26th April 1574"Starting from a high horse, I see."
Instead of instantly providing me with a reply, the governor only muttered those few words before sinking into the sea of his thoughts. After all, I couldn"t expect him to suddenly give me even more land that was currently his own, especially after he ruled the owners.h.i.+p of Ropian in my favour.
It wasn"t only about the potential loss of the tax income from those lands or even the decreasing number of farms that would provide more grain for him to sell in the northern ports. It was about my sudden growth in power!
As the descendant of the formerly major house, just uniting the three cities in one, a long line of land could put my neighbours on the edge, as if the trend continued, it would be their land that might catch my attention later. If the governor were to suddenly gift me even more land in a different area, not only my local neighbours would start eyeing my growth, but so would almost every n.o.ble of who would turn green from envy when seeing my sudden raise!
"Sorry, brother, but while I want to support you as much as I can, ceding this land directly to you… Even if I did, I"m worried you would simply not be able to face the consequences. The best I can do is to sign this land off for you in my testament while abolis.h.i.+ng all the taxes for all your current projects. Does that sound all right to you?"
While the governor had his reasons to put this kind of offer forward, when thinking about it from the perspective of someone who knew what kind of turmoil was about to start on this lands, it seemed like an even better idea than what I intentionally wanted!
As long as this land would de jure belong to the governor, while all the de facto rights would stay on my side, no minor n.o.ble would dare to go against this place! No matter how far I would go in poaching the serfs from their lands, forcing them to sell me the food rather than selling it off in the northern ports or doing literally anything else, being nothing but a proxy for the governor, they would be unwilling to risk their entire wealth and name only to get even with me!
"Ah, speaking of taxes, my lord, I think I might have an idea that will allow this place to earn the gold we will need for the future expansions by itself. Just like we discussed all the way back in Pilzno, local n.o.bles prefer to buy all sorts of stuff from the foreign merchants, rather than allowing local producers to earn their rightful keep. I guess with all the chains that I ordered, the set of strange circular blades didn"t escape your attention?"
While initially the wood factory was intended to supply all the planks and wooden blocks that my future projects would require, thinking about this in a more realistic way, I couldn"t rely on the governor to provide all the funds that this place would gobble like a starved outcast!
With the blast furnace in place, casting more of those sawing blades would be as easy as cutting a piece of the breed in half with an executioner"s axe, allowing me to expand the wood factory to an unimaginable degree!
As soon as just a few of mark two steam horses would start their operation, I could turn this side project of mine into the greatest manufacturing plant that would exist in the entire continent, turning the entire nearby forest into a constant stream of furniture that could be sold cheaply to any buyer interested!
"Yeah, I was quite curious about their use you imagined, and since I didn"t really trust your wits at that time, all that came to my mind was some kind of elaborate torture tool for the unruly workers…"
Hearing the Governor"s reasoning, I had to rest my hand on the steam horse"s bricked wall, only to jump away from it when my entire inner palm blasted my mind with a sudden burst of pain. In my daze, I forgot that this thing was constantly heated up to a rather high degree!
"Sir… With all due respect, what did you hear about me to have such an image of my personality in your head?"
Taking a moment to calm myself down and get used to the stinging pain in my hand, I raised my head back to look at the governor.
"Anyway, those blades are going to be used in this small shed that you can see being built right over there."
Pointing my hand at the nearby structure still under construction by the same team of workers that I a.s.signed to the lone carpenter, I already could imagine how it would look in the near future. Or rather, instead of expanding it from its pitiful size that it was intended to have right now, I would push some of the manpower to prepare proper foundations and set the walls to be made either with concrete or the brick, so that this cash plant could be at least several stories high!
"In short words, I want this place to take the huge logs, pull them on special holdings through a set of moving blades so that at the end of the line, nothing more but nicely cut planks in all kinds of required sizes will be ready to be turned into furniture! To be honest, as long as the second type of the steam horse will be put to use, it"s even possible to simply place the logs at the starting location, allow the building to work on it by itself and receive a finished product at the ending location!"
As long as proper machinery would be put in place, there would be no need for anyone but a small crew to work in this entire, future plant. Outside of making sure that all the machines were working properly and eliminating all possible problems before they would lead to the stalling of the entire manufacturing process, all the steps of cutting the wood into required sizes, nailing the parts in a set sequence and even polis.h.i.+ng it to add a nice s.h.i.+ne to the wood, all of those steps could be fully automated!
"I really want to see it happening. From how fast you are developing this place already, how long do you think it would take for the first items that we could sell to be produced?"
Instead of joining in my futuristic enjoyment, the Governor once again pulled me back to the ground with his precise question. Just like he mentioned behind the lines of his words, it didn"t matter what I could achieve in the far-off future. All that mattered was whether I could produce something that would sell in a relatively short time so that rather than sinking more and more of his savings into this project, it could start earning for itself!
"To be honest, if we want to sell something, we could produce cast sabres as soon as we improve the mining process, meaning that in about a week or two, not only we could replace this furnace with even better one, casting steel sabres or even uniform guns would be entirely possible!"