Chapter 98: Development of the Viscounty
"Big sister! What are you doing here?"
Back at the castle, Cecilia had just stepped off the carriage when she spotted a figure she could never mistake—her own sister, Adela.
"Cecilia," Adela, equally happy to see her younger sister, took her hand. "Miss Charlotte bought me to be her... handmaiden, so I came along."
Hearing that subtle hesitation in her sister's voice, Cecilia immediately understood the situation and silently cursed, Lecher.
Cecilia asked Adela about their parents and younger brother, and also about how Adela herself had been faring since she left. Cecilia knew that if she asked directly, Adela, with her personality, would just say she was doing fine. Adela recounted how their father had lost his job, how the whole family had left the theater, and how their parents still wanted their brother to undergo the spiritual awakening ceremony again, outlining the general situation for Cecilia.
Though Adela's words held no complaint, Cecilia could vividly imagine the hardships her sister must have endured working as a washerwoman for others during the dead of winter. Her heart aching, Cecilia gently stroked Adela's hands, where the chilblains hadn't fully healed. "Sister, go rest in my room for a while. I'll come talk to you tonight after I'm done with my work."
"Mm," Adela nodded, then added, "The Viscount holds you in such high regard, Cecilia. You must be sure to repay her kindness."
"Alright, I know," Cecilia said with a smile.
After settling her sister in, Cecilia carried a large stack of parchment to Charlotte's study.
Inside the study, Charlotte was also reading several letters. These had been sent back by raven by Robin Mancini and the Grey Robe Knights he led during Charlotte's absence. After successfully occupying Ambratu, Charlotte hadn't withdrawn the Grey Robe Knights back to the Lanwan Viscounty. Instead, she had them continue operating on the Sokea Peninsula, infiltrating the various city-states of the Aiye Alliance disguised as Ambratu refugees, and gradually establishing an intelligence network. Their first target was Ambratu's southern neighbor, Dorucocha.
Once the Grey Robe Knights had initially settled in the city-state of Dorucocha, they began to regularly send intelligence to Charlotte. Although Charlotte had also set up raven roosts in the Green Plains Duchy, raven messaging was still somewhat lacking in security, so Charlotte had all this intelligence kept at this castle. This early intelligence was still rather broad and superficial, not delving into the city-state's confidential information, but it was enough to give Charlotte a general understanding of Dorucocha.
Dorucocha was also a city-state belonging to the Aiye Alliance, larger and wealthier than Ambratu. The city-state was known for its mercenaries; Ambratu had hired three hundred Dorucochan mercenaries for its expedition against Little Sassini. Mercenaries were practically one of their pillar industries. This meant that while Dorucocha was martially spirited, its internal defensive forces weren't actually that strong. Dorucocha once had a navy with dozens of warships, but these had now been requisitioned by the Aiye Alliance for the front lines.
A relatively strong opponent, but with clear limitations, Charlotte silently concluded.
Cecilia entered the study and placed the large pile of parchments she was carrying onto Charlotte's desk. "Miss Charlotte, these are the official matters from while you were away. I've handled most of them. Please take a look."
Charlotte glanced at the thickness of the parchments and felt a headache coming on. "Just tell me about the more important recent matters."
Cecilia pondered for a moment before speaking, "The most important administrative matters recently can be roughly divided into three areas. First, a buyer from Pinlus City in the Lesalei Kingdom has ordered two hundred ingots of mountain copper from us, at fifteen hundred Fuso per ingot, for a total of three hundred thousand Fuso."
Mountain copper produced in the Sokea region was traded by the ingot. An ingot was about fifteen centimeters long and seven or eight centimeters thick. A price of fifteen hundred Fuso was considered standard. The crucial point was that it was hard to find such a large buyer for mountain copper. Two hundred ingots might not sound like much, but pure mountain copper was very difficult to cast and process into tools. It could only be used as a raw material added to alloys, so its applications were limited. For example, the spearheads of javelins used by Ambratu's citizen soldiers were actually made of an alloy of mountain copper and regular copper, though everyone still customarily called this "alloyed copper" mountain copper. Moreover, a price of fifteen hundred Fuso per ingot was quite expensive; ordinary people couldn't afford it.
