Chapter 38 Why did you come here in the first place?
"Why are we here this time?"
"Well...it was Frederick who made Maria sad. Let's teach him a lesson."
"Did you learn a lesson?"
"..."
The air in the carriage suddenly became quiet.
Dahlberg looked out the car window quietly and saw cargo ships concentrated in the middle of the Main River, carefully moving upstream.
"What do you think of Wesson?" he asked.
Philip replied in a deep voice: "It's terrible."
"At first I thought there was someone behind him who actually controlled everything, but the people I assisted in the camp discovered that he had always dealt with various problems by himself, and he handled them almost perfectly."
"He seemed to have lost 500 florins just now, but the cost of a machine like that is estimated to be no less than 50 florins. With the protection of the "Patent Law", he can earn it back immediately, and he can earn even more. This
He is more decisive than many others."
Dahlberg gave a soft "hmm" and continued to look out the window.
"The year after tomorrow," he said suddenly, "in the late autumn of 1026, in order to celebrate my 80th birthday, a large-scale hunting event was organized."
"Two years is enough time to see clearly."
Philip immediately understood what the Grand Duke of Mainz meant.
Now everyone is licking their wounds, and a large-scale hunting with the nature of a paramilitary operation is the most intuitive way to declare the recovery of one's own strength.
If Wesenland can show sufficient strength by that time, the Principality of Mainz will take the initiative to extend an olive branch.
"William is getting old too." Dahlberg whispered, "When you get old, you get anxious."
"Rudolf is a good boy. Although he has become a bit soft-tempered after growing up in the palace, at least he will not offend us."
"If you want him to gain experience and establish his authority, that's fine, but there's no need to drag us along."
"It's better now. The lowlands are all lost. Rudolph is so scared... even the slimes are braver than him."
"Philip, you will be traveling frequently next year."
"There is nothing more to do at this time, just keep the friendship."
"Take young people with you and let them walk more and see more."
Philip immediately took the order.
Dahlberg sighed and said: "Before William died, if Rudolf, a loser, had not changed much, once William died, the Rhine League would exist in name only, and we Germans would not have our own independent country."
Philip was silent after hearing this. As a palace minister, he understood the Grand Duke's thoughts very well. The Grand Duke of Mainz devoted his life to building a country of Germans' own.
It’s just that in this era, due to the feudal system, people were more divided based on locality and region. Ethnicity was only used by outsiders to refer to people in a certain area who spoke the same or similar language and had similar customs. Internally, people rarely called themselves by this name. Dahlberg only had a little bit of nationalism in his mind, and he couldn't figure out how to make the scattered German people reach some kind of consensus.
"Huh?" Dahlberg suddenly discovered something, "Your carriage is not bumpy at all, it is quite fast."
Philip immediately replied: "This was originally Frederick's carriage. He gave it to us after he knew that Sophia was in poor health and could not stand the bumps of the carriage and seldom went out."
Dahlberg pondered and said: "How did he make the carriage so comfortable."
As the sun set in the west, Frederick saw an extremely rare scene when he came to the castle in Lore Town.
Baron Ertal stood beside the carriage with a helpless expression. There was a thick carpet under the carriage, and the Archduke of Mainz squatted under the carriage to study the bearings on the axle.
"Come here!" Dahlberg waved to Frederick from under the car, "Tell me what this thing on the axle is?"
Of course, Frederick did not go under the car with him, but opened the trunk of the car and took out a wooden box. In the box were two spare bearings wrapped in oilcloth.
Dahlberg got out from under the car, glared at Philip fiercely, and then picked up the greasy bearing and studied it.
Phillip looked innocent. He only cared about driving and repairing the car. How could he know that there were spare parts in the car?
"This is a bearing." Frederick said at the side. "The beads inside are like wheels, which can reduce friction so that the horse does not have to work so hard."
Dahlberg grabbed the inner ring of the bearing with one hand and started playing with the outer ring with the other hand.
"A very clever design." The Grand Duke of Mainz sighed, "The principle is very simple, but why has no one figured it out before?"
