Chapter 46: The Merchant of Venice (continued)

I have to admit that it is definitely much easier to have a functioning and efficient government organization to do it for you when collecting money in an unfamiliar territory than for the traversers themselves to wander around in a ruins full of rotting corpses, relying on their luck to pick up people's property.

Although the amount of gold, silver and jewelry that the Venetians were able to provide was not satisfactory, there were still many other valuable things.

First, there was the hoarding of timber in the shipyards of the Venetian state—mountains of fine beech, oak, and some more valuable apples and walnuts. At this time, Europe was sparsely populated and highly forested, and these natural timbers were not very valuable. Venice, on the other hand, is the hegemon of most of the Mediterranean, and it is necessary to stock up on a large amount of timber for use just because of the huge consumption of shipbuilding and repairing ships every year.

At present, due to the Black Death, most of the shipbuilders who lived in dense living conditions and poor sanitary conditions died in one go, and these hoarded timber became waste for a while. In addition, many of the newly completed ships became unmanned, so they could only lie on the dock and wait for them to rot and rust, so they simply offered them to the "angels" as favors - these timber and boats were finally pawned for about 600 million yen.

The second was poultry, meat and horses collected from the nearby countryside - as a prosperous city with a large standard of living, Venice consumed large quantities of fresh meat, dairy products and eggs every day, and in the villages near the city, there were naturally non-staple food supply farms of corresponding size. Now that half of the city's citizens have died, and the rest of the people are also in fear all day long, they have no intention of drinking and feasting, so these backlogged agricultural products can also be used to offset the bills: as green and pollution-free organic food, these things can be sold at a very good price in the modern world.

Although Venice is a water city with boats instead of cars, there is basically no place to ride horses, but the territory of the Republic of Venice is not only an island city, but also has a large traditional territory in the Po River Plain in northern Italy, also known as "Veneto", plus a large piece of territory in Croatia in later generations, which was called "Dalmatia" at that time, so it is still necessary to raise a certain number of horses - so, like other European countries, many wealthy families in Venice also have their own carriages and mounts, In addition, the government has a limited cavalry corps. Although many horses have starved to death due to the effects of the Black Death due to lack of care and died of starvation and disease, if the government orders that the remaining horses be gathered, there will still be one or two thousand. In addition, some donkeys can be recruited...... All of them added up, and they actually scraped together another 300 million yen.

Then there are the high-quality stones such as marble and alabaster used in the construction of mansions - at this moment, the whole city of Venice is full of haunted houses that no one lives in, only the catacombs are selling well, and there is no market for building houses. As for orders for export to other city-states...... In the era of the Black Death, almost all cities in Europe were like this ghost with more dead than alive, and the urban space vacated by the dead was filled with the living not knowing how long it would take for the living to reproduce, at least for more than ten years, no one would want to build a new house, and where would there be any demand for the construction industry?

But even so, the wealth that the travelers were able to scavenge in the Republic of Venice was still quite far from the expected goal of 10 billion yen. In the end, even Professor Guo, who was confident in the oil and water of Venice, had to admit that he had made a mistake in judgment - the Republic of Venice in the 14th century was indeed very wealthy, and it was indeed worth a million ducats in this era...... But the problem is that in this era, if you take it to the modern world, you may not be able to exchange it for 10 billion yen:

In fact, Doraemon only raised about four billion in Venice in the end......

“…… Tsk, in this case, it will only be enough to pay off the interest on the loan next month and repay the principal of the debt of 10 billion......"

Doraemon sighed as he pouted and settled, "...... And the 500 million yen borrowed from Kazuki Furuizumi's organization before can't be in arrears forever...... It's nice to be able to do that, but ...... Hey, let's keep trying."

-- For the vast majority of debtors in the world, when debts pile up, they are likely to be discouraged and hopeless, and have no incentive to earn money to pay off their debts. However, when there is only a little debt left, it is often because of the desire for "debt-free and light", and the amazing huge action force is exploded...... And Doraemon at this time happens to be in the latter state.

How difficult it is, in the past those years of debt, Doraemon had to wake up almost every day by nightmares, thinking that he had been sent to the scrap machine qì people to dismantle the factory to pay off the debt, but after waking up, he had to have a headache for astronomical debts and monthly accrued interest.

Walking on this road of debt repayment with no end in sight, he was so crushed by heavy debts that he almost lost his temperament, and even polished his innocent and kind nature, and sometimes when he looked back, he felt that he had become not like his past self, and he was almost mentally ill...... Now that it seems that he is not far from liberation, Doraemon naturally wants to fight for everything, and strive to get rid of this nightmare that has plagued him for many days at once.

In order to make a little more money, the traversers took the initiative to help the Venetians recoup foreign funds - they opened the [random door] to the various merchant houses of the Venetians abroad, and then asked the governor of André to rush over with a large number of officers in a vigorous manner, and ordered the expatriates to hand over all the working capital and valuable goods in hand to pay the angels...... After a lot of verbal battles, scaring a large group of Venetian merchants, soldiers, and diplomats on assignment, and using the [Random Gate] to and fro for an unknown number of turns, and even the poor Doge Andrei was poured holy water several times as a "devil's phantom", the traversers finally received more than 700 million yen, plus a series of unexpected bonus points:

“…… Spread the Black Death to London early and get 6o bonus points......"

“…… Spread the Black Death to Hamburg early and get 2o bonus points......"

“…… Spread the Black Death to the Netherlands early for 6o bonus points......"

“…… Spread the Black Death to Oss 6 early and get 3o reward points......"

“…… Spread the Black Death to Copenhagen early and get 6o bonus points......"

