Chapter 10 8. Let’s go north

On September 22, 996 in the Imperial Calendar, Lant woke up early.

Just last night when they had just settled down, several of his knights came to him and believed that there were too many monsters in the forest, which could threaten the safety of the entire camp.

If you stay here, you may attract mid- to high-level monsters. If you return to the previous camp, you may be discovered by the barbarians.

Now, unlike when Rand followed Rohr and Albert before, it was impossible for him to leave his luggage and more than 200 citizens.

The only thing he could do was to send out a reconnaissance force, let the gray dogs scout toward the forest, and Rohr to scout out the forest, and choose a camp plan with the least danger.

However, in addition to Forest Lant, he was also thinking about other possibilities. He found Albert and asked about his previous experience of trading from his territory to the Galloping Horse Plains.

Albert was straightforward about most of these experiences. The so-called trade in the Benma Territory was actually smuggling to the barbarians in the Benma Plains.

This kind of smuggling mainly involves purchasing rune plates, cloth, and grains for daily use from the mainland of the kingdom, and exchanging them for barbarian livestock, meat products, leather products, and woolen products. Of course, just exchanging souvenirs does not count as smuggling. They really start from Benma.

What was smuggled out on the plains were three strategic materials: high-quality war horses, iron, and salt.

Yes, the Galloping Horse Plains produce both iron and horses. However, the barbarians who have mastered strategic resources have not been able to complete the organizational upgrade, nor have they been able to break out of the Galloping Horse Plains and invade the human hinterland. It can only be said that on Alivia

, magic is the most basic ability.

The empire has a monopoly on salt, iron, copper, tin, gemstones, gold and silver, magic ores and magic-guided metals, and a specialized agency - the Empire Salt and Iron Division, conducts unified exploration, mining, transportation, smelting and distribution.

Of course, as a department of the empire, it is impossible to reach out to every principality and kingdom, so the Salt and Iron Department adopted an agent system outside the empire's direct territories and found 1-2 agents related to the royal family in each kingdom.

Agency-related business.

For example, in the Dragon Kingdom, there are three legendary national pillars, and the agent that the Salt and Iron Division found in the Dragon Kingdom is the Blue Dragon family, one of the three pillars, to act as an agent for the salt and iron trade throughout the Dragon Kingdom.

As the general agent, the Blue Dragon family will have a trading house as a secondary dealer in each earl territory. It will be controlled by the young people of the Blue Dragon family and operate all the markets of salt, iron and other strategic resources, groceries in the entire kingdom.

All shops are their third-level dealers.

In the cooperation between Imperial Salt and Iron Division and agents, we will stipulate key matters such as selling prices, profits, and sharing of salt and iron in the sale of salt and iron to ensure the stability of salt and iron prices in the sales area. This will ensure that both agents and Imperial Salt

The interests of the Railway Company can also reduce the living costs of the people in the territory.

The sales profit of each level in the entire three-level dealer system will be stipulated. In this way, from the accounts of the general agent of the Blue Dragon family, after deducting the cost of transporting salt from coastal areas, salt is sold in the kingdom.

It is completely based on small profits but quick turnover, and it relies entirely on the population base of the entire kingdom to maintain profitability.

In this way, Huck and the others smuggled salt from the Benma Plain, because they did not need to distribute profits to Blue Dragon and the Salt and Iron Division. As long as they sold private salt at a slightly lower price than the official salt of the Salt and Iron Division, they could get more than the Salt and Iron Division.

, the profits of Blue Dragon and any first-level dealers, from the perspective of the Blue Dragon family, are dividing the interests of their family.

Of course, this kind of carve-up is tacitly allowed to a certain extent, because most of Huck's salt is digested in Ben territory. Strategic commodities such as salt and iron have low unit prices and high transportation costs. If you want to make big money, you have to think

If you only use animals to carry out bulk trade by water transport, you won't make much money in total, so Huck's smuggling has no impact on the market outside the barony.

And Huck is in a certain strategic position. Ensuring the stability within Huck's territory will be beneficial to the entire northwest region of the dragon. Therefore, for the Blue Dragon family, the private salt interests taken away by Huck are part of what they have given to Huck.

Funding to stabilize Northwest China.

