Gould took out a pile of gold with great enthusiasm, and Otto was stunned when he saw this scene.
Originally, this businessman was willing to spend more than 4,000 silver coins to buy goods in Rossburg, which was already a big deal that shocked Otto. I never thought that this old guy would not hesitate to take gold coins.
As everyone knows, Gould just drank a lot of wine and instantly lost most of his judgment. If he had been clear-headed, he would not have shown his most precious treasure chest full of gold to the leader and son of the Ross people, nor would he have covered it with gold coins. desktop.
"Rurik, tell me!" Gould said with a trembling mouth, "Tell me the answer, and the money will be yours from now on."
"Okay! I said it. You!" Rurik pointed his immature hand directly at Gould, "To make pure wine, the raw material is the most ordinary wine. You make a special pottery and pour ordinary wine into it. , grill it gently with charcoal. The essence of ordinary wine turns into gas, which will turn into pure wine on the pottery lid. You make a pipe to lead the pure wine into a small cup, and finally you will get a whole A glass of pure wine. Do you...do you understand?"
"I probably understand." Gould scratched his head. He understood immediately. However, Rurik's example of "boiling sea salt" brought him deep inspiration.
"Maybe you haven't understood yet." Rurik simply stamped his foot: "Just like this. When you sell out the soap, import a large amount of ordinary ale. You bring it here, and I will buy it all. Just use what I just used Tell me about your skills and I will try to make strong liquor in the new year.”
Having said this, Rurik thought for a while and said boldly: "This is also part of Odin's wisdom. Those heroic spirits in Valhalla, they drink the strong wine you tasted today. Just now. There was a voice in my head, maybe it was an oracle, telling me how to turn ordinary wine into burning liquor. Gould, what you bought for a hundred gold coins was Odin's. Wisdom, you have to feel... you have to feel glorious!"
glory? Gould didn't quite believe it yet, and he sensed the huge profits with his keen business acumen.
"Are you serious?" Gould asked urgently.
"Yes. I want to do a business with you, right now..." Rurik felt his head getting dizzy and simply sat down, "Oops, I'm drunk. Gould, when I wake up, I want to Let’s discuss this with you.”
After saying the last word, Rurik lay down lazily.
Gould stretched his fat head and asked Otto nervously, "Is he okay?"
"He must be drunk. Gould, your wine is really magical. Don't worry, he will recover after a while."
"Well, what do you think about what he said? Your son wants to do business with me."
"Me? Don't ask me about my attitude on this matter. I have always supported Rurik."
"Okay." Gould nodded in confusion. He understood everything and his worries were gone.
A businessman is most afraid of variables in transactions. The larger the transaction amount, the higher the risk.
Rurik is a child after all, and a glass of strong wine can put him to sleep. When a boy grows up, he should obey his father. It seems that the Ross chief and his son are extraordinary! Otto categorically claimed that he would not interfere with Rurik's property!
Gould poured himself another glass of wine and muttered: "I will pay soon. I will hand the box containing the silver coins directly to him, together with the gold coins on the table. I will never break my promise, and I will also ask the great The leader will personally deliver Rurik to my mansion after he regains consciousness."
"Business dealings? Yes." Otto nodded.
The dinner ended awkwardly.
Rurik just chewed a little bit of beef, and that was all, and the strong alcohol forced him to sleep.
Otto carried his sleeping son home, with Rumia following closely behind.
Two strong warriors were sent by Gould, and together they carried a large wooden box and approached the shabby home of the leader of the Ross tribe.
There are a total of 4,200 silver coins and 100 gold coins. They are all currencies of very good quality. Whether they are gold coins or silver coins, they were minted by Eastern Rome in quantities of one hundred coins per pound, and their weights were not much different from each other.
A total of forty-three Roman pounds of coins were equivalent to seventeen kilograms in later generations. The oak box that contained them was not small, it weighed sixty pounds. Together with the bronze lock and key, the entire box weighed over forty kilograms.
A strong warrior could move such a heavy cargo and carry him for a long-distance attack. Really, only a strong man who was fed beef and had tons of muscles could do it. Such strong men are also rare in the Viking world.
