Urban Sims

After a heavy snowfall, the winter season has arrived.

The ground was covered with a thick white blanket.

Logically speaking, in this kind of cold weather where it is difficult to travel, the best way to do it is to stay at home with the doors and windows closed, sit by the warm fireplace, warm up by the fire, drink wine, talk to family and friends, and sleep well. Get a good night's sleep and get through this cold winter.

But unexpectedly, there were strange-looking carriages parked in front of the gate of Glenland Castle.

These horse-drawn carts are pulled by a strong horse, and a square cart is dragged behind. In the cart, there are 20 heavy bags of grain, weighing about 20 talents.

The wheels of the carriage are not the original pair of circular and symmetrical spoked wooden wheels, but two wooden boards with raised ends and smooth bottoms - this is the sleigh invented by Zhou Ming.

In front of the castle, there are 400 sleighs filled with grain bags. With so many sleighs, they can transport 8,000 talents of grain at a time to Pagoda, more than 60 miles away in the north, with the efficiency of one trip every two days. Dun led the trading station, and then asked another group of people stationed at the trading station to drive a sleigh with a similar structure to transport the grain from the trading station to various places where there was a demand for food purchase.

From the nearest Earldom of Merlin, to the Earldom of Gagan and Earl of Tingen in the west...the last grain sales outlets are almost spread across the seven Earldoms in the north.

Zhou Ming was very surprised that because the Northland was poor, the environment was harsh, and there were very few traveling merchants, the earls and barons in these seven counties heard that as long as they joined the "Free Business Alliance", they could buy from them. After being in urgent need of food, perhaps because they were poor and wanted to change, most of the territories, after a little thought, joined the Free Trade Alliance one after another.

Within a month, the number of members of the Free Business Alliance increased from the initial 4 to more than 60. Many members also took the initiative to apply to join after seeing their neighbors buying a lot of food.

So, when the horse-drawn sleigh transported bags of grain to the gates of the castles of various counts and baronies, the grain was unloaded and put into the warehouses of each territory. Then, thousands of people would be moved out of the warehouses. The animal furs, precious wood, and savage ore weapons (the northern nobles fought with the northern savages all the year round, captured a lot of ore weapons) were moved to the sleigh for the caravan leader to choose from.

"This fox skin is good. It should be an old fox skin with a lifespan of more than twenty years. Hey, why are there two holes on the head? It's a pity. One hole is fine, but two holes are worthless. This fox skin is still No more." The leader threw this fox skin, which was extremely rare in the Southern Kingdom and could be sold for hundreds of gold coins, aside like garbage.

"This white bear skin is okay. It should be an old bear skin that is more than thirty years old. The color is also very good. Hey, why are there a few yellowish hairs here? It's a pity. It's pure white, but there are hairs. The fur is worthless. I don’t want it anymore, and I don’t want this either.” The white bear skin, which was not worth ten thousand gold coins, but could be sold for at least a thousand gold coins after removing the miscellaneous hair, was also regarded as garbage and was thrown aside.

"This piece of wood should be a cold fir tree that is more than a thousand years old. The color should be bright golden red, but due to improper storage, the color has darkened. No!"

"Hey, this savage ax looks good. It's golden in color... it should be copper! I want this ax!" The shrewd team leader inadvertently put the gold nugget into the sled bucket.

There are too many furs, wood ores in the warehouses in various territories in the North. However, according to the trading rules of one cart of grain for one cart of things, the leaders of the various merchant alliances' grain transportation teams can only buy from these mountains of goods. Among the goods, the goods with the best completeness, the longest age, the purest color, and the highest rarity are selected and put into the sled body.

This selection process involves judging, picking and choosing, and being extremely picky! The owners of these goods wanted to get angry and beat them up.

After picking up the goods, the sleighs filled with furs, wood, and ores returned to Glenland. Due to the shortage of craftsmen, Glenland did not have the ability to deeply process these goods. Therefore, in addition to all the ores, and part of the wood were left behind. The remaining pieces of animal fur and precious wood, which can be regarded as treasures, were sold to several wealthy kingdoms in the south through the hands of a large number of traveling merchants who joined the Free Merchant Alliance, and were sold to the dignitaries of these kingdoms. .

Relying on the good operating mechanism of the Free Merchant Alliance's internal regular coordination, concentration of capable manpower, and unified planning of sales, throughout the winter, the transfer base with Glenling as the core divided nearly a thousand sleighs into dozens of transportation teams. During transportation, with hundreds of knights accompanying them for protection, the originally quiet and deserted business activities among dozens of territories suddenly broke out with unprecedented vitality, even in this bitterly cold winter.

sold out.

Everything that could be sold was sold out.

Take Glenland as an example. In just two months, the 200,000 talents of grain in the castle granary, together with the black and rotten old grain underneath, were all sold out. Glenland Livestock The large amount of dried meat, cheese, and sausages accumulated in the field, the tens of thousands of barrels of ale brewed by the brewery over the years, and the thousands of Taren’s dried apples left in the orchard are all in short supply and sold cleanly!

The surplus grain in the warehouse in Nathanling, the dried beef and mutton in Youcanling and the specialty nuts (a kind of nut in Youcanling with thin skin and thick flesh, similar to walnuts) were sold out after only three or four trips.

In the later period, in order to continue to meet the strong demand in the north, Zhou Ming had to send people to greet all the people in the Earl of Rhodes. Even Baron Garcia in the west was lured many times with large sums of money, and finally the remaining 9 people in the Earl of Rhodes were lured. The excess grain reserves in each territory (including the territory directly under Earl Lauzitz) were all moved to the north, which was enough to meet their food needs.

