Volume 7: Doing Business with the World Chapter 221: The Express Team's Story of Getting Rich
The Centaur Express Team arrived at the capital of Kronin about five days after leaving the Knight Territory.
Normally, a caravan fully loaded with goods would take at least ten days or half a month to complete this journey, but the centaurs clearly have more advantages than the average caravan - as warriors, each of them has excellent riding and combat capabilities, and as horsepower (...), the average tonnage of a centaur is over 600 kilograms, which is more powerful than the most common cargo-carrying six-legged lizards on the continent... It's as if they were born to run errands!
Of course, along the way, Sale and his companions were also targeted by bandits, highway robbers, and local nobles who were even more brutal than the bandits.
On the day they left Valentine's territory, when they passed through a small town, the Centaur express team, who did not expect to get supplies in the human town, received a "grand" welcome from the local nobles.
It was a clear afternoon. A convoy consisting of 200 Centaur warriors, more than a hundred large carriages, a bard who came to lead the way to earn money, and several noble servants were stopped by a group of people while passing through a small path around the mountain.
This group of people brought broken wood and stones and placed them across the middle of the road. About a hundred people squatted on both sides of the road. On the side facing the mountain, they also built an extremely simple small shed according to local conditions. Several old men with fair skin and dressed in aristocratic clothes were waiting inside, sweating profusely, staring at the other end of the road with a fierce look in their eyes.
The working human ranger guide's face changed slightly, but the centaurs looked curiously at the crowd that had been squatting on both sides of the road and were slowly walking over to try to form a double-team.
As for this group of people, the one walking in front looked quite decent, wearing half-worn armor and carrying swords, axes and hammers.
But looking over the heads of these people and looking back (the average height of a centaur is three meters), it is quite ridiculous - the people piled up in the back are either lazy and skinny idlers, or farmers with nervous faces, and even quite a few half-grown teenagers...
It's really like he doesn't even put his heart into just getting together.
Even those face-saving guys standing in front did not do a good job of keeping up appearances... When the overly tall, ugly, and ferocious Centaur warriors walked out of the convoy and headed towards them, these people immediately stood still with pale faces, and refused to move forward even a single step no matter what was said.
Saier said nothing, but silently glanced at this group of amateur bandits, and the group of people became confused... Some of the farmers who were there to make up the numbers even started to sneak away.
"..." Saier retracted his gaze and silently looked at the nobles who walked out of the shed.
These nobles were surrounded by a dozen loyal and sturdy male servants. Although they still maintained the dignity of noble masters and were not frightened, they did not dare to step forward...
The two sides were in an awkward stalemate for a moment. One of the nobles spotted the human ranger in the Centaur team. His eyes lit up immediately and he shouted arrogantly, "You, come here."
The human ranger looked grim and looked up at Sayre.
Sai Er didn't say whether to let him pass or not. He turned around and shouted to the team behind him: "Are you ready?"
“Here it comes!”
Four human beings straightened up their newly put-on formal attire and hurried out carrying flags.
The noble lord who failed to motivate the human ranger was about to lose his temper, with curses still brewing in his throat. The next moment, he half-opened his mouth and stared blankly at four of his fellow centaurs who ran out from the crowd of centaurs.
These four noble servants, who were from Prince Maurice, the son of a duke, the daughter of an earl, and the family of a powerful viscount, carried pennants with their masters' family crests and wore the butler's formal clothes that they were awarded before they left. They walked out of the crowd with a swagger, and their demeanor and temperament were even more arrogant and insolent than the noble masters who blocked their way...
"Who dares to stop the convoy of Prince Maurice, Duke XX, Earl XX and Viscount XX? Tell me your name!" The servant under the royal banner shouted with his nose in the air and in a particularly arrogant tone.
Several local nobles who showed up were stunned.
Those idlers, farmers, and young boys who were called to make up the numbers immediately scattered and could not be stopped even if they were shouted... Well, no one shouted because the guys who were there to support the scene ran faster - they knew the nature of the local nobles very well, and if they kicked such a powerful iron plate, there was a high possibility that they would be used as cannon fodder and scapegoats to make the iron plate vent its anger!
Prince Maurice's manservant tilted his head back and looked at him with his nose up: "Get out of here!"
The nobles fled as if they had been pardoned...
