Lady of the Lord From the East

After Baron Stoichkov from Soria left, no other guests came to the castle for the time being, but there were still a lot of posts sent. Felix went to the study to read the letters and deal with these relationships.

Most of these letters were sent by nobles. As always, they either invited them to the banquet or asked when Sardinson Castle would hold the banquet, but there were more nobles who wrote letters. Because Felix was promoted to duke, this banquet was inevitable, and in addition to the nobles who had been friends in the past, the nobles in the new territory hoped to come to visit the newly promoted duke.

Of course, these people inevitably mentioned Crown Prince Edward in the letter, and they all expressed their desire to come to see His Royal Highness. Felix had to ask the Crown Prince before he would reply, but with his knowledge of Edward, His Royal Highness I am afraid Will not agree to meet the nobles.

The banquet is also going to be held, but there is no hurry, they have just returned to the territory, and they can prepare slowly.

The contents of these letters were basically the same, and Wei Wei was busy with official business after reading only a few letters without being interested.

They have been away from the territory for a long time. Although they have made arrangements when they leave, and from time to time there are people who send official documents to the capital for them to check, but it is not very convenient. Therefore, many less important things are taken care of by subordinate officials and stewards. When they come back, they need to see how these people are doing.

Wei Wei called Penny in, asked her to help run a trip, and informed all the stewards in the manor, "Let them come over for a meeting tomorrow and make a report."

Wei Wei has always been in charge of the farm work in the manor, and Felix came to the factory and outside the manor. He also called someone to inform others to arrange a time for a meeting.

After confirming the meeting time, Wei Wei continued to flip through the documents. She is now looking at the report from the research institute. Not long ago, the alchemists and their apprentices finally solved the problem of the optimal ratio of various fertilizers and mass production. We can start mass production, but they have been producing fertilizers on a small scale, so there are few manufacturing sites and manpower, so now they want to apply for the establishment of regular factories and recruit workers.

The factory is not suitable to be built now. There are already several factories in the manor. If you build it again, you will need to occupy the land. So a long time ago, Felix chose a suitable area in Slot as the future industrial area. , there is a certain distance from the new city, do not worry about affecting the living environment of the new city, the formal industrial area is not only convenient for management but also effective in security defense, and its location is on the edge of the new city, which is also very convenient for workers to commute to get off work and goods. For transportation and other issues, several factories in the manor will basically be moved there in the future, so if the fertilizer factory is to be settled there, it will be a waste to build a fertilizer factory now.

Therefore, when the documents were sent to Wangdu, the expansion of the factory was not approved, but the recruitment was agreed. Recently, they have recruited a new batch of workers, increased the production of fertilizers, and have been able to sell some fertilizers. However, because the quantity is not large, the priority for sale is the local residents. According to the feedback, the ones who have used it are said to be good. Many merchants have long heard that the fertilizers used in Sardinson Castle are different from those used by others. , I wanted to buy fertilizers for a long time, but because of the limited production, no merchants have successfully signed up until now, so I can only wait slowly.

Now, Wei Wei is facing an application for increasing the purchase of raw materials. The raw materials needed to make chemical fertilizers have no local resource reserves in Sardinson. They used to be bought from other nobles and merchants. After the production was expanded, they originally ordered The amount of fertilizer is not enough, so the steward responsible for the production of chemical fertilizers wrote an application, hoping to increase the purchase of raw materials.

Wei Wei wrote "approval" on it, then dug out the information of several partners, and wrote a letter asking if they could increase the order quantity. If not, she had to find another source of supply.

After the letter was written, Wei Wei dripped varnish on it to seal it. This varnish was specially made by someone. If the letter with the varnish seal was opened, it would be easy to find. European nobles have always liked to use it. It wax-sealed letters and important documents, but she had no paint in her era, so she had to find someone to do it herself.

Don't look at it as a small thing, but the finished product is sold in the store, but it is very popular. Not only the nobles, but also ordinary merchants will buy one and use it back. After all, they have a lot of letters that need to be kept secret. layer protection.

The red paint with the lion's family crest quickly solidified, and the written letter was temporarily put aside, and she continued to read the next document.

At this time Felix delivered a letter to her "It's for you."

"Who wrote it?"

