After the Goddess's Birthday, it was already the year 3263 of the Dawn Calendar.

Richard and his family lived in Fort Black River for three days, resting for a few days to straighten out this year's work.

After the New Year, Margaret will be five years old, and the little girl's IQ has obviously inherited from her aunt and mother, and she is very intelligent. Despite being the youngest student at Riverbank Elementary, he was able to follow up with the curriculum with ease.

Because she made many new friends at Riverside Elementary School, Margaret's personality became much more cheerful.

After Philip was born, Margaret had a playmate, and she was particularly happy during this time. The child grows up and has his own circle of friends, and gradually becomes less clingy.

After the Goddess's Birthday, Richard took two squadrons of soldiers and carried 70,000 gold coins in cash to the Grand Duchy of Starnik to buy slaves.

Richard preferred to go to the Grand Duchy of Starnik to buy slaves than to go to the royal capital Nolan.

Because the Haaland family has no competition with the nobles of the Grand Duchy of Starnik, the nobles who control the Grand Duchy of Starnik will naturally not place people among the slaves. Richard was also more trusting of the slaves he bought from the Grand Duchy of Starnik.

The caravans of the Haaland Territory had visited the Grand Duchy of Starnik several times and were very familiar with the road.

Which lord is more friendly on the way, and where can I get water supplies? Are there any powerful bandits along the way?

Haaland's caravan is well aware of these situations.

Because I am familiar with the road, the road is very smooth when I go. After all, Richard's reputation has spread all over the northern frontier, and neither bandits nor noble lords dare to easily provoke the Haaland family and pull hatred for themselves.

Moreover, the number of soldiers escorting the caravan is large, there are two squadrons, and the combat effectiveness of the two elite squadrons has exceeded that of ordinary barons.

Although the two dukes, Edward and Fox, are far superior in strength to the Harland family, there is no reason to attack the Harland family caravan.

Although the relationship between the Haaland family and the great nobles is not good, there is no hatred either.

There is still a lot of trade between the two sides every year, and the Haaland family does a wholesale agency system for the big aristocratic business, and the territory caravans basically do not operate in the big noble territory.

There are no land conflicts, no commercial conflicts, and the relationship can naturally be maintained.

As long as the two dukes of Edward and Fox do not send troops to sneak attack, this road is very easy for the Haaland family.

Passing through the territories of the two dukes, Edward and Fawkes, Richard once again came to the Grand Duchy of Stanik.

After entering Linus Castle, Richard found his old customers Fanta family, and through the Fanta family's relationship in Linus, he exchanged a part of the foreign exchange and began to buy a large number of slaves in Linus Castle.

Richard's extravagance immediately caused a sensation at the castle of Venus and attracted an unexpected guest.

This person is none other than Vera Watson, the priest of the goddess of wealth and the fourth in line to the throne of a great nobleman in the Grand Duchy of Starnik.

The Watson family is the fourth-ranked ducal family in the Grand Duchy of Starnik, and a very strong commercial aristocracy, they have been worshippers of the goddess of wealth for generations.

Because of the Watson family, the Church of Fortune also began to infiltrate the Grand Duchy of Starnik and had a very significant influence.

Although the strength of the Grand Duchy of Starik is weak, there are four major churches in the country, in addition to the Church of Dawn and the Church of Kingship, there are also the Church of Wealth and the Church of Light.

Compared with the Kingdom of Grant, the Church of the Grand Duchy of Starnik was more influential.

After the meeting, Vera said straight to the point: "Mr. Richard, we can finally meet, in fact I wanted to visit you in Haaland's territory last year. But I feel that it is too presumptuous to come to the door rashly. This year, when I was just about to go to the Kingdom of Grant, I heard that Mr. Richard had come to Linus Castle, and I came to the door without an invitation, and asked Mr. Richard not to blame. ”

"You are so gracious, it is an honor for our Harland family that the priest of the goddess of wealth can come to the door."

Seeing the priest of the goddess of wealth, although Richard didn't know what he meant, he responded very politely.

