Chapter 23 Fiscal crisis
Chapter 23 Fiscal Crisis
“Lord Earl, this is this quarter’s expenditure and tax situation.” Chief Steward Ford, who was in charge of the territory’s political affairs, handed over a roll of parchment with both hands.
Paul quickly unfolded it and swept through it in a cursory manner and asked, “Are there any problems?” He couldn’t be interested in reports.
“Uh …… there does seem to be a bit of a ‘problem’, and it’s not looking good.” Chief Steward Ford frowned slightly as he looked to Steward Philip, who was sitting across from him, and quietly passed a wink.
Steward Philip, who was responsible for managing the money bank of the lord’s house, spoke, “My lord, if this continues, our financial situation will become unable to make ends meet.”
“Scary – is it the pirate’s activities that are affecting the tax revenue?”
“Yes, in the days after the old Earl was called by the Lord’s grace, besides the pirates who landed, there are also some outlaws who took advantage of the opportunity to fish in the water, the activities of the road hijackers and water bandits have caused some villages and towns to be cut off from transportation, and several of the tax collectors that we have sent out have already been humiliated and expelled.”
“Port Fulan, in particular, is still our largest source of taxes, despite the fact that every year the pirates extort some of their belongings, and now the Shark Gang is occupying it and won’t move.” Chief Steward Ford was at a loss at the thought.
“And that leaves us unable to make ends meet?”
Steward Philip explained, “The recent expansion and training of the army has cost a lot of money and food. In the past, it was just enough for the soldiers to eat and drink, and let them go home after the battle, but now we also have to pay them and order uniforms ……”
“There’s also the purchase of raw materials for making new weapons, and the recruitment of artisans …… It was also decided at the last meeting that ships would be built ……”
Paul’s head grew bigger and bigger the more he listened, and once again he unrolled the scroll of paper and looked it over.
Something was indeed going to have to be done.
……
After the end of the last military meeting, Lakeville originally wanted to continue to “hunker down” for a month, after completing the training of two complete infantry battalions, then a wave of piracy in the territory. Unexpectedly, the intelligence chief Cecil just took office on a merit, to detect an important news: shark annexed the remnants of the Quake fled back, in order to give the new little brother revenge and prestige, sent 500 people intend to give Paul a little color to see. It looks like killing a count has inflated the pirate leader a lot.
The army won the battle after the morale is strong, also do not need to shark’s people ran all the way to the heart of the lake town, with the help of Cecil’s intelligence, the old knight Schroeder led the army and some bold fishermen, halfway to the gang of pirates to intercept.
Schroeder used a small force to lure the pirates ashore, gradually moving away from the boats they were traveling on, and then led the main force to quickly insert themselves between the pirates and the riverbank, cutting off their retreat.
Both sides took up positions and engaged in a melee, and with the great advantage brought by discipline and firearms, coupled with the fact that the soldiers at this time had long since been transformed after a victory, the Lakewood Township army won another great victory.
Pirates even dead and wounded plus captured lost more than four hundred people, this time the shark gang honest, also played the turtle tactics, hiding in the richland harbor does not come out.
Lake heart town army has been chased to the port of Fulan, found that at this time the city wall of the port of Fulan than before increased in height, all kinds of fortifications also increased a lot, did not dare to attack, but stationed in the vicinity of the pirates to prevent them from running out to loot again.
“After all this, they didn’t even retreat to the sea?” Paul was surprised, it looks like this group of pirates are really thinking of occupying the Fulan harbor for a long time.
Forget it, they will be the meat on their chopping board sooner or later.
He gave instructions to the officers to use the two newly formed infantry companies as the main force, the internal defense force as a supplement, to eliminate the road bandits everywhere, while training and fighting, the new recruits may be more difficult to deal with the pirates, but to deal with these hooligans who have just gathered together into a group will be very easy to deal with.
Along with the “fight against the black”, the lake town gradually restored control over the whole territory of the count’s territory in addition to the port of Fulan, but many villages and towns have been plundered by the pirates and bandits, in the face of the two tearful representatives of the public opinion, the count finally did not have the heart to scrape a layer of oil from the poor people, he ordered to exempt some of the villages and towns from the tax for two seasons. He ordered that some villages and towns be exempted from paying taxes for two quarters.
With the gradual restoration of transportation everywhere, the tax is still more or less collected a little bit, temporarily alleviate the current financial crisis, so that the senior management of the town of lake heart temporarily relieved. However, this is only a temporary relief, want to really solve the financial crisis, must immediately start some easy money project.
……
In the afternoon of this day, Paul summoned General Manager Ford and other people.
“Gentlemen, take a look at this thing I made, how is it?”
Everyone was given a piece of paper.
Chief Ford took a piece of the hard stuff and asked suspiciously, “Is this “paper”?”
“Ahem …… This is just a test product, but this is definitely promising when it’s done right.”
This is Paul in accordance with his understanding of papermaking to get out of the “paper”, he got a bunch of bark, wood, bamboo, and then use a pot of steam, after boiling with a stone mortar pounded into pulp, and finally spread the pulp under the sun, and finally obtained a …… uh …… crunchy cardboard.
“Is there any use for this kind of stuff?”
“To replace the parchment used now.”
At the moment, the material used for writing in this world is basically parchment, the production process is super complicated, the whole skin has to be treated with lime, then dehairing, degreasing and removing the flesh, stretching, scraping the skin many times, polishing with pumice stone, and finally drying and processing, and the production is not high, a sheepskin looks quite big, but after processing the parchment obtained is less than 1 square meter, which results in a strange high price of parchment, and there is no wonder that illiterate people all over the place The civilian can’t even afford to buy things to write on.
“But, this thing ……” Ford chief slightly hard to break, the hand of the paper all of a sudden crumbled, speechless.
“Ahem ……” Seeing that the crowd was a bit disdainful of his great invention, the Lord Earl cleared his throat and said in a serious tone, “With time, I am confident that I can make them softer and thinner. Any great invention is questioned when it is first born, but no amount of questioning can stop the wheel of history.”
“Look at the parchment now, how expensive it is, even some minor nobles don’t dare to buy more, let alone commoners. Taking the church as an example, I asked Pastor Anderson, even if we don’t take into account all kinds of failures and accidents, they would need to slaughter more than 300 sheep to transcribe a single Canon. My goodness, it takes more than 300 sheep to replace a single book, with a series of copying production processes in between. “
“As for this ‘paper’ in your hands, its raw material is merely something as insignificant as tree bark or bamboo, and as long as the process is mature, a whole lot of it can be produced in a few days’ work. If we can make it softer, thinner, and not so brittle, this is definitely epoch-making, world-shaking stuff.”
After an impassioned speech, the crowd could not help but be mesmerized.
“If it can really be improved into what your honor said, that would be a good tool to make money.” Chief Steward Ford, who was plagued by financial problems, was the first to think of this.
“Exactly!” Paul clapped his hands vigorously, “Although the initial product may not be as durable as parchment, but the raw materials are sufficient, the production is simple, and when the time comes, we will focus on the characteristic of ‘inexpensive’, and we will definitely not worry about sales.”
“Moreover, it has another wonderful use besides writing.” A mysterious smile surfaced on Lord Earl’s face.
“Oh? Dare I ask Your Excellency ……”
“Free your asses.”
(End of chapter)