Frederick replied: "There used to be some, but due to processing problems we could only make wooden beads. They couldn't be used on carriages because they would be crushed and damaged. They could only be installed on the door shaft to make it easier to open and close the door. So
Not used on a large scale."
Dahlberg nodded, played with the bearing in his hand, walked to the car and pointed at the black glue on the wheel and asked: "What is this black glue?"
Frederick took out a large flat wooden box from the mezzanine under the car and opened the oilcloth bag inside. They were two solid black slime tires.
"At this time, the tire of the wheel," he said, "is a material that is elastic and wear-resistant, just like putting shoes on the wheel."
"However, the sizes of the wheels are different. Generally, the tires of cars need to be specially customized, which is very inconvenient."
"Wesenling's carriages are now being remodeled to unify the axles and wheels, which will make it easier to replace parts in the future."
Then he pointed to the place where the axle and the car body are connected and said: "The wooden boards here are also sandwiched with this kind of glue, so you won't feel any bumps when sitting in the car."
Dahlberg looked at the carriage again and said, "Bring me one too."
Frederick thought for a while and said: "I only sell the frame, I don't have the capital to make the decorations."
An ordinary four-wheeled carriage only costs 10 florins, but the carriages of these nobles are extremely luxurious and have no upper price limit. It is said that the king's carriage costs 2,000 florins, which can be called the top luxury carriage among carriages. p>
Dahlberg also realized this and said: "No problem, but I have a request, to reduce the bumps as much as possible. We old people can't bear that."
"Okay." Frederick agreed, "But it won't happen until next year. Our car builders are busy building a new factory now."
Just as Dahlberg agreed, there was a burst of laughter. Maria heard that Frederick had been waiting in the toy room for a long time but no one was there, so she came out to look for him.
"You're here!" Maria said with a smile, "Come and play chess with me!"
With that said, the little girl pulled up Frederick's sleeves and walked into the castle.
Frederick ignored the two men with scary dark faces and followed Maria into the castle, returning to his room to change clothes halfway.
He ran around the camp for a day and was sweating a lot.
Tarot had already come back a step, soaked a cotton towel with warm water, wiped the sweat from his body and face, and then helped him put on clean clothes.
Dahlberg arrived at the toy room earlier, with a kind smile on his face, listening to Maria introduce the checkers, wooden dragonflies, flying chess and other toys that Frederick gave him.
Maria pouted and handed Dahlberg a Rubik's cube made of mammoth teeth and six-color gems, and said depressedly: "Godfather, I can't restore this cube."
Dahlberg took the Rubik's Cube, looked at it, asked how to play it, and then tried to restore the messed up Rubik's Cube.
When Frederick appeared, the Archduke of Mainz said to him viciously: "Are you trying to fool Maria with a broken toy?!"
Frederick's mouth twitched, and he reached out for magic. While recovering, he said: "How dare I? Many of the toys here were originally given to your great-grandson. I didn't expect you to go to the hot springs, so I gave them all to you."
Maria."
This Rubik's Cube was handmade bit by bit by Ogilvy's elite craftsmen who originally made jewelry. With the addition of the mammoth teeth stored in the Wesson family and the cheap gems on the six sides, it can be sold as a luxury item in aristocratic circles.
A few ordinary carriages are not a problem.
While he was talking, he solved the Rubik's Cube, and after showing it to Maria and Dahlberg, he suddenly turned around and started twisting it.
Dahlberg glared at Frederick and said softly to Maria: "Can you give me this toy?"
Maria thought for a while, pointed to the dagger on his waist and said, "Okay, but I have to exchange it for this."
The scabbard of this dagger is made of gold, and is inlaid with high-quality magic crystals instead of gemstones. The dagger itself is also a magic weapon, so selling it for dozens of gold florins is not a problem.
Dahlberg said softly: "Oh, this dagger is too dangerous. Can you change it to another one?"
Maria started acting coquettishly.
Maria gets the dagger.
Maria gave the dagger to Frederick.
Frederick's reputation with Dahlberg became "beating him without any psychological pressure".