"I have come this time to form a commercial ally with Mr. Richard and the Haaland family. I would like to represent the special goods of Haaland's domain, and if so, I would like Mr. Richard to grant me the exclusive right to represent the Grand Duchy of Starnik. ”

Hearing Vera's words, Richard nodded and said, "Can you take the liberty of asking, Miss Vera, who do you represent, the Watson family, or the Church of the God of Wealth?" ”

Vera smiled and said: "I can only represent myself, but my special identity can borrow some Watson family, the name of the Wealth Church, and also represent the Watson family and the Wealth Church to a certain extent." “

"Miss Vera, you know, the special goods produced in our Harland territory are mainly brown sugar, liquor, steel, wool cloth, and of course, there are some super magic specialties in the territory, such as hemostatic ointment, flame spider silk mage robes, and enchanted weapons made of blood steel.

Ordinary goods are transported to the Grand Duchy of Starnik, it takes 800 kilometers, and after arriving at Linus, they have to face competition from similar goods, and there is not much benefit at all in transporting them all the way to the Grand Duchy of Starnik.

Could it be that Miss Vera wants to represent a super magic product? But the super magic goods in Haaland's territory, although they are very distinctive, may not be competitive compared with the super magic goods on the Venus side? ”

Richard made it very clear, although the price of brown sugar in Haaland's territory had dropped to ten copper coins per kilogram, which was equivalent to one-third of honey.

However, when transported to Linus Castle, which is eight hundred miles away, you have to pay lord taxes and customs duties along the way, and the price of brown sugar will increase at least several times.

Linus can also produce honey locally, although the output is not as good as that of the southern provinces of the Grant Kingdom, and the price of honey is only twenty-six copper coins per kilogram.

The brown sugar transported from Haaland's territory may not be able to compete with the local honey.

This is true of brown sugar, liquor, steel, and woolen cloth.

"Mr. Richard, I know that I can use the name of the goddess of wealth, although our Church of the God of Wealth, although we do not require lords to pay tithes, but our caravans of the Church of Wealth, when passing through the lord's land, will not pay lord taxes, transit taxes and other messy miscellaneous taxes.

If the goods are loaded and transported from Vicburg and traced up the Black River, you can go directly to the Duke of Edward's domain, and then the transportation line on the road is only 200 kilometers, we have carefully calculated that brown sugar, liquor, wool cloth and other bulk materials, after deducting the transportation costs, still have a certain profit.

Besides, we wholesale in large quantities, and Mr. Richard should also give us some concessions. ”

After listening to Vera's explanation, Richard thought to himself: "Without messy taxes and fees, the Chamber of Commerce controlled by the Church of Fortune will have a great cost advantage." Relying on a huge cost advantage, the Church of Fortune can penetrate its tentacles into every territory through the Chamber of Commerce. Ordinary noble chambers of commerce, it is difficult to compete with them.

Anyway, for the time being, the exclusive agency will be handed over to the priest of the goddess of wealth, and there will be no loss to the territory. You can also use her hand to expand your market share. ”

Richard suppressed the distractions in his heart, nodded and said, "Of course the discount is possible, and the exclusive agency that Miss Vera wants can also be handed over to you." But if our Harland family wants to buy some special goods, can we use the channel of wealth to teach caravans? ”

"As long as it's not sensitive, of course you can."

After the two parties negotiated, a commercial contract was signed, which was stamped with the seal of the goddess of wealth and was very binding.

It was no pity for Richard to give up the exclusive agency of the Grand Duchy of Stanik to Vera. After all, the Haaland family has no influence in the Grand Duchy of Starnik.

The strength of the Haaland family is simply impossible to make the nobles of the Grand Duchy of Starnik bow their heads.

It is also impossible for the nobles of the Grand Duchy of Starnik to give up the market and profit the Haaland family.

Given to Vera as the exclusive agent, relying on the channels of the Watson family and the Church of Wealth, the goods of Haaland's territory can enter the market of the Grand Duchy of Starnik and earn profits from the Grand Duchy of Starnik.

This time he came to the Grand Duchy of Starnik, and unexpectedly took advantage of the relationship with the Church of Wealth, and Richard was quite happy in his heart.

After consulting with Vera, Richard decided to open the first trade after the harvest this fall. Richard would provide 30,000 pieces of woolen cloth, 200 tons of brown sugar, and 100 tons of liquor.

This year, the output of brown sugar will exceed 500 tons, and Richard, a first-tier channel wholesaler like Vera, will transport brown sugar to the Heihebao wharf, and the wholesale price of brown sugar will be reduced to seven copper coins per kilogram.

