Chapter 192 The new house
“Welcome home, Master!”
Christian led two rows of young and beautiful maids to line up at the gate to greet Frederick.
After leaving the royal estate, Frederick went directly to the city of Cologne, where Christian purchased a new mansion for him.
The city of Cologne draws several tributaries from the Rhine River to prevent fires and discharge sewage.
The block separated by a river where this house is located is full of mansions of powerful people. The neighbors are either rich or noble, and patrols of the city defense army pass by from time to time.
The house is located in the southernmost corner of the block. It is a triangular plot of land. The side facing the street in the north is about 60 meters long. The sides facing the river in the east and west are about 70 and 80 meters long respectively. The south side is an equilateral triangle with a side length of 30 meters. A two-story building with a triangular patio in the middle. Between the building and the street is a trapezoidal garden. The servant's house, stables, garages and walls separate the garden from the street.
Frederick glanced at the door, which had been replaced with his family coat of arms.
He came down from behind Dawn and asked the person taking care of Dawn to lead him to the horse pen. The steward behind Christian immediately led the way himself.
Frederick asked the maids to disperse and saw that the garden was bare, all the original plants had been shoveled away, and now only the soil was left.
Christian followed and reported: "This mansion originally belonged to the Adikon family. This family is famous for the presence of many naval officers. Now there is a young Baron Adikon left. He sold his property and prepared to build a fleet. "
"The total value of the land, buildings and furniture of the mansion is about 25,000 florins. Baron Adikon is willing to sell it to us in exchange for 20,000 florins of Wesson unlimited commodity vouchers. I have signed a contract with him and am just waiting for the voucher to be delivered.”
When Frederick heard this, he stopped, thought for a moment, and said, “Give him a voucher of 40,000 florins.” Well, the extra money is my investment. If he needs it, I can sell him a batch of revolver rifles.”
Of course he wants to engage in maritime trade, but it’s hard to find professional talents in this area. , we can only cast a wide net as an investor to see if we can find a suitable spokesperson.
In terms of weapons, he felt that the folding rifle was a bit of a pitfall as a main battle weapon, so he enlarged the revolver into an eight-bullet revolver and fired round lead bullets.
Christian immediately agreed and said that he would go to negotiate with Baron Adicon tomorrow, and then continued: "I found the housekeeper and the head maid here. I knew them before. They are husband and wife. It turns out that they are small nobles in the lowlands and have no inheritance rights. His children have worked in many merchant families for more than ten years and have a good reputation."
At this time, he said a little cautiously: "Some of the servants here used to serve my family, and their abilities and reputation are excellent. Trust me. The others are all recruited through the guild, and they are all good family members with clean financial records and no criminal records or bad habits.”
Frederick just nodded and said nothing more.
He and Christian walked around the house. Most of the wooden furniture was there, all the decorations had been sold, kitchen utensils, tableware, bedding, etc. were all newly bought. Psyche had already I was reading a book in my bedroom.
In the patio, Christian asked: "Sir, what kind of decorations do you want to purchase?"
Frederick frowned, this troubled him.
This is the royal capital. The decorations must not only be exquisite and expensive, but they must also not be as meaningless as country bumpkin, otherwise it will be a joke.
But this is not impossible. He said: "Teacher Psyche will be here for a while. I will tell her later and ask her for help."
"Buy There is no cash for the house, so the money will be used to purchase decorations.”
He is sure that he is not as good as Psyche in terms of art, and he may buy some antiques by then. This great god had touched it before.
After discussing the matter, the two went to the study, and Christian handed a stack of invitations to Frederick.
Some of these invitations are written on traditional parchment rolls, with beautiful flower festivals tied on the outside with colorful ribbons. Some are made of white cardboard produced in Wesson, folded in half, with exquisite hand-painted patterns on the cover, and also tied with ribbons.
Frederick read it over and found that some important ministers of the kingdom invited him to attend dinners and dances, some ladies invited him to attend tea parties, and some scholars invited him to discuss issues when he was free.
He picked through it, putting on one side those who wanted to participate, and on the other side those who could not participate due to time conflicts and the relatively low status of the master, and then asked Christian to reply one by one.
It costs a lot of money to go on an army expedition. The Wesson Army's logistics standards are currently considered exaggerated by others. The logistics supplies provided by the Kingdom are definitely not enough, so at least this gap must be earned back. So he prepared a lot of novel products and planned to advertise them while attending various events.
Frederick finally asked Christian to go to the garden to measure the floor plan in preparation for building a glass greenhouse, and then went to have a secret conversation with Psyche.
Psyche was still lying quietly on the bed reading a book. Frederick sat beside the bed and asked, "Is the investigation clear?"
Psyche nodded coldly. He nodded and asked him: "As the rumors said, what are you going to do?"
Frederick immediately replied: "Let the church come this time. Let's do this first, and then do that. The church will definitely not be able to sit. Live, we will definitely investigate, and we will definitely find out what happened after the investigation. It will be up to them what to do with it then.”
Psyche said speechlessly: "You know how to kill with a borrowed knife."
Frederick sighed deeply and said: "I also want to do it myself, but I am not strong enough."
>
Psyche didn’t say much.
Frederick knew very well the process of troublesome things for her, so he said first: "Let's go to the street and see where there is delicious food. I'll treat you."
As a result, Psyche gave He rolled his eyes and said angrily: "You are a Duke now, so you should look like a great nobleman. How can any nobleman go shopping and eat out by himself?"
"If you want to buy anything, ask the merchant to bring you the goods to choose from. If you want to eat, ask the cook to come over and cook it for you. When your money goes bad in the future, you can also ask someone to deliver it to your door."
Frederick finally heard a black line.
He really likes shopping, but how could it be proper for a nobleman and ordinary people to crowd together? For this reason, Ah Fu and the others had said similar things before, but he fooled them by inspecting the territory. .
So Frederick went to the housekeeper and asked him to invite a chef from a good restaurant in Cologne, but he was very embarrassed.
The butler asked nervously: "Excuse me, sir, are you dissatisfied with the cook? What kind of cook do you want? I will change him immediately."
The kitchen is an important department in the house and is directly managed by the housekeeper. If the new master is dissatisfied with the cook, it is not difficult for him to think more about whether the master is dissatisfied with him and is therefore beating himself up.
Frederick was stunned. He had never even drank the boiling water boiled by the cook here. How could he be dissatisfied?
So he explained: "It's not that I'm dissatisfied, it's just my first time in Cologne and I want to try the specialties here."
The housekeeper understood and said doubtfully: "Then Just let the cooks do it. Their skills are much better than those on the street, otherwise I would not hire them."
Frederick understood, "Learn the arts and martial arts, and your goods will belong to the emperor's family. "It can also be used for cooks. Even if it is not a palace, it is naturally better to be a chef for a noble than to work in a restaurant."
"Okay." Frederick said, "I'll try my cooking skills tonight."
When it was dinner time, only Frederick and Psyche were eating dinner in the restaurant.
The table was filled with sumptuous dishes, some of which Frederick had not expected.
On the plate in front of him were a few slices of soft white bread, spread with a layer of butter, sprinkled with cheese slices and raw onions. It tasted pretty good.
Of course, pork knuckles are indispensable here. The method here is to pickle the pig's knuckles in salt water. The taste is salty, but it goes well with light beer.
Then there are the bread rolls stuffed with minced pork, pepper and butter, and the soup made with pork belly and peas, which are all delicious.
(End of this chapter)