"Hey, wait, you should have let them remove the barricade themselves."
"Oops, I forgot."
"Don't sleep on the bus anymore, raise the flags."
"Brother Saier, it's not that we want to be lazy, but the weather is terribly hot, the deacon's uniform is not breathable, and this pennant is really heavy..."
"How about putting the flag on the car?"
"No, the flag will fade and become old."
“…Okay.”
Whenever I meet a local noble who is interested in moonlighting as a road bandit, this is basically the procedure...
Well, this is not a case of the fox taking advantage of the tiger's power. The goods on the truck were all paid in full in cash by several big customers. The Centaur Express Team is responsible for delivery, assembly and repair, but does not include compensation.
If you encounter real bandits, it will be easier to deal with them. Just click on a few dozen Centaur warriors and charge back and forth twice to basically disperse them.
The convoy arrived at the royal capital, but did not approach the city-state, but went directly to Prince Maurice's estate to unload his goods; two Centaur warriors stayed with the goods and were responsible for training on the assembly and simple maintenance of agricultural machinery in the next two months.
After resting in this manor for a day and preparing to leave, there were a lot more goods in the caravan. The man carrying the flag of Prince Maurice and wearing a butler's uniform exchanged with the servant of the caravan... His Royal Highness, who had borrowed a large sum of foreign debt, was at a time of extreme poverty. He was busy shipping the output of his own manor and selling it. It was obviously more cost-effective to spend some money to buy the "transportation capacity" of the express team than to pull a caravan out by himself.
Sail registered the goods and kept accounts in a small notebook, counted every silver coin he earned and put them into the cash box, then prepared to set off with the convoy to the Duke's territory.
Just as they were about to set off, Prince Maurice's butler cautiously asked if a certain lady could go with the express team.
Saier asked the old butler carefully, and when he was surprised, he remembered Ayun's instructions.
All the tribes on the grassland were extremely poor, so there was naturally no soil for looting and highway robbery, which were businesses with no capital to thrive. What the tiger tribe did to the centaurs and cats was called "confiscation of property". They were going for slaves and land, and the tiger tribe did not care about the material wealth of the centaurs and cats.
However, in the human kingdom of Kronin, where there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor, it is a different situation... From local petty nobles to ordinary rural farmers and small town residents, occasionally playing the role of a thief, robber or road bully is not a big deal at all.
As for why there are no safer and more convenient travel options, such as the magic train that the Alchemist Guild invented hundreds of years ago - the reason is simple, the wooden sleepers and rails are not stealable enough, and no country is willing to invest huge amounts of money and manpower to maintain them.
Since the advent of the magic train, only the largest mines in the Dwarf Kingdom have been using it, and a few megacities with a population of millions have installed rails for urban traffic. (Port cities like Valentine, which are built on the mountains, cannot build rails.)
Therefore, it is basically impossible for people who are not powerful to travel...
If a magician is not at the second level, the teacher will not dare to let him go out to travel. (Those who are at the second level at a young age like the young Adam are rare geniuses)
"Delivering goods is delivering, and delivering people is also delivering, right?" Saier asked the human ranger uncertainly.
Human Ranger: “…”
The Bards Association also does errands, helping to deliver letters and small valuable goods. As for large quantities of goods and short-distance delivery of people (for long-distance delivery, there are airship rentals and teleportation array services, of course, the fees are also quite high), it is limited by labor costs and cannot be carried out, and there is no competition with the express delivery team.
The ranger diligently analyzed the pros and cons of giving a ride and suggested a fee for Seer. Seer humbly accepted the advice, and after making up his mind, he went to meet the lady who wanted to hitchhike.
Anyway, the ugliness of Centaurs is natural. If you are not used to it, we can only envy the money.
It is said that the lady of a certain Countess saw the Centaur with her own eyes... Her face turned two shades paler in an instant, but she remained calm and was not frightened.
Her servants were less polite and two of them fainted on the spot.
Sai Er: “…”
...It’s up to you.
At a safe distance of more than five meters, he negotiated with the noble lady about the cost of transporting people. The noble lady's husband had died and her territory had been taken away by another earl. This time she was packing up her property and preparing to live in the most remote manor. After hearing that the Centaur Express Team's transportation fee was quite low (compared to hiring adventurers, mercenary guards, and forming a caravan), she immediately decided to take more people with her and asked Seer to give her one more day to prepare.
