The ordinary farmers of the Onkras tribe rushed to Gould's home with their meager savings, eager to buy some high-quality leather.
Even though they were tribesmen, Gould still priced the deerskin at six silver coins.
Holding the few silver coins in their hands, the farmers gritted their teeth. Most of them bought one.
With just one piece of clothing, a farmer can make enough leather clothing for two people. Although farmers usually wear linen clothes, in order to cope with the severe cold in winter, they need thick reindeer leather, because although this kind of leather is expensive, it has much better cold resistance than cowhide.
Gould only sold thirty deerskins for a mere gross profit of one hundred and ten silver coins. He would have been very happy with such an income.
Now his mentality has changed dramatically, and he no longer attaches great importance to such a small income.
Those soaps, especially those mixed with sulfur, the net profit from this one piece alone is equivalent to the sale of six deer skins
In addition to deerskins, Gould also sold some rusty iron tools that Gould bought cheaply in Fort Ross to farmers in Oncras. For example, he sold some axes with rusty and broken wooden handles for one or two silver coins. What farmers seem to get is just a pile of scrap metal, but this is not the case
Many farmers know how to build small stoves with mud and then burn scrap iron red. They can be painstakingly forged by themselves, and after final polishing, they become either hoes for digging the ground or axes for felling wood.
Naturally, the gain from this transaction was another small amount of money, but this small amount of money was not an ordinary benefit for farmers. Many people felt that Gould was an outright profiteer. Only through this incident, Gould became a leader. .
Similarly, Gould also proposed to spend money to redeem the surplus grain in the hands of farmers. As for the price, just as Gould told the big leader Ungreave, the purchase price is higher than the market price.
The farmers were interested, so that when the wheat harvest came in March, wouldn't it be a big profit to hand over the wheat to Gould?
Gould did not have such high expectations for this matter. The time coincided with the beginning of May, and the farmers' lives depended on the surplus grain in their hands. He felt that he could not get food from farmers immediately.
The geography of the Svealand Plain makes it impossible to grow winter wheat here. By May, farmers no longer had much surplus grain. By June, many farmers had to start frugal or go fishing in nearby rivers and lakes to satisfy their hunger.
The locals don't suffer from spring famine, they suffer from summer famine.
Fortunately, summer in Svealand is the warmest time of the year. At this time, the water and grass are abundant, and it is also a good time for them to catch big fish.
The population of Onkras is only two to three thousand, which is basically a large village in the oriental sense.
The fact is that Onkras is indeed a large village, but the farmland controlled by this village is quite large. In the era of rough farming, farmers everywhere, whether in Novgorod or Svealan, sown on a large scale, using a larger farmland area to earn as much food as possible under extremely low yields per mu.
The oats in the farmland are green and green, and a large number of farmers and their families went to their farmland to pull out weeds. After that, I look forward to the dew falling from the sky to nourish these nurseries.
Farmers all dream about selling their excess wheat at a good price during the autumn harvest. The tenant farmers hope that after paying a hefty rent, they will still have enough money from selling grain to buy some useful production tools to further improve their lives. Even redeeming the land he had sold.
However, a purely man-made disaster suddenly struck.
It was just May, and the big leader Angreev gathered all the landowners in the tribe together and issued a decree to them.
"Each of you must hand over 10,000 pounds of grain to me within three days. I will purchase it at the price of ten pounds per silver coin."
Ungrieve is the leader of the tribe and he has the power to issue orders.
Many of the landowners who were summoned were businessmen who had discussed matters with Gould before.
Everyone realized that Angreev just wanted to suck a pot of blood from the tribesmen, so what? They had to obey the order.
Because one pound of silver coins buys ten pounds of oats or rye, which is the market price acceptable to everyone in the Svealand area. This market price has been like this for a long time. Although there are fluctuations, the fluctuations are never violent. And in July, on the eve of the wheat harvest, the market price will rise slightly. After surviving the summer famine and harvesting new wheat, food prices plummeted
Ungreave used his power to seize the surplus grain from the landlords. He did not think about stocking up and selling it to Gould with a smile after the market price rose.
Obviously this trick didn't work on the profiteer.
Ungrieve didn't want to be too slow, he just wanted to get a lot of wheat immediately, even if he used all the silver coins in his bank to buy wheat, because Gould, this guy, faced with white silver coins, would never All keep their promises
Ungreave had the ability to come up with 10,000 silver coins, but he was not worried about whether the landowners could each come up with 10,000 pounds of grain surplus.
So the landlord has a surplus of food
The landowner's family doesn't have any food left.
