The ordinary farmers of the Onkras tribe rushed to Gould's home with their meager savings, eager to buy some high-quality leather.
Even though they were tribesmen, Gould still priced the deerskin at six silver coins.
Holding the few silver coins in their hands, the farmers gritted their teeth, most likely buying one.
With just one piece of clothing, a farmer can make a leather coat that is enough for two people. Although farmers usually wear linen clothes, to cope with the severe cold in winter, they need thick reindeer leather, because although this kind of leather is expensive, it is
It has much better cold resistance than cowhide.
Gould only sold thirty deerskins and made a gross profit of only 180 silver coins. He would have been very happy with such an income.
Now his mentality has changed dramatically, and he no longer attaches great importance to such a small income.
Those soaps, especially those mixed with sulfur, the net profit from this one piece alone is equivalent to selling six deer skins!
In addition to deerskin, Gould also sold some rusty iron tools that Gould bought cheaply in Fort Ross to farmers in Oncras. For example, some axes with rusty and broken wooden handles were sold to him for two silver coins a piece.
Sell it at a high price. It seems that what the farmers get is just a pile of scrap iron, but in fact it is not!
Many farmers know how to build small stoves with mud, and then burn scrap iron until it is red. They can forge it themselves laboriously, and after polishing it, it can be turned into a hoe for plowing the ground or an ax for logging.
Naturally, the harvest from this transaction was another small amount of money, but this small amount of money was extraordinary! The farmers received benefits. Many people felt that Gould was an outright profiteer. Only in this matter did Gould become the leader.
people.
Similarly, Gould also proposed spending money to redeem the surplus grain in the hands of farmers. As for the price, just as Gould told the big leader Angreev, the purchase price was 20% higher than the market price.
The farmers were interested, so when the wheat harvest came in August, wouldn't it be a huge profit to hand over the wheat to Gould?!
Gould did not have such high expectations for this matter. It was early May, and the farmers' lives depended on the surplus grain in their hands. He felt that he would not be able to get grain from the farmers immediately.
The geography of the Svealand Plain determines that it is impossible to grow winter wheat here. By May, farmers' own grain surplus stocks are not very much. By June, many farmers have to start cutting back on food and clothing, or their families run to nearby rivers and ditches.
Fishing in the lake to satisfy hunger.
The local people do not suffer from spring famine, they suffer from summer famine.
Fortunately, summer in Svealand is the warmest time of the year. The water and grass are abundant at this time, and it is also a good time for them to catch big fish.
The population of Onkras is only two to three thousand, which is basically a large village in the oriental sense.
The fact is that Onkras is indeed a large village, but the farmland controlled by this village is quite large. In the agricultural era of rough management, whether it was Novgorod or Svealand, farmers everywhere were sowing seeds on a large scale.
When the yield per mu is extremely low, use a larger farmland area to earn as much food as possible.
The oat seedlings in the farmland are green and green, and a large number of farmers and their families go to their farmland to pull out weeds. Afterwards, they look forward to the dew falling from the sky to nourish these nurseries.
Farmers are all dreaming about selling their excess wheat at a good price during the autumn harvest. Sharecroppers hope that after paying a hefty rent, they can still make money from selling grain to buy some useful products.
Tools can further improve your life. You can even redeem the land you once sold.
However, a purely man-made disaster suddenly struck.
It was just May, and the great leader Angreev gathered all the landowners in the tribe together and issued a decree to them.
"Each of you must hand over 10,000 pounds of grain to me within three days. I will purchase it at the price of ten pounds per silver coin!"
Angreef is the leader of the tribe! He has the power to issue orders.
Many of the landowners who were summoned were businessmen who had discussed matters with Gould before.
Everyone realized that Angreev just wanted to suck a pot of blood from the people of the tribe, so what? They need to obey the order.
Because one pound of silver coins buys ten pounds of oats or rye, which is the market price acceptable to everyone in the Svealand area. This market price has been like this for a long time. Although there are fluctuations, the fluctuations are never violent. And it is July.
, on the eve of the wheat harvest, the market price will rise slightly. After the summer famine, after the new wheat is harvested, the price of grain will plummet!
Ungreave used his power to seize the surplus grain from the landlords. He did not think about stocking up the goods, waiting for the market price to rise, and then selling them to Gould with a smile.
Obviously this trick didn't work on the profiteer.
Ungreave 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 Gould, this guy, faced with white silver coins,
Always keep your promises!
Ungreave had the ability to come up with 10,000 silver coins, but he was not worried about whether the landowners could each come up with 10,000 pounds of surplus grain.
