Chapter 2: Government Affairs

“Dah-dah-dah.” The sound of horse hooves hitting the stone road mixed with the “creak-squeak” of the carriage wheels. George frowned inside the carriage.

He was examining his most important secret—the System that digitized this world.

Territory: Bolerum Territory (447.8 square kilometers)

Owner: Duchy of Nohan

Specialty: Brandy, Whiskey, Smoked Meat Products, Grass Paper, Paper Armor, Coarse Sugar, Olive Oil, Dried Fish, Seasonings, Salt, Hard Cheese.

Traits: Army Glory (Duchy Trait)

Territory Traits: Regular Military Drills, Militia Reserve Training, Basic Officer Education, Civil Official System, Refined Business Management, Regional Trade Supervision, Background Investigation System, Intensive Farming, Manure Fertilizer Use.

Territory Technologies: Grass Paper Making, Distilled Liquor Production, Seasoning Brewing.

Territory Population: 33,128

Annual Population Growth: +3%

Minerals: Copper Mines

City: Poitou

Port: Morbihan

Agricultural Income: 3,172 Gold Coins

Mineral Income: 353 Gold Coins

Commercial Income: 151,568 Gold Coins

Taxes: 45,869 Gold Coins

Building Income: 410 Gold Coins

Other Income: 433 Gold Coins

Official Salaries: 5,600 Gold Coins

Army Maintenance: 154,800 Gold Coins

Army Recruitment: 1,000 Gold Coins

Tribute Tax: 300 Gold Coins

Other Expenses: 3,600 Gold Coins

Surplus: 36,675 Gold Coins

Looking at the territory data, George couldn’t help but sigh. With knowledge from his past life as a reference and the System’s reminders, George had officially started managing the territory since he was eight years old. Later, thanks to his outstanding performance, he became the Acting Lord of the territory whenever his father was away. Starting from a small manor, after exactly six years of hard work, he finally left his small mark on this world. Furthermore, his excellent performance made his father give up the tradition of sending him to another family to serve as a Squire.

As the Secretary to Duke Claudius Cokele Garfield, George’s father, Viscount Bolerum, spent ten months of every year in the capital, Cardala. In the last two years, George, who became the Acting Lord, was the actual leader of Bolerum Territory.

Six years of reforms before and after had caused big or small changes in every aspect of Bolerum Territory. When these reforms had specific impacts, they would appear on the data list.

It all started with testing distilled liquor in the manor. The wine making here was not yet good enough. The same batch of wine was roughly divided into fine wine and mixed wine. The production price of 1.5 pounds of fine wine in glass bottles was at least 10 Gold Coins. Meanwhile, 6 pounds of mixed wine in clay jars had a factory price of only 2-3 Silver Coins, which was only slightly better than unwatered Ale. As for the tragedy of storage technology, it caused the value of newly brewed wine that year to be usually ten times that of the wine from the previous year. The latter would often turn sour and crumble, becoming completely unpalatable, so it could only be filtered and sold as vinegar.

Both the fine wine and most of the mixed wine could be distilled into decent Brandy, and the factory price rose to at least 15 Gold Coins per bottle. More importantly, due to reduced impurities and high-temperature disinfection, their shelf life could be greatly extended. As soon as this liquor appeared, it was highly sought after by the Noble class and became an important source of economic income for the territory. The distilled Ale, which was Whiskey, was enough to compete with the Distilled Spirit known as “Mad Water” and had decent sales among Caravans from the North. However, in the third year, various imitations appeared one after another, but the reputation of Bolerum Winery had already been established.

The paper-making attempt that proceeded simultaneously did not achieve its goal. Although it was unclear whether it was due to a lack of understanding of the paper-making process or other reasons, the paper produced had poor toughness and poor water absorption, making it impossible to use as writing paper. At this point, George’s hope for lowering book prices was temporarily dashed. However, it at least solved the problem of using leaves and wood chips for defecation. Although the price was not high, the cost was low because reeds and waste hemp were used as raw materials, so it had good appeal to the middle and lower nobles of Cardala.

Later, because he was unwilling to accept that the paper could only be used for the toilet, he tried to make a batch of Paper Armor using this paper. Logically, paper with insufficient toughness should not make good Paper Armor. But to his surprise, the result was quite good. Overall, its protective ability was comparable to thick cloth armor in terms of weight and thickness, but it worked better against ranged weapons and was more comfortable to wear. However, the cost was exactly twice the price of thick cloth armor, making it seriously lacking in practical value.

Then, following the principle of not wasting anything, it was distributed to the maritime patrol team at the port. After all, if someone wearing Paper Armor fell into the sea, the weight would not increase greatly like it would with thick cloth armor. But unexpectedly, after being soaked in seawater for a long time, although the cloth surface of the Paper Armor had many damages, the paper part inside became very tough. This situation was truly unscientific, but was being a Transmigrator scientific? Although the principle was unclear, as long as it was useful, it was fine. Later, Paper Armor produced using the seawater soaking process actually had protective power comparable to leather armor with inlaid plates. But its lighter characteristics made another flagship product of Bolerum Territory come into being.

