Volume 5 Chapter 107 All for grains
Whether his majesty had a headache over this or not, the Sack Kingdom’s agricultural department’s foreign trade chief Kolabi More wasn’t sure, but he was sure that if he couldn’t complete this task in half a month, he wouldn’t need to worry about having a headache over this problem. It would be very likely that he would have his head cut off by the furious king.
Although the Sack Kingdom wasn’t like the previous Lampuri Kingdom, suffering from the grain yield and having large famines, they did face their own difficulties. They would have to spend large amounts of their finances each year buying grains from other countries.
In the past several hundred years, the Sack Kingdom had solved this problem by buying grains from the Falk Kingdom to the northwest. But in the past few years, with the increase of grain production in the Lampuri Kingdom, exporting large amounts of grains, the Sack Kingdom’s agricultural department had carefully examined this and found that the grain prices of the Lampuri Kingdom was 20% cheaper than the Falk Kingdom, as well as having better quality. So even if the two countries were bitter enemies, the Sack Kingdom’s agricultural department could only take the risk of being reprimanded to import grains from the Lampuri Kingdom.
Just last year, the Sack Kingdom had imported three hundred and sixty thousand tons of rice and four hundred and seventy thousand tons of grains from the Lampuri Kingdom. Adding in the various other kinds of goods, they reached a total of over a million tons, spending seven million gold coins from the Sack Kingdom’s finances.
Although it was cheaper than the ten million gold coins it would cost to import the same amount of grains from the Falk Kingdom, to the king and the parliament, importing large amounts of grain from the enemy was not something that they could support.
Not to mention that the Lampuri Kingdom’s grain yield used to be worse than the Sack Kingdom. They had increased their grain yield over the past few years and even had enough grains to export, clearly this demonstrated that there was a special reason.
After investigating, the Sack Kingdom’s side finally confirmed that the increase of grain yield in the Lampuri Kingdom over the past few years was because of the various agricultural magic machines of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, increasing their farmland use and increasing their farming efficiency.
Other than this, the fertilizer produced by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was a powerful weapon in increasing grain yield.
So after investigating, the Sack Kingdom’s agricultural department decided on using the same method to increase their grain yield.
But there was a problem with this plan. It was that because the Sack Kingdom had attacked the Frestech Chamber of Commerce before, the relationship between the two sides wasn’t good. It made the Sack Kingdom worried that it would be a hindrance in importing large amounts of agricultural magic machines from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
But there was a big surprise for the Sack Kingdom’s side.
First, the Lampuri Kingdom proposed setting up the free trade area with the Sack Kingdom, opening up normal trading between the two countries for the first time in several hundred years.
Then after both sides agreed to set up the free trade area, the Sack Kingdom had suggested to the Lampuri Kingdom that through the Lampuri Kingdom, they wanted to buy large amounts of agricultural magic machines. The Lampuri Kingdom’s side surprisingly agreed to this and they very easily contacted the Frestech Chamber of Commerce through the Lampuri Kingdom, obtaining the right to import large amounts of agricultural magic machines.
At the same time, the Sack Kingdom had also obtained some older farmers from Banta City who were used to using the agricultural magic machines, helping the Sack Kingdom spread this method through their kingdom.
Through the year before last’s fall planting and last year’s two planting seasons, by using the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s agricultural magic machines, they had obtained good effects by imitating Banta City’s planting methods and each season’s grain yield had a decent increase.
After this year’s spring, through the statistics of the agricultural department, the grain yield this year was more than twice that of last year’s spring harvest.
Although this wasn’t enough for the Sack Kingdom to become independent, this greatly eased the internal pressure of the grain problem for the Sack Kingdom.
Adding in the fact that there were large amounts of cheap and good quality grains to import from the Lampuri Kingdom and the Stantine Duchy, the Sack Kingdom easily solved this year’s grain problem.
In the several hundred years of the Sack Kingdom, this was the first time they easily solved this basic problem.
So no matter what anyone in the Sack Kingdom thought of the Lampuri Kingdom and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, they all agreed that they had to increase their improvement of their farmland. They had to strive to reach the same level as the Lampuri Kingdom, becoming completely self dependent.
In this context, the agricultural department took the most important task to contact the Lampuri Kingdom and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. They wanted to obtain more support from the Lampuri Kingdom, especially the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
It should be said that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s attitude had been very satisfying for the Sack Kingdom since the beginning.
