Chapter 170 – A Leader With No Secretary

The soap-making workshops were about to bring good returns.

The peanut-processing workshops were also looking good. Among the newly purchased serfs, several cooks were arranged to study delicious peanut products. At present, peanut b.u.t.ter, peanut crisps, salted peanuts, and fried peanuts have been developed, and they are handed over to the Thorns Caravan for selling.

The response was good, and many aristocrats had tasted these delicious peanuts and said they would buy them in large quant.i.ties next time.

However, Flower Town peanut production was insufficient since there were not enough workers. The peanut processing workshop director, Lucas, had entrusted the Thorn Merchants Team to purchase peeled peanuts from the North Valley City.

“Well done.” Liszt left leaving behind only a few words of praise. The whole peanut-processing workshop was his idea, after all. These people were just laborers and not very creative.

He liked to use gold, silver and copper coins to encourage creativity, discovery rather than encourage serious work  – after all, serfs should be working hard in the first place.

Frank Distiller was a.s.signed fruit wines, Aberdeen Pudding for rice wine and Huntela for beer, and now they're all rus.h.i.+ng to finish the job early to make money for the workshop. Currently, none of them in the workshop can successfully make white wine, or any wine in general.

Ordinary wine was no different from fruit wine.

But fine wines have high craftsmans.h.i.+p requirements and selective of the grapes to be used. Also there are different techniques for dry, semi-dry, sweet and semi-sweet wines.

Only Tulip Castle on Coral Island has mastered the technology of making sweet wine. La Crescent wine was well-known in the Grand Duchy.

The red wine that Liszt had in the cellar of the Lacy Mountain House in the Longtaro Castle is the best dry wine.

These techniques were secrets that were not spread around and only mastered by the n.o.bles.

The same was true for liquors.

Compared to distilled liquor, the brewing process of white wine is much more complicated and monopolized by the higher n.o.bles. Spirits like gin were not always available.

The Flower Town Brewery can only make some simple fermented wines.

After inspecting the workshop, Liszt began to think, “If I remember it correctly,more distillation is required of distilled alcohol than fermented alcohol……It's like using alcohol and water at different gasification temperatures to purify alcohol, and one can get higher alcohol-level spirits by repeated distillation.”

Liszt actually doesn't like drinking, so he did very little research on alcohol.

"I have read a lot of novels before, most of them make use of a bridge to distill spirits. It  looks like very simple but the instructions were fairly vague."

“Perhaps, I can ask the brewery to study the technology of distilled alcohol, maybe I can make white wine and increase the specialty of FlowerTown.”

Rice wine is fermented with grains.

Liquor was also made from grains.

Liszt thought that if the rice wine was further distilled, would they get white wine?

He called out the three winemakers, "You are each a.s.signed tasks and remember, that task is highly confidential.  Anyone who spreads the word, their whole family will be flogged!"

The three winemakers clenched their b.u.t.ts in response, “We swear to death to keep our mission a secret!”

“Very well, I have a recipe. Liquor is said to be obtained by distilling rice wine, heating it until it turns into steam, and then introducing the steam elsewhere to cool it into water. The water in the rice wine can be removed, and what's left would be liquor. Do this several more times, and you'll be close to making the first  Flower Town alcohol!”

The three winemakers did not fully comprehend.

However, they simply responded, “Master Lord, please rest a.s.sured that we will brew liquor as soon as possible.”

The task began.

Liszt felt that another specialty in Flower Town was waving at him. He even had a name for it already at that moment,  “It's called Flower Brewing… , um.., grade. If you have a low-grade Flower Wine, it's just five years old, or a high-grade one, it can be ten years old, twenty years old, or even a hundred-year cellar, or five hundred years old…..”

It suddenly occurred to Liszt that the Duchy of Sapphire only had a history of more than 150 years, and before that, he feared only monkeys had lived on the island.

“Five hundred years of aging must mean that it was brewed and founded on the day as the island . It is said that in the year of founding, a winemaker came to Coral Island and brewed a jar of wine … there was only one jar, but it was made every year since then. “

When he thought of selling alcohol, he immediately came up with many cla.s.sic cases.

But he also found a risk: “Liquor is a lucrative industry, which is difficult to secure without a strong backing. For this, we must work with Tulip Castle.”

With the banner of Tulip Castle, business was easy to do. Leewilliam Tulip, the earl of the Grand Duke in the Sapphire Grand Duchy is definitely one of the high-level figures.

Also, he serves as the Grand Duke's groom, therefore makes close contact with the Grand Duke every year.

If one would make use of Tulip banner, he must share the benefits to Tulip Castle. Liszt didn't care — the more he would be integrated into this world, the more he would understand the importance of n.o.ble connections.

