Rise of Rurik - Chapter 1020

[Chapter 1020 The Largest Single Leather Delivery]

The boundless ice floes still wrap the entire Åland Islands. Most of them come from the depths of the Gulf of Bothnia in the north. Optimistically speaking, the frozen ocean is still melting rapidly. Pessimistically speaking, it will take some days for the ocean to resume safe navigation.

In fact, the course from Tombstone Island to Stockholm has barely resumed sailing, and the merchants took their buddies to row the boat forcibly, and the risk is less than that of encountering an ocean storm.

They generally seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. The more money and materials they have on hand, the more cautious they are.

They are very envious of the king’s large ships, and they are thinking about ordering a larger cargo ship for themselves.

Almost all of these merchants came from Lake Mälaren, and a rather embarrassing question was presented to everyone—artisan families who were good at building large ships collectively immigrated to the East for their own interests.

Who would refuse to be rich?

Capable shipbuilders went to the east to pan for gold, and the huge Ross fleet that is now anchored on Tombstone Island is made by these craftsmen.

The news that Rurik, king of Ross, is spending huge sums of money to build a brand new giant ship is true. The huge hull cannot be covered by a wooden shed at all. The construction of the new ship is completely open, and anyone can comment on it before it is launched.

The glory belongs to the royal family, but the price is the decline of the shipbuilding industry in Lake Mälaren, Sweden.

The dragon-headed longship is still the main type of ship, and the craftsmen left behind in Lake Mälaren can only build it.

Of course, it is not a problem for a wealthy businessman to go to the shipyard loyal to the royal family in New Roseburg to order a “standard cargo ship” such as a ship appointed by the royal family. The problem is to take out the money immediately.

Cash or equivalent goods of at least two hundred and fifty pounds of silver coins, even a self-proclaimed wealthy person would find it difficult to come up with such a sum of cash.

Unless, take advantage of some opportunities to make a fortune.

Buy horse leather from Frankish war horses from the king to make a variety of hard, wear-resistant and cold-resistant leather products. It is obviously very profitable for sellers who are inspired to become warriors, mercenaries, and adventurers to make a lot of money.

They first followed the description of King Rurik, so they did not hesitate to bid to buy it, and firmly believed that even if the price was hyped outrageously, everyone would still make a lot of money in the end.

The logic is this, a young soldier will spend all his savings, even borrow money, and buy himself enough equipment for most of his life.

In the past, the Baltic Sea was divided by various forces, and there were bandits rampant on the sea. Merchants had to recruit mercenary guards only to trade with swords.

Today’s Baltic Sea seems to be peaceful, and the perspective of merchants is also projected to more distant places.

Merchants yearned for bigger ships to travel further afield in search of fortune.

The unknown land is afraid that the authority of King Ross cannot be covered, so the large-scale mercenary gap defect just now stimulated a large number of screaming young people in Sweden to explore abroad.

To order a bright white Ross steel sword and a black and hard Ross chrome handaxe, the young mercenary would have to pay a pound of silver coins or more than a thousand pounds of oats.

Swedish businessmen noticed that these young men were willing to spend money on weapons, so they must have spent a lot of money on a good dress, a good pair of shoes, a good belt, and so on.

The businessmen who successfully bid have ignored the farce of the Gould family. People are willing to believe that this domineering family finally left the scene after their wealth reached the end.

Twenty copies of horse leather were purchased by more than a dozen Swedish businessmen through joint bidding. For this reason, they really took out corresponding wealth and moved boxes of silver coins to the wharf of Tombstone Island, waiting for the long ship transporting horse leather to arrive at the port for unloading.

Today’s Rurik is dressed in a fancy dress, and his gaudy appearance looks like a clown.

The docks are filled with colorful and bejeweled merchants, in stark contrast to the crowd of tan-clad onlookers.

The king himself is undoubtedly the most shining star, and the bear-headed heavy armored berserkers who accompany him are also aggressive.

The merchants were waiting anxiously, and hundreds of onlookers were purely happy to see the style of Ma Ge.

