Struggle in the Steam Age

As we all know, because of the inconvenient transportation in this world, when those nobles gather together, it is often not just because of a simple matter.

For example, the nobles who came to this territory now gather together to learn these knowledge, and another goal is to communicate with each other.

If it wasn't for communication, there was absolutely no need for them to send those high-level servants, or even come to this place in person.

Therefore, after finishing these studies, the nobles did not leave, but settled down in Surrey Castle and started various social activities.

It may be because of the gathering of the nobles here, so some nobles who did not come to study before also hurried over by various means of transportation, and then joined this rare communication in several years.

Not surprisingly, Lawrence himself became the focal point of these aristocratic gatherings.

Of course, his previous inventions were not enough to make everyone focus on him. More importantly, he was a powerful lord noble who owned several islands.

After all, this is a world that pays attention to class and class. If everyone wants to communicate, they will basically only communicate with people of similar status.

The reason why these people communicate with Lawrence is also very simple, that is, they can obtain enough commodities from the tropics from Lawrence.

Unlike what Lawrence imagined, these nobles were actually not poor. After all, although this piece of land is a little barren, there is always something to produce.

In addition, the nobles who can own territories are often the kind of veteran nobles who have accumulated, so in addition to the income on the island, they can also obtain other income through many industries.

This situation is very normal for hereditary nobles. For example, the Earl Sauer family had a lot of foreign investment in addition to their territories.

For example, at that time, many small and medium-sized steel factories and several weapons factories in the Holy Visby Empire belonged to Earl Sauer's family.

It's a pity that after the accident in the family, these things, together with the territory, were inexplicably handed over, and the ownership was transferred to the royal family and some nobles.

Later, after everything was clarified, Lawrence and his adoptive father did not want to return those properties considering their relationship with the royal family and other nobles, but indicated that these things could be arranged by the royal family.

Obviously, judging from the later situation, this step was the right one, because the royal family naturally did not want to leave a reputation for plundering the wealth of subordinate nobles for the sake of this part of the wealthy family, so they generously compensated August family.

This is why Lawrence was able to obtain a large territory that was much larger than the upper limit of his title.

In addition, Lawrence also received a lot of financial support and an extraordinary degree of freedom.

To give the simplest example, the main reason why Lawrence was able to become one of the very few non-independent political entities in the countries of the Old Continent in such a short period of time was that it actually came from the sacred The Compensatory Psychology of the Visby Empire Royal Family.

From this point, it can be clearly seen how much wealth the hereditary nobles with a long history have. After all, if the wealth is small, the emperor of the Holy Visby Empire will not give Lawrence so much compensation.

Compared with the old Holy Visby Empire, although the Britton nobles are a little bit inferior in the accumulation of extraordinary power, they have more money because they first embraced the industrial revolution.

Therefore, the biggest problem faced by the Britton nobles on Green Island now is that they have money in their hands, but it is difficult to buy their favorite products.

If things like tables, chairs, benches or pots and pans can be bought at one time and brought over after going to certain places. Then fast-moving consumer goods similar to basic necessities of life are not so easy to get.

Apart from the nobles, ordinary people on this island also have the same problem. Things like furniture or production tools can still be solved through large-scale procurement, but all kinds of consumables in life are obviously not so easy to obtain.

Therefore, for those ordinary people, apart from trying to save as much as possible the use of those consumables, they can only say that the profiteers who come here occasionally are almost blackmailing the prices of the items.

This is why these nobles gave Lawrence a very complicated list of products after Lawrence said that he could sell tropical specialties.

The largest item on the list is naturally food. Although they can now purchase enough food directly from the White Eagle Federation, considering the complicated relationship between the Briton Kingdom and the Federation, it is natural to open up a new channel to obtain food. It's a very reasonable thing to do.

In addition, the island needs some treated wood, a variety of trendy wooden furniture, daily necessities, and some special items in tropical regions.

For example, for the specialties of tropical regions, the list these people gave Lawrence included sugar, cocoa, coffee, rope made of sisal, and some tea.

These teas were sold to these nobles by Lawrence. During the whole process of entertaining these nobles, Lawrence specially brewed milk tea with the tea leaves he carried with him for these nobles to drink.

Unlike people in other places who prefer to drink black tea that is brewed directly or with a little spice added, nobles in this cold zone prefer to drink sweet milk tea mixed with condensed milk, milk and sugar to provide them with precious calories .

Also in the process of counting, Lawrence realized that each of these nobles actually had some specialties that could only be found in cold regions.

It's just that the output of those materials in each territory is too small, the various types of output are too diverse, and the transportation is inconvenient, so most of the rest except for a very small amount of fur and salted fish cannot be stored for a long time.

For example, these territories also have some whale products produced by the fishing industry, nutritious reindeer dairy products and meat, etc. But these things are notoriously difficult to keep for too long.

However, because the output of this type of product in each territory was too small in the past, unless a businessman happened to come, otherwise, these things could only be consumed internally.

But for the people on the island, they are more willing to exchange these high-end food for people outside the island, and then buy more ordinary food and various daily necessities

Under such circumstances, Lawrence realized that this green island, which was almost on the edge of the civilized world, had a lot of business opportunities.

At least he felt that it was possible to send a boat full of various commodities to go around the island's several ports, then collect all these items at each port, and finally gather them on a boat to pull them back.

So after discovering this problem, Lawrence began to use a form to record the specialties of each noble territory that he communicated with.

Although the nobles said that they could buy those goods with cash, Lawrence himself preferred to be able to buy some items instead of just receiving cash.

After all, it is a very long and dangerous journey from Xingchenhai to Green Island, so to complete this trade, you need that kind of large ocean-going vessel.

And it is obviously a very uneconomical behavior to just pull the cargo over and return empty.

So he needs to sum up all the products on this land, and then see how much goods in this area can fill the warehouses of the ships he sent.

After sorting out the list of items, Lawrence took the initiative to host a banquet at the site of the Viscount Surrey. That night, most of the nobles were invited to the residence of the Viscount Surrey to attend the banquet.