Chapter 88: Separation of the inside and the outside

Chapter 88 Separation Inside and Out
On the morning of September 27th, Paul Gleiman was in his office going through the report files sent over from Port Fullan.

Inside this document described the information of the businessmen who were interested in cooperating with him so far.

After Paul had called a meeting with the merchants in Port Fullan, many people had immediately signed up, and in the following days, one after another, people came to the government office to express their intention of responding to the Lord’s call.

However, the Council of State suggested that the production technology and techniques should not be handed over to others casually, but rather, we should first judge whether they have the appropriate qualifications, and examine their credibility, financial strength, and other information, otherwise, in case of business failure, it will cause some negative impacts, and smashed the signboard of the Lord’s House.

Paul thought that this suggestion was correct, and ordered the Fulan Harbor Government Office to rigorously check the information of the enrolled merchants.

After repeated screening, it has been confirmed that in the near future, there will be 3 salt farms, 5 canneries, 6 paper factories and 8 porcelain factories being established in the extremely neighboring areas of Fullan Harbor.

The cannery invested by the Lord’s House itself also started to build a factory building near Lake Town, and it was believed that a large number of canned goods would be sold to the kingdom’s army fighting in the south soon.

Interestingly enough, those merchants who had already obtained the authorization cried out to give a certain percentage of their shares to the lord, and seeing that they were so insistent, Paul also had to “accept” it, and by then he would be able to share the dividends from the profits in addition to collecting taxes and technology royalties.

It looks like this group of businessmen are still a bit uneasy about themselves.

At this time, he suddenly remembered something, shouted “Bernard”.

The chief secretary immediately pushed the door in and came to his desk and asked, “What are Lord Gleeman’s orders?”

Paul said, “Help me gather Chief Steward Ford and the heads of the Council of State to the lord’s house, I want to announce something.”

“At your command.”

The chief secretary turned to leave, and just as he pulled open the door to his room, Paul called out to him again, “Wait, you’d better call Steward Philip for me first.”

……

Butler Philip soon arrived in Paul’s office.

Since there was Bernard as the chief secretary, the work on the old butler was much easier, and now he mainly dealt with some of the affairs of life within the lord’s house.

Paul stood up, facing the old housekeeper, his hand reached out to the chair in front of the desk and made a “please” gesture, saying, “Philip, please sit down.”

“This ……” Philip butler’s brain immediately went offline, which master made such a gesture to his servant.

After a short period of disorientation, the old butler panicked all of a sudden, and a terrifying thought bubbled up from his brain:

“Lord Earl can’t be dismissing me!”

After carefully recalling his recent work experience, it seemed that no faults had occurred, right? So is this a case of disliking his old age and uselessness, and is sending himself home to retire?

The old butler fell into a stupor for a while because of his wild thoughts.

Paul saw the change in the butler’s expression, and he went around to the front of the table and held his shoulders down with his hands, exerting a little force to make him sit down towards the chair.

For this old housekeeper who had been taking care of himself, he was very respectful, remembering that in this life his mother died early, his father was busy with territorial affairs, and it was this old housekeeper who had brought him up since he was a child.

Unexpectedly the butler popped up as soon as he made contact with the chair, reacting Philip said in a terrified tone: ”How can a servant sit down in front of his master? Lord Earl don’t discount me.”

Paul again held him down toward the chair and said, “Sit down, it is a request as well as an order.”

Only then did Philip sit down in the chair.

Paul also returned to his seat and sat down, he clasped his hands together and leaned on the table with both arms as he looked toward the old butler.

“Philip, you have been working hard within the lord’s house, my father and I have been under your care for two generations ……”

“Lord Earl don’t drive me away ah ……” Philip’s sudden old tears startled Paul, how did he think there.

But in the old butler’s opinion, Paul’s opening statement is not the rhythm of dismissing him.
His parents were the old men of the Greiman family, both having served within the lord’s house all their lives, and he, too, had helped out within the house since he had known how to do so, and had become Paul’s father’s personal servant.

After the last steward resigned to retire, Paul’s father gave him the position, counting more than twenty years.

Nearly 50 years of his own life were spent within the lord’s mansion, and he was deeply attached to this place, so if he suddenly left to retire, he really didn’t know how he should live on.

Paul panicked and waved these two hands to explain to the old housekeeper, “Philip, I don’t have any intention to drive you away.”

“Think about it, the daily affairs within the lord’s mansion are all taken care of by you, if you leave, this place must be in chaos.”

It’s not to dismiss me, great! Philip’s heart settled down a little.

He was embarrassed and said, “I’m very sorry, Lord Earl, it’s me who was imagining things.”

But what was the earl suddenly so solemn about?

Paul was relieved to see the old butler calm down, and then said:
“I’m looking for you for another matter, although it’s not to dismiss you, but I’m also afraid that you can’t accept it emotionally, so I decided to talk to you first.”

As long as it’s not to dismiss me, Philip solemnly said to Paul: “Lord Count, you are the master and I am the servant, I can only obey what you say.”

“Then I’ll say it ……”

“Uh …… actually about the income and expenditure of the lord’s house, I want to separate the finance into an inner and outer treasury, the inner treasury will still be in your charge, while the outer treasury will be handed over to the Council of State.”

After hearing Paul’s words, the old butler, as if he had done something wrong, asked in a voice that sounded hard to hear and was almost squeezed out of his throat, “Lord Earl, did I miscalculate something?”

Paul said with a straight face, “Of course not, every time I check the accounts, I have never found any mistakes or omissions, you have managed the finances very well.”

Hearing Lord Earl say this, Steward Philip was slightly relieved.

In Paul’s opinion, the income within the territory mainly consisted of two aspects:

One was the taxes within the territory, including agricultural taxes, commercial taxes, and other taxes that seemed strange and varied to Paul;

The second is the various industries under the name of the Greiman family, including the output of farms everywhere and the profits of various factories and stores.

Both of these revenues were unified into the treasury within the lord’s house.

The weekday expenses also included two aspects:

One is the lord’s private life expenses, including Paul’s own food, clothing, housing and transportation, the maintenance of the lord’s castle, the salary of the servants in the house and so on;

The second is the expenses of public affairs in the territory, including the salaries of officials at all levels, the army’s expenses, repairing bridges and roads, digging aqueducts and so on.

The money needed for these two aspects also came from the treasury of the lord’s house.

On weekdays, the lord’s private expenses were directly responsible by Philip’s steward, and the procurement of various materials and the payment of servants’ salaries were directly paid out of the treasury.

And the expenses of public affairs in the territory, is responsible for the affairs of the officials in charge of the budget in advance, and then handed over to Philip steward, if the budget amount is too large, the steward will first report to Paul, Paul agreed, the steward from the treasury to hand over the money to the relevant officials, if the amount is small, by Philip steward directly from the treasury to take the money, and then the end of the month will be the details of the account to Paul to review.

However, nowadays, with the increasing amount of various incomes and expenditures, Paul felt that it was time to readjust the management of the financial aspects.

(End of chapter)