Wei Wei was puzzled. Generally speaking, other people would not write letters to her on purpose. If they wrote them, they should have signed their names. The letters would naturally be sorted by the servants and sent directly to her. Now that the letter is on Felix's side , it means that the recipient is him.

Felix, who has seen the content, said, "It's the foreign merchant who bought you cocoa beans for you."

As soon as he mentioned Wei Wei, he remembered that last year she signed a trade deal with an exotic businessman and asked him to help buy cocoa beans and coffee beans in the countries on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, but last year due to seasonal reasons, the other party only sent a few shipments of cocoa beans Come, there is not much coffee, and this year he was in the capital when he delivered the goods, and he didn't see anyone, but the payment was ordered early in the morning, so it stands to reason that they shouldn't need to exchange letters, right?

She opened the letter and looked at it roughly. It was almost a month before the letter was signed, but the other party was a letter from the sea. It took a lot of time to deliver the letter, so it should have arrived in Sardinson not long ago, just in time with the others. The congratulatory letters sent by the nobles were mixed together, and the butler Patton thought it was a kind of letter, so they were all put together.

At the beginning of the letter, it was Felix who really greeted Felix. The businessman seemed to have very well-informed information. He even knew about Felix's promotion at that time, so he started with congratulations to Felix, but after a few words, he turned to To the point, I talked to Wei Wei about the reason why I wrote the letter.

The letter mentioned that the businessman has been traveling back and forth in several countries on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea since last year, because Sardinson previously stated that the demand for cocoa beans and coffee beans is as much as possible, looking for large-scale planting. The origin of these two kinds of plants - by the way, he has really looked for a lot, so the coffee beans and cocoa beans sent to Sardinson this year can be said to be endless, not only the milk tea shops in Sardinson are now selling Chocolate products and coffee of various flavors have also begun to be rationed in their stores in Wangdu and other areas. At present, various chocolate products are very popular, and coffee is not as acceptable as chocolate because of its bitter taste. Few people fell in love with its unique fragrance after discovering its refreshing benefits, and are slowly forming a new circle of drink lovers - and when looking for sources, the businessman did not forget that Wei Wei once asked him He helped to find special plants, so every time he went to a place, he would specifically ask the locals if they knew any special plants.

Then, in one of the places, he heard from a local priest that in a certain local rainforest, he had seen a tear tree, very similar to the rubber tree Wei Wei was looking for, and that kind of tree was also a cut tree. The skin will exude milky sap later, but the seeds and leaves of this tree are poisonous, which can cause poisoning if eaten by humans and animals, so that kind of tree is only found in inaccessible rainforests, and businessmen who have never seen the real thing are not sure if this is the case. The plant she was looking for was just a retelling of the priest's words.

Seeing this, Wei Wei immediately became excited. The seeds and leaves of the rubber tree were poisonous, and the appearance of the tree described by the businessman matched the picture of the rubber tree she had seen, so nine times out of ten, it was a rubber tree!

Originally, when she knew that the origin of rubber trees was in South America, she didn't really expect anyone to find rubber trees. After all, South America is not a place where they can go to explore. Telling the businessman was just a fluke, but she didn't expect that it would still be there. Really let him find it.

Pressing excited, she continued to look down. The businessman said that the rainforest where the tree is located is very dangerous. Even the local people rarely go deep into it. He is just a small businessman, and I am afraid that there is no way to help her find this kind of tree. So if she needs it, she can only send someone to find it herself, but he also said that if Wei Wei needs it, he can introduce the best local hunters to them as tour guides.

This makes Wei Wei difficult. The dangers of places like tropical rain forests are high, and you can see those documentaries of later generations. Moreover, in this period, if you want weapons without weapons, and if you want medicine without medicine, ordinary people will not be able to get out. Here, where did she go to find someone?

"Do you really want this kind of tree?" Felix had read the letter before, so he knew what Wei Wei was hesitating when he saw Wei Wei's expression.

"Well, if this is really a rubber tree, it has a very wide range of uses. If we can get it back, we will make a lot of money."

Not to mention the various industrial uses of rubber, that is, there should not be too many places where rubber products can be seen in life. Take shoes as an example, can the soles of wood be comparable to those made of rubber? It must not be possible! In addition, rubber can be used for sealing, so that the shelf life of the various foods produced in their territory can become longer. In addition, the wheels of the carriage, the water pipes, and even the seals of the glass windows, which do not need rubber products?