For the last business, Zhou Ming, who had not forgotten the "ore weapons" in the hands of the northern barbarians, went out personally, bringing a group of twenty grain trucks carrying grain, dried meat and dried fruits, and eighty grain trucks carrying nothing. I brought an empty cart (actually it was not empty, I brought food and fodder for the people and horses), and based on the optimal route planned in the [World Map] in my mind, I crossed the vast white ice field and arrived at a few old people who were discussing eating. Well, the savage tribe is still good at eating women and children. Good guy, if these savages weren't so hungry that they couldn't even hold weapons, the hundreds of people Zhou Ming led would have been swallowed whole by these savages.

When returning from the savage tribe, the convoy of hundreds of sleds brought by Zhou Ming, except for a dozen that were damaged due to various accidents, the remaining 80 or so sleds were all filled with golden, or Various metal ores that are black or shiny, as well as some large gemstones with beautiful colors (there is a diamond as big as a human head, crystal clear, without any impurities, Zhou Ming used a pound of grain to exchange it), Returned with a full load and returned to Glenland.

At this time, in the large granary of Glenland Castle, the old grain had been swept away, replaced by countless animal skins, a large amount of precious wood, and various metals that had no place to store but could only be placed in the castle rooms. Raw ore.

How to deal with these three types of items has become the biggest problem facing Zhou Ming.

This problem must be a huge problem for others, but for Zhou Ming, who has already had a plan in mind, it is just a drizzle that has been anticipated in his complete plan.

"The key point is to get rid of all those furs first. With so many precious furs, it is impossible to sell them to customers one by one with tens of thousands of gold coins. Things are rare and valuable, and things that are not rare can only be sold by For the sake of quantity, we wholesale the ones of lower quality, priced at 50 to 100 gold coins each, to the traveling traders who deal in furs. The ones with the highest quality are sold to the nobles of the wealthy kingdoms in the south at a slightly higher price, and they are graded. Sell ​​and ensure that the nobles in the south, whether they are the lowest knights or the most noble kings, buy a few pieces each! The weather is so cold, the demand will not drop..."

"As for some of the precious wood, let's keep it on hand first. After the spring, we will recruit a group of carpenters, including carpenter apprentices with average skills! In the next few months, a large furniture workshop in Glenland must be established. Already..."

"Also, you should keep those ores in your hands. These ores are all natural rare metal ores that are not easy to corrode. After being smelted in a blast furnace, they can be made into various metal ingots, whether they are used to make alloy armor. Or casting currency for circulation, both can play a huge role..."

Zhou Ming, who had made the above plan, personally led a small caravan carrying thousands of top-quality furs to the Iron Castle Kingdom in the next month.

…

Early spring in February.

After returning from Iron Castle Kingdom.

Zhou Ming invited the three first members of the Merchant Alliance, the three lords of Youken, Nathan, and Patton, to Glenland Castle, and asked Jian servants to carry three unusually heavy treasure chests and place them there. In front of the three lords.

As they walked along, they opened the treasure boxes at their feet one by one. A burst of dazzling but very delicate and soft light emitted. Zhou Ming said to them:

"Baron Howard, the 25,000 gold coins in this box are my reward for you and your knights. Thank you very much for your strong support to the work of the Merchant Alliance in the past few months. Please accept these gold coins. This belongs to you. Something deserved in return.”

After hearing this, Baron Howard couldn't wait to squat down, his eyes shone with the unique light of a money fan, stretched out his hands, grabbed the gold coins in the box one after another, grinned brightly, and murmured: " There are so many gold coins, they are all mine, they are all mine..."

"Dear father-in-law, the 30,000 gold coins in this box are your reward. You have provided the merchant alliance with 100,000 talents of food and more than 20,000 talents of dried meat and dried fruits. The knights under your command, this It has been very hard for you to follow me around for a few months. When you go back, don’t forget to give some of the gold coins to them. This is the reward they deserve.”

After listening to Zhou Ming's words, Baron Sean nodded, feeling very excited. 30,000 gold coins. He had never seen so many gold coins in his life. This time he earned it in only three or four months. He now has a kind of It feels like a dream, is it real?

Finally, Zhou Ming walked up to Baron Romon, who was a little unable to stand, his eyes wandering, and his eyes occasionally glanced at the two treasure chests full of gold coins next to him - this rough-looking Northland man was restless at the moment, and wanted to immediately put his foot down. Open the treasure chest that belongs to him and see how many gold coins are inside as a reward for him...

However, Baron Romont, who was unflinching and never afraid on the battlefield, still did not dare to open this treasure box, because he contributed the least in the Free Merchant Alliance and could not offer any food or dried meat. goods and make more contributions to the merchant alliance. The most he can do is send some knights and farmers to help the caravan.

Now that he saw Knight Edward, he wanted to give himself some extra rewards. He didn't dare to think of 20,000 or 30,000 gold coins. He would be very happy if he could have a few thousand gold coins. His family's set has been passed down for several generations. The armor has been repaired and repaired countless times for more than a hundred years. It should be time to replace it with a new one this time.

brush!

What a dazzling golden light.

Baron Romon's eyes couldn't help but narrowed, and he heard a voice in his ear: "Dear Baron Romon, in the past few months, if you hadn't been a matchmaker in various territories in the North, providing convenience and help to the merchant alliance, the Free Merchant Alliance would have , it is impossible to sell so much food and goods, I would like to express my deep gratitude! Here is 20,000 gold coins, I hope it is not too little, believe me, as long as everyone works together, next year, we can still earn more gold coins than this !”

"Hmm~"

Baron Romon nodded slightly. This big man from the North, who had always been upright and cheerful, for some reason, his eyes turned red and his nose became slightly sour.

He secretly thought to himself that this Free Business Alliance is really very promising.