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Rise of Rurik - Chapter 195

Published at 21st of September 2022 06:05:01 AM


Chapter 195: The exploiters of Unkras

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  The ordinary farmers of the Unkras tribe, with their meager savings, rushed to the vicinity of Gould’s home, eager to buy some high-quality leather.

  Even if they are tribesmen, Gould’s price for deerskin is still six silver coins.

   Holding the few silver coins in their hands, the farmers gritted their teeth. Most of them bought one.

  Only this one, a farmer can tailor a leather coat that is enough for two people. Although farmers usually wear linen clothes, in order to cope with the severe winter, they need thick reindeer leather, because although this kind of leather is expensive, it is much stronger than cowhide's ability to keep out the cold.

  Gould only sold 30 deerskins, a gross profit of 180 silver coins. He once was very happy with such an income.

  Now his mentality has changed drastically, and he no longer attaches great importance to such small incomes.

  Those soaps, especially those mixed with sulfur, the net profit of this piece alone is worth selling six deerskins!

  In addition to the deerskins, some of the rusty iron tools that Gould bought cheaply in Roseburg, he also sold to the farmers in Unkras. For example, some rusty axes with broken wooden handles, he sold them for one or two silver coins. What the farmers seem to get is just a pile of scrap iron, but it is not!

  Many farmers know that they use mud to build small furnaces, and then burn the scrap iron to red. They can perform strenuous forging on their own, and after the final polishing, they will either become a hoes for plowing the ground or an axe for logging.

  The harvest of this transaction is naturally a small amount of money, but this small amount of money is not ordinary! The farmers have benefited. Many people think that Gould is a total profiteer. Only in this matter, Gould has become a good man.

  Similarly, Gould also proposed to spend money to redeem the surplus grain in the hands of farmers. As for the price, just as Gould told the chief Angrieff, the purchase price was higher than the market price by 20

  Farmers are moved, so when they arrive at the wheat harvest in August, wouldn’t it be a big profit to hand the wheat to Gould? !

  For this matter, Gould did not have such high expectations. The time coincides with the beginning of May, and the farmers' lives depend on the surplus food in their hands. He felt that he could not get the grain from the farmers immediately.

The geography of the Svealand Plain makes it impossible to grow winter wheat here. In May, the stock of surplus food for farmers is not much. By June, many farmers have to cut down on food and clothing, or the whole family ran to nearby rivers and lakes to fish to satisfy their hunger.

  The locals will not cause a spring famine, they will cause a summer famine.

  Fortunately, Svealand’s summer is the warmest season of the year. At this time, the plants are plentiful and it is also a good time for them to catch big fish.

  The population of Anclas is two to three thousand, and it is simply a large village in the eastern sense.

  The fact is that Unkras is indeed a big village, but the scale of farmland that this village controls is not small. In the rough agricultural era, whether it was Novgorod or Svealand, farmers everywhere planted on a large scale. Under the condition of extremely low yield per mu, they could earn as much food as possible with a larger farmland area.

  The green oat seedlings in the farmland, a large number of farmers and their families went to the battle to pull out the weeds in their own farmland. After that, I look forward to the nectar from heaven to moisturize these nurseries.

  Farmers are fantasizing about selling the extra wheat at a good price in the autumn harvest season. The tenant farmers hope that after paying the expensive rent, there will be a sum of money they can earn from selling grain and buy some useful production tools to further improve their lives. Even redeeming the fields that he had sold.

  However, a purely man-made disaster suddenly came.

  It’s just May, when the chieftain, Ungriffe, gathered all the landlords in the tribe together and issued a decree to them.

   "Each of you must give me 10,000 pounds of grain within three days. I will buy it at the price of ten pounds a silver coin!"

  Angrif is the leader of the tribe! He has the power to give orders.

  Many of the landlords who were summoned were businessmen who had discussed matters with Gould before.

  People have realized that Ungriffe just wants to **** a pot of blood on the people of the tribe, what about it? You need to obey the order.

  Because one pound of silver can buy ten pounds of oats or rye, it is the market price that everyone can accept in Svealand. This market price has always been the same for a long time. Although it fluctuates, its fluctuations are never severe. And in July, on the eve of the wheat harvest, the market price will rise slightly. After the summer famine and the harvest of new wheat, the price of grain plummeted!

  Ungriffe used his rights to grab the surplus grain in the hands of the landlord. Didn't he never thought that after hoarding the goods, he would laugh and sell it to Gould after the market price rose.

   Obviously this trick does not work for the profiteer.

  Ungriffe didn't want to be too slow, he just wanted to get a lot of wheat immediately, even if he used all the silver coins in his bank to buy wheat! Because this guy Gould always keeps his promise in the face of vain silver coins!

  Ungriffe has the ability to take out 10,000 silver coins, but he is not worried about whether the landlords can each take out 10,000 pounds of surplus food.