Saier agreed readily... He could earn twenty silver coins by sending a person to the Kronin border area 400 kilometers away. With the speed of a centaur, the person could be delivered in four or five days at most, so the more money he earned, the better.
The next day, when the earl's widow left the royal capital, she not only brought with her a dozen capable servants and attendants, but also brought with her several families who also had travel needs and could afford it - a lord who was visiting a friend, a retired noble steward and his family who had not been back to their hometown for many years, a young lady from a knight's family who was visiting relatives, a baroness who was visiting her mother's family, a baron and his family who were visiting their daughter... and so on.
More than a hundred humans came to Prince Maurice's manor in an orderly manner. After seeing the ugly and ferocious Centaur warriors with their own eyes, they expressed shock and surprise, and their worldviews were refreshed.
But there was no impolite fear or terror. Instead, I felt quite safe - although it was a bit impolite, for something as dangerous as a long journey, it would be better if the companions could be as evil-repellent as possible.
The Centaur warriors who were upgraded to talismans of evil had another headache about charging: they still had to run three delivery points, and the destinations of these humans were all along the way, which was convenient, but the problem was that the distances to the places these humans wanted to reach were inconsistent, some were far and some were near.
Saier consulted the human ranger and sought the opinion of the steward of Prince Maurice's manor, and finally decided on a charging plan: one silver coin for every twenty kilometers of escort.
Regarding this price, Sayle himself felt a little guilty... Silver coins are hard currency, and the salary of a centaur in the Fire Tribe is equivalent to that of a gray dwarf, which is only a dozen silver coins a month.
However, when this price was reported to human customers, everyone was happy - it only cost five silver coins to safely deliver the goods a hundred kilometers away, there was no charge for the luggage, and the speed was guaranteed. Where can you find such a good thing?
The Baron, who was about to go visit his daughter, asked if the Centaurs could escort him to inspect the farm and escort the goods in the fall. Searle took out a map, asked about the route, and calculated the time for the next delivery by the courier team, and readily agreed.
They set out that day, and the next morning, after a night of jolting in the large carriage provided by the Centaurs, the Baron and his family were sent to their daughter's home, a hundred kilometers away from the royal capital.
The Baron and his family happily paid and got off the bus. The Centaurs also helped carry their luggage to the doorstep...
The baron's daughter, who went out to greet them, had no time to be frightened by the centaur and was immediately overwhelmed with joy at seeing her family.
When the express delivery team left the town, there were a few more hitchhikers in the team...
They stopped and started along the way, picking up and dropping off passengers, and when they were delivering the farm machinery purchased by the Duke's son, the Earl's widow, who had been in the caravan for four and a half days and had become quite familiar with the Centaurs, also arrived at her own manor.
The earl's widow settled the fare and tactfully asked whether the express delivery team would come in the fall and if so, whether they could deliver goods to her estate. Sail naturally agreed happily... If it weren't for the help of this Countess who was very good at dealing with people, they wouldn't have been able to earn so much extra money.
In the Duke's manor, unloading and loading goods, picking up and dropping off passengers, and counting the small box of silver coins that he earned extra, Sayre was very happy...
After leaving two Centaurs in charge of after-sales service at the Duke's Manor, the courier team set out again to the hometown of the third agricultural machinery customer, the Countess.
At this time, a group of people who received Alman's letter ran out of the deep mountains and forests and just entered the territory of the Kingdom of Kroning. They were preparing to cross Kroning and head to the agreed knight's territory.
There were six people in the group, dressed as adventurers, wearing half-body armor, leather armor and other equipment of different sizes, carrying weapons and bags, and riding two-legged ground dragons, which were half the price of chocobos, and they leisurely entered the earldom.
This group of condemned people disguised as adventurers have been traveling for several days in a row. They are all in poor spirits. The youngest one is lying on the back of a two-legged ground dragon.
"We really should have rented a small airship, so we could have reached our destination in a few days. This slow journey is too tiring, and it's not likely to save much money."
"That's enough, Aisha." A bearded man on the back of another two-legged walking dragon looked at him unhappily, "When can you learn from Adam? He is a few years younger than you. He has traveled to so many places with Alman on his own two feet. When has he ever complained like you?"
