Chapter 386 Cost of Living
After visiting the asylum, Brother Lowell took the holy priests to visit the factory area.
In the middle of the town's main road, two hundred meters to the north, three hundred meters to the south, and west to the original western town wall, is Westham's factory area.
Half of the factory buildings were rebuilt from existing ones, and half were newly built. Many of the town's state-owned factories are mainly engaged in the two industries of non-staple food processing and feed processing.
The noodle factory that mixes flour, potato flour and corn flour in a certain proportion to make noodles, the vermicelli factory that uses corn flour and potato flour as the main processing materials, and the sugar factory that uses corn and wheat as the main raw materials are the leading products of Westram's non-staple food processing industry.
The holy priests visited three small processing plants in succession and could not help but sigh: "Corn and potatoes can actually be used in this way."
Westram's factory had a three-day holiday during the winter festival. Only the workers on duty were cleaning the factory. The priests could only see the idle production lines and piled up semi-finished products, but this did not prevent the priests from imagining the scenes when these machines were running.
"The yields of these two crops are much higher than wheat and the rice that the southerners are good at growing. According to the undead agricultural experts, the more we can develop the practical value of these two crops, the lower the cost of living for the locals will be."
Brother Lowell, who had done his homework, led the holy priests to the factory next to the sugar factory, saying as they walked: "The cost of one pound of vermicelli made from a mixture of corn starch and potato starch can be reduced to about one copper coin. As long as the selling price is higher than one and a half copper coins, the factory will make a profit. This kind of vermicelli tastes no worse than bread, but the price is only one-half to one-third of bread. Even noodles that are made with flour and have a higher cost, the price per pound is much lower than bread."
All the holy priests, including Joyce Andre, nodded frequently, regardless of their social status.
The holy priests who have been traveling along the border of the Principality of Shiga for a long time certainly understand the people's livelihood. No matter which region of the country, the black bread commonly used by the people is not less than three copper coins per pound.
The production process of this kind of black bread is very poor. In order to increase the weight, many unscrupulous bakeries will mix stones and sawdust into the flour that already contains a lot of wheat bran... The taste is simply terrible.
After passing the soybean oil mill, we arrived at the feed processing plant.
There are two types of feed processing plants in Westham: those that use animal offal and bone meal to make chicken and duck feed, and those that use crop residues such as corn stalks, wheat straw, soybean stalks, wheat bran, bean husks, radish peels and leaves, vegetable stems, etc. to make cattle and sheep feed.
The silage plant is larger than the feed mill. When you walk into the factory wall, you can see rows of storage warehouses and dry green fodder in bamboo baskets that cannot fit in the warehouses and have to be temporarily piled in the open air under a large shed.
"This silage plant has only been in operation for a year and a half, but it can already supply more than 70% of Innadri's green fodder." Brother Lowell said with envy, "The horse farm confiscated from the nobles by the Undead regime was converted into a breeding farm. The pigs, sheep, and cattle raised here are almost all fed here."
Joyce Andre was no stranger to silage, but it was the first time she saw hay made by crushing the raw materials thoroughly and then pressing them again. She grabbed a handful, looked at it, sniffed it, and asked curiously, "Are there so many pastures here that can supply so much hay?"
Brother Lowell smiled and counted the raw materials used in the silage factory, which shocked Joyce Andre, who also had a farm at home, and she almost opened her mouth.
"In other places, corn stalks and wheat straw can only be used as feed for the winter after the corn and wheat are harvested." Brother Lowell said with emotion, "The Undead regime has reclaimed the coal mines owned by the nobles, providing cheap coal to the locals, and taking the initiative to bear the transportation losses to ensure that the most remote villages can buy coal at the cheapest price. These raw materials that are almost wasted can be concentrated and made into fodder for livestock."
When Joyce Andre heard the words "The Undead regime is reclaiming the aristocracy's assets" from Brother Lowell for the second time, he was stunned.
He thought of his hometown, the town of Cameron.
The nobles of Camor town owned more than 80% of the town's land, and converted much of this land into cotton farms, causing food prices in Camor town to remain high and forcing a large number of civilians to rely on the cotton textile industry for survival.
The nobles in Camor town were very wealthy, even richer than the small and medium nobles in the nearby big cities, but the common people were extremely poor. The expenses on food alone were enough to make most of them unable to even stand up.
If these fields that were converted to cotton farms were used to grow food again, then at least... the price of black bread in Cameron would not be so much higher than in other places...
As soon as this thought came to his mind, Andre broke out in a cold sweat.
Brother Lowell continued to talk about the benefits of lowering the price of green fodder. As the costs of private and public breeders are reduced, the price of meat can also be reduced, so the price of chicken and duck sold in the city is very low, and the price of pork is less than fifteen copper coins per pound; the locals can eat meat and fat at a lower cost, and the demand for staple food is much lower than that of civilians in other areas. Their bodies are also visibly healthier and stronger, and they can take on more physically demanding work.
Andre suppressed the sudden thought in his mind and continued to listen to Brother Lowell's story. As he listened, the thought he had just suppressed could not help but .