The landowners of Onkras, while collecting rent from tenant farmers, would also take their whole families to farm. Simply being a vampire-like exploiter with current agricultural production capabilities is not a particularly realistic reality.
The landowners grew some of their own grain, collected rent in kind from the wheat, and then rowed their own boats to do business during the off-farming season in order to maintain their wealth, which was greater than that of ordinary people.
The big leader issued an order to buy wheat by force. What else could the landowners do?
They secretly cursed the big leader for his wealth obsession, and then took their own people to the tenant farmers' homes and ordered them to hand over their surplus grain.
For this matter, it is definitely not possible to grab it openly.
The landlords were businessmen, and they would not do business at a loss, so they took out money below the market price and ordered the tenant farmers to hand over their surplus grain.
For a time, because of Ungreave's decision, the entire tribe was in an uproar.
A large number of farmers looked sad and reluctantly took out their own surplus grain, holding the little money donated by the landlord in their other hand. Some people were unwilling to hand over food, so they were beaten up by thugs raised by the landlord.
Faced with this situation, the homesteaders who were not bankrupt could not help but worry about their future. As for the tenant farmers who had lost a large amount of surplus grain, the only thing they could do was to go to the homesteaders and exchange their silver for some grain at a high price.
The accumulation of capital is full of blood and tears. In order to obtain benefits, Ungreave would rather abuse his own people.
The same is true for those farmers. Since they can sell the small surplus grain to the tenant farmers who have lost most of their rations at a high price, why not do so?
Life is so cruel. The lower-class residents of Angklas are struggling, while the middle-class and upper-class people are trying every possible means for their own interests.
Who is the biggest winner?
It's Gould, this big businessman who has been enjoying himself for a while after returning to his hometown, this Ball of Suet.
Let’s talk about the agricultural situation in Onkras.
This tribe has a population of more than 2,000 people, of which there are 400 men in their prime. These people are basically farmers. On average, each farmer independently takes care of approximately 20 acres of land in the east. They just used iron hoes to turn over the soil, and then scattered seeds randomly. They didn't even have time to build an irrigation system, even though there were many streams and lakes near Onkras. Therefore, it is not particularly difficult for a farmer to take care of hectares of farmland.
Compared to Novgorod, Svealan’s employees use iron farm tools and the climate on the Baltic coast is milder. Rough planting can still achieve a yield of one hundred kilograms of oats per mu.
Without deep plowing, chemical fertilizers, or even an irrigation system, the yield per mu can only be this way.
A strong farmer eats one pound of wheat every day. A family of four or five people consumes about three pounds of wheat every day. And in terms of wheat consumption, farmers in the Svealan region are similar to farmers in Novgorod.
In the end, the entire tribe consumed about 300 tons of oats every year.
The grain output of the entire tribe is around a hundred tons all year round. Occasionally in extremely good and abundant years, the grain can be as high as a thousand tons. However, among these hundred tons, 160 tons are used as grain, which is the food at the disposal of the entire tribe. It's always just over 600 tons.
From this point of view, in addition to rations, farmers still have abundant food equivalent to the rations.
Food cannot be counted like this.
Homesteaders would sell their grain during the harvest season in exchange for other daily necessities. Three hundred tons of wheat is equivalent to 760,000 pounds.
Just by selling all the wheat, the tribe could theoretically earn at least 70,000 silver coins.
It was this money that mostly flowed into the pockets of landowners, wealthy businessmen, and the big leader Ungreave. A dozen large households share this cake with hundreds of farmer families. The large households eat the largest cake. The money they earn from selling grains only reaches four to five thousand silver coins on average per large household.
The most ordinary farmer may only spend forty silver coins on food every year. Children and women consume much less.
Only when wealthy households have large sums of money do they engage in special pleasures.
The agriculture in Onkras is like this. The situation in the entire Svealand region, even for the richest Melalen tribe, is similar.
However, the Danes further south have a better geographical environment and their food production capacity is much superior to that of the Svealand Plains controlled by the Siwea Tribal Alliance.
The Vikings needed to plunder hard currencies from the sea, such as gold and silver, to enrich their wealth, but the most important material that could support their expeditions was food.
It was May 10th in the Julian calendar, and Gould had been staying at home for some time.
Others were at home and fully aware of the troublesome things that happened in the tribe during this period.
And everything that was happening was exactly what he expected.
"You say I am greedy for money, but it turns out that you are the same. Ungreave, you can be regarded as caring for your own people, but you and I are actually the same." Gould did not comment on Ungreave's behavior, since They are all desperately searching for the remaining grain. It is time for them to count their money and accept this batch of wheat.
Within three days, the big merchants did not plunder 10,000 pounds of wheat as ordered.