“…… Spread the Black Death to Danzig Port early and get 1oo reward points......"

By the time Wang Qiu noticed this problem by chance, he finally remembered that the place under his feet seemed to be a plague area that needed to be isolated, so he should have asked the Governor of Venice to disinfect their bodies first, and then go through the [random door] to the opposite side to do errands, it was already too late......

-- Many people who could have lived in peace for another year or two before they suffered the devastation of the Black Death now have to endure the butcher's knife of the disease in advance...... Fortunately, in the process of raiding the houses one after another, the "angels" did not forget to vaccinate the Venetian merchants and their families and employees on assignment, all of whom were vaccinated against the plague, and I think they should be able to survive the impending Black Death. What's more, these places were originally swallowed up by the Black Death one after another, and none of them could escape, and now they are just "slightly" advanced.

But in any case, millions, if not millions, of innocent lives will be called months to years earlier because of their sins. Wang Qiu: Now they really played the role of the "Great Demon King of the World" again...... Huh? Wait, why say "again"?

All in all, even after recovering most of the overseas investments that can be quickly recovered, the money squeezed out by the Venetian is still far from the goal of the traversers. So, the cat who was in a hurry to catch fire rushed the Venetians to do business and make money, and it was best to collect gold and silver directly

He first opened the [random door] to the gold-rich Mali Empire in West Africa, and asked the Venetian merchants to exchange the surplus materials such as salt, glass beads, and dyed linen from the warehouse of the government of the Republic for gold with the local black uncle. The business was initially quite smooth, for the Venetians sold salt to Uncle Black at a much lower price than the Arab merchants who had to carry the salt through the Sahara on camels, and Uncle Black in West Africa did not have the cotton cloth of the Indians, and the linen of the Europeans was too coarse...... So this transaction can still be done for a while.

Unfortunately, this business did not open for long, but it touched the sensitive nerves of the Arabs who had monopolized this golden trade route for a long time, and soon many imposing Muslim ♂ merchants came out of nowhere, armed with scimitars and crossbows, to teach these Europeans how to behave... Doraemon had originally planned to scorch all the troublemakers with a lightning storm, but the Venetians begged Doraemon to stop and retreat - it turned out that these Arab merchants were also old customers of the Venetians, and used to do transshipment business at both ends of the Sahara Desert, buying the goods of the Venetian merchant fleet in the ports on the Mediterranean coast, and then loading them on camels and trafficking them to Uncle Black's territory in the south...... Now it's enough to take advantage of the other party's inattention to pick up a bargain. If you really tear your face and fight for this bit of gold, breaking the rules and hurting the peace, then what should you do with the business every year in the future?

In this way, the travelers and Venetian merchants ended their business in West Africa with less than fifty pounds of gold, and then reopened the [random door] to the Mayapan kingdom in Central America (the last famous large Mayan city-state in history, which still existed at this time), in an attempt to obtain the gold of the Americas - although this Mayapan city-state is not the same as the Mayan kingdom visited by Doraemon's five-person team during their big adventure, the language and customs are still relatively similar, and Doraemon is only familiar with a few hands" miracles", the Mayans were treated as guests and entertained with hospitality......

But when it came time to raise money, trouble came again - these Mayans were completely in the Stone Age, and there was almost no gold or silver, although there was a little jade, but the texture was also very poor, and the Mayans regarded them as very precious, and Doraemon was embarrassed to force them to take them out.

In fact, in the entire Mayan civilization, there were no decent metal minerals, let alone gold and silver mines. They traded cocoa beans, obsidian, and shells, and a few pieces of shiny pyrite were considered rare treasures...... In the end, the travelers returned disappointed almost empty-handed, but the Venetians were not only eye-opener, but also brought back a lot of American specialties such as corn, pumpkin, peppers, and tropical fruits.

Next, Doraemon finally found the right place and opened the [random door] to the foot of the Andes Mountains in South America, the real land rich in gold and silver in the Americas, on the map of the future Inca Empire, and was pleased to see that many of the local indigenous people wore gold and silver...... However, after exchanging a dozen gold earrings, gold bracelets, and small gold ingots with the local natives with glass beads, knives, iron axes, and cloths, and then the other party dispersed satisfied, unwilling to make any more deals, the traversers had another problem: they had arrived too early

- Indeed, there are many gold, silver and copper mines scattered throughout the Andes and have been exploited in large quantities since prehistoric times. But at this point in time, the Inca Empire had not yet been born, and the gold of the Andes was not concentrated in a certain "great capital", and if you wanted to collect a lot of gold and silver, you had to trade it countless times from tribe to tribe and village to village...... While the Merchant of Venice certainly had the patience to do so, the traversers, Doraemon to be exact, couldn't wait.

So, after dragging back a few lewd-looking alpacas (grass mud horses) from the Andes, André Dandoro, the governor of Venice, who had been good-natured and had been at the mercy of the traversers to summon him around the world, finally threw out his true calculation with a smile:

“…… Lords of the Angels, if you just want to collect gold and silver, why do you want to go far? Although there are not many gold and silver coins in various cities in Europe, if they are collected together, they can make up enough for one million ducats. And these cities are now trembling in the face of the plague, and are eager and looking forward to your deliverance—if only your noble angels grant us the status of a plenipotentiary agent, and let our messengers come before us to negotiate the price of 'salvation before the cities and kingdoms, and continue to lend us the wondrous door which leads to all the worlds, so that our messengers will not be tarnished in their journey, then surely good news will soon come......"

Tips: The new domain name "biquge.info" has been launched by Biquge, and the original domain name is about to be discontinued. Please tell each other, thank you!