  So, the landlord’s family has surplus food? !

  Bah! The landlord’s family has no surplus.

  The landlords of Unkras, they took the rent from the tenant farmers, and at the same time they took the whole family to farm. Purely as a vampire exploiter? With the current agricultural production capacity, it is not a particular reality.

  The landlords grow some rations by themselves, and then collect the rent in kind of wheat, and then row a boat to do business in the slack season in order to maintain their wealth more than ordinary people.

  The big chief gave an order to buy wheat, what else can the landlords do?

  They secretly cursed the big leader’s Cai Fanxinqiao in their hearts. After that, they took their own people and ran to the tenant farmers’ house and ordered them to hand over their surplus food.

  For this matter, Mingqiu is definitely not enough.

  Landlords are merchants, so they will not make money-losing transactions, so they take out silver below the market price and order the tenant farmers to hand over the surplus grain.

  For a time, because of Ungriffe's decision, the whole tribe was making trouble!

  A large number of peasants were weeping, and very reluctantly they took out their surplus grains, and in the other hand they held the little silver that the landlord had donated. Some people were unwilling to hand in grain, so they were naturally beaten by the landlord's thugs.

  Faced with this situation, the self-cultivators who have not gone bankrupt can't help but worry about their future. And those tenant farmers who have lost a lot of surplus grain, the only thing they can do is to go to the self-cultivating farmers and exchange the high price of silver for some grain.

  The accumulation of capital is full of blood and tears. In order to gain benefits, Ungriffe prefers to abuse his own people.

  The same is true for self-cultivating farmers. Since they can sell their small surplus grain at a high price to tenant farmers who have lost most of their rations, why not do this?

  Life is so cruel. The low-level residents of Anclas are struggling, and the middle-level and upper-level people think of ways for their own interests.

  Who is the biggest winner?

   is Gould, a big businessman who has been pampered for a while after returning to his hometown! This suet ball!

  Let's talk about the agricultural situation of Anklas.

  This tribe has a population of more than two thousand people, among which 400 men are in the prime of life. These people are basically farmers. On average, each farmer independently takes care of 20 acres of land similar to the East. They just turned the soil with iron hoes, and then sowed seeds at will, and didn't even have time to build an irrigation system, even if there are many streams and lakes near Anklas. Therefore, it is not particularly difficult for a farmer to take care of 13 hectares of farmland.

  Compared to Novgorod, Svealand uses iron farming tools for all staff, and the climate on the Baltic Sea coast is more temperate. The rough planting still makes it possible to produce 100 catties of oats per mu.

  There is no deep ploughing, no chemical fertilizers, or even an irrigation system, where the yield per mu can only be so.

  A strong farmer, he eats one pound of wheat every day, and a family of four or five consumes about three pounds of wheat every day. In terms of wheat consumption, farmers in Svealand and Novgorod are similar.

  Finally, the entire tribe consumes about 300 tons of oats each year.

  The food output of the entire tribe is around 800 tons all year round, and in the occasional extremely beautiful harvest year, the food can be as high as 1,000 tons! But of these 800 tons, 160 tons are to be used for growing grain, and the food at the disposal of the entire tribe always barely exceeds 600 tons.

  From this point of view, in addition to rations, farmers still have rich grains equivalent to their rations.

  Food cannot be counted like this.

  The homeowner will sell the grain in exchange for other daily necessities during the harvest season. Three hundred tons of wheat is equivalent to 760,000 pounds.

  Only selling all of this than wheat, theoretically the upper family can earn at least 70,000 silver coins.

  This is the money, and most of it went into the pockets of landlords, wealthy merchants and big boss Ungriffe. A dozen large households shared this cake with hundreds of farmer families. Large households ate the largest cake. The average amount of money they spent on selling food was only four to five thousand silver coins in the hands of each large household.

  The most common farmer may only spend forty silver coins every year for eating. Children and women consume much less.

  Wealthy households have large sums of money, so they will engage in special pleasures.

  Agriculture in Unkras is like this. The entire Svealand region, even the richest Mälaren tribe, is in the same situation.

  However, the more southern Danes have a better geographical environment, and their food production capacity is much better than the Svealand Plain controlled by the Mind Subtribe Alliance.

  The Vikings need to rob the hard currency of seas like gold and silver to enrich their wealth, but the most important material that can support their expedition is food.

  On May 10th in the Julian calendar, Gould has been living in his home for some time.

  Others are at home, fully aware of the troubles that happened in the tribe during this time.

  And all the things that are happening are in his expectation.

"You said that I am greedy for money, but you are not the same. Ungriffe, are you a member of your own family? No! You and I are actually the same." Gould did not comment on Ungriffe's behavior. Since they are all desperately searching for surplus grain, it is time for them to check their money and accept this batch of wheat.