"Three hundred thousand Fuso? Have we received the full amount?" Charlotte asked, pleasantly surprised.
Cecilia shook her head. "They've only paid a deposit of one hundred thousand Fuso so far. The remaining two hundred thousand Fuso will be settled after all the goods are delivered. We've already delivered two batches of mountain copper, fifty ingots each. Another hundred ingots are still in production."
Cecilia paused slightly, then suggested, "Miss, we currently only have one improved smelting furnace, which can only produce five or six ingots of mountain copper per day. The production capacity is far too low. Recently, besides the buyer from Pinlus City, other merchants have come asking to buy mountain copper, but I've had to turn them away. Should we build two more smelting furnaces to increase production?"
"No need," Charlotte immediately shook her head and explained to Cecilia, "Scarcity creates value. Mountain copper is expensive precisely because its production is low. If we unilaterally increase production and meet market demand, the price of mountain copper will surely plummet in the latter half of this year, and we'll be the ones to suffer then."
The high price of mountain copper was less about its mineral reserves and more about the difficulty of smelting it. City-states like Ambratu often couldn't even produce a single furnace-load of mountain copper in a month. When merchants couldn't buy it, the price naturally rose.
"Besides, the reserves of mountain copper aren't high either," Charlotte added. "The ore in Ambratu's warehouses was accumulated over hundreds of years. Once that's used up, we don't even know if we can mine any more. So, it's better to use it sparingly."
"Mm," Cecilia nodded thoughtfully.
Although Cecilia's suggestion was a bit ill-considered, Charlotte was still very satisfied with the results of her work on this matter.
Currently, in Charlotte's Lanwan Viscounty, the Viscount's Guard alone consisted of over three hundred and fifty knights, with daily salary expenses exceeding a thousand Fuso. Moreover, one hundred and ninety-seven of these three hundred and fifty-plus knights in the Viscount's Guard were surrendered soldiers from Ambratu, making up more than half. This was a huge hidden danger resulting from a small fish swallowing a big one. Black Wolf's two expeditions into the Kanpei Mountains had brought Charlotte over sixty Dire Wolf warriors, who were also an unstable element.
To cope with this situation, Charlotte had been forced to keep Stanley's nine hundred Aolan Knights. The daily salary for these nine hundred Aolan Knights was as high as two thousand seven hundred Fuso. The Viscount's Guard had salaries, Stanley's men had salaries, so Charlotte certainly couldn't favor one over the other regarding the thirty knights provided by the Earl of Quickwood Forest. In addition, the Grey Robe Knights also required funding from Charlotte.
Adding it all up, the daily salary expenses alone were about to empty Charlotte's coffers. The mountain copper sales channel opened up by Cecilia was like a timely rain for Charlotte, giving her a much-needed financial lifeline.
"The second matter concerns food and preparations for spring planting," Cecilia continued her report. "I've ordered a batch of grain, seeds, and farming tools from the Lesalei Kingdom. The seeds and tools are to be leased to your subjects to help them complete the spring planting."
"Why do my subjects absolutely have to farm?" Charlotte grumbled.
Most of the arable land in the Lanwan Viscounty was in the north and had largely been enfeoffed to local knights. Charlotte's own lands were mostly in the south, so there wasn't much point in her subjects farming. Besides, the first phase of construction in Elm Town was already complete. Most of her mere four thousand-plus subjects had moved into Elm Town, with a smaller portion living in the surrounding areas. Overall, they could be considered townspeople. Why the insistence on farming?
