Chapter 101 Sitting for a day with a pot of tea and a newspaper
In recent times, many new things have appeared in Weissenburg City, and teahouses are one of them.
Tea has long been used as a refreshing agent.
The fashion of drinking tea as a drink has only been popular among nobles for a few decades, and has not yet become popular among the people. For a long time, people regarded drinking tea as arty.
The development of commerce made foreign businessmen need a place where they could exchange news, look for business opportunities and conduct negotiations, so teahouses appeared.
Teahouses in Weissenburg Castle are often divided into two floors. The first floor is the lobby, where you can sit for a whole day with a pot of tea and a few snacks. There are also light meals at a low cost; the second floor is separated by thick wooden boards. In the private room, you don't have to worry about the sound being leaked when negotiating, but the price is expensive. This is where the boss's profit comes from.
As usual, Giovanni Abelardo got up early in the morning, went to the teahouse opposite the hotel, found a seat by the window on the first floor, and glanced at the other table curiously The person on the table was pressing his eyes, and then ordered the same set meal as before: a pot of black tea, a plate of biscuits, a plate of nuts, a plate of fruit jelly and today's newspaper.
Giovanni was recommended by distant relatives to serve as the president of the Wesson family bank. He left the Kingdom of Sardinia with his father at the age of twelve to work in a bank in the lowlands. At the age of sixteen, he went to Cologne alone. At the age of 24, he went to work in a bank in Londinium, the royal capital of the Kingdom of England, as the vice president. At the age of 36, he set up his own business and served as the bank manager of a large aristocratic family bank in the Kingdom of Lisenberg. President.
It was just that the banker had only been in office for a few years. The boss was killed on the battlefield by a rising star from the Kingdom of Gaul, and the family was torn apart due to political turmoil.
Giovanni could only take the core members of his team back to the Kingdom of Sardinia and worked as the president of a city bank in a port for several years.
When he received the news from his relatives that a baron wanted to open a family bank in the northern highlands of the White Mountains and asked him to take charge of the work, he dismissed it. There was no prosperity on the seaside in the mountains. In that place, there were only mountains and trees. Do you want to exchange gold coins with Warcraft? ?
But the relative stated clearly in the letter that the Wesson family had begun to dig a canal connecting the Rhine and Danube rivers in the territory, and at the same time, the top brass of the Averardo family also planned to occupy a position there. Giovanni Finally, he agreed and set off with his core team.
More than thirty years of banking career have made Giovanni develop a cautious character. He came to Weissenburg City long ago, but he did not go to Baron Weissen immediately, but stayed there first. Ask around for news.
To Giovanni's surprise, Wesson had a cheap paper that could replace parchment, and there was also a "Wesson Daily" filled with all kinds of news he wanted.
The "Wesson Daily News" was published less than a month ago. It is sponsored by the Wesson Council and the president of the newspaper is Walter, Frederick's cultural teacher. It contains news, comments, agriculture, industry, and education. , economy, law, military, medical, culture, sports, learning world and advertising, etc., a total of sixteen pages.
Giovanni read the newspaper very carefully, analyzing every piece of news line by line and sentence by sentence, analyzing the meaning behind the news.
The headline news on the front page today is that a soldier named Bobo caught two pickpockets while out on a procurement mission the day before yesterday. Yesterday, he was personally received and commended by Baron Wesson, and awarded 10 florins. Baron Wesson emphasized in the conversation that the army is a solid shield for the people of Wesson.
Giovanni studied this news for half an hour, and then turned to the last page. Like yesterday, the top half of the page contained advertisements for this fall's recruitment.
The requirements for autumn recruitment are the same as those for spring recruitment. In addition to physical conditions such as height, weight, and eyesight, they also require the guarantee of local gentry. The annual military salary is the same as that of ordinary craftsmen, but the standards are lowered when going to school and applying for jobs. Priority admission and other benefits.
Giovanni finally concluded that Baron Wesson wanted to improve the status of ordinary soldiers and change their image among the people.
He recalled that the recent headlines included Wesson's plan to optimize the household registration system and conduct a new round of household registration statistics, designate price guides for people's livelihood commodities, and grain merchants receive targeted product tax exemptions for selling grain. Baron Wesson could see that The army also began to prepare for war.
After taking a sip of tea, Giovanni began to calculate the date for the start of the war.
The most important thing in war is food. The time to start the war can be calculated by the time of collecting food.
The weather in the surrounding areas has been good this year, and the summer harvests in several surrounding territories can be considered above average. After the summer harvest next year, as long as there are no natural disasters, we will be able to store enough food for a small-scale war. After the autumn harvest, there will be more food. .
It can be seen that the earliest time for the war to start is after the summer harvest next year, and the latest is after the autumn harvest before snowfall.
The Averardo family has a tradition of investing in war, which is the most profitable business.
Giovanni naturally wants to invest in this upcoming war, and there are many people who have the same idea.
