Chapter 180 – The Fruit Wine Business

Chapter 180 – Fruit Wine Business
After the army’s integration was completed, Richard came to the Riverbank Primary School, after a year of study, the older few children had already mastered basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division arithmetic, and the writing of several thousand words.

These children, who were fifteen or sixteen years old and about to reach adulthood, would graduate next spring.

Compared to the playful little children of eight or nine years old, these older children have experienced hardship and know the value of knowledge and how difficult it is for their families to send them to school, so they study very hard, and basically finish their three years of basic schooling in one year.

Mastered the primary knowledge, Richard will thirteen graduates are arranged in the army command, this group of people is the first batch of staff officers trained by Richard.

Those who were strong and capable of practicing breathing techniques began practicing breathing techniques and were trained as military staff officers. The less talented ones, because of their mastery of rudimentary math, were also able to work as the most basic logisticians.

When he had free time, Richard would also teach them mapping knowledge and arrange some mapping tasks for them, asking them to mark contour lines.

When this group of people were trained, Richard would be able to perfect the establishment of the staff system, set up logistics, combat and other subjects to form a complete and efficient command organ.

The three children with magical talent, Bonova, Connie, and Alizée, also recognized the words on the meditations and completed the preliminary meditations, becoming the lowest level of magical apprentices.

These three children did not have high magical talent, and unless they had significant contributions in magical research, Richard would not invest magical resources in them.

The three children were learning knowledge at Riverbank Primary School while interning at the territorial hospital.

Once they learned the Heal Minor Injuries spell, they would be able to sign a contract with the territorial hospital and become official staff of the hospital.

Annie’s magic talent was good, and in a year’s time she had already advanced to a medium magic apprentice, learned two zero-ring magic spells, and was able to help Sophia do some simple magic experiments.

Time entered October, and the first snow fell in Harland Territory.

Every year once the snowfall Richard is particularly busy, fearing that there will be an omission in the work, and the new slaves will be frozen to death.

The six thousand slaves captured this year were basically settled by Richard on both sides of the Harland Valley.

The orcs had constructed a military station at the northern entrance of the Harland Valley, and there were ready-made buildings. The allied forces of the Gerda Province nobles were also stationed here for a few months, strengthening the fortifications.

The walls inside the military station were relatively simple to build, with thick timber coated with mud on the outside and rammed earth walls on the inside. There were trenches outside the walls, and a moat was dug to bring in water.

The Three Forks, where the station was located, was a strategic point.

Allocating this place to Richard actually increased the burden on the Harland family.

After the army was integrated Richard sent the 3rd Infantry Brigade to station here, and the 6,000 indentured servants were responsible for reclaiming the farmland in the valley that was suitable for cultivation.

On the slopes of the mountains on both sides of the Harland Valley, there were tons of wild orchards.

Because this place was a point of orc cantonment, it had never been developed.

Now that this territory was divided to the Harland family, Richard also built a castle at the entrance of the valley and stationed an army.

The large wild fruit trees on both sides of the valley have a development value.

The fruits can not only be sold for money, but also made into candied fruit with brown sugar.

In addition, Richard also asked to establish a winery in the valley, utilizing the fruit resources in the mountains to brew fruit wine, enriching the variety of drinks of the Harland family.

Fruit wine brewing is not very complicated, the distillery these years to train seven or eight qualified winemaker, they slightly fumble for a period of time, they have studied fourteen kinds of fruit wine recipe.

Because the packaging of the fruit wine was more refined, the glass bottles produced in the territory were used.

The fruit wines produced in the Harland territory sold for five times more expensive than white wine, and one silver coin could purchase four bottles of fruit wine.

Fruit wines were not sold piecemeal, and an exquisite handheld wooden box was given with the purchase, and the packaging was higher-end than wines on the market. The flavor of fruit wine is on the sweet side, the degree is not high, and the cost is actually slightly higher than white wine.

This kind of wine is mainly aimed at the middle and high end of the market.

Noble ladies and young ladies often held banquets, so if the Harland Territory’s fruit wine could become the nobles’ banquet wine, it was estimated that it could make quite a lot of money.

If the market is not opened among the nobles, even if the price is reduced, relying on the current consumption level of Harland’s territory, it is estimated that it will not be able to make money.

Richard sent the brewed fruit wine to Black River Fort.

The Olafs had enjoyed organizing various banquets in recent years, spending a lot of money every year.

The biggest expense of holding banquets was the consumption of alcohol, white wine was too strong for the ladies to drink. The Olafs spent hundreds of gold coins every year to buy red wine from the south.

Using the fruit wine produced in the territory can save a lot of money.

Although the Olaf people feel that the banquet wine, red wine is more upscale, drink red wine to have the feeling of nobility.

But Richard’s request she is not good to refuse, plus the packaging of fruit wine is good, it will be used in the banquet a few times, I did not expect to get a unanimous praise from the noblewomen.

Because the selling price of fruit wine is only half of high-end red wine, the nobles of Black River County are also willing to save some.

As the sales of fruit wine became better and better, in the northern region, the southern red wine was completely squeezed out of the market.

After all, the Southeast Three Counts were too far away from the Northern Border and did not have too much influence in the North. It simply couldn’t compete with the Harland family that was rooted in the northern border.

Forced to give up the northern border market, the main force to the king’s capital development.

Richard had also looked for liquor merchants in the royal capital, but simply could not penetrate the market of the royal capital. The three earls were almost blatant and used violent means to monopolize the market.

The red wine business could bring tens of thousands of gold coins to the three earls every year, and if anyone dared to cut off their financial path, they would dare to kill and exterminate their families.

Now the Harland family’s wine has monopolized the market of the three northern provinces, the income from the sale of wine in the territories of Duke Jonathan and Duke Edward, Richard only needs half of it, and the rest is all filial piety to the two dukes.

This year, despite the war, the business of liquor has slightly increased, and the pure profit has reached thirteen thousand gold coins.

However, because of the inability to open the market in other regions, the profits of the liquor business will soon be saturated.

Richard estimated that an increase of another two to three thousand gold coins would almost reach the top.

Richard stepped on the snow and came to Harland Valley to inspect the area and found that most of the new slaves who joined the territory this year were living in simple wooden houses.

Because the brick kiln factory was already fifty kilometers away from the Harland Valley, such a long distance without water transportation, it couldn’t transport many bricks at all.

Relying on the wagons to pull a little bit, they were all used to build the military station fort.

Without bricks, only wooden houses could be built.

Fortunately, there was no lack of timber resources in the neighborhood, so that there was not a large number of people freezing to death.

This batch of slaves because it was the first year of developing the territory, the conditions were not very good, the old and weak still didn’t make it through, Richard also saw a few small children freezing to death by the roadside being gnawed on by wild wolves, it looked very pitiful.

(End of chapter)