The quality of horse leather depends not only on the degree of its odor, but also on the size of its defect to determine its value.

Those so-called high-quality horse hides all come from horses that were cut off on the battlefield or suffered fatal wounds on the neck. After the battle, the dying horse was executed, and a large area of intact leather was peeled off after the wound.

The skin below the neck of the horse is cut from the belly of the horse, all the way to the end, and extended to the calf joints of the four hooves.

The length of the horse leather slaughtered in this way is equivalent to three meters, and the width is also up to two meters.

After all, these are all Frank’s tall horses, and the leather area of some individuals is larger than estimated!

In fact, the old Russians who were proficient in the tanning industry also praised the stripped leather for the first time after the war. It was spread out to show a very ridiculously large area, which was an eye-opener.

In principle, Rurik could play a game of words and greet the merchants after bidding with inferior horse leather. Considering his noble status, thick and dark methods are nothing more than today.

Ma Ge had already been classified into three, six or nine grades, and he sent his subordinates to take out the best one thousand sheets, even if it caused the distress of his subordinates for a while.

Some people were heartbroken: “Why does the king give the best goods to those Mellaren merchants? Even if you really give them alms, wouldn’t it be good to give middle-level goods?”

Rurik had his own explanation, but he didn’t intend to explain too much to his subordinates.

As a king, I have to consider a lot. Going into battle to make money to fill the treasury is one. To maintain the stability of the kingdom established by force, at this stage, it can only be done through business.

Only by allowing the forces in the non-core area to make money under the framework of the “Ross Kingdom” can they understand that only by maintaining this community of thought can their wealth last forever.

Because even those chiefs who have been named dukes and earls are military nobles and also big businessmen.

The Hanseatic League is not a kingdom. It has monopolized the business of the Baltic Sea and North Saxony by relying on close commerce, becoming a decentralized group of countries and maintaining it for more than 200 years.

Since they can last for so long, there are naturally endogenous factors. In other words, different ethnic groups have the same desire to make money, and their common interests transcend barriers of belief, ethnicity and geography.

The king deliberately made concessions, at least on the surface, so as to win over the merchants of Lake Mälaren and ensure the willing submission of the Swedish part of the kingdom.

After all, Rurik’s other title is the King of Sweden, and he is the king of the merchants present!

The heavy horse hides were hoisted from large cargo ships to long ships, and they were stacked in ten sheets and bundled with hemp rope for transportation.

The heads of the horses were decapitated, the leather of the horses’ necks was folded, and the huge tails and manes were left collectively outside.

The leather was collectively slightly curled due to the convenience of packing, and as the first bundle of horse leather was carried ashore by a number of strong men, anxiously waiting businessmen came up and shouted.

They noticed that the horse leather was loaded to the ground, and they were all horrified at its thickness, and then they were full of praise.

Each one has a bright fur color, reflecting beautiful light under the sun in early spring.

Rurik opened his arms and ordered: “Don’t be in a hurry! All of you take a few steps back, let the soldiers untie the ropes and spread out the horse leather! This king wants you to open your eyes!”

In fact, it was the inspection of the goods, and the merchants backed away in response, their hearts beating wildly with excitement.

The dagger cut the rope, and the four strong men pulled one together.

The air is filled with the peculiar smell of unprocessed leather, but tanning treatment is not a problem. The merchants ignore the smell. Their jaws dropped in shock at the sight before them, and the praise was even stronger!

“Wow! Four coats can be made from one piece of leather!”

“I can make at least ten pairs of leather boots!”

“Haha, even leftovers can make a good belt.”

“The last scraps can also be sewn into gloves and hats.”

These merchants are not second-hand dealers, they have workshops on hand or have close ties with cobbler families, and they are experts in how to make the best use of a piece of leather.

A single piece of leather might not be able to explain the problem. As Rurik ordered people to show it continuously, although each piece of leather was uneven, their huge value potential was valued by merchants.

More and more horse hides arrived at the pier, and the areas that had been deliberately emptied were piled up into hills of taupe leather.

