Volume 1: The Rise of Elanhill Chapter 0004: Making Money
Happiness came too suddenly, making Strid feel unreal. After more than ten days of preparation, he even sat in the woodworking shop, waiting for the first businessman to come and buy tables and chairs.
The place was filled with the sweet aroma of wet paint, and for the first time Strid found the smell pleasant.
"We are going to Duning. We heard that there are cheap furniture for sale here, so we came to take a look..." Just as Strid stood up for the third time to touch the exquisite-looking furniture, a voice sounded behind him.
To Strid, who was eager to turn wood into gold, this sound was like heavenly music.
He turned around, a smile that seemed to jump on his face, rubbing his hands and asked: "Yes, here is a newly developed chair! The style is exquisite and the price is cheap! Do you want to take a look?"
You must take a look, the businessman nodded, and then his eyes fell on the chair behind Strid and could not move away.
There is no such thing as mass-produced chairs in this world. It is actually more difficult to buy exactly the same chair than to buy different chairs: so many nobles like to use basically the same chairs in order to show off their wealth.
But the problem is that there are too many identical chairs here - so many that it's dizzying.
"100 identical chairs? Gods, am I seeing things?" The businessman took two steps forward and stretched out his hand to touch the neatly stacked chairs, but carefully stopped his impulse halfway.
"A chair like this must be expensive, right?" He turned his head to look at Strid, who had an even bigger smile on his face, and asked with a slight tremor in his voice.
"Not expensive, about 25 silver coins a handful." When Strid said the price, he felt his heartbeat quickening.
He knew the production cost of this kind of chair, even including the wages of apprentices, it took about 45 copper coins to produce a chair.
He even felt guilty for selling such a cheap chair at the sky-high price of 25 silver coins.
Of course, he also knew that such a price would soon no longer exist, and a large number of chairs would flood the market. Perhaps in a few days he would only be able to sell such a chair for 10 silver coins.
"Great! I want 40 of these chairs..." The other party happily stretched out his hand and touched the chair legs with smooth lines. The unprecedented standard curve made the businessman's blood boil.
As long as we transport this batch of chairs to Alante and present them to some noble to please the royal family, we can at least get the title of baron, right?
Just thinking about it, I was a little excited. As if he had already taken the position of baron, the businessman stood straighter than before.
Ten gold coins filled a whole cloth bag, which was quite heavy to carry. Strid watched the guards he brought put the gold coins into the cash box, and his smile became even more exaggerated.
As the one in charge of the revenue of Seris City, he had certainly seen more money. When paying taxes to the Alante Empire, he watched helplessly as 300 gold coins were carried away by a carriage.
But even he had never seen a business that could earn 10 gold coins in such a short time - you know, in the workshop not far away, apprentices were still producing such chairs.
In less than ten days, the castles, blacksmith shops, military camps, etc. in Seris City will be filled with such chairs. By then, some people will even stand on such chairs to saw wood or forge iron.
In the morning, about 10 businessmen came to the woodworking shop's warehouse and bought such chairs from Strid.
After receiving 70 gold coins, Strid really began to seriously consider Chris's problem: How should he spend so much money?
"Excuse me... May I ask, are these chairs made using a certain 'method'?" A young man touched the smooth lines on the chair legs and asked without raising his head.
"Hmm?" Strid looked at the young man, sizing him up curiously. The young man was wearing a nobleman's short shirt and had a short sword on his waist.
The golden curly hair makes this young man look delicate, and from the side he looks like a little girl.
"This is not a person doing the same work repeatedly . I know a master carpenter like this, and he can't make the same arc so... so natural." The young man raised his head, with a look of curiosity: "It's not quite right to say that it's natural... because these things don't seem to have any artistic inspiration. They... they are beautiful, but I can't think of any adjective to describe this feeling."
"Hello, sir. Do you want to buy these chairs? They are not expensive, only 25 silver coins each." Strid was in no mood to discuss craftsmanship with the young man in front of him, because he knew how this thing was produced.