  In three days, those big households did not follow the order and found 10,000 pounds of wheat.

  Although he did not complete the task, Ungriffe was full of sacks of wheat, and he didn't mean to blame it.

  More than a dozen large households found 80,000 pounds of last year’s oats in the tribe, but only paid the farmers 6,000 silver coins.

  The wheat was first transported to the mansion of the great chieftain of Ungriffe, and the big households received as many as eight thousand silver coins of their own.

  In any case, even though the big households are dissatisfied with the fact that they acted as wicked men and were ordered to torture tribal civilians, since the big leader has spoken, the task is on their own, and they can't lose money.

  The big households have earned two thousand silver coins in total.

  It’s all right now. At noon on May 10th, Ungriffe organized some people, pulling a two-wheeled trolley and carrying a large number of sacks full of grain, and rushed to Gould’s house.

  The outdoors suddenly becomes noisy.

  Drank a lot of mead at noon, lying on a bearskin cushion, Gould, who was waiting on the feet of the two Briton women, couldn’t stand the outdoor noise.

  It just so happened that a mercenary hurried into Gould's bedroom.

   "My lord! A group of people came outside."

   "I see." Gould was a little impatient, "I don't want to do business today, let the farmers go away."

   "No, my lord. It's the big boss, he came with a lot of goods."

  "Goods?" Gould's slightly drunk head started to think, and immediately asked: "What kind of goods?"

  The mercenary speculated: "Maybe it's a bunch of wheat. Your lord, you know, in the tribe these days..."

   "Okay! You don't need to say, you go and tell Jeflo, tell him that he can open the door." After that, Gould twitched his feet and kicked the two women lightly.

   "Anna. Vera. Get my clothes and dress me."

  Gould changed into his generous and gorgeous clothes. In order to show lavishness, he is really a ferret coat today. A snow fox fur hat with beautiful feathers is worn on the top of the head, and a cowhide bag with a golden ring is fastened firmly. He also stroked his beard with a wooden comb and ordered the two maids to follow him closely.

  The thick wooden door was opened, and he came to Gould's residence again, and Ungriffe was full of spirits this time.

  For 80,000 pounds of wheat, he has paid the merchants one hundred pounds in silver in advance.

  He came today, just to make a fortune with Gould. For this reason, Angrieff even put his big balance on a trolley and brought it along.

  Ungriffe is dressed in gorgeous clothes, but he still doesn't have the richness of Gould's clothes. Because Gould's family members also walked out of their homes one after another, and even brought girl servants and mercenaries to watch.

  Living in this mansion surrounded by wooden walls, even the maids, their dress is simple and gorgeous.

  Two distinguished people met, and after some courtesy politeness, Ungriffe introduced his wheat enthusiastically.

   "Look, this is 80,000 pounds of wheat. Now, what about your promise?"

  Gould looked at the large number of sacks on those trolleys, then stared into Ungriffe’s eyes, and asked knowingly: "It's all wheat? Where did you get the wheat?"

   "This? Just leave it alone."

   "Well, I will buy it at the agreed price. That is, twelve silver coins for one hundred pounds of wheat."

   "Yes." Ungriffe nodded with a smile.

  "Before that, I have to inspect the goods first."

   "Oh? You don't believe me?"

   "No! I believe you, great leader. This is a rule, I must inspect the goods." After all, Gould shook his neck and ordered: "Yeflo, take my brothers to see."

  There is no such tool as "grain spies" in Northern Europe, but mercenaries like Jeflo have their own methods.

  Ten mercenaries drew out their own swords~www.novelhall.com~The quality of their iron swords is far inferior to steel swords, but the sword has a bloodletting slot. They pierced the sword into the sack and then pulled it out, so that the two bloodletting troughs accumulated full of food.

  Yevlo hurriedly turned around: "My lord, it's all food, there is no problem."

  Gould was relieved and let out a long sigh of relief.

  "So you can rest assured?" Ungriffe asked.

   "Don't worry! We like your food. Let's start weighing now."

  Gould saw that the other party had even brought the balance. It didn't matter, because he had no intention of being short on the weighing.

  After some weighing, all the wheat together with the sacks weighed 82,000 pounds.

Faced with this data, Gould shrugged: "It stands to reason that your sack also has weight. I will suffer a loss here! It should have been more than 9,800 silver coins. I will give you a round number, 10,000 silver coins! "

   "Hey! This is good." Hearing the price, Ungriffe smiled.

  All the food was quickly moved into his own warehouse, and Gould also took one hundred pounds of silver coins from his own bank to pay for the goods.

  The tribal self-farming farmers who sold a small amount of surplus grain to the tenant farmers made a small amount of money, the tribal merchants also made a fortune, and the leader Ungriffe made two thousand silver coins! And Gould? With Rurik, a big seller, Gould was the biggest winner.




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