Struggle in the Steam Age

Because of the tea, Lawrence had a good chat with the high priest of the Agricultural Church. And then Lawrence introduced the theory of circular agriculture that he and the agricultural school development team developed on New Sauer Island, which made the priest nod again and again, and she even called her students to come and listen together.

As a result, this conversation made everyone forget the time. Just when Lawrence explained the general framework of circular agriculture theory to these people present, the church bell rang. After hearing the bell, the high priest He looked up and told Lawrence that it was lunch time and that the discussion could wait until after the meal.

Differing from the Western dining traditions of the Old Continent, the Elysian Empire, which inherited the civilization of the ancient empire, is more popular to exchange some things at the dining table. In this regard, this country is not like their neighbors in the western part of the Old Continent, but It's more like the style of those people from Cathay who are thousands of miles away.

And because everyone was more relaxed at the dinner table, Lawrence and the others also learned a lot of other news. For example, this high priest named Octavia was born in the mountainous area in the middle of the empire. Because the place was very poor, she was abandoned by her helpless parents, but fortunately she was adopted by a priest passing by the village.

But lucky ones like her are still in the minority, and more abandoned babies have not waited for someone who can save them, and just disappeared into the wilderness without a sound. Many travelers passing through the mountains in the middle of the empire can find the remains of these poor children on both sides of the road.

Actually, who would want to abandon their children as a parent? But because the land is too barren, the local people can only live on the corn that can grow tenaciously on the hillside, and even in the best years, they can barely eat enough. In this case, many people's homes can be said to be barren. This makes them sometimes have to abandon those newborns so that others can live.

Also because of this background, although Octavia grows up and does not want to find her parents who abandoned her, she still hopes to make her hometown rich and prevent the tragedy that happened to her from happening again. That's why she looked so excited after hearing that Lawrence and the others had brought a new method of processing tea.

Although according to previous planting experiments, the local climate and terrain are not very suitable for the growth of tea. And just now, Octavia took out some samples collected in the church for Lawrence and the others to check. After careful inspection, Nora confirmed that no matter how the tea was processed, it was impossible for the quality of these teas to be comparable to that of New Sauer Island. On the level of those tea leaves.

But these are not a problem to the priest of Octavia. After tasting the tea leaves with milk and sugar, she realized that the taste of these things is more popular with the locals than the green tea from the far east. At least it can easily capture a large share of the beverage market in the New World.

She also admitted that the black tea produced on New Sauer Island is indeed very top-notch, and can be regarded as the best of the best. Once it is launched, it will definitely be welcomed by everyone. However, the area of ​​the hilly area in the center of the small island where tea can be grown is destined to have a high output. This inherent defect prevents him from monopolizing the black tea market in the future.

Lawrence also clearly realized this, so he did not blindly expand the tea plantation area, but declared that the entire island would not give up food cultivation in agriculture in the future, and even the future goal was to become a food supplier for the surrounding islands. Under these circumstances, the production of tea from New Sauer must have been limited.

According to Lawrence's idea, he would make the island's tea a luxury. Because only in this way can we obtain as much benefit as possible under the condition of limited tea planting area. But now his identity and the close connection with various churches make his idea very likely to become a reality.

Priest Octavia obviously saw this too, so she thought she could get Lawrence to cooperate with her and the Agricultural Church behind her. After all, unlike the small island in Lawrence, the hilly area in the middle of the empire is very large enough to produce this new variety of black tea in large quantities.

But on the other hand, the hydrothermal conditions and topography in the middle of the empire have resulted in the quality of tea produced here not being as good as that on New Sauer Island. Therefore, it is impossible to compete with the tea produced by Lawrence and the others, but they can complement each other to some extent. Under such conditions, cooperation between the two parties can be said to be beneficial and harmless.

It is also for this reason that after the meal, Lawrence first gave a report on circular agriculture to these young priests as originally planned, and after a good wave of reputation, he met under the guidance of Octavia. To the person in charge of this cathedral: High Priest Varo.

The next step is the content of the cooperation after the two parties discussed, because Lawrence and the Church of Agriculture had a very good history of cooperation before, and even received the gift of the Goddess of Agriculture. So Lawrence quickly discussed with Mr. Varo in a more harmonious atmosphere a draft on how to cooperate in tea in the future.

According to the provisions of this draft, Lawrence needs to inform the Agricultural Church of his previous observation report on the tea trees on the tea mountain and the tea processing methods he summed up later, as well as the principles behind them, and provide a batch of tea tree seeds for the Agricultural Church to conduct experiments and small-scale cultivation. to plant.

The Agricultural Church side needs to try their best to promote black tea as a new beverage and highlight the taste of New Sauer Island black tea. In addition, in the subsequent research, any discoveries made by the Agricultural Church on tea planting and processing must be truthfully and promptly reported to Lawrence.

In short, this is a mutually beneficial contract for both parties. The details are left to professionals on both sides. According to the agreement between the two parties, Lawrence will send a batch of tea saplings and seeds collected before this time after returning to New Sauer Island in the name of Earl Sauer and the Agricultural Church of Sauer Island. Then the church will find a few experimental fields in the mountains in the middle of the empire to start experimental planting.

In addition, after the first batch of tea leaves on the island, some of them will be sent to the Agricultural Church here. Part of it will be dedicated to the Goddess of Agriculture as a sacrifice for this year's New Year's Sacrifice, while the other part will be used for the church's hospitality supplies to entertain those dignitaries.

After solving the problem about tea, High Priest Varo enthusiastically discussed the issue of circular agriculture with Lawrence. From the discussion that lasted for more than 40 minutes, Lawrence felt that the elder was very concerned about what he had proposed before. The concept of circular agriculture is emphasized.

It's normal to think about it. Agricultural production must change nature, and in traditional concepts, such changes are often negative. But on the other hand, the nature of the Agricultural Church makes it absolutely impossible to break with nature. Therefore, for so many years, the Agricultural Church has been very entangled.

Fortunately, when industry was not developed before, agriculture did not damage nature so much. So the contradiction is not too great. But after modern times, this contradiction has become more and more serious.

Fortunately, the clergy and staff of the Agricultural Church have found some ways to ease the conflict between people and nature in their daily production and life, so the fragile balance between the development of agriculture and the protection of nature has been maintained to this day. But this contradiction has always affected the entire church.

Now, although the theory of circular agriculture and the material circulation of the whole world put forward by Lawrence is very rough, it summarizes the previous efforts of the Agricultural Church and provides a solid theoretical basis for these efforts, so these priests can So much emphasis on this theory.