Chapter 84 Fostering Business and Industry
Chapter 84 – Supporting Industry and Commerce
“Is it possible to reduce or waive a portion of the tax at the initial stage?”
As soon as Bennett’s words came out, the lobby fell silent.
There were those who secretly laughed at him for being crazy, neither encountering a natural disaster nor a man-made disaster, you’re asking a lord to reduce taxes?
There were also those who were secretly glad that Bennett was the one to say what he wanted to say.
Some people who are familiar with him are worried for him.
Paul stared at Bennett without moving, making his heart flutter, he would not give the lord a bad impression, right?
The lord finally snapped, “And what is your name?”
Bennett replied apprehensively, “Ban …… Bennett, Bennett Todd, uh …… I’m a ship merchant from Port Fullan.”
Paul nodded and said, “Oh, Mr. Todd. That’s a very good offer you’ve made, in fact it’s one of the business-friendly measures I’m going to talk about next.”
Mayor Theodore and Counselor Old Peter looked at each other and saw each other’s doubt, the Earl didn’t seem to have told them beforehand that there was such a clause, right?
Paul cleared his throat and continued, “As for how the taxes will be reduced exactly, it will have to be discussed by the Council of State before a decision is made.”
Seeing that his proposal coincided with the measures the lord was going to talk about, Bennett breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Lord Gleeman.”
He thanked Paul gratefully and sat down.
The merchants in the lobby were also excited, it looked like the lord was really determined to support them, they looked at Paul gratefully, and many of them had already secretly resolved to make a big deal.
Paul’s heart is depressed: wipe, such a measure that can whet the appetite of the merchants themselves how to forget it, even by someone else first proposed it.
Then he saw the crowd in the lobby eagerly looking at him, waiting for him to announce the rest of the measures to favor the merchants.
By the way, he himself had just said it was one of them.
Well, in a moment of desperation, Paul rose from his seat and dropped two big bombshells:
First, he would order the Council of State to set up an organization called “The Bank” to issue loans at low interest rates to those who lacked start-up capital.
The second was that he was going to follow the example of the Hornbeam League in the south and set up a stock exchange through which operators could sell their securities and thus raise idle funds from the community.
“Wow–” the lobby clamored again.
Neither of these things was actually new.
There are many lending organizations in the private sector, but the interest rate is very high, often making the borrower lose everything, compared to the “bank” low-interest loans is very tempting.
The stock exchange in the Horn of Africa has been in existence for a long time, but there has never been a similar organization anywhere else.
With Bennett as the leader, the others also let go of their guts.
A merchant asked, “Lord Gleeman, I wonder what technologies you will authorize for us?”
What, after such a big speech himself, he hadn’t said which industries he was going to open up? One really should have asked Bernard to write a piece for himself beforehand.
Paul thought about it and said, “The first one is paper making, this kind of paper must have been used by everyone.”
The crowd nodded, this kind of cheap paper has come into the daily life of everyone.
Paul continued, “The second is salt production.”
Salt production? The crowd looked at each other in disbelief, Alda already has a salt industry ah, and salt is one of the few products that can open up sales in the Northwest Coastal region in the field, after all, not every place can make salt.
Seeing the confusion of the crowd, Paul asked, “Do any of you here have a salt merchant? Please raise your hands.”
After a few people raised their hands, he pointed to the one sitting at the front of the room and asked, “Tell us, how do you obtain your salt on a regular basis?”
The salt merchant who was pointed to stood up and first introduced himself, “My lord, my name is Godwin Toby. All this area of the Northwest Gulf uses seawater to boil salt, and the villages and towns near the sea have salt people who make a living by boiling salt, and we salt merchants go forward every month to acquire it, and then transport it to various places inland to sell it.” “How much sea salt do you buy up each month?”
Gerdwin thought for a moment and said, “All the salt merchants in Arda combined, probably around 2,000 kilograms.”
Paul said, “That’s too little, I have a way to increase the production of sea salt to tens of thousands of kilograms per month, and it’s extremely low-cost without having to burn fires.”
The crowd all listened and all felt incredible, if Alda could really produce tens of thousands of kilograms of sea salt per month in a low cost way, the money earned would have to be doubled dozens of times.
Paul’s said way is sea salt, he felt that the climate and light of the Northwest Gulf is very suitable for the salt method.
