Volume 5 Chapter 101 You are a hypocrite
The letter from Belil with the report on what happened after reached Xu Yi’s hands three days later.
Seeing how people were interested in the Magic Cars in the Candra Empire in the letter, Xu Yi wasn’t that surprised.
Actually, compared to the Magic Sedan, Xu Yi always thought that transport and passenger Magic Cars had more practical uses.
In terms of practicality, it was clear that transport and passenger Magic Cars should be more popular.
In Lampuri Kingdom and the surrounding kingdoms, the number of sales clearly demonstrated this.
Since the Frestech Chamber of Commerce started selling Magic Cars, the Magic Sedans had only sold fifty thousand units. When it came to the various transport and passenger magic machines, their sales numbers had reached five hundred thousand, which was ten times more than the Magic Sedans.
In the surrounding countries, the Magic Cars had already replaced horse carriages. Other than some stubborn people, from the nobles of those countries to the citizens, whether it was transporting goods or people, they all used Magic Cars.
After all, compared to traditional horse carriages, Magic Cars were much better than horse carriages whether it was in terms of speed, carrying capacity, or comfort.
Even if people couldn’t buy Magic Sedans, they would choose to take the Magic Cars that were replacing horse carriages. Or they would rent the Magic Sedans that came from the Lampuri Kingdom, not choosing to ride in horse carriages.
Of course, this also was the benefit of building roads in the surrounding countries, giving the Magic Cars a network of roads to drive across.
Xu Yi promoted the Magic Sedan in the Candra Empire first in hopes of moving the upper class of the Candra Empire with these Magic Sedans. He wanted them to become interested in the Magic Sedans, making them more interested in paving roads.
Then after the roads were laid down in the Candra Empire, it would become logical from the passenger and transport Magic Cars to become popular.
But since there were people that cared about the benefits of the transport Magic Cars ahead of time, becoming interested in them, Xu Yi naturally wouldn’t reject them.
The company Belil set up being called the “Belil Magic Car Store” instead of the “Belil Magic Sedan Store” was from Xu Yi’s suggestion.
In the reply that Xu Yi gave Belil, he clearly stated that if people wanted to buy transport or passenger Magic Cars, Belil could agree to this.
Moreover, Xu Yi promised Belil that he would be able to manage all the Magic Car related business of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce in the Candra Empire, which calmed Belil.
As for the progress report Belil sent, this was related to the Magic Sedan racing event Xu Yi wanted him to open in the Candra Empire.
It should be said that Belil moved very quickly.
In less than half a year in the Candra Empire, he had already become famous among the Wimbledon City nobles. Moreover, not only did he get them to like the Magic Sedans, he had even gathered the young nobles who liked racing cars in secret to hold a car race.
According to what Belil said, this car race was very popular among the young nobles of Wimbledon City. Under his arrangement, they would be holding a race every week at a regular time.
Next Belil would gradually standardize this race. With his relationship to Prince Frank, he would be able to make it more public and it would become an official event that people cared about.
Therefore Belil needed a certain amount of support from Xu Yi. For example, they were still lacking an official race track, as well as people who were skilled in managing it…..
Xu Yi had already prepared these for Belil, so naturally there wasn’t a problem.
From Belil’s report, if everything went smoothly, at the end of the year, they might be able to hold their first official car race in Wimbledon City.
This was very good news for Xu YI because this meant that Magic Sedans were receiving public acknowledgement in Wimbledon City. This was the first time the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s products had officially entered the Candra Empire’s market.
Other than this, there was another good piece of news. It was that ambassador Hakanin through an unknown connection had finally gotten the Candra Empire to agree to building a road in the Candra Empire’s southwest province under his name.
This road would start from the Norton Duchy border and cut through the entire southwest province.
It wouldn’t directly connect to Wimbledon City as Xu Yi wanted, but it was already seven hundred kilometers long, which was enough to become the main road in the Candra Empire’s southwest province.
This road would cost one and half million gold coins, being built in the name of ambassador Hakanin and the southwest province’s governor. Hakanin would be investing one million gold coins, while the southwest governor would be investing half a million.
But in reality, the million gold coins was split between the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the Amrit Chamber of Commerce, ambassador Hakanin was just providing his name.
The five hundred thousand the southwest province governor needed to pay was covered by the preferential treatment for this road, so they didn’t need to pay a single gold coin.