Although the task was not completed, Ungreave was filled with sacks and mountains of wheat, and he did not mean to blame him.
More than a dozen wealthy merchants plundered 10,000 pounds of last year's oats within the tribe, but only paid the farmers a total of 6,000 silver coins.
The wheat was first transported to the mansion of the big chief in Angreve, and the big families received as many as a thousand silver coins of their own.
In any case, although the big families were dissatisfied with the fact that they were the villains who were ordered to abuse the tribesmen, since the big leader had spoken and the task fell on them, they could not lose anything.
The big players earned a total of two thousand silver coins.
Now, at noon on May 10th, Ungreave organized some people, pulled a two-wheeled cart, and rushed to Gould's house with a large number of sacks filled with grain.
The outdoors suddenly became noisy.
Gould, who drank a lot of mead at noon, lay on a bearskin mat and had his feet kneaded by the two Briton women, couldn't stand the noise outside.
By chance, a mercenary hurried into Gould's bedroom.
"Sir, a group of people are coming outside."
"I understand." Gould said impatiently, "I don't want to do business today, so let those farmers go away."
"No, sir. It's the big boss, and he's coming with a lot of goods."
"Goods." Gould's slightly drunk head started thinking, and he immediately asked, "What kind of goods is it?"
The mercenary speculated, "Maybe it's a pile of wheat. Sir, you know, in the tribe these days"
"Okay, you don't have to say anything. Go tell Yevlo and tell him to open the door." After saying that, Gould twitched his feet and kicked the two women lightly.
"Anna. Vila. Get me my clothes and dress me."
Gould had changed into his large and splendid clothes, and in order to show his generosity, today he was really wearing a ferret coat. A snow fox fur hat with beautiful feathers was placed on the head, and a cowhide bag with a gold ring was tied firmly. He also slightly stroked his beard with a wooden comb and ordered the two maids to follow him.
The thick wooden door was opened, and Ungreave was in high spirits this time when he came to Gould's residence again.
For ten thousand pounds of wheat, he had already paid the wealthy merchants one hundred pounds of silver coins in advance.
He came today to make a fortune with Gould. To this end, Ungreave even put his own large scale on a handcart and brought it with him.
Ungreave was richly dressed, but he was still not as richly dressed as Gould. Because Gould's family members also came out of their residence, and many maids and mercenaries came to watch.
Living in this mansion surrounded by wooden walls, even the maids, their clothes are simple yet gorgeous.
The two distinguished people met, and after some polite greetings, Ungreave enthusiastically introduced his wheat.
"Look, here are ten thousand pounds of wheat. Now, where's your promise?"
Gould looked at the large number of sacks on the carts, then stared into Ungreave's eyes, and asked knowingly, "They are all wheat. Where did you get the wheat?"
"Don't worry about this."
"Okay, I'll buy it at the agreed price. That's twelve silver coins for one hundred pounds of wheat."
"Yes." Ungreave smiled and nodded.
"Before that, I have to inspect the goods first."
"Oh you don't believe me"
"No, I believe you, great leader. This is a rule, I must inspect the goods." After that, Gould shook his neck and ordered, "Jevro, take the brothers to have a look."
There is no such tool as a "food spy" in Northern Europe, but mercenaries like Jevro have their own methods.
The ten mercenaries drew their swords. The quality of their iron swords was far inferior to that of steel swords, but the swords had blood-letting grooves on them. They poked their swords into the sacks and pulled them out, so that the two bleeding troughs were filled with food.
Jevro turned around quickly and said, "Sir, it's all food, there's no problem."
Gould was relieved and breathed a sigh of relief.
"That puts you at ease?" asked Ungreave.
"Don't worry, we like your food, let's start weighing it now."
Gould saw that the other party even brought a scale, so it didn't matter, because he had no intention of missing out on the weighing.
After some weighing, all the wheat, including the sacks, weighed 12,000 pounds.
Faced with this data, Gould shrugged, "It stands to reason that your sack also has weight. I'm going to suffer a loss here. It should be more than 9,000 silver coins. I'll give you a round number, 10,000 silver coins."
"Hey, this is good." Hearing the price, Angreev's face burst into laughter.
All the grain was quickly moved into his own warehouse, and Gould immediately took one hundred pounds of silver coins from his own bank to pay for the goods.
The tribal farmers who sold a small amount of surplus grain to the tenants made a small fortune, and the tribe's merchants also made a fortune. The leader Ungriev earned two thousand silver coins, and Gould had Rurik as a big seller. Germany is the biggest winner. I want to talk about "The Rise of Rurik" with more like-minded people, follow "Youdu Literature" on WeChat, chat about life, and find confidants~
