Volume 3 Chapter 35 Things you want to do
When Xu Yi came out of the City Lord Manor, he looked at the stars filling the sky and let out a long white breath. There was a bitter smile that appeared on his lips as he shook his head.
How good it would be if Count Sean was still the City Lord, that way he wouldn’t need to beat around the bush and have to consider all these various unrelated matters.
Count Stagg agreed with his bet in the end, signing a contract with him, but in reality, this bet didn’t have many benefits for Xu Yi and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
Because the request he had for Count Stagg was to hope that Count Stagg could promote machine farming reforms in Banta City.
This matter was good for promoting agricultural development in Banta City and as for benefits to Xu Yi and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, with the machine farming reform, it could liberate the farmers and allow the Frestech Chamber of Commerce gain workers more easily.
But actually, with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s fame, whether it was the citizens of Banta City or the people who came from other cities looking for work, as long as they wanted work, their first choice was the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, so they didn’t lack people.
The only consideration was manpower in other places.
Speaking of this, Xu Yi had to feel emotional. The Lampuri Kingdom, or rather the population of the entire Sines Continent was too small.
A remote city like Banta City had a population of no more than fifty thousand people and the Lampuri Kingdom had a population of less than five million, it wasn’t even as many people as a large city on earth.
Although he didn’t have the exact statistics for the entire Sines Continent, based on books that he had read, the population was a bit better than the Lampuri Kingdom, but it wasn’t much better. For the entire continent, there were around two to three hundred million people.
It was because of this that Count Stagg would be very sensitive towards the Frestech Chamber of Commerce bringing Banta City farmers to the Stantine Duchy, even opposing it.
Because Banta City only had that many people and if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce took a part away, it might really have serious effects on the agricultural business.
But Xu Yi had promised to take no more than two thousand farmers and had used real data to show Count Stagg that with the help of agricultural magic machines, they didn’t need that many workers when farming, Count Stagg reluctantly agreed to Xu Yi’s analysis.
As for this bet that only brought benefits to Banta City, Count Stagg of course agreed without hesitation.
Not to mention that Xu Yi had promised that even if he won the bet, he would give five thousand agricultural magic machines for free to Banta City, guaranteeing the agricultural development of Banta City.
With these excellent conditions, even if Count Stagg was doubtful on why Xu Yi was doing this, Count Stagg agreed in the end with a contract as a guarantee.
But even like this, when the two were signing the contract, there was a fierce argument before initial details were set reluctantly.
Thinking of Count Stagg’s doubtful look, Xu Yi couldn’t help giving a bitter smile.
In order to develop the magic machine industry, he had taken great pains.
Shaking his head to forget the complaints he had towards Count Stagg and the conservative faction led by the Stagg Family, Xu Yi began thinking about what he needed to do next.
After receiving a guarantee that Count Stagg wouldn’t interfere with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce hiring farmers from Banta City, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s next move was to take those two thousand farmers and settle them in the Stantine Duchy as soon as possible. Then they would begin investing in the hundred thousand hectares of land they had rented.
Now that it was the beginning of November, if they didn’t hurry, they might not be able to finish planting before spring. With a season’s worth of crops missing, Xu Yi wasn’t certain that he could win against Count Stagg.
It was a good thing that the Stantine Duchy’s environment was naturally good. It was comparable to the tropics where crops could even be grown in the winter, it wasn’t like the Lampuri Kingdom where the land was dormant during winter.
Based on his inspections, Xu Yi was certain that the Stantine Duchy could have three growing seasons each year.
Just based on this, the grain yield would be much higher than the Lampuri Kingdom.
And this was also where Xu Yi gained the confidence to beat Count Stagg in this bet.
Other than rushing to open up this hundred thousand hectares of land, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce officially started mining in the three iron mines they bought from the Stantine Duchy.
According to the dwarves they had sent before, these three mines had high quality iron ores, which meant that the amount of iron in these three mines were higher compared to their last survey.