So, the landlord has a surplus of food?!
Bah! The landlord’s family doesn’t have any food left.
The landowners of Onkras, while collecting rent from tenant farmers, will also take their whole families to farm. Are they simply vampire-like exploiters? With the current agricultural production capacity, this is not special.
Reality.
The landowners grew some of their own grain, collected rent in kind from the wheat, and then rowed their own boats to do business during the off-farm seasons in order to maintain their wealth, which was greater than that of ordinary people.
The big leader issued an order to forcefully buy wheat. What else could the landowners do?
They secretly cursed the big leader for his wealth obsession, and then took their own people to the tenant farmers' houses and ordered them to hand over their surplus grain.
For this matter, it is definitely not possible to rob openly.
The landlords were businessmen and they would not do business at a loss, so they took out silver below the market price and ordered the tenant farmers to hand over their surplus grain.
For a time, because of Ungreave's decision, the entire tribe was in a state of uproar!
A large number of farmers looked sad and reluctantly took out their own surplus grain, and in the other hand they held the little money given by the landlord. Some people were unwilling to hand over the grain, so naturally they were beaten up by the thugs raised by the landlord.
Faced with this situation, the yeoman farmers who were not bankrupt could not help but worry about their future. As for the tenant farmers who had lost a large amount of surplus grain, the only thing they could do was to go to the yeoman farmer and exchange their silver for some grain at a high price.
The accumulation of capital is full of blood and tears, and Ungreave would rather abuse his own people in order to gain profits.
The same is true for those farmers. Since they can sell their small surplus grain to the tenant farmers who have lost most of their rations at a high price, why not do so?
Life is so cruel. The lower-class residents of Onkras are struggling hard, while the middle-class and upper-class people are trying every possible means for their own interests.
Who is the biggest winner?
It's Gould, this big businessman who has been enjoying himself for a while after returning to his hometown! This Ball of Suet!
Let’s talk about the agricultural situation in Onkras.
This tribe has a population of more than 2,000 people, of which there are 400 prime-age men. These people are basically farmers. On average, each farmer independently takes care of about 20 acres of land in the east. They just use iron
The soil was turned over with a hoe, and then the seeds were randomly sown. There was no time to set up an irrigation system, even though there were many streams and lakes near Onkras. Therefore, it is not particularly difficult for a farmer to take care of 1.3 hectares of farmland.
Compared to Novgorod, due to the fact that all employees in Svealan use iron farm tools and the climate on the Baltic coast is milder, rough planting can still achieve a yield of one hundred kilograms of oats per mu.
Here, without deep plowing, chemical fertilizers, or even an irrigation system, the yield per mu can only be this way.
A strong farmer 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, the Svealand area
The farmers are similar to the farmers in Novgorod.
In the end, the entire tribe consumed about 300 tons of oats every year.
The grain output of the entire tribe is around 800 tons all year round. Occasionally in extremely good and abundant years, the grain output can be as high as 1,000 tons! But of the 800 tons, 160 tons are used as grain, and the entire tribe can
The amount of grain controlled is always barely over 600 tons.
From this point of view, in addition to rations, farmers still have abundant food equivalent to the rations.
Food cannot be counted like this.
Farmers will sell their grain during the harvest season to exchange for other daily necessities. Three hundred tons of wheat is equivalent to 760,000 pounds.
Just by selling all the wheat, the tribe could theoretically earn at least 70,000 silver coins.
Most of this money flowed into the pockets of landowners, wealthy businessmen and the big leader Angreev. A dozen large households and hundreds of farmer families shared this cake. The large households ate the biggest cake. The money they earned purely from selling grains averaged
In the hands of each large household, there were only four to five thousand silver coins.
The most ordinary farmer may only spend forty silver coins on food every year. Children and women spend much less.
Only when wealthy households have large sums of money do they engage in special pleasures.
The agriculture in Onkras is like this. The situation in the entire Svealand region, even for the richest Melalen tribe, is similar.
However, the Danes further south have a better geographical environment, and their food production capacity is much superior to that of the Svealand Plain controlled by the Siwea Tribe Alliance.
The Vikings needed to plunder hard currencies from the sea, such as gold and silver, to enrich their wealth, but the most important material that could support their expeditions was food.
It was May 10th in the Julian calendar, and Gould had been staying at home for some time.
Others were at home and fully aware of the troublesome things that happened in the tribe during this period.
And everything that was happening was within his expectations.
"You say I am greedy for money, but it turns out that you are the same. Ungreave, do you think you care about your own people? No! You and I are actually the same." Gould did not comment on Ungreave's behavior.