The financial circle is small and closed, and outsiders cannot see it. However, he has discovered many colleagues from all over the world, even from the southern continent. At the same time, he has also been discovered by them, but they think that he is also Doing the same thing.
They are all waiting, on the one hand to collect more intelligence, and on the other hand to appear again when the atmosphere is tense as before, so that they can negotiate terms.
No one has any doubts about the outcome of the war, because not long ago the Vice President of Weissenburg University, Manuel Sage, publicly stated in the newspaper that defending the homeland is also the responsibility of all teachers and students of the school.
What makes people feel even more fucked is that the military section of yesterday's newspaper reported on the work of the militia organization in the Weisen Territory. It mentioned that the militia organization at Weisenberg University uses magicians as militiamen, which is unprecedented. Giovanni continued to read the news. At the bottom of the front page was the announcement that all managers and employees of the Wesson Smelter were receiving more than half bonuses.
He stopped here for a moment. He had been to the Wesson Smelter himself. The gathering of 50 5-meter-high furnaces was enough to frighten the legs of all knowledgeable people.
Previously, there were news reports that the daily iron output of the Wesson smelter and the daily iron output of a single furnace have reached new highs. The daily iron output is 27 tons. The maximum iron output of a single furnace in a single day is more than 600 kilograms. The annual output is more than 600 kilograms. 9,000 tons, but no steel or elemental steel production has been reported.
At this time Giovanni noticed a sentence in the news that a new smelting plant was being located.
What is certain is that Wesenland will become the steel center on the continent in the future.
After reading a routine news article introducing the progress of the construction of the Carolina Canal, Giovanni turned to the second page. The headline on this page called for the use of improved seeds for planting to increase crop yields.
Everyone in Wesenland now knows that the winter wheat yield in the experimental fields this year is double that of previous years. There are even football matches held in various places to compete for seeds. It is estimated that farmers will make their choice without calling on them.
In the agriculture section, Giovanni noticed two reports.
An article is a report about red eggplant in a column dedicated to introducing crops from Taohuashi. This fruit is red in color, thick and juicy, sweet in taste and rich in nutrients. Whether it is used as fruit, cooking or It’s suitable for making jam, and it also comes with a recipe for beef stew with red tomatoes.
Another report is that the Agricultural Bureau introduced the six-year rotation method to cooperate with the breeding industry. It can be seen that this farming model can ensure the ration of food and develop the breeding industry at the same time.
Giovanni drank some tea, ate some snacks, and continued to read carefully.
The Industrial Edition vigorously reported on a two-horse steel frame truck produced by Benz Carriage Factory. This kind of vehicle has a large load capacity and is suitable for long-distance transportation.
Today there are three pages of the education edition, with two articles published in each.
The first page is an article by Father Arms from Bohemia on advocating universal primary education, unifying the school system, adopting a class teaching system, and expanding the categories and content of subjects.
The second page published an article written by a scholar named August, which advocated early childhood education and standardized kindergarten construction.
The third page is an article by a commentator with the pen name "Professor Kaido". The article highly praises the views of Father Arms and Herbart scholars, and perfects the unification based on their articles. Textbooks and theories on starting normal education propose an education system that starts from kindergarten at age 3, primary school at age 6, vocational school or intermediate school at age 12, and finally university, and explores the feasibility of a six-year compulsory education.
Giovanni spent several hours reading these three articles, and the waiter didn't notice it when he brought him lunch as usual.
He felt that the importance of these three articles should be placed on the front page. Now they are placed on the inside. I am afraid that Baron Wesson thought that this matter might be controversial, so he did not publicize it with much fanfare.
After he finished reading the education version, he quickly finished the cold Bolognese noodles and then continued reading the next part.
He glanced at the economic section and focused on the article written by the commentator "Scrooge McDuck" about leveraging regional advantages to optimize industrial layout.
The legal edition still contains Weisenling’s legal interpretation and corresponding case analysis, and also publishes several typical economic dispute cases.
The medical section has a large section reminding everyone that food is prone to spoilage in summer and is forbidden to be eaten. It also has pictures of bacteria on spoiled food under a microscope.
The military, culture, and sports pages were combined into one page because the education page took up space.
In the military edition is an article introducing mountain mercenaries. The author's pen name is "Forest Lion". Judging from the content, he should be a senior forest mercenary. The article is full of disdain for mountain mercenaries.
There are fables and poems in the cultural version, but Giovanni thinks that the ugly duckling turning into a white swan when it grows up is a problem of the duck's mother.
There are many pictures in the sports section, including the essentials and precautions for shoulder exercises in the dumbbell fitness method performed by Lord Sword Master Richard Nall, and four sections of eye exercises.
Giovanni understood what the man was doing when he first arrived. He also tried the eye exercises according to the newspaper and felt that it had some effect.
After he finished the eye exercises, he looked at the self-study content of Rhineland and mathematics in the Study World edition, and then studied the last edition and the advertisement in the middle, and found that it was already dark.
(End of this chapter)