Huck's most profitable trade in recent years is actually the war horse trade. The black-scaled horses on the Galloping Horse Plains are of good quality, but this quality is the result of the dual influence of blood and magical environment. Once the black-scaled horses enter the inland,

The quality of the second generation will be significantly lower than that of the previous generation. To a certain extent, the black scale horse is a high-end equipment limited to its origin.

So for Huck, selling black-scaled horses is a high-cost, high-yield project. There is no need to worry about the big horse getting rid of the pony and his own horse will not be sold. However, the total amount of horse trade is also limited. After all,

If you are doing business with barbarians, you are openly collaborating with the enemy, so you can only do business in private.

Listening to Albert's introduction, there were a few things that Rand couldn't figure out. Why were the barbarians able to mine? Since they could mine, why didn't they build a fixed city?

Now that they have a fixed mining area, why didn't they conduct bulk trade with the Dragon Kingdom? Lant didn't know much about this, but he grasped one point. In addition to cooperating with the territory of Viscount Lot, Huck's merchants would also do their own business.

Do it privately.

The Lot territory is considered the gatekeeper of the Galloping Horse Plains. Since you can sneak in without the gatekeeper, then at least there is a window through which you can enter.

Lant's guess was not wrong. Albert was sure that in the forest where they were now, there was a path leading to the Benma Plain. This was the remnant of an ancient river. You could enter Benma through a small cave to the north.

Southwest part of the plain.

That night, Greyhound and Rohr returned to the camp one after another. According to Greyhound, the number of monsters near the camp was abnormal. He didn't know the reason for this phenomenon, but he was sure that these monsters were no easier to deal with than the barbarians.

.

The result of Rolle's investigation was that the barbarians did not leave the baron's castle, but settled in the baron's castle.

Rand was a little unsure whether Viscount Roth had made preparations in advance, which led to the increase in the number of monsters near the camp. After all, there were not many people in Roth's territory who knew about the western forest. Buying some animal offal in advance and placing them near the camp would be enough to attract the monsters back.

As long as there is a conflict between humans and monsters, the new smell of blood will only attract more monsters.

But now, Lant had new hope. He asked Rolle to go north the next day and conduct reconnaissance on the trade road. He asked the greyhound to take Red Sand to the depths of the forest to guard.

On the 23rd, after a day of reconnaissance, Roll came back and reported that the plains outside the northern trail were empty and there were no traces of barbarians within more than ten kilometers nearby.

Greyhound reported that some small monsters had appeared west of the camp.

Lant knew that he might have no choice. Lant once again gathered all the people. He decided to use a speech to let everyone understand why he wanted to go north.

"Everyone who supports demons, fellow citizens," Lant, who summoned all the citizens, stood on a wooden box this time. Fortunately, as a junior knight, he is tall. He has grown a little taller after eating Warcraft meat for the past two days.

It's easy to be seen in a crowd.

"We left in a hurry the day before yesterday, and I didn't tell everyone why we hid in the forest.

Now I must tell the truth: the Galloping Horse territory has been betrayed! My father, the Baron of the territory, Huck Galloping Horse, encountered an accident on his way out, and both my two brothers were robbed by the barbarians!"

"Ah!" "Oh my god!" "How could this happen?" Ordinary people had a very good impression of Huck. It was Huck's credit that everyone had enough to eat these years. At first they thought Huck had gone to Lot's territory or

The Count's Maned Wolf City joins the other knights.

Now that they heard that Huck and his two sons were kidnapped by barbarians, everyone was very worried.

"However, this is not the worst. What is worse is that someone is using magic to summon monsters in the forest to attack us.

Just today, the Greyhound Knights have discovered some small monsters to the west of us. Tomorrow there will be large monsters. Maybe the day after tomorrow we can only choose to be robbed by barbarians or eaten by monsters." Lant attributed the arrival of monsters to the arrival of monsters.

Magic, no one without magic would question it anyway.

When Lant finished speaking, there was another burst of surprise and panic.

"In order for everyone to survive, I will take you north to the Galloping Horse Plains! On the vast plains, it will be difficult for the barbarians to find us, and our livestock can continue to grow.

I announce that we will break camp early tomorrow morning and move the entire camp to Benma Plain within two days!"