, since they are desperately searching for surplus grain, they should count their money and accept this batch of wheat.
Within three days, the big merchants did not plunder 10,000 pounds of wheat as ordered.
Although the task was not completed and Ungreave was filled with sacks and mountains of wheat, he did not mean to blame him.
More than a dozen wealthy merchants plundered 80,000 pounds of last year's oats within the tribe, but only paid the farmers a total of 6,000 silver coins.
The wheat was first transported to the mansion of the chieftain in Ungreave, and the wealthy households received as many as 8,000 silver coins of their own.
In any case, although the big families were dissatisfied with the fact that they were the villains and were ordered to abuse the tribesmen, since the big leader had spoken and the task fell on them, they could not lose anything.
The big players earned a total of two thousand silver coins.
Now, at noon on May 10th, Ungreave organized some people, pulled a two-wheeled cart, and rushed to Gould's house with a large number of sacks filled with grain.
It suddenly became noisy outdoors.
After drinking a lot of mead at noon, Gould lay on a bearskin mat and had his feet kneaded by the two Britton women. He really couldn't stand the noise outside.
By chance, a mercenary hurried into Gould's bedroom.
"Sir! A group of people are coming outside."
"I understand." Gould said impatiently, "I don't want to do business today, so let those farmers go away."
"No, sir. It's the big leader. He's here with a lot of goods."
"Cargo?" Gould's slightly drunk head started thinking, and he immediately asked: "What kind of cargo is it?"
The mercenary speculated: "Maybe it's a pile of wheat. Sir, you know, in the tribe these days..."
"Okay! You don't have to say anything. Go tell Jevlo and tell him to open the door." After saying that, Gould twitched his feet and kicked the two women lightly.
"Anna Vila. Get my clothes and dress me."
Gould had changed into his large and gorgeous clothes. In order to show his generosity, today he was really wearing a ferret coat. He wore a snow fox fur hat with beautiful feathers on his head and a cowhide bag with a gold ring.
Steady. He also slightly stroked his beard with a wooden comb and ordered the two maids to follow him.
The thick wooden door was opened, and he came to Gould's residence again. Angreev was in high spirits this time.
For 80,000 pounds of wheat, he had already paid the wealthy merchants one hundred pounds of silver coins in advance.
Today he came here to make a fortune with Gould. To this end, Ungreave even put his own large scale on a trolley and brought it with him.
Ungreave was dressed in gorgeous clothes, but he was still not as richly dressed as Gould. Because Gould's family members also came out of their residence one after another, and many maids and mercenaries came to watch.
Living in this mansion surrounded by wooden walls, even the maids, their clothes are simple yet gorgeous.
The two distinguished people met, and after some polite greetings, Ungreave enthusiastically introduced his wheat.
"Look, here are 80,000 pounds of wheat. Now, where's your promise?"
Gould looked at the large number of sacks on the carts, then stared into Ungreave's eyes and asked knowingly: "They're all wheat? Where did you get the wheat?"
"This? Just leave it alone."
"Okay, I will buy it at the agreed price. That is twelve silver coins for one hundred pounds of wheat."
"Yes." Ungreave smiled and nodded.
"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 that, Gould shook his neck and ordered: "Jevro, take the brothers to have a look."
There is no such tool as a "food spy" in Northern Europe, but mercenaries like Jevro have their own methods.
The ten mercenaries drew out their swords. The quality of their iron swords was far inferior to that of steel swords, but the swords had blood-letting grooves. They poked the swords into the sacks and then pulled them out, so that the two blood-letting grooves accumulated a lot of blood.
of food.
Jevluo turned around quickly: "Sir, it's all food, there's no problem."
Gould was relieved and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Does this make you feel relieved?" Ungreave asked.
"Don't worry! We like your grain, let's start weighing it now."
Gould saw that the other party even brought a scale, so it didn't matter, because he had no intention of missing out on the weighing.
After some weighing, the weight of all the wheat, including the sacks, reached 82,000 pounds.
Faced with this data, Gould shrugged: "It stands to reason that your sack also has weight, so I will suffer a loss here! It should be more than 9,800 silver coins, but I will give you a round number, 10,000 silver coins!"
"
"Hey! This is good." Hearing the price, Angreev's face burst into laughter.
All the grain was quickly moved into his own warehouse, and Gould immediately took one hundred pounds of silver coins from his own bank to pay for the goods.
The tribal farmers who sold a small amount of surplus grain to the tenants made a small profit, the tribe's merchants also made a fortune, and the leader Ungriev earned two thousand silver coins! And what about Gould? With Rurik as a big seller,