With a little discount on some packaging and transportation costs, the price of 200 tons of brown sugar is about 3,800 gold coins.

The wholesale price of liquor is two copper coins per kilogram, and a hundred tons of liquor are sold for five hundred and fifty gold coins, but when the liquor is transported to the Grand Duchy of Stanik, the retail price may skyrocket to six to eight copper coins per kilogram.

The wholesale price of woolen cloth is two silver coins per horse, and thirty thousand pieces of woolen cloth are worth five thousand gold coins.

Although it was only the first year, in the market development period, Vera had ordered more than 9,000 gold coins of goods.

The 9,000 gold coins Richard made it very easily, and he could just transport the goods to Heihe Fort for trading, and he didn't need to worry about the market or fight with other nobles.

The only drawback is that the sales channel will be controlled by the Watson family, the Church of Wealth. It is very passive in the transaction between the two parties.

After negotiating with Vera, Richard returned to Harland with 14,000 slaves.

This time, thanks to Vera's help, most of the way back was by water, and it was far easier to travel by boat than on foot with a wheelbarrow.

In just twelve days, Richard returned to Harland with 14,000 slaves.

After returning to the territory, Richard met with the important officials of the territory in Vicburg, explained the opening of new sales channels, and then returned to Fort William.

In February, Riverbank Primary School opened again, and this year Richard lowered the tuition fee again, to four silver coins per year.

This year, there were 300 new students, including six new apprentices with magical qualifications.

Now there are more than 1,000 students in Riverside Primary School, and the original classrooms and dormitories are no longer enough.

Richard had always attached great importance to education, and when he received Flora's application, he immediately allocated a sum of money to build new classrooms and expand the scale of Riverbank Elementary School.

Many of the new students come from other castles and need to live in the school every day. If Riverbank Elementary School continues to expand, it will become very cumbersome to manage.

Richard decided to limit the size of Riverbank Elementary to fifteen hundred students.

This year, a second elementary school was built, and the address was chosen in the military station fort.

The fort has few outsiders, and its location is in the center of Haaland's territory. There are castles on all sides, and there are enough guarantees of safety.

In addition, the garrison fort was far away from the territories of other nobles, so building a school here would not cause much trouble.

It has been five years since Richard established the school, and in the past five years, Riverside Primary School has cultivated many talents.

Especially the smarter ones, they can learn the basic knowledge taught in primary school in one or two years and graduate from Riverside Primary School.

These elementary school students who have mastered the basic knowledge either become teachers, or become grassroots officials in the territory, or join the army. It has played a positive role in the development of the territory and made a certain contribution.

At the very least, they learned discipline, common words, numbers and symbols, simple statistical work, and some new ideas in primary school.

If these people who are coarse and literate can already serve as grassroots officials after a period of training.

Because the riverbank primary school was established in Fort William, there was little contact with outsiders, and the decree prohibiting free movement in the territory, the details of Haaland's territory were not known to the outside lords at all.

The neighboring lords only vaguely heard some rumors.

Although these rumors were contrary to aristocratic tradition, the nearby lords were not very happy to hear them, and even complained in their hearts.

But now that the Haraland family has a strong army, the nearby nobles need the support of the Harland family's army when facing the orc invasion.

Normally, the nearby noble lords, although they did not like the policies formulated by Richard, would not offend the powerful Haaland family because of such an inconsequential matter.

Unless Richard directly touches their fundamental interests, or puts everyone in their neighbors at risk, they are likely to come forward and join forces against the Haaland family.

Now the strength of the Haaland family can already deter some nobles and make them dare not have different intentions.

The tragic situation of the Cisse family is enough to warn the nearby noble lords.

The Cisse family has a big business, and they can also rely on huge compensation to make the Haaland family stop making peace and save the noble title and the lives of the clansmen.

The ordinary baron family has offended the Harland family, and if there is a war between the lords, I am afraid that a catastrophe will immediately come, and the whole family will die.

Even if the Haaland family does not come forward and deliberately does not come to the rescue when the orcs invade, they can easily borrow a knife to kill.

Today's Haaland family, although it has not yet become a big noble, is already the most powerful viscount family in the Grant Kingdom in terms of strength. Especially the nobles of Geda Province did not dare to provoke them easily.

(End of chapter)