This preferential treatment was only in name. For example, while the road was being built, the southwest governor would send out some construction forces, help them take the land required for the road, and deploy people to watch over the construction…..
But in reality, this was just the southwest province’s governors’ words. At most he would only send a few helpers, but the main work force would come from the Amrit Chamber of Commerce.
And for these people to work with them, the Amrit Chamber of Commerce had to pay quite a bit of secret investment to them.
In this situation, chairman Cruise was naturally dissatisfied.
“Damn, this is definitely the worst I’ve been treated when building a road.” Chairman Cruise didn’t hold back as he cursed, “Those nobles are begging us to build roads on our side, praising us with all their might. But when we go to the Candra Empire to build roads, we actually need to beg them and praise them. Damn, this is building a road for them and giving them benefits! But they are still making it hard for us, are these people idiots?”
Seeing chairman Cruise’s angry appearance, Xu Yi gave a laugh. He waved his hand and comforted him, “Alright, this is the first road in the Candra Empire, so if we can build this, you need to have some confidence in the road. Think about it, once this road is finished, the Candra Empire will not just know how useful it is, wouldn’t they want to build more of them? When they come asking you to help them build roads, you don’t need to be this aggrieved.”
Chairman Cruise gave a strong snort, “When that time comes, see if I don’t make them pay the price!”
Xu Yi smiled, having no opinion of chairman Cruise’s idea.
Not only did the Amrit Chamber of Commerce suffer when dealing with the Candra Empire, even their Frestech Chamber of Commerce suffered from the Candra Empire’s arrogance when dealing with them.
If they could make the Candra Empire pay a price, Xu Yi wouldn’t hesitate at all.
“You don’t need to rush with the Candra Empire side, our side is more troublesome.” Xu Yi paused before saying, “The slaves have now been separated to their islands, but these islands only have the most simple residences. It’s far from being a settlement, so I need you to send out more people and build more buildings on these islands.”
Chairman Cruise knit his brows, “Xu Yi, you also know how troublesome it is to build houses on those islands. Manpower is fine, but it’s not easy to transport the building materials from the continent. Speaking of this, why do you want to send those slaves to the islands? If you are really worried like the others, bring them back to the Stantine Duchy, you have to free them. If they aren’t easy to control, you can just throw them on the Black Rice Wasteland. The Black Rice Wasteland still belongs to the Lampuri Kingdom in name, they haven’t passed the «Slave Abolition Bill».”
“No, I’m not worried about this.” Xu Yi shook his head with a smile, “Moreover, when I accepted those slaves, I’d already freed them and they were already normal citizens.”
“Ah?” Chairman Cruise was surprised, “It can’t be? You really made them citizens? You…..Are you really this foolish?”
“Foolish?” Xu YI gave a shrug, “I don’t think so. I’ve already said it, the slaves are already a large hindrance to productivity, so by freeing them, I can release the hidden value that they have.”
“But if they recover their status as citizens, why would they listen to you?” Chairman Cruise asked with knit brows.
“It’s very simple, benefits.” Xu Yi replied with a smile, “You might not know this about the slaves, but after they became citizens, because they were slaves before, they wouldn’t be accepted by most people even if they stayed here. So after they became citizens, almost all of them agreed to my arrangement and settled on the island bases. Although they aren’t slaves anymore, they have recognized me as their lord, so I have the right to manage them.”
Chairman Cruise looked at Xu Yi with knit brows for a bit before slowly shaking his head.
“Xu Yi, to be honest, there really are times when I feel that you are a hypocrite.”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
“You clearly need these slaves to listen to you, but you want to have a noble name. I say, why are you bothering with this? Even if you treated them as slaves, no one would blame you. Anyway, slaves have existed on the continent for over ten thousand years, doing something like this is the strange way.”
Xu Yi was silent for a bit before giving a sigh, “Perhaps you’re right, I am a hypocrite. The reason why I’m doing all this is actually just to put myself at ease in the end. Saying that I want to free the productivity of these slaves is just an excuse.”
Chairman Cruise knit his brows even more, “So I am even more confused, why did you have this idea? Why are you not at ease when using slaves? This is too strange.”
Xu Yi shook his head. It was because he came from earth that was much more civilized than this world, he was taught to treat all people as equals since he was young and he had seen many attacks on slavery in countless books before, so he thought that something like this was evil.
But this involved his biggest secret, how could he just take it to explain to chairman Cruise?