Give her a rubber plantation, she can push science and technology a big step forward, and the industrial revolution can try to do it!

So you're saying it's important?

"Then how about hiring people locally?" Felix suggested. He had never seen the rain forest, and he didn't know exactly what that environment was like, but he knew how dangerous the inaccessible forest was. Therefore, compared to strangers who were completely unfamiliar with the local situation, the locals were naturally the best choice.

Felix firmly believes that as long as the price is high enough, there will be people willing to go.

And if this rubber tree is really useful, Felix feels that he can cooperate with the local monarch. There are many countries on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Although many countries are relatively closed, since they are places where no foreign merchants can go, then It shouldn't be a particularly exclusive place.

Wei Wei also thinks this is the truth, and the growth of rubber trees is slow, and it is impossible to completely rely on the raw materials of wild rubber trees. Artificial planting is the kingly way.

Therefore, if it is determined that there are rubber trees in the local area, they need to buy land to plant rubber trees locally, and these require the support of the local people. If they can cooperate with the monarch, it is naturally the best.

"Then who should we send to take charge of this matter? Although it is said that we can hire local people, we still need to find someone to talk to them here, right?" She was worried that it was completely handed over to the businessman.

Felix also thought about it. He chose among his subordinates, and finally said, "Why don't Kingsley take someone there? He is also a baron now, and his status as a noble is convenient for him to meet the king over there."

After Felix was proclaimed duke, three of his knights became new nobles. Kingsley was one of them. He was the head of the knights himself. It is indeed very suitable to visit other countries.

In addition, Felix also plans to find a few people from the caravan to follow Kingsley, and then bring a batch of Sardinson's specialties there, so that the monarch of the other party knows the value of their Sardinson, so that they can better discuss cooperation. thing.

"Kingsley is indeed a good fit, but he should take over his own territory recently. Is there time?"

"No problem, Kingsley's domain is where his original fief is, and it doesn't take long to take over."

After being promoted to baron, he naturally has his own fief. The king did not choose the position of the land for the three new barons of Sardinson, but handed over the dominance to Felix, and Felix would not treat his cronies harshly. , so the territories chosen for the three people are very good. Among them, Kingsley's territory is in Sardinson, which was expanded on the basis of his original fief, and the surrounding land and several villages were added into it.

But he was also lucky. The fief was not allocated to other nobles and knights, so he didn't have to move the place. Like the other two knights, because the next door to the fief belonged to other knights, Felix could only do another They had chosen places for them in other counties, and the two were assigned to Slaughter, who took over the baron who was frequently harassed by the Knights in the name of robbers, and finally had to sell all his land and property and move to other places. The new owners there, of course, the fiefs of the two new barons are not as large as the original barons - after all, they were demoted from earls, and the fiefs were only confiscated in half, so the original remaining half also had five barons. The fiefs are large, and of course they are now owned by Felix - like Kingsley, they are standard barons, each with 8,600 acres of land and a thousand households inherited from the original baron.

Since Kingsley didn't have to deal with the fief, it was more appropriate to send him.

"Then ask him if he is willing to go. It just so happened that the Royal Seaport didn't send the ship that owed us to us. We will recruit a group of sailors and crew members, and we will form our own fleet and go there."

The five ships they ordered before were stolen and burned by pirates before they were delivered. The shipyard would naturally have to compensate them. If it wasn't for the royal family's shipyard, such a huge loss would be enough to hurt them. Bone, and the king did not catch the cunning pirates later, in order to make up for the loss to them, the Royal Dockyard turned one of the merchant ships into a warship, which Felix was not eligible to order. The warship, the king was not sick at that time, if it hadn't benefited him, they wouldn't have been able to buy the warship.

And with warships, their fleets will be safer at sea.

Now that the ships have been delivered, the formation of the fleet is happening together.

Wei Wei wrote a reply again and told the foreign businessman that she would send someone over here, and hoped that he would be able to help receive it and let the fleet establish friendly exchanges with the local people. Of course, if she could, she would like to hire him as a translator, or Introduce a suitable translator to the fleet. After all, the South Bank does not speak Latin, and there are no people who can speak the local dialect. Communication is a big problem.

The written letter was handed over to Meng Na along with the previous one, and asked her to find a servant to send it to Dingle. Stationed, doing business and receiving information correctly, and the foreign businessman also set up a shop to do business here, so Wei Wei only needs to send the letter to the shop, and then their own people will send the letter. to the owner.