Even if it was high-quality horse leather, Rurik still made some reservations.

The army obtained some rare white horse leather on the battlefield. After all, white horses are rare. It seems that all bear skins, but white bear skin is the most expensive. White horse leather is considered the best by Rurik, and it will be exclusive to the royal family. Clothes, leather shoes, and other products are first and foremost equipped with the standing army.

The sun shone on the golden laurel wreath on Rurik’s velvet hat, and it shone brightly.

People saw the majestic king pinching his waist with both hands, and behind him were piles of horse leather and a balance borrowed from the Gould family.

Now, on the left side of the balance, there are 800 fine Frankish silver coins weighing eight pounds, each of which is engraved with Charlemagne’s head.

Rurik raised his head to face the eager merchants: “My goods have arrived! Your money is here too! Look at the balance beside me, there are 800 eight-pound coins on one side, and they are all of the earliest quality, Fine silver coins that have been minted for nearly fifty years. They have been hidden in Frank’s warehouse and paid to me as war reparations! You can trust their quality, and you must also trust my business ethics. Now let’s start the delivery , 20 pieces of horse leather each, and 40 silver coins each. Who will come first?!”

Standing beside the king was a bear-headed berserker, who would dare to question the king’s deceit at this moment.

But everyone can deny that the king is very clever, and his methods are as sharp.

Because in the Nordic world, even though a huge amount of foreign hot money has poured in in the past ten years, objectively, the annual inflation is very strong, which makes the prices of various materials rise to varying degrees.

If it weren’t for the largest grain buyer, Rurik of Ross, who ordered one of the cheap grains, the silver coin to ten pounds of oats, and killed those who tried to hype the grain price with an iron fist, the grain price fluctuations in the Swedish world would be within a reasonable range.

But prices of other consumer goods, such as traditional drinks like ale and mead, are soaring.

The meaning of the so-called bad coins driving out good coins is that the Western Roman silver coins that have been in circulation for 400 years are still in circulation, and they can no longer guarantee the round shape and defects.

Even though more and more Frankish silver coins flowed into the market, the old silver coins were still in use.

Both Western Roman silver coins and Frankish silver coins have extremely high silver content, while Eastern Roman silver coins are always mixed with lead.

The former two are the mainstream of transactions in the Nordic world, and silver is silver. Even if someone deliberately cuts off a little silver scrap from a silver coin and collects it to recast a new one, Rurik’s equal-weight transaction makes this trick more difficult. Meaningless.

Eight pounds to buy a piece of horse leather, the merchant had to carefully put the silver coins in the cash box into the hanging pan, and stared at the pointer in the center.

The pointer is an extremely fine iron needle, and the black line marking the left and right balance is also extremely thin.

The merchant kept dropping silver coins into the hanging pan on the right side, and watched with King Rurik at the same time. When the slender iron needle coincided with the slender black line, the delivery of one share was considered complete.

For this reason, merchants with a large number of old silver coins put in as many as eight hundred pieces, and everyone was convinced that it was indeed eight pounds.

Of course, the silver coins that the merchant took out must have been mixed with all the lead. Considering the original estimate of 15 coins for a skin, it was suddenly hyped up to 40 coins with the help of the Gould family gods, which far exceeded Rurik’s psychological expectations. , the so-called leaded loss of wealth is ignored.

Rurik has made a lot of hot money, so he can happily buy cheap primary materials in the Swedish world, and can even send hot money to the newly surrendered Götaland region and the allied Danish world to buy salt, fish products, etc. Wait.

One thousand pieces of horse leather were finally exchanged for four hundred pounds of silver coins. On Tombstone Island, the Kingdom of Ross actually completed the largest single leather goods transaction in history, and the profit was also the largest in history.

And the four hundred pounds of hot money Rurik would never use indiscriminately. It was a very important fund, and its use had been planned.

“How far has my Lord of the Seas been built? How long is it until the sea trial? It should be launched this year, right?!”