"Teacher, how do you know that Adam didn't complain? You just didn't hear him." The young man muttered, "Besides, Adam majored in wind magic. Riding the wind is not the same as walking."
"Hey, why did I accept a little bastard like you? Why don't I have someone as talented and kind as Adam?" the bearded burly man said unhappily.
The young man turned to look at the female rider dressed like a walker on the back of another two-legged walking dragon: "Senior, have you ever been disliked by the teacher like this before?"
"You should talk less." The female rider said with a smile, "Originally the teacher didn't force you to come. You just wanted to be curious about the Knight Robbins who wrote Cinderella, so you followed me on your own."
The young man sat up immediately. "Why are you only talking about me, Senior Sister? Aren't you curious about Knight Robins?"
"So I'm not complaining like you, am I?" The female rider raised her eyebrows and patted her mount. "In order to buy these six earth dragons, the teacher sold all his pocket watches. How can we afford to rent a small airship?"
The young man lay back down like a salted fish, lamenting: "Why are we so poor~~"
As it gradually darkened, the group of six entered the town and settled down in a camp outside the town where there was little weeds and close to a water source.
Many towns have such unmaintained open-air camps outside. Caravans, adventurers, mercenaries and other travel groups will choose to stay overnight in such areas if they do not need to enter the city. After all, you have to pay a gate tax when entering and leaving the town, and there are not many companies as conscientious as Valentine in paying the gate tax.
There were already other campers in this camp today. From a distance, the group saw a large group of horse-drawn carriages, groups of tents, and heard the bustling voices of people.
"There are other people here, is it a caravan? Why are there children here?" The young man looked forward with his hands on his back, and he heard the sharp laughter of the children.
The bearded man glared at the most troublesome young disciple: "Aisha, don't cause trouble. We still have a long way to go."
"I understand, teacher." The young man said casually.
As they got closer, the six people, including the bearded man, were so shocked that their jaws dropped... What did they see? Centaurs? Or a large group of Centaurs? !
The condemned were not frightened by the ugliness of the centaurs, but was there really nothing wrong with such a large group of centaurs openly appearing in the territory of the Kingdom of Kronin, near a town? !
"Hiss... Teacher, there are humans among the Centaurs!!" the young man gasped.
The bearded man had good eyesight, so needless to say he saw it... a centaur who walked out of the camp and came towards them, with a little girl riding on his back!
The six condemned ones were very silent, extremely silent... about this weird situation before their eyes... If there were more humans and fewer centaurs, they could still understand it, as centaurs could occasionally be seen in the slave markets of the human kingdom; but there were half centaurs and half humans, and both sides were happily mixed together, and human children could even ride on the backs of centaurs to play, this was really challenging common sense.
"We have entered the territory of the Kingdom of Kronin, right, teacher?" The female rider looked at the bearded man with a confused look on her face.
Bearded Man: “…” Could he say that he also had the urge to take out the map and have a look?
As a member of the forbidden magic race, Sayre naturally could not tell that the group of people in front of him were actually adventurers disguised as spellcasters. After running closer, he stopped at a safe distance of about five meters and waved, "Hello, travelers. Our Centaur Express Team occupies a large area of the camp. If you don't mind, can you camp a little further south?"
The condemned ones: "..."
The female rider looked at the teacher anxiously and asked, "What is a courier brigade?"
The bearded man looked straight ahead, and I knew nothing!
Seeing that the group of people didn't react, Sayer's tone became softer, and he said in a negotiating tone: "There are quite a few hitchhikers in our group, including some children, so it will be quite noisy. The south side is a little farther from the water source, but it will be quieter. We will provide dinner for you to express our apologies, and please bear with us."
The condemned ones: "..."
It's not that they don't know manners or can't tolerate noise, but the scene before them and the words spoken by the centaur are too informative and too challenging to common sense...
Fortunately, the bearded man had extensive experience and strong nerves. He quickly reacted after being stunned for a few seconds and responded politely: "Please don't worry, Centaur friend, we are not picky about where to stay, and we will try our best not to disturb your guests."
"Thank you very much." Sayre nodded and turned to lead the way. "Please come this way." He did not forget to remind the child riding on his back, "Hold on tight, little Pearly, don't fall off."