Since then, Wei Wei has been in a good mood. Today, she really got a double surprise. Not only did she find tobacco, but she also suspected that she had found a rubber tree. It was a double happiness.

She almost hummed a song to finish the rest of the work. When she was done, she went to help Felix. Felix had more official duties than her, and it took a day or two to handle it. So they were busy until dinner time, and the couple was stopped by the servant who informed them that they were having dinner.

Felix went around the chair, wrapped his arms around Wei Wei's waist and walked out, "Let's go, today is the first time His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is visiting our house. It's rude not to entertain him during the day, and you can't be late for dinner."

Felix had originally taught the crown prince swordsmanship, and later he had to stop the swordsmanship class as his health got worse and worse, but the two still had some master-disciple relationship, but it stands to reason that the crown prince is his elder, so the two have always been Peer-to-peer friendship.

After the Crown Prince received treatment and his health began to improve, his daily exercise became more intense from walking and jogging. Even after Felix returned from the war, Prince Edward consulted Wei Wei and learned swordsmanship from him again. , Coupled with the identity of Dr. Wei Wei, the relationship between the husband and wife and the crown prince is becoming more and more familiar, and their contacts are more like relatives and friends. They don't need to be so polite, so the crown prince who knows they have a lot of official business to deal with comes to Sardinson Castle. He said kindly that they didn't need their company, and let them handle the official business by themselves, and only asked Dolores to take him and his fiancée for a walk.

Of course, because of the crown prince's old problems, the garden full of flowers and plants is not suitable for him to visit, so Dolores only showed them inside the castle, and in the process, Prince Edward saw the newly opened library in the castle, You can't get out of it directly.

There was no library in Sardinson Castle, and there was a public study room, but there were not many books in it, at least the number was definitely not comparable to the harvest of the royal family.

But Wei Wei's habit of reading encyclopedias every day made Felix know that she is a book lover, so from a long time ago, Felix began to collect all kinds of books in a planned way, while other nobles were aware of Felix After Lix's actions, when giving gifts, he will also send some more precious books or re-engraved hand-copied editions, plus Wei Wei opened a paper factory and got a supporting printing factory. From time to time, there will be people Ask the printing house to help print the books. No matter whether these books are good or bad, they will leave some for her as a thank you gift, so over time, there will be more and more books in the castle, and the study will not be able to fit. Felix Si deliberately had some vacant rooms next to the study room cleaned up and converted into a small indoor library.

Prince Edward himself likes to read books. When he is not in good health, he can't do many things. Apart from class, he can only read books to pass the time, so when he sees that there are many books he has never seen before, he is immediately attracted.

And his fiancee, Miss Campbell, has the same hobbies as him. After reading the books in the library, the two of them were reluctant to leave. They were especially considerate so that Dolores would not need to accompany them, so they could live here by themselves. very pleasant.

Dolores, who doesn't like reading very much, couldn't understand their hobbies, but this didn't prevent her from obeying their orders. She only had tea and snacks prepared, and sent a servant to wait for the service at the door. She left and went to the kitchen to check the signs of dinner. .

Since her sister-in-law was away, this kind of thing has become her responsibility, and Wei Wei had just come back to do a lot of things, so Dolores thoughtfully decided to help her deal with these trivial matters for a few more days.

So when Felix and Wei Wei got to the restaurant, the crown prince and the future crown prince were still in the library and didn't come out.

They were greeted by two little angels.

"Mummy! Daddy!" Little Anthony, who could already walk, stumbled over, hugged their thighs, raised his head and showed them a cute smile.

A little later, Caroline, who had grown a little taller, also came over, embracing Wei Wei's other thigh like Anthony, and raised her head to call out "Uncle and Aunt."

After not seeing her for a few months, Caroline didn't forget her two elders at all. She even lost several golden beans when they first met, and she said aggrievedly how they went out for so long. Is it better to not want her or Wei Wei? After a touch of reassurance, he finally smiled.

As a result, she found out that her favorite younger brother, Anthony, didn't remember her, and felt aggrieved again. Fortunately, although Anthony didn't remember her, he was still very close to her little cousin. A sweet kiss coaxed the little cousin back, and then the two little boys went to their toy room holding hands, accompanied by Caroline. I'm so happy.