salt well can be emptied in one month.

3.6 million liters of brine can produce about 700 tons of salt, which requires about 10,000 tons of peat.

10,000 tons of peat is the product of 600 alchemist priests working 90 hours. This was really hard to say in the past.

But now that there is the flying ascension method, which can convert the Holy Favored and alchemist priests on a large scale, it is not a problem.

Sometimes Horn really has to sigh, the roar of industrial machines is really deafening, and a clockwork wheel pumping machine is enough to defeat the entire salted fish industry in Qianhe Valley.

For some reason, looking at Horn's priest-like actions, Seizinger inexplicably felt a bit of fear in his heart.

"Those tax cards no longer exist. Live pigs can be replaced with dried meat and ham. As for the freight, coincidentally, our mortar just needs a market, so it will be used to build roads."

Horn went around behind Seizinger and supported the back of his seat, "What other worries do you have?"

"But why are you doing this?"

Seizinger still didn't understand, "Without our ham, can't everyone live on?"

"Of course not. First of all, there is more food on the table. This is an improvement in the standard of living. Secondly, the supporting industries will need a lot of manpower and consumption, which can expand the tax base."

Seizinger obviously didn't understand this set of arguments, so Horn had to change it to a simple version:

"The principle is that the more I spend, the faster the money flows, the more prosperous the market becomes, the more people are willing to consume, and the more taxes I receive."

When people feel that the market is prosperous, their expectations for the future are higher. When they get more funds, they are more likely to increase spending.

This spending will circulate through various channels in the market, driving more consumption and investment, forming a "multiplier effect", resulting in each unit of spending being able to generate more than one unit of economic output.

This means more transaction volume, more business growth, and more job opportunities, leading to a larger tax base.

Most importantly, people from outside, such as the Franks, see that the market in Langsdon County is hot, and there is no reason not to invest.

As long as Horn can prevent inflation in time, it is enough to make the economy enter a period of rapid development.

As for the problem of matching productivity, Horn can only say that the empire's productivity is inherently higher than its level of development, but it is forcibly suppressed by the extraordinary.

If there is no extraordinary power, with the empire's current population and level, it would not be a problem to advance civilization from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance to the mid-to-late 17th century.

Even without clockwork industry, simply removing the shackles of the empire and the church can develop the economy.

"Money is only money when it flows. I give a small construction worker 30 dinars a month, and then the tax collected will be hundreds of millions."

Horn forcibly swallowed the "applause when you understand" back into his stomach and looked at Seizinger with a smile.

However, Secinger remained silent, staring at the price list on the table, and suddenly understood Nagmei's feelings.

That indescribable complex feeling of confusion, jealousy, and unease mixed together.

"A new era, new ideas, a new look." Horn's voice was more seductive than the devil's, "The mountain people of Norths don't have to leave their homes to sleep in warm houses and eat their fill. Your people and relatives will no longer have to envy others!"

Saint-Sun's several grand promises hit Secinger hard, making him dizzy.