However, food was indeed a major concern for Charlotte. Currently, all the food for the Lanwan Viscounty came from the Green Plains Duchy, transported by animal power. The main grain-producing area of the Green Plains Duchy was in its eastern part, making this overland food supply line quite long. This wasn't a huge issue when the population was small, but now Charlotte's populace was growing, with over twenty thousand Ambratu and mountain folk slaves alone. This food supply line was already under considerable strain, which was why Cecilia had begun to seek a second source of grain: the Lesalei Kingdom. Grain from the Lesalei Kingdom could be shipped from the Pottery Kettle Sea, through the Fish Pearl Sea, directly to the docks of Ambratu County. Ships had far greater carrying capacity than pack animals and could easily alleviate the food pressure on the Lanwan Viscounty.
Cecilia seemed to have heard Charlotte's grumble and asked, "Should we discourage the subjects from farming?"
"No, that's not necessary," Charlotte immediately shook her head. "Let them farm if they want to. And don't lease out the seeds and tools; distribute them for free. Just remember to tell them before handing them out that this is a benevolent policy enacted by me."
"Yes, Milady." Cecilia didn't take it to heart that someone was shamelessly taking credit for her efforts.
Charlotte looked up at the map of the Lanwan Viscounty on the wall, pondered for a moment, then stood up and pointed to the location of Bluefish Village on the map—the place where the necromancer Regba Dando had landed. "Transfer a thousand slaves from the canal project over here. Build a seaport and a shipyard. In the future, the grain we buy from the Green Plains Duchy will be transported by sea and unloaded here."
"Understood," Cecilia nodded again.
Charlotte then pointed to the location of Swordfish Island. "Send another thousand slaves here. Build a dock, warehouses, watchtowers, a lighthouse, and other necessary facilities on the island. This will make it safer for grain ships passing through in the future."
"Eh? This is..." Cecilia looked puzzled.
"I forgot to tell you, I am now also the Viscount of Swordfish Island," Charlotte said.
Someone goes out for a stroll and comes back with another viscount title. Thinking about how her parents had struggled for so many years to cultivate a knight, with hopes still slim, Cecilia couldn't help but sigh at the vast difference between people. However, after that brief moment of reflection, Cecilia said sincerely, "Well, congratulations then, Viscount."
Charlotte smiled and shook her head. "It's just a deserted island, nothing to congratulate about. Let's get back to your report."
"Mm," Cecilia also understood Charlotte's strategy; Swordfish Island wasn't the goal itself, merely a pawn to achieve it. She returned to the topic, "The third area is Elm Town..."
Elm Town was now preliminarily on the right track, generating a gross profit of one hundred thirty to one hundred fifty Fuso per day. This income was negligible compared to the territory's enormous expenditures, but it was a good start nonetheless. Moreover, Cecilia wasn't reporting on Elm Town's profitability, but rather the allocation of housing. Distributing the new houses in Elm Town to the families of the subjects based on their work performance was something Charlotte had decided when construction began. But as the saying goes, "the boss just moves their mouth, the subordinates run their legs off." Allocating houses directly affected the personal interests of every subject. The slightest dispute could lead to endless arguments, even physical altercations. Cecilia had recently devoted most of her energy to this, working herself ragged, and had finally completed the task in a relatively smooth manner.
Listening to Cecilia's increasingly proficient work report, Charlotte knew she had gained significant experience from this arduous task. When Cecilia finished, Charlotte clapped her hands lightly and said with satisfaction, "You've done well, Cecilia."
"Thank you." Cecilia let out a long breath and smiled.
"Are there any residences left in Elm Town?" Charlotte suddenly asked.
Cecilia nodded. "There are still two or three of the best ones left unallocated."
"Then pick one for yourself, so it's convenient for you and your sister to live together," Charlotte said. "This castle is too small, and there are more and more people. My maid doesn't even have a place to stay."
Charlotte had brought little Linda along on this trip. When Linda heard she could come to the Lanwan Viscounty with her mistress, she practically jumped for joy. But after arriving, Charlotte discovered an awkward problem: there were no suitable rooms in the castle for Linda. So, she had to let Linda temporarily stay in Renee's room, while Renee shared a room with Charlotte herself. Because Renee needed to practice her swordsmanship and draconic language every night, she couldn't share a room with anyone else.
However, after a moment of stunned silence, Cecilia bowed deeply to Charlotte and said, "Thank you."