A behemoth that has been dry-docked since 839, and she is the greatest masterpiece of Ross shipbuilding, had to dig a large pit to make a dry-dock to accommodate her size.

The horse leather has a new owner, and the smell of the leather is considered by the buyer to be a fragrance.

Next, the cobbler workshops on the whole island will be fully fired, and all the thenardite on the island will be exhausted.

In the end, the merchants eager to finish tanning all the leather will go straight to the north after sailing. After all, Fort Rose is backed by mountains. It is not only the iron and steel smelting center of the kingdom, but also the largest exporter of various strange minerals. Locally produced Glauber’s salt The overall cost is the lowest.

Unlike processing other leathers, even buckskin is not suitable as a comparison.

The overall performance of horse leather is second only to cow leather. It is thick and hard, and the consumption of Glauber’s salt is extremely high for tanning.

A large number of large leathers have to be processed in a short period of time, and the consumption of Glauber’s salt will increase sharply in a short period of time, and its price will rise accordingly, which will increase the financial income of Roseburg’s hometown.

Harrow Zuosen, who had dreamed of being the leader of the Ross Tribe, had fulfilled his dream in a sense. Governor Roseburg’s control area was larger than that of the Ross Tribe in the old days. He was already an old man with real power, and the next governor would be Liu Li Ke’s friend and young general Kanuf.

At present, when there is no condition to quickly establish a strict tax system, Rurik has to rely on the rough “tax-payer system” to collect taxes first.

Governor Roseburg was the taxpayer, and governors in other districts also had corresponding responsibilities.

Take out the king’s taxes, and the rest is your own.

However, the governor of Fort Rose couldn’t say anything to the local Iron Furnace Town. This is a satellite city of Roseburg, but it is directly responsible to the king. After all kinds of craftsmen finish their wages at the beginning, the rest of the wealth is the king or the state money. .

Therefore, Rurik is very concerned about the management of Iron Furnace Town. The “city lord” is his brother-in-law Kawei, and his seniority is his uncle.

There is no complicated generational theory in Northern Europe, but the next generation of Ironforge town lord is Kusneslav, who participated in the entire war in 840. This child is twelve years old this year, and a huge war has become his incredible rite of passage.

Nicknamed Kuja, he was the son of the queen’s sister, a relative whom Rurik trusted very much.

A huge amount of silver coins was temporarily secretly transferred to the heavily guarded Gould mansion, and Rurik naturally wanted to use the money to make a big fuss.

In the mansion, Old Gould entertained his king with a family banquet. Everything was as usual, and the king was entertained with roast goat and grilled fish, as well as fine flour scones and noodles with a cross-epoch significance.

Old Gould was old after all. Under his seemingly calm appearance, he suffered from high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, diabetes and atherosclerosis. The situation is clear.

He may die at any time, as long as he stops all his sons from some good jobs in the kingdom before he dies, he will die without regret.

The first generation of pirates, the second generation of merchants, and the third generation of nobles.

This proverb is being implemented in the Gould family, and the third generation of the family must all be nobles!

Everything seems to go back to 829. Twelve years ago, Rurik first reached a business contract with Gould. At that time, he made money by tossing soap. That single business made the two of them achieve a huge win-win situation. Growing bigger and bigger, the Gould family became a rare royal businessman.

Rurik ordered all his entourage to retreat, and many nobles and generals he stationed on the island did not attend this private banquet.

Although it was a meal-sharing system, the two tables were pushed together. Gould, his two sons, and Rurik himself sat cross-legged together, gnawed on the leg of lamb, and gulped at the ale. Gavage.

[To tell the truth, I have been using the source-changing app recently to read and update books, switch between sources, and read aloud with many timbres. www.huanyuanapp.com is available for both Android and Apple.

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Therefore, in the eyes of the two brothers, Black Fox and Red Fox, their youthful past is no different from their own.

The king has never been untouchable. After temporarily disarming the power, he is a strong man who is willing to venge.

In various senses, Old Gould watched Rurik grow from a baby to what he is now. The old man is very relaxed, but the two sons are still reserved.

