Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest-Chapter 70 - 4 Money

70: Chapter 4: Money?

As Much as You Want!

70 -4: Money?

As Much as You Want!

Morry said again, “I’ve contacted my brothers and sisters, and I can help you sign a contract to establish a stable iron supply channel.

It’s just that the price will be slightly higher.”

He spoke with great caution.

However, as expected, Roman agreed without hesitation.

“Price is no issue!”

This trade contract meant that merchants could capture more profit, and the suppliers of iron ingots would gain more benefits, with only Sige Town losing out.

In the market, 1 Gold Coin could buy 30 pounds of high-quality iron ingots, but Sige Town could only get 25 or 20 pounds for 1 Gold Coin.

Correspondingly, Roman was able to secure a large and stable supply of iron ingots.

The content of the contract was not Morry’s own wish.

Morry would have preferred to establish a long-term and friendly trading atmosphere with Sige Town rather than leeching off the town’s body like a bloodsucker and extracting its healthy blood.

No noble Lord could tolerate being gnawed upon by bloodsuckers.

This unequal trade contract was doomed to not last long.

According to his observations of Roman, this promising young Lord would soon shake off his current difficult situation, by which time this temporarily drafted trade contract would be useless.

Would Roman feel any goodwill towards them in the future?

Morry thought his siblings were short-sighted.

For a generous noble, having his friendship was always more important than having his benefits.

But he couldn’t sign this business contract alone; he needed specific people to guarantee it, otherwise, he couldn’t get so many iron ingots.

There were gains and losses.

Roman was indifferent to this; he would take advantage of it as much as he could.

It didn’t matter.

Sacrificing financial profit for early-stage development was perfectly acceptable to him.

Money?

There was plenty!

The merchants might as well swallow up all the productive value of Sige Town, helping accelerate its growth.

“Oh, and the Maltose you asked me to sell last time was very popular,” Morry continued.

“I took it to Pearl Harbor, and it sold out very quickly.”

He had showcased the quality and flavor of the Maltose to everyone at the opening of the Pearl Harbor market.

The starting price was 1.5 Gold Coins per barrel of Maltose.

But the last barrel sold for 1.9 Gold Coins.

This indicated that Maltose had an excellent prospect, and a noble Lord even bought three barrels in one go, a total of 90 pounds, very generous.

Roman nodded slightly; these days he had the calves and horses of Origin Manor produce a lot of Maltose.

The production process was simple and didn’t take much time, even Gwivelle could do it.

“Let’s still calculate it at the previous price this time.”

Morry had found him an iron ingot channel, and Roman didn’t mind letting him have some profit.

The expansion of Morry’s merchant fleet was obviously beneficial to him.

This time, Morry pulled away 40 barrels of Maltose and gave Roman 40 Gold Coins.

After calculations, Morry was surprised to find that the profit from this sugar was even higher than from salt, leaving aside various expenses, he could earn about a dozen Gold Coins.

Pure windfall!

Much better than the backbreaking work of selling salt.

Selling salt had to be done in many places, and most of the profits were taken away by the Nobles.

Of course, even if the Maltose sold exceedingly well, it couldn’t have the bottomless consumption potential like salt.

Morry then gave Roman 30 Gold Coins and pulled away 30,000 pounds of fine salt.

Next, he would take this food salt to different trading fairs to sell.

The salt production in Sige Town was continuously increasing due to improved worker proficiency, increased salt-refining equipment, and a more professional process.

And with the advent of iron tools, its production was about to witness another significant increase.

…

After Morry left, Roman had transported all the iron ingots to the new Blacksmith Shop.

While casting the heavy plow, he felt the Blacksmith Shop of Lax was too cramped.

Therefore, he had Lax build a new Blacksmith Shop next to the creek afterward.

The structure of the new Blacksmith Shop was simple, a large shed without walls.

Its only advantage was that it could accommodate more people.

Now, there were about twenty sturdy, strong-armed men standing here, including slaves from the highlands and locals from Sige Town, all of whom were the most physically exceptional men Roman had carefully selected.

Roman gestured and said, “You need to forge hammers, wedges, and Cross Pickaxes for mining as quickly as possible.”

He had wanted to join them in forging, aiming to quickly rack up Experience Points in Forging and unlock subsequent technologies in the tech tree.

But he still had unfinished business with the lime kiln, so Roman had no time to spare.

“Lord,” Lax, a pure Blacksmith who had no objections to his employer’s requests, said, “I understand.”

Mainly because the pay was too good.

He hadn’t forged a thousand pounds of high-quality iron ingots in the past ten years, and although his annual income was high, his usual business was not so good, and he never fully exerted himself.

Now, he could finally forge to his heart’s content.

“Train these men to become Blacksmiths like yourself as soon as possible,” Roman patted Lax’s shoulder.

The muscular Blacksmith was somewhat flattered.

If he could train fifty Blacksmiths, he would gain more wealth than he could make in a lifetime of forging.

As long as he brought a qualified Blacksmith to Roman, the latter would reward him with two shiny gold Gold Coins, and if the Blacksmith was sufficiently skilled, he could even receive three Gold Coins.

And it was paid on the spot!

The temptation was too strong.

…

Roman was in a good mood.

With sharp steel, the efficiency of these fools would greatly increase.

He would find suitable coal and iron mines before the end of summer to achieve self-sufficiency.

However, for a starving person, ten million in cash is less valuable than a sumptuous meal.

Currently, Sige Town lacked labor, money, and most of all, confidence.

Roman had no time to brainwash them, nor was he able to.

If he forcefully drove these impoverished commoners to mine coal and refine iron without addressing their basic survival needs, the result would be disastrous.

At this stage, the most important thing was basic infrastructure.

Roman returned to the lime kiln area and saw that the wood at the bottom of the kiln had started to burn.

He inspected the situation.

It was barely acceptable.

Each calcination needed to last about a week, during which he would have to supervise the entire process and explain it to the workers in a straightforward and easy-to-understand manner so they could operate the kiln on their own in the future.

Meanwhile, he took the opportunity to produce a large amount of charcoal with the wood, which was for the Blacksmith Shop to use in Forging.

…

Seven days later.

The lime was out of the kiln.

It went smoothly, without any issues of crumbling lime or kiln collapse. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

But due to poor insulation, the quality of the lime was not very good, barely meeting Roman’s basic needs for lime.

The Blacksmith Shop also forged a batch of Cross Pickaxes and wedges, which were immediately distributed to the Salt Mine, markedly enhancing productivity.