In a few days, when the price of chairs is so low that there is no profit to be made, the city of Seris will sell the woodworking machines - and then people will naturally understand the greatness of the city of Seris.
"I know, I heard it. 25 silver coins..." The young man smiled and took his hand away from the chair : "My name is Des! Longtate Des..."
The smile on his face gradually disappeared. Strid was silent for a few seconds before he said, "You... are from the Longtate family..."
"Yes." Des nodded and said, "I didn't expect to see such interesting things in Seris City! Can you take me to see it?"
"Of course..." Strid looked at a guard beside him and ordered, "Go and call the city lord."
"Please come this way!" Strid slightly turned sideways, made half a space, made a gesture to lead the way, and said respectfully.
Des returned the standard noble salute, and without any hesitation, he walked past Strider and headed towards the small door on the other side of the warehouse.
Chris, who was diligently drawing the parts drawings, was once again interrupted by Deans who came to report the news.
He put down the quill with some dissatisfaction, rubbed his achy neck, and asked, "I hope you interrupt me because it's really important, Deans."
Deans' face was solemn, and he reported: "Sir, I don't know if our luck is too good or too bad... Anyway, the Longtate family wants to see you."
"Longtate Family? What do they do?" Chris naturally didn't know what kind of family this suddenly appeared, and asked with a puzzled look on his face: "Is it great?"
"Sir, the Longtate family is one of the largest business families in the mortal kingdom. They run everything and can be said to be one of the richest and oldest families." Deans reported without hesitation.
He even used a lot of honorifics when introducing the family, which made Chris realize how terrifying this family was: "This family is very large, and they control the business of metal smelting, grain, and other valuables. They even control the minting of gold coins in some countries."
"Oh! This is interesting." Chris finally felt that he did not waste his time this time. He nodded and said, "Let's go! Let's go meet this distinguished guest of the Longtate family!"
When Chris arrived at the woodworking shop, Strid had already taken Des to see the new machines.
Des was like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden. He carefully observed the apprentices operating the machinery and even tried it himself, destroying a piece of wood.
Strid was not worried at all that Des would plagiarize the mechanical design here: on the one hand, just looking at the external structure would not necessarily allow one to fully understand the complex parts inside; on the other hand, there was the great history of the Longtate family.
This family has an ancestral motto that resounds throughout the continent: "The Longtait family only does business, not robbery." From the day it was born, this family has been a pure business family and never exceeds the rules it has set.
For anything they like, they will use their strong financial resources and offer conditions that the other party cannot refuse to cooperate. It has never been heard that they have taken anything from anyone. Background sometimes does exist, especially when the person who holds it cherishes it very much.
"This is such a great invention, it's really amazing." Dess looked up and praised Strid beside him with surprise on his face.
Then he saw a tall, well-proportioned, and very handsome black-haired man walking in with a middle-aged man with long hair.
"You must be City Lord Chris. Nice to meet you. Let me introduce myself. I'm Des from the Longtate family, the third son of the family." Des had no intention of disrespecting him and politely greeted him first.
Chris certainly wasn't arrogant and immediately responded, "Cerris City welcomes you, Mr. Des."
"I'm sorry to bother you." Des said with a smile. "Actually, I was just passing through Seris City today, but I found something interesting, so I decided to come here to take a look."
He pointed at the machine beside him and exclaimed: "This trip is worthwhile. I found something amazing here."
"It's really something amazing." Chris smiled and nodded, without any intention of being modest.
As a soul from modern industrial civilization, he certainly knows how powerful industrial civilization is, and he also knows what kind of progress these seemingly simple machines in front of him represent.
"I wonder if this model is universally applicable, applicable... applicable... to other, other jobs." Des smiled awkwardly, then explained, "I don't stutter, but... please understand that it's not easy to describe the changes your technology has brought to production."
"I understand." Chris replied, "You are right. This technology can be applied to any complex work - it can replace many machines, such as those backward looms."