After Rant finished speaking, he left, leaving Albert to do work with the people, while he took Greyhound, Roll and two other junior knights with him.

...........

Early the next morning, Lant's camp had completed preparations for breaking out. Albert and several reserve knights left with the people. Roll, Lant, Greyhound and other junior knights stayed temporarily.

Get ready for the hunt.

After everyone in the territory was at least 1 kilometer away, Greyhound opened a skin bag, which contained the meat of the steel-bristle pig killed two nights ago.

Taking advantage of the waiting time just now, several junior knights dug some large trap pits and put steel-maned pork into the pits. Soon some small monsters like mandarin ducks, fire iguanas, and water salamanders came over.

They were not in a hurry. When they saw these little monsters entering the pit, Luo Er jumped down and killed them one by one. Greyhound and his son were checking and filling in the gaps next to the pit.

After more than a dozen small monsters arrived, Hongsha, who was on alert in the distance, quickly ran over. It must be that a big one was coming.

Sure enough, after a while, five steel-bristle pigs came after smelling the smell. This time, Rolle was accompanied by Lant, Greyhound and his son, Walker and the territorial knight Iron Hammer. There were a total of 5 low-level knights, and 6 people dealt with the five pigs.

It wasn't too difficult: Rolle and Greyhound worked together to kill them one by one, and Lant and a few others just pestered the other pigs. Within 20 minutes, all the pigs were dead.

But Lant and others knew that they were running out of time, and higher-level monsters might not arrive anytime soon.

So they changed their approach and put a pig on the ground to serve as bait for other monsters.

Lant was on guard while the others picked up the other pigs, mainly the magic crystals on the heads of the monsters, their meat, and their skins. The small monsters did not have magic crystals and more valuable skins, so they had to cut the meat out.

The difference between Warcraft and ordinary beasts is that Warcraft can sense and use magic. When Warcraft can use magic, it will form a nuclear-shaped organ in its head to store magic power. This organ is called a magic core.

During the running-in process, specific magic crystals may precipitate, which are called magic crystals.

Magic crystals can release a certain amount of magic power and will disappear after it is released. Therefore, they are widely used as the source of magic power for magic items. For this reason, magic crystals can also be used as hard currency to purchase items.

The entire human empire issues currencies of three different denominations: gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins. The conversion ratio of the three is 1:10:100. 1 copper coin can buy a not-so-small wheat cake, and 3 copper coins can buy half a kilogram.

Wheat, while half a kilogram of salt costs 2 silver coins.

Because the magic crystals that can be produced by the magic cores of different monsters are different in size and attributes, the price of the smallest piece of magic crystal fluctuates around 10 gold coins.

In the recent hunt, 1 shadow leopard and 8 steel-bristle pigs only yielded 3 magic crystals. This is a great fortune for Rand, and the territory income is calculated to be between 300-500 gold coins per year.

The reason for the fluctuation is how many black-scaled horses can be transported out of the plains. Each of these black-scaled horses can be sold at a high price of 30 gold coins in Maned Wolf City, but in Dragon Tooth City, the price is more than 50 gold coins.

For the territory, gold coins are just a calculation tool, not a storage tool. No matter how many gold coins are sold in the city, they will become goods needed by the territory and merchants in less than a day.

Just when a few people finished opening the magic core and packed up the monster meat, a new monster arrived, the wind wolf. This monster can control the wind magic element and use the wind element to accelerate itself or form a wind blade.

The wind wolf that came was probably a lone old wind wolf, which was quickly killed by Rohr. But within 20 minutes, a black flame tiger came, completely making all the medium-sized monsters run away.

The Flame Tiger is more than 2 meters tall at the shoulders, more than 6 meters long, and has a long tail. Not to mention the medium-sized monsters in the forest, even Rand is thinking about how to escape. Fortunately, the Flame Tiger has a high IQ.

If you have meat to eat, there is no need to fight for your life.

The tiger was eating the big pig, and Lant and others left safely with the 2 pork heads and 20 or so small monster meat that had been packed away. Several people did not dare to go to the team immediately, fearing that the monsters would smell the smell and chase them, so they let Hong Sha

Constantly check the team's position.
To be continued...