"Yeah, I won't fall!" The lively human girl tightly grasped the... mane on the waist of the Celtic.
Saier brought these six "adventurers" to a remote area in the camp, and trotted away. Not long after, he brought two more warriors to help set up camp and gave them some bean powder to feed their mounts...
Well, soybean powder mixed with a little salt and sugar crystals is a good thing for Centaur warriors to replenish their physical strength. The soy flour that is roasted and crushed into powder not only has the advantages of sufficient protein and high unsaturated fatty acid content, but also tastes very good. It is convenient to eat dry, wrap it in food, or drink it with water.
Centaurs love to eat, mounts love to eat, and people love to eat too.
The centaurs enthusiastically helped to set up the tent and left. The young man Aisha couldn't help but dip his finger into the fine-looking bean powder and put it in his mouth. Then he said to the female rider in surprise, "It's delicious, senior sister. How rich are those centaurs? They actually use such fine things to feed horses?"
"You pig-head...I'm a Centaur! Centaur!" The female rider's mouth twitched.
"That's true. A centaur is just a horse, isn't it?" The young man Aisha agreed with him and quickly... put away the bag of bean powder. He had no intention of feeding it to the ground dragon.
"Have some ambition? You even want to steal the mount's food!" the female rider shouted.
Aisha pretended not to hear and walked away with her hands behind her back.
After a while, the Centaurs fulfilled their promise and brought dinner over. Aisha geniusly tore the flatbread (baked naan) given by the Centaurs into small pieces, wrapped it with bean flour and ate it, his eyes squinting as he ate.
The female rider watched him eat for a long time in silence, then took out the bean powder that she was going to feed her mount and ate it herself...
At this moment, the people from other worlds are also Wang Jingze.
The condemned felt very embarrassed after sharing the flatbreads, hot and sour noodles with dried meat, and appetizers of pickled vegetables and salted eggs given by the centaurs. When it got dark and a fire was lit in the camp, the bearded man saw from afar that the rather polite centaur Searle was being taken care of by a dozen human children climbing up and down, so he sent his disciples over to help.
Aisha was good at this. She immediately took out her tools to amuse children and ran over excitedly: "Little devils! Look what this is!"
He took out a handkerchief and performed magic tricks for the children...
"Thank you very much." Sail was finally freed from the hell of the naughty kid and sincerely thanked the bearded man.
It’s not that centaurs like to take care of children or put them on their backs, but if they don’t do this, these little guys running around on the ground will easily be stepped on...
"We should be the ones saying thank you. It's really unfair of us to forget to say thank you after hosting your dinner." The bearded man said in a friendly manner.
Author's words:
(1) Britain built its first railway in 1825, after the Industrial Revolution, with a total length of 27 km.
The foundation for the emergence of such a "pocket-sized" railway is based on the invention and popularization of steam engines, as well as the annual steel production in the UK reaching more than 10,000 tons...
Those who do not accumulate experience for ten or twenty years before being able to engage in railway engineering immediately after traveling through time are basically just daydreaming.
(2) Regarding the issue of travel, it was not until several decades after the founding of the People's Republic of China, when my country's infrastructure had achieved some results and after the reform and opening up, that is, in the 1990s, that a wave of farmers leaving their hometowns to work began to emerge. The term "migrant worker" did not appear until 2004.
Before this, most people rarely traveled more than a hundred miles away from their birthplace in their entire lives.
It is difficult for those of us born in the 80s and 90s to understand that kind of closed life.
Here we can also insert a less interesting piece of trivia: after the upsurge of farmers going out to work, the suicide rate of rural women in my country has dropped significantly...
Many urban people who think “Why not eat meat porridge?” may find it difficult to understand what being able to work in the city and earn their own property means to many rural women.
Two more words:
How hard the peasants' lives were can be seen from the large amount of literature written by the educated youth who went to the countryside to work in the last century. After the work was over, they could return to the city, while the peasants who were countless times more numerous than them were still bound to the land.
When I was a kid, I saw a sentence in a literary magazine. I can’t remember the exact sentence, but the general meaning was: “The educated youth suffered a little, and their cries were heard by the whole world. The peasants suffered too much, and they are numb to the pain, and can’t make any sound.”
