Roland sat at the desk and looked at the chief knight who came to report the current situation of the First Army with interest.
Compared with the meticulous appearance a few months ago, Carter's iceberg face now has a different kind of emotion, the sense of calm has faded a lot, and there is more anticipation and impatience in it.
Probably something to do with the Star of the West, he thought.
Roland also heard a little about Carter getting closer to May recently. After all, as one of the top executives of the First Army and his representative in the army, his every move is being watched, not to mention that he is surrounded by a striking woman like May.
When they appeared side by side on the streets of the town for the first time, the personal guard had already passed the news to his ears.
Roland doesn't care about this kind of thing. Carter is about two or three years older than himself. It is a strange thing to say that he is not married yet. .
According to the report of the chief knight, the First Army currently has about 200 runners in the line, and almost ten new ones are added every day. In fact, if the raw materials are sufficient, Anna's production capacity can be increased several times, but she To be in charge of pig iron steelmaking and steam engine at the same time, the speed slows down.
However, such a speed is acceptable. After all, there are only 600 people in the First Army, and they will all be replaced in one and a half months. And until the arrival of a new wave of population expansion, the size of the army cannot be further expanded for the time being.
Another point is the formation of the Second Army.
For the convenience of training and the need for confidentiality, the civilians recruited from Changsong Fortress passed the review and were all incorporated into the Second Army by Roland. Currently undergoing disciplinary training, which is the set of military training. In the evening, it was an ideological education class, trying to make these people develop the belief that they are the guardians of the Western Region as soon as possible, and that the safety of their relatives needs their protection.
"The current training progress of the Second Army personnel is good, and it is expected that in another week, they will be able to transfer to shooting training. By then, there will be enough flintlocks who have been eliminated." Carter concluded.
This is also the advantage. It takes at least a year to train a cold weapon soldier, and it takes about five or six years to train a knight, and a soldier can fight as an army in just one month. The longer a battle lasts, the more dominant the pawn will be. After all, pulling the trigger is much less laborious than wielding a sword.
"You must pay attention to the management of live ammunition practice, and take back as much as you send out. The same is true for gunpowder. It is distributed on the spot during practice, and veterans of the First Army are arranged to supervise."
"Yes," he nodded.
"Very good," Roland waved his hand, "Since that's the case, go get busy."
"Uh, Your Highness..." Carter hesitated and said, "You said last time that the perfume mixed in soap is made of sugar cane, is that true?"
"Yeah," the prince leaned back in his chair, "what's the matter?"
"Is that sugar cane expensive?"
"No... just regular crops."
"I heard people say that a thumb-sized bottle of perfume in the capital can get five golden dragons," Carter scratched his head. "If that's the case, wouldn't the use of sugar cane perfume bring huge income to the town?"
"Five golden dragons?" Roland was stunned, but he hadn't considered this. Recalling that when he was in the palace before, the fourth prince never cared about the price of a daily necessities, especially perfumes, which were less touching. Only women preferred these things that could fill them with fragrance.
The original motivation for his perfume was simply the desire for soap. Otherwise, there is only running water, and the bathroom without soap always feels that something is missing. Let the bubbles rub all over the body is the romance of the bathroom.
If you can buy several golden dragons in a small bottle of perfume, it is indeed a good business. Unlike coated mirrors, sugar cane and flowers as raw materials are much cheaper than crystal glass.
Thinking of this, Roland smiled, "This idea is not bad, I will consider it."
"Your Highness, then... can I take a sugar cane out of the castle?" the chief knight asked expectantly.
"It's okay," Hearing this tone, he guessed what the other party wanted to do On the backyard wall, pick it yourself."
"Thank you, Your Highness!" Carter saluted and retired.
Then Roland called in Barov, and it was not appropriate to call him the assistant minister. As the number one person in the city hall, he could be regarded as the chief executive of Border Town.
After Barov was seated, Roland talked about the perfume in general, "How do you think this business will make you a lot of gold?"
He didn't answer immediately, but asked with wide eyes, "Your Highness, are you really sure that the perfume is made from that sweet crop?"
"Isn't the soap also sent to you? The reason why it has fragrance is that there is perfume mixed in it," Roland spread his hands, "Its raw materials are indeed these worthless things. I just don't know, Wangdu's perfume Is it really as expensive as Carter said."
"It's more than that, Your Highness!" Barov said excitedly, "Perfume is a top-secret product of the Royal Capital Alchemy Association. There are about a thousand bottles every year, and only a small part of it will be in the capital. It will be sold to other places in Greycastle. If you go to the fjords and other kingdoms, the price can be almost doubled. In order to prevent the merchants from making the difference, the association not only firmly controls the price of perfume in other places, even the merchants have to be personally Designated. If you can produce perfume, even if you only give it to Chishui City and Falling Dragon Ridge, you can get rich rewards."
"That's it." It was true that he had been the assistant of the Minister of Finance for 20 years. Roland thought to himself that Barov was indeed very good at commodity prices and trade conditions. With this information, he also formed a preliminary plan in his mind.
There are many ways to make perfume. The easiest way is to mash the petals or herbs with unique fragrance into alcohol, let the alcohol dissolve the aromatic oil in the plant, and finally filter out the residue and add water to dilute it before use.
The alcohol comes from the fermentation of sugarcane juice; the aromatic oils can be rose or the more common rosemary and spirit herbs. However, since mass production is to be achieved, it is the best choice to let the leaves cultivate a batch of magically modified plants that can directly secrete aromatic oils.
In addition to perfume, the industry can also simultaneously sugar and liquor, which are also consumables in high demand. Although the profit is not as good as that of perfume, if it can be provided to the townspeople at a low price and enrich their recipes, it will also be a great improvement for people's livelihood.
The reason for Roland's delay in developing light industry is that it is difficult to make high profits from small-scale production of daily necessities under the condition of insufficient manpower. It is the most cost-effective way to invest a limited population in heavy industry production.
Since the production of perfume is profitable, maybe he can take this opportunity to make up for the missing link. (.)