Chapter 200 Bought a Lot of Land
After returning from the seaside, Françoise changed into a cook's clothes, tied up her hair, and started cooking today's dinner in her own dedicated kitchen.
Frederick stood at the table, carefully studying the chicken on the plate for dinner tonight.
This kind of golden-skinned chicken is a specialty of the Kingdom of Gaul. The skin of the chicken is the color of gold. Like a country bumpkin, Frederick poked it with his hands from time to time to confirm that it was a real chicken and not made of gold. Model.
Françoise took away the golden chicken, washed it, and rubbed salt and pepper into the belly of the chicken. The surface of the chicken was marinated with olive oil and salt.
Then she heated up the pan and melted the butter, poured in the minced garlic and chopped onions and sautéed until they changed color a little, then added the soaked mushrooms, celery and chopped carrots and sautéed them together, then let them cool down.
Then I cut some leftover bread from this morning into dices and soaked them in milk, chopped rosemary, and peeled and diced the chestnuts I picked yesterday.
After squeezing out the milk from the soaked bread, mix all the things you just prepared, add some salt and pepper and stir into the filling.
Finally, stuff all the stuffing into the belly of the golden skin chicken, stuff it tightly, use iron needles to thread and seal the opening in the chicken belly, and tie the chicken with cotton rope to shape it.
After the oven is hot, add chopped onions, celery, garlic and carrots to the baking pan, add some water, coat the surface of the chicken with another layer of olive oil and put it into the baking pan. Put in oven.
Françoise opened the oven lid every 15 minutes and took out the chicken. She poured the juice from the basin over the chicken to make the surface of the chicken taste better. After two hours, when the juice was poured for the last time, she peeled off the chicken. The good chestnuts are roasted around the chicken.
During dinner, Francoise cut the golden roasted chicken into pieces, and placed the chicken, stuffings, and chestnuts on a plate in front of Frederick.
Frederick carefully observed the golden chicken and almost took out a microscope.
He had heard that the Kingdom of Gaul had dishes that glowed golden, but this was the first time he had seen them.
Under Françoise’s urging and gaze, Frederick cut off the chicken and took a bite, and then asked: “Can you sell this golden-skinned chicken to us, alive!”
Françoise smiled and shook her head and said: "Unfortunately, this is not possible. This kind of golden-skinned chicken cannot be sold alive."
"But I heard that the golden-skinned chicken comes from They are in the southern continent, but the people there are not so big and skinny, and the people there have skin as black as charcoal. If you want, you can go there to find them.”
Frederick. He nodded slightly, thinking that he must get such a delicious golden-skinned chicken back from Uncle Hei.
As for the breed reason, it doesn't matter if they are small and thin. Weisenberg University has experts who can raise lynx into pigs. Breeding golden-skinned chickens with more meat shouldn't be a problem.
The two chatted for a while while eating, and Françoise suddenly asked Frederick: "You look like you want to buy swamp land this morning?"
Frederick replied while eating: "Yes, I have this idea, but there is no way. The land will not be sold to the people of the Rhine League."
Françoise said: "Actually, there is a way There is a limit on the land we can buy here, because I bought it in my personal name and not in the name of my family, so I only have enough to buy this manor."
Frederick nodded. I've heard about it.
The manor Françoise bought covers an area of more than 100 hectares, and the length of the four sides is only a little more than one kilometer. It is not big for those large manors of 500 to 600 hectares. It's pretty big.
She continued: "So someone came up with a way. There are no restrictions on local people buying land, so they pay local people to buy land and then rent it for 999 years at a very low price. ”
Frederick nodded slightly, this gap would never disappear.
But he said awkwardly: "I'm afraid this method is reserved for you, I can't drill it." A bright smile appeared on Françoise's face, and then she said seriously: "If you can trust me, I can help you."
Frederick thought for a while and said, "I'll think about it."
He wanted to consider just doing It seemed that the purpose of this investment was not to buy land, but to sell steam engines. Even if the land was swallowed up by Françoise, the money could be earned from selling the steam engines. She agreed when the dinner was ready.
After dinner, Françoise took Frederick to the study, where there was a promotional map she got when she bought the land, which marked the general topography of the entire lowland area.
Frederick studied the map. It was self-engraved and printed by the Kingdom of Gaul on large white paper imported from Weissensee.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and it seemed that he was about to file a patent lawsuit.
The patent laws in this world were proposed by magicians. The first ones registered were magic patents, and then developed into mutual recognition of patents in all walks of life and countries. If this system collapses, it will mean that the magicians themselves The magic they have worked so hard to develop can be used by others, so they hate theft of other people's patents and are not afraid of lawsuits.
In the next few days, Frederick concentrated on studying the map in the morning, took time to go to Amstel to bring Dawn, and in the afternoon took Françoise to take a bird's-eye view of the swamp from the air. From time to time I would come down and ask the nearby villagers this and that.
During this time, news had spread throughout the city of Amstel that Duke Wesson had purchased a large tract of marshland through his lover in the Kingdom of Gaul.
Relevant news spread quickly, and many people believed that Duke Wesson was kicked in the head by his winged unicorn.
The nobles of the Kingdom of Gaul who controlled the lowland areas behind the scenes were confused. After discussing for a while, they decided that it would be fine to just buy the swamp land.
Later, they felt a little sorry. After all, he was the son of Earl Wesson and had many fans. If word spread, people would think they were bullying children, so they decided to sell a little bit of the surrounding land.
When the amount of marshland the Duke of Wesson was to purchase - 3,000 hectares - was confirmed, it was agreed that he had been kicked twice in the head.
At this time, the local government department immediately expressed the hope that Duke Wesson could buy more, and it would be best to guarantee the tax for 20 years.
Everyone felt that those gentlemen were so dishonest, how could they be so bullying?
What can be produced in the swamp is to cut some reeds in the marginal areas and sell them. It has always been an ownerless land and no one collects taxes.
The gentlemen in the local government later felt that this was a bit bad, so they lowered the tax rate a lot.
However, what happened next made everyone think that Duke Wesson had been kicked in the head more than 10 times. He actually increased the amount of swamp land he purchased and bought a large amount of swamp land in the south, which eventually became The behind-the-scenes landowner who owns thousands of acres of swampland.
It took half a day to sign the contract. The landowner was a young girl from Amstel named Lilu. Everyone was accustomed to these white gloves. Frederick and Françoise also found a ready-made one nearby. of.
Then the land was leased to Françoise for 99 years, automatically renewed upon expiration, and then subleased to Duke Wesson for 98 years, also automatically renewed upon expiration.
Then everyone saw the resolute actions of Duke Wesson, and the masons' guilds and engineers from the entire lowland area were invited to Amstel City to take over the task.
Duke Wesson requires that every piece of swamp land be dug with drainage ditches and built with a short dam to surround it. The soil from the drainage ditches will be directly used to build dams on the side. The drainage ditches will be outside, with a width of 2 to 4 meters. The depth is 1 to 2 meters, and all are connected to nearby rivers. The width and depth of the drainage ditch that intercepts and diverts the original river can be appropriately increased.
These projects look simple, but overall they require a lot of earthwork and will not be completed until next summer.
(End of this chapter)