For the countries that host these offshore islands in the Star Sea, as long as these islands can belong to themselves and can be maintained without local support in peacetime, it is enough to be able to use these islands when the war breaks out. As for the relationship between these islands, it is enough for them.
It's not important.
After all, for the lords or hereditary governors of those islands, it is most important to have enough backers to survive in this dangerous ocean. Without the countries behind them, these scattered islands and islands
The weak power can easily be completely destroyed by some cults or supernatural monsters.
The most important thing is that when they enter the industrial age, these islands that lack sufficient coal mines and iron ores are destined to be unable to go very far on the road of development, and their demand for heavy industrial products has also become a major issue between various countries and these islands.
the strongest bond between them.
The countries behind those islands even support cooperation and exchanges between the islands from a certain perspective. In addition to reducing the cost of maintaining the islands, they can also use these islands as vests to conduct some exchanges that are not suitable for public communication. For example,
Negotiations on certain sensitive issues, such as the secret exchange of some special supplies.
Therefore, after confirming that joining the customs union was beneficial to him, Lawrence expressed his desire to join the customs union and discussed this issue with the Viscount of Nicosia. During the discussion, the viscount also learned that Lawrence was planning to open up new territories.
After hearing the news about the land for growing grain, he made the decision to sell him 150 trained cattle at a low cost price.
"I did this because you decided to grow food crops." Looking at Lawrence's somewhat surprised expression, Viscount Nicosia said seriously: "For us, the biggest problem of all nearby islands is that they cannot be self-sufficient in food.
.It would be great if your island could make up for this."
According to the introduction of Mr. Viscount, these islands were developed sooner or later. At the time of development, the earliest developers all chose a single operation and chose to operate on the islands in order to maximize their own interests.
A variety of tropical cash crops are grown on it.
After all, that era was the beginning of the Age of Discovery, and everything from foreign countries sold very well. For example, the prices of spices such as nutmeg and cloves were sky-high. In this frenzy, those
It is understandable that the island owners choose to operate in a single way.
However, as the craze of great voyages receded and the transportation industry developed, the prices of spices and tropical crops have returned to a reasonable price. At this time, each island needs to spend a lot of money every year to buy food from countries on the mainland.
It turned into something very painful.
However, the high price of food is not mainly due to unreasonable pricing by merchants, but because these islands are located in the open sea, and the cost of transporting food itself is very expensive. In some seasons, the price of freight will even be higher than the price of the food itself.
Price. Therefore, people on these islands have to eat those high-priced foods even if they are not happy.
"Then why didn't you grow food before?" Lawrence asked with some confusion. "For example, I see that many of your plantations can actually grow food."
"But that would require eradicating the original cash crops of the plantation." The viscount shrugged and said. "Although it costs a lot of money to buy food every year, compared with the losses caused by reducing the planting of cash crops,
The money spent is quite worthwhile.”
After hearing what the Viscount said, Lawrence was surprised at first, because in his impression, the food issue was the top priority no matter what the situation, and it needed to be 100% in his own hands. This was when he was making a plan.
At that time, food cultivation was given the highest priority. Of course, this was also related to the fact that the Agricultural Church’s working group found that the land was indeed suitable for growing food after conducting on-site inspections.
Therefore, he was extremely shocked by the Viscount in front of him who agreed to rely entirely on external procurement for food. But Lawrence soon felt relieved. After all, different regions and different worlds have different situations. Let’s apply the experience of his previous life.
It must be a very inappropriate thing.
Of course, this does not prevent Lawrence from sticking to his plans and opinions and continuing to grow food. After all, he has always believed that food security is the top priority, and he always feels unsafe if he does not have enough food in hand.
Anyway, food is hard currency, and it is always useful to store more. If you really can't eat it all, you can also use it to make wine and make alcohol. Especially after I mentioned the importance of disinfection before, the consumption of alcohol is now
The price is rising steadily, so producing alcohol at this time can be regarded as a quite profitable business.
While Lawrence was thinking about these issues, Viscount Nicosia became a little uneasy watching him sitting there cutting without saying a word. He thought that his remarks just now made Lawrence feel that he was at a disadvantage, so now
I am reconsidering whether to grow food on my territory as planned.
So he quickly looked at Lawrence and said: "Of course, Lord, if you are willing to grow food, we will definitely not let you suffer. Today I will discuss this issue with the lords near me, and in the end I will come up with a solution that everyone can use."
We have come up with a plan that we think is suitable. Although I don’t know what everyone is willing to pay in the end, I can assure you that the conditions we have come up with will definitely not make you feel that you are at a disadvantage."
"——Oh. That's of course very good." Viscount Nicosia's words made Lawrence react from his deep thoughts. After briefly recalling what he just said, Lawrence made an affirmation to the Viscount.
Answer. "At least this year I will definitely plant a batch of food crops. If the cooperation is happy, it is not impossible to plant like this every year."
Anyway, Lawrence has more initiative in this situation, because those food crops are basically annual crops, and it will be very difficult for him to change the planting content. If the lords of these islands are too stingy, it will be a big deal for him.
After a round of food crop harvesting, in addition to ensuring rations, other cultivated land was changed to planting cash crops.
After receiving Lawrence's promise, Viscount Nicosia's brows suddenly relaxed, and then he patted his chest and assured Lawrence that although he didn't know what price everyone would be willing to pay after the grain was grown, he was willing to send ships to Lawrence's island to transport it.
There was no need for Lawrence to pay even a copper plate for shipping.
He had no way to transport before, mainly because these island owners generally only had some small offshore ships at hand, and could only sail between the main island or surrounding islands. There was no way to cross the vast sea between the island and the New World for their own
The island transports food. But if you only run some short-distance sea routes, it will not be very difficult.
During the subsequent visits to other islands, Lawrence also discovered that there was a huge demand for food in the region. At least the lords expressed their support to some extent after learning that Lawrence would produce food on the island.
And when Lawrence was purchasing, he provided him with a batch of goods at cost price or even a certain discount on the cost price.
This round of visits took Lawrence half a month, because except for staying one night when visiting some islands, he finally returned to the island of Nicosia to participate in the Customs Union.
Extraordinary meeting.
Although only the surrounding lords participated in this meeting, except for Lawrence, a total of six lords came, exceeding the lower limit of five lords. So according to the rules, they held a brief meeting and announced the admission of Lawrence and him