Levis, Lvera, and even Lytton, no matter how intriguing, are relatives. It is the existence of a family that can help in times of crisis.

The Little Viscount of Deepthroat Island was destroyed, and his brother, the Great Viscount, had been separated. He was still on the run, investigating and urging the Grand Duke to find the killer.

Liszt certainly hopes that the Tulip family will grow into a towering tree capable of shelter against the wind and rain.

The dragon horse was walking very smoothly and Liszt can hardly feel the ups and downs.

Liszt could think very clearly while on horseback. His thoughts were jumping around, and while thinking of other ways to gain profits,  he jumped to another thought: “Speaking of monkeys, maybe I can hype monkey wine?” It didn't matter if monkey wine exists or not, it was just a gimmick.

n.o.bles like extravagance.

However, extravagance includes not only gold and silver, precious stones and horses, but also art and the pursuit of rare things. Monkey wine is obviously a rare thing.

“But there are too few n.o.bles with rich heritages. They are all newcomers who are not rich in the third or fourth generation, like the Tulip family. They would prefer gems and gold coins. “

In any case, one can start a hype by selling fruit wine.

Liszt then inspected several other shops and workshops.

At present, there are only three shops in the commercial area, including bakery shops, grocery shops and barber shops, and only blacksmiths, leather shops, locksmiths and tailor shops in the workshop area, and the newly built brewing, soap-making and peanut-processing workshops.

A lot of built wooden houses were empty.

If it weren't for a lot of serfs laying roads, building houses and growing gra.s.s, Flower Town would seem like a ghost village.

Four hundred seventy-six serfs settled in the town and were distributed to various fields, causing a few waves. More than a hundred of them were highly antic.i.p.ated craftsmen.  But since they lacked the ability to independently support shops and workshops, they were temporarily forced to work on a farm and ignore their craft skills.

“In a short period of time, the business district can only be used as a trading market to receive occasional business teams.” “You have to develop the workshop area and become a manufacturing and processing center before you can drive the development of the business area,” Liszt said, looking at the empty house.

He began pointing fingers around the business district.

He was drawing lines with his hand and imagination about "How can we build here" and "How can we build there", and turning around, only Thomas and some knights were following him.

He found it to be very indecent.

He suddenly slowed down in his moment of ambitions.

"Whenever there are leader inspections, at least two secretaries must follow me and keep a small notebook and jot down whatever I say. The lowest officials and the ma.s.ses have to be gathered, in the least. "

Chapter 171 – Growth of Ambition

"Secretary…"

Liszt was feeling lost having no secretary  around.

The n.o.ble cla.s.s has always been painted as without shame or impetuous since they have secretaries who 'do all these' and 'do all that'.

But in truth, Liszt even doesn't have his own secretary. The social system strictly imposed monogamy with complete adherence when n.o.bles were fooling around having lovers and illegitimate children.

This was not an official system.

It was the custom of society.

In order to ensure the continuation of the monogamy system, the female n.o.bles can only have one maid, and the male aristocracy can only have a male servant, thus preventing the destruction of the monogamy system in the name of an a.s.sistant.

He explored the formation of this ethos, and eventually speculated that it was probably due to the matriarchal system of the Moon Empire.

This long-lost empire was like the ancient Roman Empire of Europe. Although the Roman Empire was destroyed by the barbarians, its cultural system has already deeply affected the entire continent. The same was true of the Moon Empire, the strongest empire of its time, whose cultural influence still remained.

In most countries, languages ​​have more or less absorbed the Moon Language.

Most customs originated from the Moon Empire including the rank of knights, the relations.h.i.+p between lords and va.s.sals, and even the matriarchal system has also been preserved. In many countries, women once served as leaders. The Grand Sapphire Duchy has not yet had a queen, but it has adopted monogamy.

“Moon Empire … What happened to you..”

As the town's leader, Liszt has plenty of leisure time. He liked to read knight novels and countless times has he heard about the Moon Empire — knights have always found remains of the Moon Empire somewhere, and when they acquire the said treasures, they are often met with immediate disapproval.

However, there was no recorded history to read.

Much of the  information that was known about the Moon Empire was just spread by word-of-mouth.

This kind of information spread has a high percentage of distortion and so the Moon Empire was reduced to being a legendary kingdom which was undeniably beautiful and prosperous. It was now in the same level as the ancient Greeks in the European population, the ancient kings of Confucius, all kinds of beautification, all kinds of subsidies, all of it replaced what was actually real, and became the official history of the people.

“It's annoying not having history books… I'm afraid to read more knight novels and be the messenger of inaccurate readings." Liszt shook his head.

No more thinking about these mess.

Liszt studies history not just to satisfy his curiosity, but because he also wanted to learn the history of power and strategies and the situation of the world. But all he has is nonsense stories.

He returned to being upset about not having a secretary .