After drinking three rounds of food and five tastes, looking at the delicious meals on the table, and the roast lamb full of minced meat, Rurik estimated that as long as the Gould family eats a diet of heavy salt, heavy oil and meat continuously for a year, they will lose weight. A person who becomes a stick can also become a “fat seal”.

This is their choice, and it is their own fault to eat and become sick.

Rurik has more self-control when it comes to eating, and he is always moving passively, his body is getting stronger and stronger.

“This time your family has made great achievements. I have heard some stories. Red fox and black fox, you two boys are amazing. You are very good at making those cunning guys go crazy. You lure them to raise prices crazily, but let me earn Big money…”

Rurik was deliberately polite, Gould, who was slightly drunk, was cheerful, and the two cubs were flattered.

“This is what we should do.” Black Fox said.

“Willing to serve the King.” Red Fox added.

“Very good!” Rurik, who was slightly drunk, was in a great mood. He knocked on the table and yelled: “During the war, your second brother, Lanhu, specially explained the two of you. There is potential for me to use. I can’t just listen to Blue Fox’s recommendation, and through this opportunity, I feel that you both are talents.”

This is what the two brothers, the black fox and the red fox, were most eager to hear. Their fat bodies were trembling, and they didn’t dare to say more for a moment, but they all listened attentively.

“Now my commercial tentacles have penetrated deep into the hinterland of Frank, and I have built a brand-new trading base in a distant place, one is Rotterstadt, and the other is Nassau Fort. Blue Fox is the Earl of Gothenburg, and he will manage it for me in the future The newly conquered Götaland region, but I need to hand over the two Frankish strongholds to people I can trust. They must be young, must understand business, and the most important thing is to be loyal to me! In my opinion, the two of you are the best candidates !”

Isn’t this the opportunity the two brothers and their father, Gould Sr., longed for?

The two brothers rushed to talk, each swearing allegiance to the king.

“Then work hard! I only have two special requests for you two!” Rurik who was in a good mood continued to point at them, “You are too fat! This is not good. Maybe you should do some military training, such as Your second brother, Lanhu, is like that. Lanhu is an excellent businessman and a warrior recognized by soldiers. The two of you will develop in a distant place, and you will face many problems. At critical moments, you have to fight in person. You… Do you dare to fight?”

The two of them did hesitate for a while, then gritted their teeth and vowed to lose weight and dare to fight.

“Very well, the secret of losing weight is to walk more and fight more, even if it is more frequent than archery. The second request, you…” Rurik had to think about it, “What do you believe in?”

“It’s Odin!” The black fox didn’t want to answer.

“No. You don’t have to flatter me.” Rurik shook his head, “I understand you. Your family only believes in money! Don’t think that claiming to believe in Odin is flattering me. If you are willing to believe in a god, it is not as useful as believing in the god of wealth, Frey .”

“We believe in the king more.” The red fox changed his mind and said, “You are the god of wealth from our family.”

“Very flattering. But for practical reasons, you should learn from your second brother Blue Fox. After you go to the hinterland of Frank, you must believe in their gods, so that you can move freely. Don’t have any grudges, there is a A place blessed by God, of course you have to find a local patron saint when you go to a new region. Can you understand what I said?”

The two looked at each other, and they couldn’t say that this matter was wrong, but suddenly believing in another god was outrageous, because it was not their own choice.

But out of the needs of practical interests, both of them nodded and said they were willing to accept the king’s arrangement.

“Then it is not too late. I will send you to Hamburg in the south, where you believe in God. After that, you will reunite with your second brother, Blue Fox. I will not ask you to do things independently for the time being. I will just be by your second brother’s side.” It will be good for you in the future. After all, according to our tradition, the main wealth of the Gould family is inherited by your eldest brother, White Fox. This is a huge opportunity for the two of you. This is a magnificent era, You can create your own merit and wealth status in the wider world.”

The two brothers worshiped the king’s promotion again, looking forward to their own brand new future…

They are already mentally prepared.

[End of this Chapter]