Brave warriors often have strong upper body muscles, because everyone spends a lot of time on boats every year. Since people everywhere have not yet reached a sophisticated level of use of wind power, boats everywhere mostly use a combination of oars and sails, even if they are Otto also had to take part in the oars himself.
Therefore, most people are born with an unstable base, which is also a weakness of Viking warriors.
After sleeping all night until the sky was about to light up, Rurik, who had been sleeping for a long time, was urged to wake up by his hunger.
"I am asleep?"
He slowly got up, startling his mother Niya, who was already in early childhood, and hurriedly came over.
"My son, you finally woke up. You shouldn't have drank that damn wine. It's really crazy. It's actually flammable wine." Niya's words were full of pity and harshness.
Otto, who was munching on the beef packed from Gould last night, was deeply displeased. "What do you know? Niya. Your son said that he can create that burning wine. If he succeeds, we will be richer."
When she talks about Chaniya, she becomes elated.
Wealthy people are like Otto. He has been the leader for so many years and only has a thousand gold coins in his own cash box. As the "key holder" of the family cash box, Niya is very aware of her family's savings.
My son actually started making money after winter! Last night, Niya smelled the smell of alcohol on her sleeping son and criticized her husband. But when she saw the big wooden box that was brought in and wanted to see the astonishing number of gold and silver coins inside, she felt so happy that blood rushed to her head. Niya actually fainted in an instant.
This time her son woke up, and she rushed up to him and kissed him on the face several times.
Rumia, who had been working as a servant, could see it clearly, and a burst of envy and sadness suddenly rose in her heart.
Now Otto is very accustomed to ordering his son's servants, such as asking her to cut meat, and she does it.
After chewing a piece of meat, Otto turned his face to his sleepy son, "Rurik, do you still remember your agreement with Gould?"
"Deal? I remember."
"That's good, you come and eat some meat. Niya, make some baked wheat cakes for your son, he is starving. And Rurik, I will take you to Gould's place after dawn. You guys Make a deal. May you be richer for your actions."
Rurik nodded and moved closer to his father.
Baking bread in a clay oven is a hassle. If you want to eat cooked pasta quickly, eat pancakes.
In fact, the so-called pancake is a kind of whole wheat biscuit, or one of the oldest cookies. All Viking tribes would make such wheat cakes. They invaded and settled in colonies, and their tribe's food culture was also integrated with the local ones. The art of making graham crackers spread and continued to improve, eventually evolving into modern biscuit culture.
Niya grabbed a handful of the Novgorodians' tribute, their ground whole-wheat flour, in a linen sack. She put the flour into a stone mortar, filled it with water and sprinkled it with salt, kneaded it into a rough dough, then simply patted it into a cake shape, and then spread it on a stone heated by a campfire.
After a while, the bread was cooked.
Eat hard and rough dead dough bread, eat cooked beef with no saltiness, and drink some salty soup made from random wild vegetables (even sun-dried pine needles).
It is really a luxury for the leader's family to have breakfast like this. Many tribesmen only eat two meals a day. On ordinary days, they just eat some dried fish and dried vegetable soup to solve the problem.
It was getting brighter, and I ate a full stomach of simple meals. This kind of diet can be called a weight loss meal. People in later generations will think this kind of diet is healthy, but people in this time and space will always long for bread.
A big businessman like Gould, whose family is large and has a lot of wealth, has the opportunity to turn himself into a fat pig. Not only did he eat himself into a fat man, but his son and daughter had no chance of losing weight.
Precisely because of his bloated figure, he always takes advantage in the trade of the tribal alliance. Are you willing to believe that a rare fat guy must have huge wealth? When trading with such a person, you don’t have to worry about his rhetoric and empty tricks.
It's almost the vernal equinox, the days are already very long, but the climate is still cold.
The sea ice in the central part of the Gulf of Bothnia has begun to melt, and many seal hunters have discovered significant changes in the ice through dug holes in the ice. In the foreseeable future, standing on the ice to catch seals will become a very dangerous job.
Otto took Rurik's hand, and the two walked towards Gould's "mansion".
The two of them didn't arrive in time, or because of yesterday's strong drink, Gould slept deeply last night. The sun had risen and he was still sleeping soundly. The servant explained this matter to Otto.
"Okay, go and wake up your master, and I will personally wait for him to come out to see me!"