Even if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce gave harsh conditions, for example, making the Sack Kingdom take out large amounts of minerals in exchange and having to give a large part of the Sack Kingdom’s internal mines to them, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had always shown a good cooperative attitude.
Regarding the Sack Kingdom’s various requests for agricultural magic machines, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce never shifted away and gave the Sack Kingdom what they needed. Moreover, they supplied all the goods promptly and also provided perfect technical support. It allowed the Sack Kingdom to quickly reform their farming techniques and greatly increased their internal grain yield.
Although parts of the Sack Kingdom, especially the army headquarters had many objections to this, saying that this would increase the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s strength which was aiding the enemy, this viewpoint compared to solving the grain problem was just too weak.
But when the Sack Kingdom proposed buying large amounts of fertilizer to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, they met an unexpected hindrance.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn’t directly reject the Sack Kingdom’s request for fertilizer, but they told Kolabi More that because the fertilizer factory was set up by the elves in cooperation with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the fertilizer factory was controlled by the elves. So if the Sack Kingdom wanted to buy fertilizer, they had to discuss this with the elves.
When Kolabi More found the person in charge of the Moon Shadow Tribe’s fertilizer factory, manager Sandy from the Moon Shadow Tribe, the other side had given a condition that was impossible for More to accept.
“Dear manager Sandy, may I ask why you need this piece of territory?” More forced down the absurdness of this situation in his heart and knit his brows as he asked Sandy, “According to what I know, your Moon Shadow Tribe lives in the Stantine Duchy, right? Even if our Sack Kingdom gives you a piece of land, it has no use to you still.”
Sandy’s sharp ears slightly trembled and as if she was hesitating, she said with a smile that wasn’t too natural, “You don’t need to understand why this is useful to us, you just need to know that this is our condition. If you’re willing to accept this, we can sell you fertilizer, but if you’re not, then goodbye.”
More was speechless as he looked at Sandy. He felt that elves really were as unreasonable as the rumours said, they just gave their conditions and didn’t give any room to negotiate.
After pausing, More didn’t give up as he asked, “This…..Manager Sandy, can we change this condition? Other than land, I can agree to any other conditions.”
“Impossible.” Sandy shook her head, speaking with a calm, but firm look.
More could only give a bitter smile.
Although when they negotiated with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce before, they noticed that chairman Xu Yi and the CEO Kennard were very sly, making them suffer quite a bit, he would rather go negotiate with Xu Yi and Kennard all day instead of negotiating with this beautiful female elf.
Because this female elf wasn’t planning on negotiating to begin with!
After a bit of silence, More thought about how the agriculture minister had talked to him for a long time about this. He took a deep breath and decided that it was too early to give up. After thinking about it, he asked, “Alright…..Manager Sandy, can I know what are your specific requirements? For example, which territory do you want? Or what do you want to use this territory for? You should know that if the territory you obtain poses a threat to the Sack Kingdom, it’s impossible for us to agree.”
Sandy nodded before taking out a document for More.
More was instantly stunned.
He never thought that the elves had already prepared a plan, it was clear that they were already prepared for this.
What surprised him more was that the elves prepared this document ahead of time like humans, this really was just like how humans did things.
After reading through this document, More found that the territory the Moon Shadow Tribe wanted was just a piece of land that was close to the Black Rice Wasteland with the sea facing its west. The area didn’t seem that big, it was only around ten square kilometers.
If he didn’t look for this piece of land, More as a Sack Kingdom native might not even know where it was immediately.
Seeing this, More gave a sigh of relief in his heart.
If the Moon Shadow Tribe wanted a key piece of land in the Sack Kingdom, it would be impossible for the Sack Kingdom to agree to this.
Now that they wanted this common and remote piece of land, there was the possibility of discussion.
Moreover, because the Moon Shadow Tribe was requesting too much, he as the foreign trade chief wouldn’t be able to make a decision, so this wasn’t related to him at all.
The only thing he needed to do was send back the Moon Shadow Tribe’s request, letting his majesty make this decision.
Thinking of this, More revealed a faint smile before giving a nod, “Manager Sandy, I hope that you can give us some time to consider.”
Sandy also gave a nod, “No problem.”
After pausing, it was like Sandy thought of something.
“Chief More, I must remind you that fertilizer has a limited span of use. If you take too much time to decide, you’ll miss the important spring planting for this year.”
More’s expression froze and he cursed in his heart, but he still gave a dejected nod.
There was no choice, it was all for grains.