He felt that he had to speed up the training of the female knights as his close guards, otherwise he would lose the atmosphere and pa.s.sion to give speeches and give directions.

After inspecting the town's buildings, Liszt  returned to the castle.

He went directly to the study, took out a thick paper and a quill pen, and organized his ideas on how to revive Flower Town.

“If we are to turn Flower Town into an economy dominated by the processing of agricultural products, then the current structure of the town will have to be remapped and the trade routes will have to be revised. The conditions for land transport are far less favorable than sea transport, and s.h.i.+pping directly from the sea to Coral City is more efficient.”

He first drew a rough map of Coral Island.

He remembered a map of Coral Island was hung in the study of the Count in Tulip Castle. The whole island had a distorted “8” shape.

Flower Town was in the northeast corner of the island. The narrow part in the middle of the “8” was a deep water port. Coral City was built next to the deep water port.

From Flower Town to Coral City, it was impossible to take a straight line due to the terrain. Instead of going through the middle, one must pa.s.s through North Valley City and Claytiles Town in a zigzag route, which is a total waste of time.

“Flower Town has a remote location, therefore the dock must be quickly constructed to open up the sea. As a supplement to land operations, checkpoints can be built at the entrance of Thorns Ridge. In this way, the main areas of Flowers Town can be divided into three: the dock, the town, and Thorns Ridge. It will undertake trade and processing tasks respectively. “

He wrote several snake texts in the town's workshop area.

These were the workshops he planned to built—sugar workshops, spice workshops, textile workshops, leather workshops, paper workshops, tofu workshops, tulip flower workshops as well as shoe shops and bone craft shops.

He also wrote what workshops were to be built in the docks –  brick factory, cement factory, pottery kiln factory, salt farm, gla.s.s workshop and so on.

Near the Thorn Ridge, what he planned were wood workshops, slaughterhouses, horse markets and so on.

Some of these workshops didn't have artisans to support it yet and some requires some technology that has yet to be developed. But in Liszt's vision, these should all worked out.

Moments later.

He lost interest in writing again.

“Kosto has reported that the Flower is ready to go out to sea. We're just waiting for Glanny to complete the Calm Pearl then the exploration of Black Horse Island can begin. “

Once Black Horse Island is taken over, his future strategy will focus on Black Horse Island.

The importance of Flower Town will surely decline. If he successfully turns Black Horse Island into his own fiefdom, he will surely hand over Flower Town to somebody else. He will take root in a new territory just as the Tulips gave up their original land and moved to Coral Island.

“When I obtain the financial and material resources to solve the technical problems of paper making, cement, tofu, gla.s.s and others, I'm afraid I'll be the Black Horse Baron by then.”

The thorn sprite will be born anytime soon. Once a n.o.bleman acquires his own sprite,it'll be easy to generate a steady stream of financial resources. It would not be difficult to arm a knight squad.

It won't be difficult anymore to fight on the battlefield and build a successful kingdom.

It would be better to save a sprite than to study technology.

The Gra.s.s Family and the Gravel Family all obtained their ranks due to their respective elves. As the son of the Count, as long as he succeeded, the Count would have no reason not to name his son the Viscount. At that time, Black Horse Island could be cla.s.sified as its own fiefdom – n.o.bles could take credit for the desert island.

In the event that one makes a great contribution in the battlefield, it will be impossible for the Grand Duke not to see it.

It was favorable to be a direct minister of the Grand Duke since it is more prominent than a  being a marquis' or an earl's minister. One would also be more eligible for promotion in the future since the rulers would always prefer to promote new n.o.bles to counterbalance the old n.o.bles.

“But once I become a minister, I would be independent from the Tulips.Will I be Liszt Thorn, the Prince of Black Horse Island?”

Of course, this possibility is relatively small. He was just a baron and the Grand Duke would not be impressed with his credits. Moreover, he is originally a va.s.sal of the count, and the Grand Duke usually would not cross the border and win over another's va.s.sals. Furthermore,  the Earl and the Grand Duke has a quite good relations.h.i.+p, therefore one will not do anything to even slightly offend the other.

“Anyway, I'm going to make a decision on Black Horse Island, and the Dragon Horse Herd will not be touched by anyone!” 

If you want Black Horse Island, you have to win it.

Liszt laid down the quill pen, looked up outside the window. He could see in the distance on the horse farm a few horses leisurely eating gra.s.s,  “Those who go to war will die … … At that point, I'll see if I can find the same job as Levis, act as a liaison, do logistics, develop some fighting skills. “

He paused.

Liszt spoke to himself again in a calm voice, “But the Knights must be trained as soon as possible, and my own qi has to be accelerated, and Tremblingwood's training has to be strengthened as well!” 

Once a person has ambition, many of his ideas change unconsciously.