20 – Alchemist of Nothing (3)

“As far as I know, you sell 10 kilos of sugar for 25 silver coins, and I have heard that sometimes you sell for 30 because there is a shortage.”

“Yes, you know the market closely.”

“thank you.”

The apprentice looked me straight in the eye and asked in a curious voice, as if he wanted to test me.

“Then, do you happen to know how much sugar is imported here?”

At the moment, ‘I think it will come in about 100 tons.’ I wanted to answer but. In a situation where I have already answered the exact market price, the answer at first glance is…

No matter how much I think about it, it won’t look good, and ‘sugar’ is almost a strategic resource in this era, and there’s no way I can know it unless I’m familiar with classified documents.

It would be best to answer I don’t know.

“I do not know. However, seeing a huge amount of sugar being traded in the outside market, I think a significant amount is being traded.”

As if the answer was good to hear, the apprentice answered with a smile.

“Of course I have no choice but to know. How much sugar is traded is unknown except for me and a few senators and the spice guild executives.”

“Is that so?”

On the outside, I tried to pretend to be calm, but deep down, I felt relieved that I had given a good answer and escaped the crisis.

Ignoring me like that, the apprentice talked.

“Yes. Apparently, I heard that the sugar you brought is worth 4 carts. I don’t think you could buy that much sugar outside of us with the income of your estate I know… How did you get it?”

“I have developed a way to make sugar. That’s why I was able to bring such a large amount.”

The apprentice heard that and for the first time in front of me made an expression of great astonishment.

It has to be, if I add a little bit of exaggeration, what I did is the same as achieving a miracle of making gold using ‘unknown material’.

Of course, I don’t know what the material is, but once I made ‘gold’, it’s like a miracle.

“You’re not lying in front of me, are you?”

I deliberately replied calmly, shrugging my shoulders.

“Don’t you know that no matter how hard we try, we can ‘never’ import sugar except through Hamburg?”

After pondering for a while, the apprentice sighed and said in a grumble.

“…well, Spania guys can smuggle in, but it’s three times cheaper to just buy from me than ‘smuggling’ this amount of sugar. There’s no reason to do something crazy like that.”

“Yes, can you trust me now?”

“Yes, if it was about 2 carts, I would suspect it was because they were rushing through the contraband, but if it was 4 carts, it would be a different story. Isn’t that just over 2 tons of sugar? There is no smuggling of 5,000 gold coins in any dukedom. let’s get to the point How much will you sell it for?”

I thought for a while and then spoke in a pretentious voice.

“Twenty-five silver coins for 10 kilos, I will give you as much as you want in return. Like the Spaniards, I swear I won’t hit the price by lying about a bad harvest, Your Excellency.”

“Stop the bullshit. I don’t know how much money you spent making sugar, but didn’t you bring it to me because it was at least cheaper than twenty-five pieces of silver?”

The apprentice thought for a while, then looked at me and smiled.

“Ok, fine. I will use special kindness. 17 pieces of silver for 10 kilos, but instead, I will waive all customs duties when selling here and buy as much as I want.”

Hearing this, I could barely hold back a smile from leaking out of my mouth.

Even if you sell it at that price, it is a lucrative business that leaves you with a lot of money, 15 silver coins per 10 kilos.

However, if I can’t manage my expression here, the other person will say, ‘Okay, then I’ll reduce it to 10.’ You can do it and let go of the force, so you have to pretend it’s nothing.

This is also a profit, but isn’t it the basics of business to sell it as expensive as possible?

So, I decided to give up some of my ego in order to get the most out of it.

The great Chinese general Han Xin also crawled under the crotch of a local gangster when he wasn’t there.

“… Not at that price… No matter how much we secure a way to make sugar cheap, we still have to eat. Sir, how about Chapter 23 instead?”

“Chapter 23? Not bad, but aren’t you guys benefiting too much? Anyway, chapter 23, huh. It’s cheaper than living in Spania, but for friends who just acquired a new recipe… OK, be generous. I’ll buy it for Chapter 18.”

“Chapter 18. Please upload up to 20 pages only. Please.”

Then, I lowered my heavy head and assumed a posture as if begging for mercy from the apprentice.

Seeing my continued servility like this, the apprentice put on a bright expression, perhaps feeling that he had the upper hand in the negotiations.

Nobles do not bow their heads under any circumstances to other nobles, except for the king and lord, but I bowed my head this far…

No one would think that I could afford to play tricks at all under this circumstance.

The apprentice said with a smile.

“No, heh heh… Let’s just do it in chapter 18. Instead, we will take special care of your estate. No, yes. Wouldn’t it be nice if you lowered the tariff even when you do business with us? There will be no more conditions than this.”

