Chapter 423 Letter from Home
“Thank you, sir.”
Kevin thanked the man dressed as a businessman in front of him with a grateful face, and took out a handful of copper coins from his pocket , "You have worked hard all the way, please accept this small favor."
"It's not hard, it's not hard, I just brought a letter along the way, how can I get paid. We are all from In the Northwest Bay, we should help each other in a foreign land.”
The man dressed as a businessman declined repeatedly, but in the end he couldn’t resist Kevin and accepted the money.
After the other party left, Kevin looked at his back and laughed at himself: Maybe he really doesn't like that handful of copper coins.
From the previous introduction, Kevin learned that the other party came to Gabela Imperial Capital to sell porcelain.
That’s a super, super profitable deal!
Porcelain from Kevin's hometown, the northwest bay of the Aldo Kingdom, has become popular among the upper class of Gabela in recent years.
Nobles and wealthy people loved this exquisite new thing very much and rushed to buy it to decorate their facades.
At first, porcelain was brought to Gabela by merchants from the Corner Bay through re-export trade. Later, with the gradual prosperity of the ocean trade in the northwest bay and the booming shipbuilding industry, a large number of Aldo merchants brought porcelain to Gabela themselves.
In addition to taking the sea route south and then sailing eastward around the Horn Bay to reach Gabela, there are also people who drive camel animals through the vast desert through the Nairodan Corridor in the northeast of Aldo to do business in the north of Gabela. , but due to the convenience of sea transportation, generally speaking, most people take the sea route.
The letter from home that Kevin received today was brought by an Aldo maritime merchant.
Of course, the merchants brought not only porcelain, but also many other commodities, such as beautifully printed books, bundles of light paper, and cheap iron tools, which were incredibly cheap. Cloth, etc., are all very popular.
My lord must have made a lot of money, right? After all, these emerging things are all related to him, especially the method of refining porcelain, which is unique in the world. Even after the introduction of the patent bill, it has never been made public.
Kevin imagined a scene of Paul Greenman bathing in a pile of gold coins looking like a nouveau riche.
Although it has been a long time since the Salt Village riots and he was pardoned by the other party, Kevin still has a grudge against his lord.
Paul carefully took the letter from home and returned to his room, opening the envelope as if it were a treasure.
It is indeed very precious. From the northwest bay to the Gabela Imperial Capital, you have to float on the sea for several months. During this period, any accident may happen.
After opening it, there were two letters inside. Oh, it seems that my parents must have a lot to say.
But he soon discovered that it was actually written by two people.
It is easy to identify from the signature and writing style. The one with neat handwriting is from Kevin’s neighbor’s child, while the one with sloppy handwriting is from Kevin’s father.
In order to promote the cultural and educational undertakings in the entire territory, Lord Graiman began to promote the advanced experience of education in Huxin Town to other places. Schools were being built in various places under the control of the Government Council. The target of education is not only children but also adults. In order not to affect production, teaching activities for adults are mainly arranged at night, which is called "night school". Although night school only teaches the reading and writing of commonly used characters and simple arithmetic, in Kaiwen It seems that this has benefited the citizens a lot, such as the letter he is holding in his hand.
A year ago, his parents, who could not read a few words, would only trouble the neighbor's child every time they wrote him a letter - the person who wrote the other letter in the envelope. The child is receiving a more formal education in the school run by the lord - now his father can actually write to him with his own pen, although the writing is crooked and there are many wrong spellings.
This is an aspect of Lord Grayman that Kevin appreciates. He is not like other local lords in the Northwest Gulf or even the entire Aldo Kingdom who think that the people in the territory are inherently stupid or even the stupider the better. Instead, he educates and civilizes them. , and even used almost coercive methods to get rid of the ignorance of the people in the territory.
Kevin opened the letter written by his father with some excitement. Not surprisingly, it was full of how much the whole family missed him, even if the writing was rough and unpolished. The vernacular words still made Kevin’s eyes red.
After reading the letter from his parents several times, Kevin unfolded the letter written to him by the neighbor's child.
This is a little guy named Hicks... Oh, maybe we can’t call him little guy this year. He is only two years younger than Kevin. When he was a child, he always followed Kevin around. .
When Kevin was taught by Senior Mond in his hometown, he always passed on the knowledge he learned to Hicks, in order to consolidate his understanding and satisfy his desire to share.
This also laid a good foundation for Hicks, who always ranked among the best in the schools run by the lords, so Hicks was very grateful to Kevin. Every time he ghostwritten for Kevin's parents, he would add a lot of what he wanted to say.
Now, Kevin's parents can write letters themselves, but Hicks wrote one himself and enclosed it in an envelope.
After the warm greeting at the beginning, the second half of the letter aroused Kevin's interest.
“Dear Brother Kevin, it’s just as you asked, and I can’t wait to share with you the development of my hometown during this time.”
……
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"As I mentioned in my last letter, the Government Council is still taking a series of measures to develop the territorial economy and strengthen urban facilities and road construction: building mills, improving water supply, and increasing mineral and metal production; in addition to the Earl, The output of those inventions and traditional things, such as red wine, linen, and cotton, is also increasing rapidly."
"The above-mentioned changes have attracted a large number of people from outside the country to settle under the Earl's rule, and some even started to live there. Those who migrated from Cape Bay include many scholars, including magicians, naturalists, alchemists... Oh, they should be called chemists now, and there are also medical heretics who clamor for autopsies every day... "
"The Earl has spent a lot of money to recruit and place these people. In recent years, he seems to be particularly interested in chemistry (alchemy). He organized his chemists to compile many teaching materials and published them in Relevant courses are offered in various schools. ”
“People in the school take every step of chemical experiments seriously, such as carefully observing various liquids, planting, collecting materials, mixing solvents, and trying various substances. , collect experimental data and compare it. In order to provide a sufficient amount of experimental equipment, a special industry has even been formed. It seems that men and women from the entire territory have participated."
"Under the leadership of the Earl, researchers. We all agree that [nature is concrete], expressed in experiments and observations, rather than generalized abstract knowledge.”
Seeing this, Kevin felt a little moved in his heart.
“There has been a linkage between various disciplines, such as chemistry and medicine. The medical reformer Ward in Fulangang has a large number of followers, which directly contributed to the vigorous development of the field of medicinal chemistry, and they began to move towards People like the butcher, fishmonger, spice merchant, jeweler or dyer came to learn their respective skills, even adding fired ocher clay to the medicine."
"The pharmaceutical process is not only hands-on. , but also uses all human senses, and the materials include different types of natural substances, and sometimes human urine can be added according to personal wishes. The entire pharmaceutical process requires people to participate in person, trying to add a wide variety of natural substances, and some formulas also have It may be obtained from people, such as the urine mentioned earlier.”
(End of this chapter)