The most prosperous part of Aosta City, even after the devastation of war, is still the most prosperous place.

The city hall of Aosta City is located in the inner fort of Ong, near the north of the city, so the center of the city has become a gathering place for trading houses, taverns, inns, silversmiths, cloth shops, tailors, leather shops, weapons shops, blacksmiths, carpentry workshops, wineries, bakeries, medical shops, fur shops, grain shops, slaughterhouses, and even stalls on both sides of the street selling vegetables and fruits, pottery, wooden bowls, firewood, rattan ropes, etc., but all imaginable shops can be found here.

It's just that now it's not as prosperous as it was now, and those shops are not too big, and there are not many types of goods sold.

At the intersection of several streets, however, a tall square castle-like building stands out, made of three layers of stone bricks, with soaring spires and wide, colourful windows, and a white-plastered façade, with shops on all sides on the ground floor and offices for the guilds of Aosta on the second and third floors.

The building occupies a small area, no more than 100 feet in length and width, but both the building materials and the decoration are very luxurious, and of course, only the various guilds that control the lifeblood of a place have such strong financial resources.

The headquarters of the Continental Comptoir in Provence is located in this building, and at the bottom of the building there is an entire side of the Continental Comptoir, and the row of shops is also hung with the signs and flags of the Continental Comptoir, and next to the Continental Comptoir is the largest vault in the east of Provence.

In addition, on the second floor of the building, there are several official rooms that are leased by Salter as the offices of the firm.

When Yat and the others rode and walked to the luxurious building, the general manager and commercial officer of the European Comptoir had already led a group of people to wait in front of the banner of the Continental Comptoir on the first floor of the building.

There is no shortage of elites in any era, what is lacking is the soil that creates elites, and Yate has always believed in this sentence.

Perhaps even Salter himself could not have imagined that he would one day become the head of the guild with a cone in the whole of eastern Provence and the head of a powerful merchant house spanning two states, but he did.

From the original five carriages led by Art himself to the current hundreds of carriages, more than 100 subordinate men and more than a dozen branch shops, all of this is inseparable from Salter's efforts, but he also knows that it is all because someone has opened the way with a blade in front of them.

Salter hurried over from afar to greet Art.

"My lord, I'm glad you've been to Aosta for the past two days, and in two days I'll be going to the central part to buy weapons and armor." Salter knew in advance that Art would secretly explore the south of the valley and that if it went well, he would also go north from the south to inspect the European trading houses, but it was impossible to predict when he would arrive in Aosta, so he had already planned to personally go to the central region of Provence in two days to buy weapons and armor on a large scale.

The European Merchant House mainly deals in expensive southern goods, but the war in the North has not subsided, and now the sales channels of southern goods have been temporarily blocked, in order to maintain the operation of the European Merchant House, Art plans to go to Provence to buy a large number of weapons and armor after consulting with everyone.

Weapons, armor and food supplies are the most scarce and valuable in wartime, but now the war in Provence has been completely extinguished, with the successive disbandment of the conscripted army, a large number of weapons and armor made in wartime in various arsenals are also hoarded, and weapons and armor in peacetime not only can not fill people's stomachs and wear warm clothes, but also have to spend energy to repair and maintain, which is really cumbersome. Therefore, many lords who are in dire need of money to rebuild their territories are willing to take out the mountains of broken copper and iron in their arsenals and exchange them for shiny gold cakes and silver coins.

It happened that the Count of Burgundy in the north was in the midst of civil strife at this time, and both the east and the west had requisitioned a large number of soldiers to expand their armies, and the arsenals of the east and west were obviously unable to supply enough weapons and armor, so the weapons and armor abandoned by the lords of Provence became a shortage in the north.

Art and Sarthe negotiated to exchange the goods hoarded in the European merchant houses for weapons from the lords of Provence, which were then shipped to the north to be sold. This is also the main task of the European comptoir for some time to come, and Salter is in charge of it himself.

In order to show his respect for Salter, Art immediately jumped off his horse and walked side by side with him, "Salter, you have to hurry up about the acquisition of weapons and armor, the war in the north will not last long, and the east and west need to be divided as soon as possible, so the second phase of the war will also break out soon." I reckon it will be time to start after the winter wheat harvest, so we have to get it done before the war resumes. The European comptoir lost too much money last year, and we had to make a lot of money by relying on this. ”

"Also, when you buy your armaments, you choose carefully, and save the best quality weapons and armor for our own army, which may be cheaper than if we had made them from the workshops ourselves."

Salter nodded as he walked, and as soon as he finished speaking, he had already arrived at the door of the comptoir, and several middle-aged men in gorgeous clothes stepped forward to take off their hats and salute Art.

"My lord," said Sarthe, "my lord, these are the heads of the Aosta Guild, namely Sado, the head of the Textile Guild, Creti, the head of the Craftsmen's Guild, and Gille Bre, the head of the Aosta Treasury. Mr. Gil is also the head of the guild in Aosta. They are your admirers and have heard that you would like to meet you when you arrive in Aosta. ”

These people are all business elites who control various industries, and the power of the guild in this era is very great, so Art is not big, and quickly stepped forward to take the initiative to greet everyone.

After a few pleasantries, Matthew and the others followed a man to set up the horses and bags, while Art took Ron and followed the group into the Aosta Continental Comptoir.

