As a place connecting two oceans, the Rose Strait gathers almost all the special commodities from Dongxiule to Yagtuwa and other countries. When the noble ladies accompanied on tour stepped on the streets paved with fine white sand, it was difficult to tell which country they were walking in, and there were even many things from paganism mixed in the dazzling array of goods.
"Is it the same in Shapur Street before?"
The Queen walked from stall to stall, buying an item or two here and there. She smiled and softly asked Abigail who was following her.
The Iron Cross Pirates are known as the "uncrowned kings" of the southern seas of the empire, and they are obviously more familiar with these cities and port markets than people like the queen who came from afar. However, on the bright side, the imperial law has always prohibited pirates from setting foot on the mainland, and once the pirates on the land are found, they will be hanged.
Even though the law is like this, the pirates still have their own way to sneak ashore... But this kind of shady matter was directly raised by the legislator in name of the empire indifferently, which still makes people feel subtle.
"It took a lot of effort to clean it up," Abigail said softly as she rubbed the white sand under her feet with the heel of her shoe, "at least there is no such thing."
"That's it."
Adele listened calmly to Abigail briefly pointing out to herself the difference in Shapur Street before and after the parade arrived, compared in her heart, and had a glimpse of the business situation in Ornan Port under normal circumstances. A closer understanding of what is really going on - The ease with which many monarchs are fooled by their tax collectors is largely due to their difficulty seeing what society really is like.
She noticed that when many businessmen saw Abigail, the smiles on their faces became a little stiff.
They seemed to have been frightened a lot, and this kind of fright made it difficult for some of the poor ghosts to maintain the joy they should have in front of the queen—it seemed that they were completely unprepared to see Abigail by the queen's side.
Adele raised her eyebrows slightly, and looked at the pirate leader wearing a badge beside her.
The latter showed a slightly mischievous smile, leaned over and reached for a silver-plated cup filled with wax beads from the stall, and at the same time said in a low voice to the stall owner: "Hey, old trickster, also sells wainscoting ?"
The stall owner's face turned pale in an instant. In the middle of winter at the end of December, he looked like he was in midsummer, with sweat covering his face blackened by the sea wind and the sun. If it weren't for Abigail's quick eye and hand to grab his arm, he might have slid to the ground like a noodle.
Trembling, he looked from Abigail to the Queen with a sort of pleading look.
Since 1551, the scarce resources needed for shipbuilding, such as siding and pipa barrels, have been explicitly prohibited from being exported or supplied to pirates. Not long ago, the "Port Regulations" and "Navigation Regulations" made a more stringent upgrade to this part of the regulations. The queen forbids people to cut down the number of fourteen miles along the coast of the port at will, and requires the beer merchants to hand over two hundred barrels of wood to the local royal shipyard for every eight barrels of beer exported, and use the charcoal along the coast to make beer. Iron smelting is also prohibited by the two regulations.
And now...
At present, this guy who seems to be mainly engaged in the business of glassware and silver-plated furniture is obviously engaged in the private sale of materials such as parapet wood behind the scenes.
The Queen turned her head, glanced at Archbishop Rodrik who was standing not far away, and nodded slightly at him.
"If you want to really support the empire's shipbuilding industry, you probably need to deal with these tentacles." The Queen and Abigail left the shop nonchalantly. The Queen even bought a small silver cup and left. This looked like a small accident.
But soon, that unlucky but well-deserved businessman will be politely invited away by an inconspicuous monk, and will quietly disappear into this bustling market.
"A tree that is too luxuriant will always produce a lot of moths," the Queen said softly. "It is difficult for us to clean them up completely. We can only selectively clean up the ones that have the greatest impact at present as the time goes by."
Wood such as clapboards, barrels, and fir logs are necessary resources to support the development of a country's nautical industry, and they are also raw materials for repairing ships that merchant ships sailing far away need to replenish in ports. The queen restricts the export of this kind of wood, in addition to hoping to support the empire's own shipbuilding industry, she also hopes to limit foreign merchant ships in terms of supplies. Foreign ships cannot obtain the necessary ship repair materials at the port, and the cost of long-distance voyages will naturally increase accordingly.
Out of the consideration of the opinions of the merchant class, the Queen set a more reasonable purchase bottom line price for the royal government to purchase such wood.
However, at present, it is clear that the merchants of the Roland Empire do not have much trust in the royal government. A large number of businessmen don't care much about the imperial strategy behind these two regulations. Instead, they regard them as a sharp weapon for speculation-they can use this to demand higher prices from those foreign businessmen.
But after today, they will have to pay the price for their crossing the line.
——The queen has drawn the safety line to protect their interests and prevent the royal purchasing officer from being able to squeeze them. Since they abandon the queen's benevolent protective circle, they will face the queen's cold and iron side.
A shake-up of the port timber industry was gently carried over in a few words between the Queen and Abigail, seemingly without leaving a trace. The queen smiled and greeted people from time to time along the way, and her friendly attitude quickly won people's love. People who came here on the second floor of the street specially came to see the queen couldn't help but waved to her.
The only ones who can be called out of place are probably only those businessmen in the free commercial cities.