Being able to purchase these three mines from the Stantine Duchy for one million three hundred and fifty thousand gold coins was already quite cheap for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
At the same time, through contact with Anklo, Xu Yi had purchased seven Magic Crystal mines from the nobles of the Stantine Duchy.
Because Magic Crystal could be found all over the Sines Continent and they had few uses, these things weren’t very important. In a place like the Stantine Duchy where there were few magicians, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce purchasing these Magic Crystal mines was a blessing to the Stantine Duchy nobles. In the end, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce spent five hundred thousand to purchase these seven Magic Crystal mines, including the largest Magic Crystal mine in the Stantine Duchy.
As for this deal, many people were confused, but Xu Yi was clear that no long after, the Magic Crystals would be an important resource that many people fought over. He would definitely earn a large amount from this deal.
Other than the Stantine Duchy, the second most important thing was investing in the Black Rice Wasteland.
After the four companies dealt a heavy blow to the Beastmen Independence Regiment last time, the four companies had quickly built their small production base on the Black Rice Wasteland.
In just a month, the base was already taking form. According to calculations, it should be operational by the beginning of next year.
Chairman Renersa who had stayed behind to take care of the production base had already started recruiting beastmen tribes. Other than the four beastmen tribes that had signed a contract with the four companies, several beastmen tribes that were deeper into the Blakc Rice Wasteland said they were willing to work for the human factories.
According to this trend, once the base was complete and the factories of the four companies were operational, this base would affect up to a hundred kilometers deep into the Black Rice Wasteland.
Xu Yi believed that in less than two years, in the range of this influence, human order would be established.
If they went deeper and deeper like this, all of the beastmen on the Black Rice Wasteland would be absorbed into human factories and solve the problem that was behind the Lampuri Kingdom.
Then there was the northern matter.
Xu Yi turned his head to the northeast.
Thinking of going to Sowell City to invest, Xu Yi couldn’t help thinking of Count Sean who was currently Sowell City’s City Lord.
If Count Sean wasn’t suddenly transferred and stayed in Banta City to support Xu Yi and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, in this half a year, Banta City would have changed. It wouldn’t have stagnated or even degraded like it had currently.
Looking further northeast, Xu Yi couldn’t help thinking of Princess Caroline.
That appearance that wasn’t inferior to Still’s and that style that was several times bolder than Seveni had left a deep impression on Xu Yi.
It wasn’t because of her openly trying to seduce Xu Yi, but because Xu Yi could see traces of Seveni on her.
Xu Yi could see that while Princess Caroline seemed frivolous on the surface, her real wish was for the Drake Duchy to become stronger. So in the days she visited the Falling Rain Valley, she kept asking questions and absorbing information on all the new things she saw.
Princess Caroline acting like this was actually more attractive to Xu Yi than when she tried charming him.
Thinking of the final words Princess Caroline said, Xu Yi’s heart couldn’t help being moved. He quickly shook his head and threw away these distracting thoughts.
After calming down, Xu Yi turned in a direction and headed towards the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s Banta City service center.
This was his habit. Every time he came to Banta City, he would listen to the report of the service center.
Because the service center directly interacted with the customers, it directly received feedback from the customers. Hearing these opinions could allow Xu Yi to make proper judgement on how to improve products.
When he turned a corner, there was a figure that was shakily walking through the alley. Before it even took two steps, the body went limp and fell onto the wall on the side. The figure weakly slid off the wall to the ground before not moving at all.
Xu Yi was surprised, but he quickly went over to lean over and look over this body. He found that this weak looking person was actually a girl and she seemed quite young, looking to be around twenty years old.
Based on her closed eyes and weak breathing, she seemed like she had fainted.
Xu Yi shook her shoulders, but the girl wouldn’t wake up at all.
Seeing that there was no one else around, Xu Yi hesitated a bit before helplessly shaking his head. He bent down to pick up the girl and using his Wind Control Spell, he flew towards the Falling Star Manor outside of the city.