Aosta is the largest city in the east of Provence, and the trading house here is the core of the southern power of the European commercial bank, so the shop is very large, the goods in the shop are varied, the reserves are huge, the storage shelves on several walls are full of dazzling goods, and there are some stacked goods for sale in the middle of the store, generally speaking, it is similar to the pattern of ordinary southern goods shops, but the scale is very large, and there is an additional counter dedicated to purchasing scattered southern goods.

There are two main categories of goods in the shops.

The goods of the North purchased from the Northland, such as herring and salt, grain, wool, wool, furs, livestock, plant ash, whale oil, timber, hemp, resin, beeswax, bow materials, iron, copper, tin and metal products, these are the goods abundant in the Northlands, these things are not expensive but are better than the abundant supply and easy to purchase, and they are also the daily necessities needed by the southern states;

In addition to expensive spices, the goods from the southern countries also include ceramics, gold and silver utensils, rice, oranges, apricots, figs, raisins, incense powder, medicines, dyes such as sumac, magenta, alum, and raw materials such as cotton and raw silk.

Salter and several stewards of the firm accompanied Atte, explaining in detail the various goods and the situation of the firm for Art, "My lord, in addition to me, there is a steward, a deputy steward, two clerks, eight men, five guards, and three miscellaneous servants. On weekdays, I'm personally in charge of the business, and Manid and two other sociable guys are mainly responsible for external liaison and occasionally run errands here. ”

"The goods trafficked from the north are mainly sold here, and the southern goods were originally mainly used to be transported to the north to sell at a high price, but after the war in the north, we have a lot of southern goods, and in order to reduce the inventory, we can sell them at a low price, and we can also make some money."

"My lord, the European Comptoir is no longer short of supplies, we can fill the warehouse of Aosta's goods at any time, but this goods are always piled up in the warehouse......" Now the European Comptoir has opened up a vast source of goods, and all kinds of scarce goods in the North can be supplied in full, but what is worrying is that the war in the Northland has almost destroyed the sales market of luxury southern goods, and it has blocked the trade route to the Duchy of Burgundy and even the Kingdom of France, which has made the chariot of the European Merchant House have been stationary.

Art picked up the figs placed on the wooden cabinet and put them in his mouth and chewed them, it tasted good, "My father-in-law is now temporarily the deputy minister of the palace finance, and I have consulted with him before returning from the south, and after the Liberation Army has pushed the battle line to the west for some distance, we will start to ship the south directly from Besançon to the north through the Black Iron Castle to the Duchy of Burgundy for sale. In the name of the court, he would negotiate with the Duchy of Burgundy to open up the borders and send caravans to the border cities to trade. ”

This was the emergency plan that Art had negotiated with Galvin before, and now that the commercial system of the northern part of Burgundy had basically collapsed, the southern goods only needed to be shipped to Lucesin or Besançon to buy from those merchants in the north, and those merchants would transport the southern goods to the northern countries and digest them through their mature sales channels, so that everyone could save trouble and make money.

Of course, there is a price to pay for wanting the Besançon court to come forward to coordinate, in addition to the huge military expenses that Art has already contributed to the court, it also has to buy weapons and armor from Provence for the Liberation Army, which is one of the reasons why Art arranged for the European Continental Comptoir to buy weapons everywhere.

Salter knew about Arte's arrangement, "The trade route from Besançon City to the Duchy of Burgundy via the Black Iron Castle is a long way, and we have never traveled before, and the risks along the way are very great, so I will lead the caravan myself, right?" ”

Art waved his hand, "No, no, you have to stay in the south and take care of the overall situation, and the secret trade route from Fort Andermatt and Glaru to Swabia will also be expanded this year, and you will need to take care of it then." You put everything in order in the south first, and when the war in the north is over, you will immediately move to the north to lay out the European trading houses, and I have arranged for Kennem of Lucesen to start planning, but after all, you need to manipulate the overall situation. ”

"As for the caravans carrying goods to the Duchy of Burgundy, I intend to put Lawrence in charge for a while, and the caravans from Sapsburg will also send people to join the northern caravanserais."

"By the way, when the war is over, the commercial power of the Sapp will also be incorporated into the European Merchant House, and we will have another trade route from Sapp to the Duchy of Burgundy and the Kingdom of France through the provinces of Codor and Saône. This matter can be talked about later, but sooner or later you will have to manipulate it, so you have a plan in mind. ”

Salter was thrilled to hear this, and Art had always regarded himself as the helmsman of the Continental Comptoir, which made him feel very satisfied.

After checking the account books of the treasury in the merchant house, and chatting with a group of stewards and guards, Art came to the room on the second floor to rest, and Salter personally arranged lunch for Art and others, and several leaders of the Aosta Guild were invited by Art to have lunch together, and naturally there was a staggered meeting......

It was not early after lunch, and Art rested for a while at the Continental Comptoir before hurrying to meet with Berrion at the tavern he had agreed upon.

Berrion may have successfully met the vice-chancellor of the court of Provence and was praised, and his interest was very high, and this friend was very reliable, and that night he made an appointment for Yat to the city governor, commercial officer, tax officer, magistrate and other officials who were directly and closely related to the European Continental Comptoirs, some of these people were civilian officials but also had the title of Baron Viscount, although these people were not high-titled, but they were indeed powerful figures in this Aosta City, and in order for the Continental Comptoirs to be like a fish in water here, Arte of course had to make friends.

Another overnight hangover......

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Chapter 398: European Merchant Houses (2)