Chapter 5: Make some money-making inventions first
Manuai and others held a plenary meeting the next day and unanimously decided to settle in Wesson.
The meeting also unanimously passed the motion to establish Weissenburg University and elected Baron Friedrich von Weissen as the first president.
Frederick was quite happy at first, until Afu quietly told him that the principal needed to be responsible for the school's funding issues, and his face immediately turned dark.
The landlord’s family doesn’t have any food left.
The cultivated land in Weisenling follows a three-field system. About 1,000 hectares of the more than 3,000 hectares of land are planted with wheat, 1,000 hectares with beans, 1,000 hectares with pasture for sheep, cattle and chickens, and the remainder with vegetables.
Frederick's father's agricultural and arithmetic skills were just like this. If it was 1,200 hectares for wheat and 800 hectares for beans and grazing, he couldn't calculate how much tax he should collect in a month.
Lax? You can buy this thing, but it’s troublesome to grow it. Why do you grow it?
The weather in the past two years has been good, and Wesson has abundant water resources. The average wheat yield is 700 kilograms/hectare, and the average yield of various beans is 500 kilograms/hectare. The Wesson family decided to set the price because the yield of newly cultivated land is not high. The tax rate below is 30%.
This means that this year there will be about 200 tons of wheat and about 150 tons of various beans added to the granary, half of which will be sold for more than a hundred gold florin coins.
In addition to the mill royalties, the sale of wood, cheese, sheepskins, woodware, ironware, etc., the Wesson family's annual income is about 500 florins.
This income is considered poor among the earls, but it exceeds that of all barons.
However, in last year's war, the army led by Wesson was completely wiped out, and there was no war dividend. The expenditure on military food, pensions and mercenaries almost wiped out the capital. At present, Frederick only has more than a hundred working capital in hand. Just outside the florin is the freshly harvested wheat.
Because of this, Frederick decided to use his old money to plow on the canal.
But now that such a large number of scholars have arrived, the canal issue can only be put aside until they are settled.
The most important thing right now is to transport the dozens of books brought by the scholars, some plants in pots, two golem puppets and a lynx that looks like an orange cat to the lakeside manor.
These books were rescued by Manuel and his colleagues during the war. At that time, warlords involved in the civil strife wanted to use the library and the university as a stronghold. Negotiations were fruitless, and the scholars could only go their separate ways with the collection of books.
That’s what they said anyway, and Frederick believed it.
These books can no longer be put on the boat. They have become damp for a long time, and they will be infected with insects if they go on board.
Manuel received Frederick’s prompt and took his students to use necromancy magic to kill insects in those books.
It's just that there is a shortage of manpower for the transportation work. Now is the time to plant beans in the fields after the wheat harvest, and the carriages are busy hauling wheat and flour.
Frederick could only draft a small number of men for corvee service. Each person would be out for one day, and he would use various methods to move the books to the lakeside manor like ants moving.
He was sitting on a carriage with Ogilvy at this time, with several boxes of books beside him. A draft horse weighing nearly a ton was pulling the carriage, and it was moving "squeaking". On the road.
Omet took the opportunity to escort the car to explain to Frederick the process of making the golem puppet.
However, Frederick was more interested in the basic technologies involved in control core, metallurgy, materials, processing technology and moving parts.
"Hydraulic lathe." Frederick said thoughtfully, "I also have one here, and there are a lot of manpower. Carpenters use it to turn beads and make dishes."
"So, you can do it Can you create a knife that can turn metal?"
Omet said confidently: "That's easy, just use magic to strengthen the blade." Frederick thought for a while and then asked: "Use magic. Is the cost of strengthening metal high?"
Omet smiled mysteriously and whispered: "It would be very high if someone else did it, but I am different, I have The latest technology, whether it is strength, hardness, plasticity, toughness, elasticity or rust prevention, can be achieved in a very cheap way! ”
"Oh?!" Frederick looked at him in surprise, "Then you can make a fortune!"
Omet spread his hands and said helplessly: "There is no market, no matter how cheap it is, The base of the method is large and the total amount is large. It costs a lot of money to strengthen the weapons of all soldiers. The generals say it is a waste of money."
"Those generals need to strengthen their weapons, but they. Not short of money, and more confident in the magician he hired.”
“Not to mention civilians, ordinary knives at home are enough.”
Frederick nodded slightly. At first glance, these days soldiers are just consumables. The outcome of the war mainly depends on generals and knights, elite units and magicians with magic bonuses. It doesn't matter whether they are strong or not.
He whispered: "I have a new invention, can we all make a fortune together?"
"Oh?" Omet asked curiously, "What is it?"
Philippia Te Lie stretched out his finger, and a white light appeared on his fingertip, leaving a white mark when he scratched the board of the wooden box next to him.
Illumination is a little magic for walking at night. It is not difficult, but it is difficult to use it for writing and drawing.
Omet was slightly surprised, he did not expect this child to have such a high level of magic talent.
Frederick said while drawing a wheel: "Compared with dragging the board directly on the ground, it takes less effort to put the wheels on it."
Omet said: "The difference is It's sliding friction and rolling friction..."
Then he spent five minutes describing to Frederick what friction is and the role of lubricating oil.
Although Frederick knew more about physics than him, he still thanked him and then said: "Now the copper tiles and copper sleeves of our carriage axles are all sliding friction, and a lot of energy is consumed. So we Why can't it be changed to rolling friction?"
"Like this, put a wheel between the copper tile and the copper sleeve."
After speaking, he drew a simple diagram of the ball bearing on the wooden board and explained its structure one by one.
After listening, Ogilvy thought seriously and said after a long time: "This little thing looks really useful. It is not difficult to make the inner and outer rings, and strengthening is not a problem, but the small balls inside must be enough. If the balls in the bearing are not round enough, they will cause vibration. If the size difference is too big, stress will easily occur. Unevenness and excessive force on large balls will cause premature damage to the balls.
“This is easy to solve.” Frederick said with a smile, “Let’s do this together.”
“I estimate that this carriage can pull more if this part is installed on the axle. With twice the amount of goods, the waterwheel mill can grind flour much faster.”
"There are so many carriages and mills on this land. If only half of them are equipped with this part, we will see gold coins raining down!"
(End of Chapter)