Then he took my hand and started shaking it with a really evil smile.

….

At a time like this, what did successful negotiators in history do? No, the senior who earned a PhD before talked about ‘Im Sang-ok’?

“As expected, it’s always good to read the scene where Master Im Sang-ok sells red ginseng to the people of the Qing Dynasty. To those who insisted on not buying red ginseng, which they must bring, they said, “If I don’t buy it at this price, I’ll burn it all,” and they burned it, right? But, what could have been…”

It was because Im Sang-ok had a monopoly on red ginseng, which the Chinese could not buy.

I’m not saying I’m monopolizing all of this red ginseng, but if this guy said he would destroy all the sugar factories he didn’t know about…

You can sell it for 20 pieces of silver while paying all kinds of condescension.

And no matter how much I think about it, if we accept it in chapter 18 here, it seems that it will slowly suck us in like this in chapter 17 later.

Why is it that large corporations are exploiting subcontractors by gradually reducing unit prices in this way…

I closed my eyes for a moment, made up my mind, and declared in a quiet voice.

“Your Excellency, you can never sell less than 20 copies. Even if you sell it like this, it is cheaper than selling it in Spania at 5 silver coins per 10 kg. Even if this is just 1 ton, it is equivalent to 50 gold coins, and even if I think about it, the amount sold to Franchi, Elaine, Britannia, and Romania must be over 200 tons at first glance. When we supply all of this amount… To be honest, we don’t have too much left.”

The apprentice stuttered for a moment when I, who had been crouching down until just before, spoke in a voice so confident.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, and if this doesn’t work… I can’t help it. I will sell it even through Salzburg, which is to the east of the county of Nantes. If you go there, you should be able to get about 22 copies. Even if you pay the tariff, there will be enough left over to sell here for 19 sheets.”

I said this, but even if I tried to sell sugar to Salzburg, there was no ship to go there, so there was a limit to selling it.

Even an apprentice in Hamburg who tried to gather all the information as much as possible would not know the road conditions and maritime trade situation of the baron’s territory in my village.

Taking advantage of the gaps in which the apprentice was unable to speak, I insisted even more strongly.

“I think you can make an alliance with Salzburg and not buy from us for a year or two. In that case, we…”

“What are you guys going to do? What do you mean you won’t make sugar?”

At that, I held the apprentice’s hand first and spoke.

“Yes, I will burn them all. Everything, even the technology, we don’t have the ability to maintain this technology for a year if we can’t sell it. Oh, please don’t even think about taking out the technicians from our estate. Even if I kill them all, I will never let them take them. That Ciel von Kreutel has the personality to just get rid of everything I don’t have, rather than give it to someone else.”

That’s what I said, but even if this deal is cancelled, I’m not a crazy person with a taste for killing people.

I have no intention of killing serfs who have learned ‘how to make sugar’.

However, the apprentice, who had no knowledge of my intentions, upon hearing that, looked at me with astonished eyes and said,

“Son, does that mean you’re prepared to fight me if things go wrong?”

I said nothing.

After a moment of silence, the apprentice sighed and said,

“Good, good. Cart 4 Sugar in a cart and after that I buy it at 20 silver coins for every 10 kilos you said. I can’t give you any more concessions. Sugar is a filial product that all nobles who are blinded by banquets will buy it if you bring it, but shouldn’t we also eat and live?”

In the eyes of the apprentice who said that, ‘If you ask me to yield any more, I will accept it as a fight.’ was full of will.

“good. I will sell it for that price. So, how much can I bring until next year?”

“Bring 40 carts of sugar. I will give you 2,500 gold coins as a down payment and 3,500 when I receive the goods. Be sure to bring it.”

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My head went blank at the amount beyond my imagination.

With this money, you could buy 100 pieces of plate mail worn by ordinary knights, 100 war horses, and even various weapons.

Oh, this money is enough to feed an army of about 1,000 men for two months.

If you get the balance, the budget for the second year of the Countess of Nantes will come out.

It’s a problem to expand the facilities… Well, we should buy and produce slaves here…

Now, 100 floats come out of the facility every year… Considering the construction period, should the manpower alone be tripled?

At least, I planted 3 times more sugar beets in the field just in case, so now I just need to copy the money.

Therefore, I tried hard to hide my smile, but in the end I answered without being able to hide my smile.

“Is there any?”

“Now, let’s go.”

**

A few days later, an elderly butler from the apprentice’s family drove a cart.

When I checked all the gold coins in the cart, there were 2,500 gold coins as expected.

I use that gold coin…

In order to copy more money with sugar, he hired slaves and technicians to install various equipment, and at the same time bought a lot of weapons and armor.

According to the setting in the novel, a crisis that will be difficult to withstand will come if you do not prepare soon.