As for the legendary weapon of Transmigrators, glass, this world already had relatively mature glass-making technology. Unfortunately, no qualified Glass Craftsman could be found. Glass Craftsmen were controlled by manufacturing guilds in various regions, and the tragedy was that the Duchy of Nohan had no Glass Guild.

Regarding the idea of buying flat glass to make mirrors, George admitted he only knew the silver mirror reaction, while he knew nothing about the classical mirror-making process. After all, no one would know they would become a Transmigrator and go memorize a specialized industrial manual.

The production of soy sauce and fish sauce was to satisfy George’s traditional Chinese foodie spirit. Unexpectedly, it was also very popular in this world where cooking was poor.

It was precisely the huge profits brought by the new products to the territory that made the Baron let George have even more freedom. It was true that economic foundation determines the superstructure.

Before he knew it, the carriage had stopped in front of the flower beds at City Hall. Calling it City Hall was an exaggeration; it was just a three-story stone building. But for Poitou, a small city with a permanent population of about 10,000, it was completely sufficient. However, unlike the Castle where he lived, this was not a fortress building. Starting from the second floor, it had outer corridors and floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing plenty of colorful light.

Two Guards at the entrance stood tall with their chests out, looking straight ahead with high spirits.

George’s office was on the top floor. On the way to the office, all the staff he met stood at attention and saluted him.

Sitting in the armchair behind the desk, George leaned forward slightly. He crossed his ten fingers in front of his face, covering his face below the nose.

He reached out and pulled a rope hanging from the ceiling. A “ding-ding-ding-ding” sound came from the room on the west side of the second floor. Soon, a thin man with a small mustache stood in front of George. George bowed to this middle-aged man with sword-like eyebrows and an eagle’s eyes, who then stood straight on one side of the table.

“Ives, bring me the affairs that need to be handled today,” George said, looking up at the middle-aged man.

“As you command, my Lord,” Ives replied stiffly, then turned and left.

“Really, how did I end up with this deadpan person as my deputy,” George leaned back in the armchair with his hands hanging by his sides. “Is it just because his ability is better?”

He casually flipped open Ives’s character card.

Name: Ives Barnett

Specialty: Intelligence (14)

Abilities: Classification and Organization, Government Affairs Analysis.

Relationship: Respectful

This was very general information. The System’s information about others was gradually perfected based on their relationship and familiarity with George. The first time they met, their relationship was cold. If he were not a clerk at City Hall, no one would have had a character card. At that time, the data only had his name and specialty Intelligence, with no numerical values.

However, as one of the few people in City Hall who had a specialty attribute, and especially since Intelligence could be helpful for handling government affairs, George assigned him as his messenger to train him. After more than four years of work, Ives grew into a mature clerk. Their relationship also improved, and the data gradually became complete. But his background and overly cold personality hindered his development; he might stop here for the rest of his life.

“Tap-tap-tap.” Ives knocked on the open door.

“My Lord, these two are the agreements that must be signed today.” He handed over two leather bags.

George opened one bag and took out a set of three copies of the agreement. Besides one copy for each party to the agreement, the other copy was kept in the temple of the God of Justice, Tiel. Of course, such agreements were just general ones. When things were truly important, various Magic Contracts that punished defaulters with supernatural powers were often used. Of course, the price was definitely proportional to the utility.

The paper used for the agreement was thin and tough. Its smooth surface felt like baby skin, and its color resembled bone china, which made people feel comfortable looking at it. Thinking of his own paper mill, George couldn’t help but sigh.

But the price of this paper, made with Alchemy, remained high. Each sheet, roughly the size of an A4 paper in the original world, had a minimum price of about 4 Silver Coins, which was 40 Copper Coins. In terms of purchasing power, it was worth about 40 pounds of wheat, which was the lowest entry price. Even parchment made from lamb skin only cost half that price for the same size. When thinking that the cost of paper alone for a book ranged from at least 10 Gold Coins to as much as 40 Gold Coins, George always felt a sense of powerlessness.

“This harbor rental agreement has no problems, but according to the report, the stone pier at the port is almost insufficient. Ives, contact the Architect Guild; we may need to prepare to build a new pier.” After carefully reading the three copies of the agreement and confirming everything was correct, George signed his name and stamped it with his signet ring. “Although the Land Journey Merchant Guild has good credit and our previous cooperation was quite pleasant, we should still tell the soldiers to keep a close watch. After all, it is never wrong to be careful about everything.”

“Oh, ordering Paper Armor? 300 sets at once is not a small number. Try to confirm the buyer’s identity again. It would be troublesome if we accidentally lit a fire under ourselves.” He put the second agreement back into his belt, turned around, opened an iron cabinet with a key, and put it inside.

Ives handed over a scroll of Parchment: “My Lord, this is the new decree that you asked to draft two days ago. Please check if there are any problems.”

George handed the Parchment back to Ives: “Uh! Change the second article regarding the punishment. Five years of labor at the Quarry is long enough; there is no need to add other punishments.”

“Is there anything else you need, my Lord?”

“It seems that animals have been disappearing frequently in the residential area recently. Send someone to check if something has run in. Be sure to eliminate the danger before anyone gets hurt. Also, the Lower District has not been very peaceful lately. Send a message to Old Tom; he knows what to do.” George waved his hand to signal that Ives could leave.