Hearing Martin's story, Duke didn't expect that an honest blacksmith before had now become a profiteer, and that such an iron furnace that cost only a few silver coins would directly add a thousand gold coins?

But this is the way this world is, what is the most profitable? It's not that it's rare and precious, it's a monopoly! At present, the ball bearings of the Storm Castle carriage, as well as the leaf springs and steering system, have not been copied by craftsmen in other realms. ◢ with ◢ dream ◢ small ◢ .lā

There are even some territories that see the storm carriage red-eyed, and they have built a nondescript carriage themselves, but in terms of shock absorption and compression resistance, they are far behind Duke's storm carriage, and more importantly, it is the shock suspension system that is forcibly imitated, because the process and principle are not up to par, and the failure rate is much higher than that of the storm carriage.

This is like a car in later generations, which breaks down on the road at every turn, and that feeling is definitely uncomfortable, and it also directly affects word of mouth. So as time passed, a large number of imitation carriages disappeared from the market, and even to some extent, contributed to the prestige of the storm carriage.

Therefore, many lords now regard owning a storm carriage as a symbol of their status, which is like a luxury car in later generations. In the face of this situation, Duke even deliberately reduced the number of storm carriages for sale, and even postponed the sale time of civilian-level storm carriages, making every effort to ensure the preciousness of storm carriages on the market now.

Duke's approach maximized the vanity of those nobles of the barbarians, after all, they didn't want to spend a lot of money to buy the storm carriage, and as a result, there was a mud leg. And now there are no other models of the Storm Carriage, which means that if Duke sells it cheaply, like this kind of decoration modification, many territories can do it themselves, which is not a technical thing.

Of course, more importantly, Duke's ambitions are not just in Storm Castle, but in Storm Cars.

In the past, the Storm Cart was basically only within the confines of Storm Castle, used to transport goods and ore. Later, as Duke went to the northern defense line, several strongholds began to be opened along the way, which were used to supply supplies and transmit emergency messages, similar to the role of a post station.

But that's not what Duke needs, he wants the Storm Cars, a complete logistics system. Each car dealer has a large number of storm wagons that can take on other people's commissioned transports and then make a profit from them. At the same time, with the expansion of the Storm Carter, the transportation of goods by other merchants will gradually give Duke control of the lifeline, and even the Storm Merchant will be in partnership with other lords or merchants, rather than the competitive relationship of the Storm Trader, and it will be easier to integrate into other territories.

In this way, in the future, Duke's message transmission and transportation of his own goods will easily spread throughout the entire Europa continent, which is a very important advantage, so now Duke has expanded along the route from Stormfort to the Imperial Capital, as well as the route from Stormfort to the Northern Defense Line, and his goal is to expand the Stormwagon Shop to the entire French Empire within a year, with the production capacity of the Stormwagon Factory.

And with the development of the storm car dealership, the construction of a complete post station system is the ultimate goal of Duke.

After looking around the storm market, Duke asked Andy, the accompanying storm business officer, "What is the current trading volume and profit of the storm market?"

For Duke's question, Andy was even more prepared, so he returned directly: "Lord Hui, if you don't count the profits of the Storm Carriage, the current transaction volume of the entire Storm Market is about 20,000 gold coins, excluding our procurement expenses, there are about 5,000 gold coins of Pure Dew Run every month." ”

Five thousand gold coins, Duke was not very satisfied when he heard this number, because for wanting to create a continental distribution center, the monthly transaction volume is only 20,000, which is really too little. Profit is not very important to Duke at present, because in the period of development, it doesn't matter if it is even negative profit, after all, it will be earned back in the future.

"Andy, the size of the storm market is still too small. ”

Hearing Duke's slightly dissatisfied words, Andy also replied a little aggrieved: "Lord Lord, during your absence, we have been trying our best to promote the Storm Market, but the dangerous reputation of Storm Castle before is too famous, and the entire French Empire is basically known to everyone, but the development of Storm Castle, except for the Andorran Prince, few people in other territories know about it." ”

"And the current location of the storm market is also remote, and the better location is actually placed in Alpine City, because Alpine City was the material center of the Andorran Kingdom before, so the Holy See Bright Army is stationed in Andorra City. But now that the Prince of Andorra has taken control of Alpine City, it is difficult for us to realize this idea. ”

After listening to Andy's answer, Duke's brows furrowed, he also knew that what Andy said was the truth, the geographical location of Storm Castle was indeed not good, and behind it was the Monster Valley, which basically had no potential and value, unless he found a way to bypass the Monster Valley, he could open up a business deal with the opposite empire.

However, with the current strength of Storm Castle, it is still very difficult to completely open up the Monster Valley, at least to the stage where it can crush the Ice Demon. Therefore, the development center of Storm Castle has always been facing north, first occupying the entire French Empire, and then trading with the Milan Empire, the Hans Empire, and so on.

Originally, everything was going very well, and the Prince of Andorra also had an attitude of doing nothing and not threatening. As a result, he did not want a war, which directly made the Prince of Andorra the biggest winner, and indirectly became the biggest enemy of Duke's current power expansion.

"Alpine City is now a puppet of the Prince of Andorra, what is the attitude of Count Filip?"

"I'm not very happy, because the main reason why Alpine City was annexed was because of the presence of traitors inside, which led to the arrival of the Prince of Andorra's army, and the Alpine army led by Count Fili was not strong enough, so he could only choose to acquiesce. ”

"Internal traitor, who can do such a thing?"

Duke asked curiously.

"It is Ott, the youngest son of Count Philip, and it is said that the Prince of Andorra promised him that if he became Emperor of the French Empire in the future, then he would be the Lord of the Mountains. This was a rare opportunity for Ott, who had no hope of inheriting the territory and title, so he directly betrayed his father, and even killed his brother, completely falling to the side of the Prince of Andorra. ”