Andre's family did not run a cotton farm because his father and grandfather were both holy priests, and plundering civilians' fields and converting grain fields into cotton fields was not in line with the teachings of the Goddess of Prosperity.
When his father was still alive, he was very dissatisfied with the cotton fields everywhere in the town of Kamoer; Andre himself did not like the current situation in his hometown where it was difficult to guarantee the supply of food and had to buy it from nearby towns.
But Andre did not think about changing the status quo. He was just an ordinary non-commissioned officer of the Holy Priest Cavalry Regiment and was on missions outside for a long time. He could neither take care of it nor had the energy to worry about it.
The monk he respected introduced to them with envy and longing how the policies adopted by the Undead regime benefited the people of Westram, making Andre repeat over and over again in his mind the scene when he was ridiculed by the Nightmare Butcher.
The guy sneered at him and said to him, "Standing aside and watching people suffer tragedy, do you dare to say that you have never done such a thing, Paladin?"
Andre silently covered his chest, feeling the pain in his heart.
Yes, he did.
He was powerless, he could not change the status quo, so he really could only ignore the civilians in his hometown who were suffering in hardship.
But this is not what he wants to see. He just can't do it and has no chance to change the status quo - if he is given the opportunity, he is willing to do so.
Andre raised his eyelids and looked at Brother Lowell who was leading them forward.
As a son of a lord, Andre knew instinctively that the path Brother Lowell hoped for and yearned for was to strip away the power of the nobility and redistribute what the nobility owned to others. Whether it was the gray industry or the high cost of living, they were originally the tools for the nobility to make money, and Brother Lowell clearly denied them.
This would harm the interests of Andre, who was also a member of the nobility, but he felt that there was nothing wrong with it.
The nobility already has too much.
The cost of a lunch for the gentlemen of Camor is equivalent to the income of the common people of Camor for two weeks. If one noble family eats well, ten or twenty common people will go hungry. This is really unfair.
After visiting the factory area, it gradually got dark.
Brother Lowell took the holy priests to the cafeteria of the Logistics Department of the Town Hall, where they had a meal of noodles that they had seen being made on the production line in the afternoon. When it was completely dark, he took them to visit the town's adult night school.
It is not a literacy school that only teaches basic literacy and anyone can bring their own stool to attend the classes. Instead, it is a night school that is open to adults who complete literacy and actively sign up for the second course. Classes are formally taught in the town hall.
The reception room, which was used to receive guests during the day, was filled with fifty or sixty students of different ages. The clerk in charge of teaching stood in front of a mobile blackboard, explaining the course to the students.
The priests, who could only stand in the corridor to watch, looked in amazement at the "students" who were listening to the class in the room.
There were shop assistants wearing the uniform of the delicatessen on the main avenue in the town, cleaners wearing bright yellow vests who could be seen on the roadside from time to time during the day, workers wearing factory work clothes, ordinary townspeople in casual clothes, and construction workers with spots of mud on their clothes and trouser legs.
None of these "students" looked like they came from a good family, and most of them had very rough hands holding notebooks and pens.
The clerk lady was giving lectures to these people who seemed to be doing menial jobs and whose backgrounds were definitely not that good, but the content of her lectures was knowledge that usually only civil servants needed to learn!
Brother Lowell noticed that the holy priests were looking at the students' attire in astonishment, and he chuckled and whispered, "Don't underestimate the students here. Only a few of the thousands of students who have completed literacy can pass the second semester assessment. It's not an exaggeration to say that only one out of twenty can be selected."
"Literacy?" Joyce Andre struggled to understand this new common term.
"Look at me, I almost forgot to mention this." Brother Lowell clapped his hands and said, "The big house opposite the factory area is Westham's literacy school. Classes are held three days a week to teach people how to read and write, read newspapers, and learn some basic arithmetic. Whether you are a resident of the town or a villager in the countryside, as long as you are willing to attend the class, you can bring your own stool to listen."
"Only those who have completed the literacy course and passed the upgrade test can continue their studies here." Rowell gently tapped the students who were listening attentively through the window. "Those who can keep up with the learning progress and have a score of no less than 70 points at the end of the course can sign up for the town hall's admission test."
"If you pass the exam successfully, you will be included in the town hall recruitment list, choose your desired employer, and participate in job training. Once you complete the training, you will receive an employment contract from the town hall. If your results are good enough, you can also be hired by the city hall and work in the city."
Brother Lowell concluded: "The Undead Archons rely on this process to select qualified staff for each department. Don't underestimate this process. Those who can walk out of here are not much worse at handling affairs than the offspring of middle-class families who have spent all their efforts to cultivate."
Joyce Andre stared at Brother Lowell for a while with her mouth half open, then turned her gaze to the civilian students in the room who were listening to the class attentively.
No wonder the Undead regime did not hesitate to deal with the Rhine nobles. No wonder Brother Lowell also felt that there was no need to win the support of the Shiga nobles, and kept talking about recovering the resources owned by the nobles...
It is true that the inclinations of the nobles will affect the inclinations of the local middle class. If the nobles do not support it, it will be difficult for the consul's orders to be implemented. However, with this method of selecting political talents from the common people and the ability to implement them, who cares whether the nobles cooperate or not !
