Christian led the upper two rows of young and beautiful maids to line up at the gate to greet Frederick.
After leaving the royal estate, Frederick went directly to the city of Cologne, where Christian purchased a new mansion for him.
The city of Cologne draws several tributaries from the Rhine River to prevent fires and discharge sewage.
The block separated by a river where this house is located is full of mansions of powerful people. The neighbors are either rich or noble, and patrols of the city defense army pass by from time to time.
The house is located in the southernmost corner of the block. It is a triangular plot of land. The side facing the street in the north is about 60 meters long. The sides facing the river in the east and west are about 70 and 80 meters long respectively. To the south is an equilateral triangular four-story building with a side length of 30 meters. There is a
A triangular patio, a trapezoidal garden between the building and the street, a servant's house, a horse pen, a garage and a wall separate the garden from the street.
Frederick glanced at the door and saw that his family's coat of arms had been replaced on it.
He came down from behind Dawn and asked the person taking care of Dawn to lead him to the horse pen. The steward behind Christian immediately led the way himself.
Frederick sent the maids away and saw that the garden was bare, all the original plants had been shoveled away, and now only the soil was left.
Christian followed and reported: "This mansion originally belonged to the Adikon family. This family is famous for the presence of many naval officers. Now there is a young Baron Adikon left. He sold his property and prepared to build a fleet.
"
"The land, buildings and furniture of the mansion are worth about 25,000 florins in total. Baron Adikon is willing to sell it to us with 20,000 florins of Wesson unlimited commodity vouchers. I have signed a contract with him.
, just wait for the voucher to be delivered.”
Frederick stopped when he heard this, thought for a moment, and said: "Give him a voucher of 40,000 florins. The extra money will be considered my investment. If he needs it, I can sell a batch of revolver rifles."
Give it to him."
Naturally, he wanted to engage in maritime trade, but it was hard to find professionals in this area. He could only cast a wide net as an investor to see if he could find a suitable spokesperson.
In terms of weapons, he felt that the folding rifle was a bit of a drawback as a main battle weapon, so he enlarged the revolver into an eight-round revolver and fired round lead bullets.
Christian immediately agreed and said that he would go to negotiate with Baron Adicon tomorrow, and then continued: "I found the housekeeper and the head maid here. I knew them before. They are husband and wife. It turns out that they are small nobles in the lowland area and have no inheritance rights.
My children have worked in many business families for more than ten years and have a good reputation."
At this time, he said with some caution: "Some of the servants here have served my family before, and their abilities and reputations are trustworthy. Others are recruited through the guild. They are all clean-blooded, and their family members have no criminal records or bad habits.
A son of a good family."
Frederick just nodded and said nothing more.
He and Christian walked around the house. Most of the wooden furniture was there, all the decorations had been sold, kitchen utensils, tableware, bedding, etc. were all newly bought. Psyche had already touched them in her bedroom.
The fish is reading a book.
In the patio, Christian asked: "Sir, what kind of decorations do you want to purchase?"
Frederick frowned, this was difficult for him.
This is the royal capital, so the decorations must not only be exquisite and expensive, but they must also not be as meaningless as country bumpkins, otherwise they will make a fool of themselves.
But this is not impossible. He said: "Teacher Psyche will be here for a while. I will tell her later and ask her for help."
"You didn't use cash to buy the house, so just use the money to purchase decorations."
In terms of art, he was sure that he was not as good as Psyche. Maybe one of the antiques he would buy had been touched by this great master before.
After discussing the matter, the two went to the study, and Christian handed a stack of invitations to Frederick.
Some of these invitations are written on traditional parchment rolls, with beautiful flower knots tied on the outside with colorful ribbons. Some are made of white cardboard produced in Weissensee, folded in half, with exquisite hand-painted patterns on the cover, and are also tied with
Ribbon.
Frederick read it over and saw that some important ministers of the kingdom were invited to attend dinners and dances, some ladies were invited to attend tea parties, and some scholars invited him to discuss issues when he was free.
He sorted through it, putting on one side those who wanted to participate, and on the other side those who could not participate due to time conflicts and the owner's relatively low status, and then asked Christian to reply one by one.
It costs a lot of money to go on an army expedition. The Wesson Army's logistics standards are currently considered exaggerated by others. The logistics supplies provided by the Kingdom are definitely not enough, so at least this gap must be earned back.
So he prepared a lot of novel products and planned to advertise them while attending various events.
Frederick finally asked Christian to go to the garden to measure the floor plan in preparation for building a glass greenhouse, and then went to have a secret conversation with Psyche.
Psyche was still lying quietly on the bed reading. Frederick sat beside the bed and asked, "Is the investigation clear?"
Psyche nodded coldly and asked him: "As the rumors say, what are you going to do?"
Frederick immediately replied: "Let the church come this time. Let's do this first, and then do that. The church will definitely not be able to sit still. It will definitely investigate, and it will definitely be found out after the investigation. It will be up to them how to deal with it then."
Psyche said speechlessly: "You do know how to kill with a borrowed knife."
Frederick sighed deeply and said: "I also want to do it myself, but I am not strong enough."
Psyche didn't say much.
Frederick knew very well the process of troublesome things for her, so he said first: "Let's go to the street and see where there is delicious food. I'll treat you."
As a result, Psyche gave him a blank look and said angrily: "You are a Duke now, so you should look like a great nobleman. How can any nobleman go shopping and eat in restaurants by himself?"
"If you want to buy anything, ask the merchant to bring you the goods to choose from. If you want to eat, ask the chef to come over and cook it for you. When you have money and it goes bad, you can have it delivered to your door."
Frederick finally heard a black line.
He really likes shopping, but how can it be proper for a nobleman and ordinary people to crowd together. Ah Fu and the others have said similar things to this before, but he fooled them by inspecting the territory.
So Frederick went to the housekeeper and asked him to invite a chef from a good restaurant in Cologne. The result was a huge embarrassment.
The butler asked nervously: "Excuse me, sir, are you dissatisfied with the cook? What kind of cook do you want? I will change him immediately."
The kitchen is an important department in the house and is directly managed by the housekeeper. If the new master is dissatisfied with the cook, it is not difficult for him to think more about whether the master is dissatisfied with him and is beating himself up.
Frederick was stunned. He had never even drank the boiling water boiled by the cook here. How could he be dissatisfied?
So he explained: "It's not that I'm dissatisfied, it's just my first time coming to Cologne and I want to try the specialties and delicacies here."
The housekeeper understood and said doubtfully: "Then just let the cooks do it. Their skills are much better than those on the street, otherwise I wouldn't hire them."
Frederick understood. "Learning literary and martial arts, and bringing goods to the emperor's family" can also be used as a cook. Even if it is not a palace, it is naturally better to be a chef for a big noble than to work in a restaurant.
"Okay," said Frederick, "I'll try my cooking skills tonight."
When dinner time came, only Frederick and Psyche were having dinner in the restaurant.
The table was filled with sumptuous dishes, some of which Frederick had not expected.
On the plate in front of him were several slices of soft white bread, smeared with butter and sprinkled with cheese slices and raw onions. It tasted pretty good.
Of course, pork knuckles are indispensable here. The method here is to pickle the pig's knuckles in salt water. The taste is salty, but it goes well with light beer.
Then there are bread rolls stuffed with minced pork, pepper and butter, and pork belly and pea soup, all of which are delicious.