Choose a large flat beach to build a salt field, salt field is generally divided into two parts: evaporation pond and crystallization pond.
The use of high tide when the seawater into the evaporation pond, the sun evaporates water to a certain extent, and then poured into the crystallization pool, continue to sunlight, seawater will become a saturated solution of salt, and then sunlight will gradually precipitate salt crystals, but can not be directly sun-dried, because seawater has a lot of other ingredients, completely sun-dried will be mixed into the salt.
At this time is coarse salt, containing sand and other impurities, to improve the quality, you can add clean water to dissolve, filtering, and then directly sun-drying recrystallization, you get a relatively clean salt, but the addition of this process will reduce the yield.
In fact, the salt after the second crystallization is still coarse salt, not only large particles, but also contains magnesium chloride, calcium chloride and other ingredients to make the taste become bitter, and may even be mixed with sodium nitrite, which is harmful to the human body.
However, this is a harsh world similar to the Earth’s medieval times, the bottom people can eat coarse salt is already very happy, like Bennett such a rich merchant can only eat fine salt after fine grinding.
The nobles of this world could also eat refined salt after purification, but they had to get it from well salt.
Specific method is: with soybean grinding into soybean milk down to the pot, and brine with boiling, because the plant protein has a strong cohesion, can adsorb brine in the calcium sulfate, humus and other impurities to form a foam floating on the liquid surface, and then fetch the foam, then played a role in extracting impurities, purify the brine.
However, this method of refined salt, is simply luxury goods in the luxury jewelry, the bottom of the people and the rich in general do not want to think about, some places directly prohibit the legislation of non-noble people to buy refined salt.
Seeing the crowd’s incredulous look, Paul smiled mysteriously, “The specific method can only be known after you guys get the authorization.”
The lord’s mysterious smile whetted the appetite of salt merchants such as Gerdwin.
Paul continued, “The third is food processing. As I said at the beginning, the south is at war, and the soldiers at the front line need to eat meat and vegetables in addition to staple foods such as bread, but as we all know, there’s usually no way to preserve meat and vegetables for a long period of time, and the Quartermasters of every era and army have a big headache with this problem.”
“If we can find a way to preserve food without changing its texture for a long period of time, His Majesty the King will surely give me us a large order.”
Someone below asked, “Does Lord Gleeman mean that we should process some dried fish and meat and sell them to the kingdom’s army?”
Paul shrugged and said, “That’s one way, you can try making some yourselves. But I’m going to say another method, it can preserve not only meat, but also vegetables and fruits, and the meat preserved this way has to taste much better than jerky.”
“I’ve named this processed food – canned food, and the Lord’s House plans to open a canning factory themselves first, so I’m sure you’ll all be able to see it on the market before long.”
Canned food? Another new thing, Earl Gleiman can truly be considered a prolific inventor, the crowd sighed in their hearts.
The canned food that Paul was talking about was the most primitive kind of canned food.
In 1800, in order to solve the problem of soldiers’ stomachs, Napoleon, who was still the first French consul, offered a huge prize of 12,000 francs to solicit solutions or inventions from the public that could preserve military rations for a long time.
In 1810, a man named Nicolas Appel won the prize by inventing the can.
His method of canning was simple: the food was processed, then put into wide-mouthed jars, all placed in a pot of boiling water, heated for 30 to 60 minutes, then corked tightly while still hot, then reinforced with thread or sealed with wax.
Canned goods made in this simple way remain unspoilt when opened after months of sea transportation, heat and humidity.
What could be more appropriate than canned goods for the armies of the kingdom that would be fighting deep in the south in the future? Of course, that is, if they do not “resupply locally” from the inhabitants.
Hansel almost lost his mind when he learned about the characteristics of canned goods, and begged Paul and the Council of State to prioritize the development of the canned goods industry.
Well, the meeting is almost done here, Paul stood up and said:
“Gentlemen, what has to be said has been said, today’s meeting will end here first. If you are interested in cooperating with the lord’s house, just ask Mayor Theodore and Counselor Peter to sign up, or you can go home and think about it first, haha. I have something else to do, so I’m going to leave first.”
Seeing that the lord was leaving, the crowd stood up to see him off.
After Paul disappeared through the side door, Town Theodore and Counselor Old Peter were almost instantly surrounded by the crowd that rushed to the front ……
(End of chapter)