15th July 1574"What… Just what is this thing… No, how much does it cost, and how many of those rifles can you sell?!"
I didn"t need to wait for the proper reaction almost at all. The moment Kristina managed to wash off the shock of what she just witnessed from her face, she opened her mouth, yet in the end, it was an inconspicuous attendant of hers that managed to best her.
"Excuse me?"
Not sure how I should react to this outburst from someone no greater than a simple servant, I sent a quick glance at the host of this meeting, only to see her put a wry smile on her face.
"Sir brother, meet Onfar Maget, one of our dear friends and commanders of our personal army. To be quite honest, in terms of military, I value his opinion far higher than my own."
As Kristina introduced the man to me, I lost all my qualms holding me back from properly respecting him. Stepping forward two steps, I pushed my hand forward, offering him a proper greeting.
"Mike of Tarnow."
"Onfar Maget."
Just a single look in his eyes was enough to tell me that there wasn"t any point for the lengthy introductions. Most likely, this man already knew a fair bit about my exploits, given how close Zamoyski family lands were to both of the areas in which I operated. At the same time, while I had no memory of such a man existing, with how he was a respected retained on the Zamoyski court, just his position alone was enough to win him some of my respect.
"Let"s cut to the chase then. Answering your questions one by one, the cost of a single rifle… Quite honestly, I"m not even sure how should I price it. If I ever were to put it on the open market, I think it would be no less than twenty, thirty ducats, but obviously, as long as my requests would be fulfilled, the price for your family…"
In fact, this was one of the very basic things that I simply forgot to think about. The material and labour cost of making such a weapon was simple to calculate. From the raw ore, through some tiny amount of costs for turning it into steel, all the way to forming the barrels and a.s.sembling the parts, the cost of making a single weapon would reach up to two red goldens at most!
Yet that didn"t mean I could ever sell those weapons as cheaply. With how nearly every single weapon that was in use in the current age being a product made by hand by a skilled craftsman, if I were to simply charge double the costs, then I could already feel the pressure from the entire country laid on my shoulders.
After all, with such a profitable business, everyone would rush to learn my secrets, be it by diplomacy or force. That"s why, rather than giving a reasonably fair price, I had no other way than to artificially spike it up!
"As for you, I think I could sell them for ten red goldens each. But!"
Seeing how the faces of the crowd changed when they heard my words, I barely managed to stop them from stampeding me to my death. While the price of those rifles was already insanely cheap when one compared unimaginable military benefits it offered over its barely any cheaper counterparts that were currently in use, even despite the fact how easily and quickly I could produce them, there was still one point that greatly limited their output.
"That"s one of the other reasons that I was willing to tackle only if your family showed an interest in those weapons of mine. As you just saw, those rifles are great and all… But I don"t really have any stable and reliable way to obtain gunpowder for its ammunition!"
Now that the worst part about those weapons was made known for those people, I simply smiled and backed out from my imaginary spotlight, waiting for the response of Kristina. It was one of the most important reasons why I picked this family to ally with.
They had rich sulfur resources on their own!
"Gunpowder… I see so that"s what you meant back in the chamber. If we equipped every soldier of ours with this kind of weapon, just a single fight, while easily won, would prove to be insanely costly…"
As the basic material for creating the gunpowder consisted of sulfur, charcoal and saltpeper, as long as those three materials could be produced on an industrial scale, making any amount of gunpowder wouldn"t be a problem.
Starting with charcoal, it was the easiest step. As long as I would manage to create coal mines with the help of Zamoyski household, I could replace all the usage of charcoal with this more efficient, mined fuel, s.h.i.+fting all the produced charcoal to the production of the gunpowder.
When it came to the sulfur, this was another reason why I hoped to create a positive relations.h.i.+p with this family, as their lands stretched all the way to one of the only places in the entire commonwealth where it could be mined!
As for the last element, nitrate or in other words, saltpeper, this was something that I could solve entirely by myself. As long as the mining town would finally turn into a proper city, just by directing its severs to a specially prepared grounds that would be constantly sprinkled with the charcoal dust, by was.h.i.+ng the residual fields with water and boiling said water out, I could procure literally any given amounts of this element!
At this point, I couldn"t help but thank myself for being a rowdy kid back in modern times. If not for the fact that just as any other boy I had a period when I turned interested in creating my own explosives, or rather, if not for the fact that I went for the extra step of actually attempting to make it, I wouldn"t know even this basic recipe!
"Listen up, brothers and sisters. Just like I proposed that I would invest both my money and my tools in creating the mines of this black rock that I value so much, I can do the same with the sulfur. As long as we come to an agreement regarding all the deals that I came here to propose, increasing the output of the existing mines by tenfold won"t pose even a tinies shred of a problem for me!"
As I spoke those words, I could see the looks of ridicule appearing on the faces of the people that were just amazed at the insane weapon I created. At this point, I couldn"t help but notice that even if I were to show them a d.a.m.ned atomic bomb and detonate it in their garden, they would still think that I"m incapable of creating a simple car!
"While it"s nice to hear such proposition… Increasing the mine output by ten times… Even our family doesn"t have that many free workers nor money to invest in their pay! How can you claim to be able to achieve it?"
Just as mentioned, despite being amazed by my weapon, Onfar couldn"t help but put my own words into doubt. Yet I wasn"t someone who could be downed by such a silly attempt!
"How do I know it? Well, it"s fairly obvious. The mines that I took over while they were in similar sate to those of yours, are now providing more than fifty times as much ore as they used to!"