They forced a smile and stood at the door of the store, hoping that the luxurious products displayed in the window would attract the Queen's attention, but they saw the Queen walking straight past their store without looking aside, without doing anything. stay.
"Is it because our products are not exquisite enough?" A foreign businessman finally couldn't help muttering to himself, "Look at how delicate this ivory is, how dazzling this gemstone is, and how soft this satin is...why doesn't she want to buy it?" stop?"
Yeah, why doesn't the queen stop
They were puzzled.
Commodities from free commercial cities are very popular among the nobles and royal families of all countries. The lace and lace produced by these cities with developed commerce and handicraft industries are as exquisite as the sunset in the sky. Even the pope cannot resist their goldsmith talents. "Gurul conquered the world with war horses, and the Alliance conquered Ull with art and taste." - This sentence has been passed down for hundreds of years, making the merchants of the free commercial city proud.
Therefore, even if they knew that the Queen had sunk a fleet from the Free Merchant City in the sea not far from the Rose Strait, they still appeared at the Shapur Street Market with complete arrogance.
What made these foreign businessmen even more disturbed was that the aristocratic gentlemen and ladies who followed the queen stood in front of the window, hesitated for a moment, and their eyes stayed for a moment on the exquisite jewelry, lace and tapestries. Most of them still shook their heads, left.
Only a few people came in, but the things they bought obviously did not meet the expectations of the merchants.
On the other side, the queen walked into a shop with a rose patterned tapestry hanging at the door.
This is a shop opened by a merchant from the Imperial port of Cohemia. The Cohemia merchant couldn't help but be overjoyed to see the queen actually walk in-although he hung the tapestry at the door, he didn't know it Will that little trick work.
"Your Majesty," the Kehemia merchant hastily took out the soft wool gloves, feathered hat and short cloak that he had prepared earlier, "please have a look."
Adele didn't go to pick up those things, but set her sights on the wool and lace tulle used for display in the store—it has to be admitted that indeed, the current textile industry of the Roland Empire can hardly match the Free Commercial City. All the types of lace in Roland's store are hard to compare with those displayed in the window of Liberty Commercial City.
This is related to the long-standing belief in the old gods before the Roland Empire.
The Old Gods believe that too bright colors are against the will of God, and they are a manifestation of luxury and depravity. In the lives of ordinary people, if the color of clothing is too bright, it is easy to be accused of heresy-of course, just like the church opposes sexual desire and the pope still has Like illegitimate children, these regulations are only valid for the general public, and the clothes of the nobles and cardinals are still more gorgeous than the other.
But for Roland's textile industry and dyeing industry, it is not a good thing.
The queen walked over, took off her gloves, picked up some by herself, felt the quality of Roland's wool and tulle, and sighed.
But the Himian businessman caught this sigh, and he immediately realized that his guess was right, and he couldn't help showing a smile—of course he quickly stopped this rude behavior. The businessman bowed to the queen and said with some sincerity, "Your Majesty, I would like to offer you something."
The queen withdrew her hand and looked at the businessman who placed a rose pattern at the door of the store.
He turned his head and whispered something to a boy next to him - apparently his son - and the boy quickly ran to the back of the shop, and then quickly came out again, holding two boxes in his hands.
The merchant took the two boxes from his son, put them on the counter, and opened the first one.
The first box is smaller, and it contains clusters of soft and white raw cotton like flowers, while the second box contains fabrics printed and dyed with rose patterns, which are different from wool and satin.
The queen picked up the piece of carefully printed and dyed cotton, thinking about something.
"It is difficult for us to surpass the free commercial city in the wool textile industry in a short period of time, but whether cotton cloth is in Roland, in the free commercial city, or in Lute, Tuva...they are all ignored and not valued." The businessman nervously Observing the queen's reaction, he stated to the queen as calmly as possible, his heart was beating fast, and he knew that he would never have a better chance than this, "but they are actually just as soft and warm, and when dyed Also great."
The merchants tried their best to explain to the queen the virtues of this underappreciated fabric, but the queen thought of something else.
Cotton cloth has actually been introduced to the coast of the Sea of Heaven since the 14th century, but until now it is still rarely seen on the nobles of the court-they prefer woolen, linen and silk. Cotton textile technology is not as perfect as the traditional wool textile technology. Most of the cotton fabrics produced are thick and heavy, which will make people look clumsy. Only some of them can be light and beautiful after complex processing.
But this deficiency is precisely the advantage of cotton cloth.
The long-standing woolen industry has formed a relatively mature commodity sales system in the empire. As an industry that was not valued before, the cotton textile industry has not had time to form an ancient and disorganized guild system like other wool or leather industries.
A blank, industry that can be directly controlled by the royal family, it can also bring new jobs to people in some places.
The businessman didn't know that the queen had thought of so many and complicated things in a short period of time, so he only tried his best to introduce the new fabrics he had worked so hard to introduce to the queen. By the time the queen nodded slightly, his mouth was almost parched, and his palms were full of sweat.
"The only downside," he wrung his hands nervously, looking at the Queen expectantly, "is that people don't recognize them."