Youdao is a person who has to bow his head under the eaves. The visitor is the leader of the Ross tribe, and this trip is still to discuss trade-related matters.
Although it was very vulgar, a warrior who wore armor all day long broke into Gould's bedroom, woke up the big businessman who was being slept with by two Briton maids, and bluntly stated that the leader was here again.
"Yes...it's Otto. About trade? And Rurik? Ah! Are they so anxious?" Gould patted his face hard and wrapped himself in his robe as quickly as possible, pretending to be energetic. Walk out of the bedroom.
Gould's mind was still a little confused. He put on a smile, opened his arms, and said some polite compliments to Otto.
"Don't say any more words of praise. Let's continue what we did yesterday. You see, I have brought Rurik here. Next, you will discuss the specific matters."
"Ah? What's the matter?" Gould pouted for a moment.
"Are you pretending to be confused? Of course it's about trade, Gould! Don't you want to make a bigger deal with us? Or is your head still soaked in those flammable spirits?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm really drunk." Seeing that he had aroused the leader's anger, Gould slapped himself several times as an apology, as an apology and to wake himself up.
When Gould drank another glass of sweet wine and nibbled on a small piece of sour rye bread, his whole spirit really recovered.
Everything was very similar to yesterday, the three of them were sitting in the hall of Gould's mansion. In front of Rurik was another low table, with some dried meat and dried fruits on it, and a glass of wine. It was obvious that at this moment Gould did not regard Rurik as a child at all.
Gould cleared his throat: "Rurik, I remembered what happened yesterday. You claimed that you had the ability to extract the essence from ordinary wine and finally turned it into a burning spirit. For this, I paid you a hundred gold coins. Listen to the production method. I'm sorry, I forgot the technique you described now. But it doesn't matter, if you can make it, you must sell it to me specifically, and I will pay a big price for it."
"It seems that you are very concerned about wine."
"Of course! I have paid a hundred gold coins for this. Rurik, I will not regret the money spent. I only hope that my huge payment can bring gratifying returns. As far as I know, you have taught Make soap for the priests and teach the blacksmith how to make steel swords. Now you can obviously make a lot of money by making wine, and I will be happy to be your seller."
Rurik nodded, and the matter of purification was originally on the agenda. However, wine itself is a luxury consumer product. The original purpose of brewing it is for drinking. As for purifying it and using it for medical treatment or even as a weapon, that is a story later.
Wine cannot bring people calories. On the contrary, it can also take away people's calories.
People in Northern Europe love drinking. The reason is very simple. When a small amount enters the body, the blood all over the body flows faster. The warm blood warms the whole body. In a cold place, this feeling of warmth is happiness.
Rurik estimated that the alcohol content of ordinary ale was only about three to five degrees. If the alcohol content could be increased to fifty degrees and the impurities of the lees removed, it would be a flammable spirit.
A large vat filled with turbid and frothy ale cost only two to three silver coins at most. If the alcohol in it is concentrated into a small bottle of spirits, not just ten gold coins, but five gold coins would be fine, right? Thinking about it this way, as long as Gould can provide a large amount of ale and make a distillation and purification system by himself, he can earn at least twenty times the price difference!
Of course, having lots of money is a good thing, but simply hoarding gold and silver is not Rurik's purpose.
In a trade market, if there is a lack of circulating currency, the entire market will tend to shrink. Today's currencies are all precious metals, because they are very scarce, have a special color, are small enough, and are extremely difficult to destroy. People all believe that they have natural value.
If it is only used as a material for making jewelry, the beauty of gold and silver is nothing to say. The Aztecs, who could not even make bronze weapons, had spontaneously smelted gold to make decorations.
Rurik never wanted to be a miser, and simple silver and gold coins could not be eaten. Coins had meaning only if they could be exchanged for food, wine, and other daily necessities.
Now that there is a huge sum of money on hand, it must flow! Make full use of them, let a large number of silver coins continue to circulate in the Ross tribe and even further places, in exchange for what you want, and also bring vitality to the entire tribe.
This is the charm of currency. It can mobilize everyone's desire for wealth, and sufficient circulation can promote the development of productivity.
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Chapter 118 The Agreement with the Big Businessman (1)
