Chapter 270: Dispute Emerges
Olive has bought the daily necessities and is decorating them with Therma.
Frederick looked at the newly bought things with some pride.
August is the hottest period in Wanjing City. The temperature at noon exceeds 30 Webster degrees and at least 22 Webster degrees at night. The bedding on the bed is only a sheet and a cloth blanket.
There are many mosquitoes here. The doors and windows of the house need to be hung with breathable gauze, and mosquito coils should be burned to incense mosquitoes before going to bed.
The bedding, gauze and bath towels bought by Olive are all produced by the Wesson Cotton Textile Printing and Dyeing Factory No. 2. The tableware is also made of slime glue and the tableware is exported from Wesson. The bucket and washbasin are no exception. , even the table knives and forks are stamped products there.
After they finished setting up, Therma took over the work of cooking dinner, and Frederick called Olives over to ask how these things were selling here.
Olive brought a chair over and sat down next to Frederick, leaning close to him as if to lean into his arms.
Frederick said helplessly: "You might as well sit on my lap."
Then Olive really sat on his lap.
This girl is small, thin, and light.
“What?” Frederick raised his brows, “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll kill you right now?”
Olive blushed and said, “As long as the master takes me to Weissen State Just do whatever you want."
Frederick laughed, pinched her face and said, "Oh, you really want to go to Wesson?"
Olive nodded desperately, put her arms around Frederick's neck and said: "You guys in Weisen State can earn two or three gold coins a year just by doing some work of handing out leaflets, and you can eat for just 10 copper coins." Isn’t it better to be full of fried chicken than not even able to eat beans here? ”
"Just take me there. I will do whatever you want me to do, okay."
As she spoke, she rubbed her face against Frederick's chest.
Frederick was speechless and could only say to her: "I will go to the Kingdom of Kush next, and the reward I will give you will be enough for you to take a boat there to Wesen."
When Olive heard that she could finally go to Wesson, she was so happy that she hugged Frederick and kissed him.
Thelma prepared dinner soon after. The staple food was white rice, served with minced meat, gourd, and sweet radish stew. Frederick praised him repeatedly for eating it.
After dinner, the three of them took a shower and helped Therma rub off half a kilogram of mud. The whole person felt much refreshed.
Fortunately, she used to be a high-end product and there were no fleas on her head or body, otherwise she would have been in trouble again.
Frederick didn't know how to arrange Therma at this time, so while washing her hair, he asked her: "What are your plans for the future?"
Therma seemed to be stunned. After a while, she asked Frederick in disbelief: "Master, you don't want me anymore?"
Frederick scratched her scalp and said: "I never thought of letting you be my slave, buying you I’m just angry at those people’s blasphemy against heroes.”
"So you are free, you can go wherever you want."
Therma was silent for a long time, until Frederick used water to help her rinse the ash from her hair and then said in a low voice : "I want to return to my hometown and avenge my father's reputation!"
Frederick trembled a little when he saw her fists clenched tightly.
After she relaxed, Frederick asked Olive to fumigate mosquitoes in the bedroom. They were the only two in the small bathroom, and Frederick closed the door and locked it.
“Remember what I said.” Frederick put his mouth to Therma’s ear and whispered, “The raw materials for the fire powder used by the Guards are charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter, and the proportion is... ...The power can be increased by making it into particles, and the method is..." The emergence and diffusion of gunpowder is the general trend, and it does not pose a great threat to Frederick, who is studying collodion, so he might as well speed up the diffusion and muddy the water.
Therma was frightened. In the Ghazi Empire, the method of making fire powder has always been a top secret. She once curiously asked her father, but she was locked in a room and starved for three days and three nights. All the slaves were replaced with new ones, and all the original ones were hanged for espionage.
"You...how did you know?" Therma asked Frederick tremblingly, for fear that he would say that his father told him.
Frederick pinched her face gently, and while helping her dry her long hair, he replied with a smile: "What's so difficult about this? We already did it many years ago. It’s just that I didn’t use it much because I had a better one. I used it as a toy.”
Therma had mixed feelings in her heart. On the one hand, she was relieved that her father had not leaked the secret, and on the other hand, it was extremely important to her father. Things are nothing to others, and I don’t know what to say for a while.
"Thank you." She turned around and hugged Frederick.
The night has passed, and the book will not go into details.
At dawn the next day, Frederick had already gotten up and was filling the water tank with a water pump on the roof of the building.
The weather is too hot now and we consume a lot of water. I have to take a cold shower every morning and evening, and splash water on the roof and room at noon to cool down.
Not long after, Olive, who had overslept, hurriedly went out to buy vegetables. There was no refrigerator here, and the vegetables were okay. The fresh meats were not kept for a long time, and they were only slaughtered and sold in the early morning and afternoon.
Frederick also took advantage of the weather before it got hot to go out for a walk and visit the market here.
There is a market near my residence, which is not only for maritime merchants, but also for local residents.
The products sold here are all commodities used in daily life, from firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, to cloth, needlework, tableware, stationery, paper, and there are also several tailor shops.
Wearing clothes from the north, Frederick was getting hot on the back of his neck from the sun, so he decided to buy a local coat.
He passed by a few and looked at one, and thought one was good, so he went in.
The boss was very enthusiastic. After agreeing on the style and price, he started taking measurements.
At this time, people were suddenly standing outside the tailor shop. There were men and women, old and young. They were all wearing shabby clothes, their faces were covered with dust, and everyone was holding one or two rolls in their arms. Bu looked at the boss helplessly.
Frederick asked the boss curiously: "Who are they?"
"Cloth sellers." The boss said disdainfully, "They are all homespun cloths woven at home, and they are thick. It’s thin and thin, but it’s not as light, dense, and cheaper as Wesen cloth.”
“Looking like you’re from the north, Wesen cloth should know about it. I heard that it’s a cloth woven with magic. . Tsk, that kind of cloth could only be used by emperors. I heard that beggars were better dressed than emperors there.”
"Nowadays, those who have some money in the city wear clothes made of Wesen cloth. Only those who farm and move things wear homespun clothes, which are durable."
After hearing this, Frederick just said softly He said "So that's how it is" and thought that the dispute between "homespun cloth" and "foreign cloth" also appeared in the port city.
The dispute between homespun cloth and woven cloth is actually a microcosm of the dispute between agricultural society and industrial society. In the Ghazi Empire, homespun cloth still has a huge underlying market in a short period of time. In places far away from the port, due to transportation The price of cost-woven fabrics did not form an absolute advantage, and the cloth production capacity of Wesson State was limited. The cloth conflict could not shake the entire empire, but it was enough to cause some turmoil around the port.
This kind of conflict is more intense in the areas near Wessen. In some places, "cloth burning movements" have occurred. Even within the Rhine League, some places have imposed high levies on imported Wessen cloth out of local protectionism. amount of tariffs.
But the wheel of history is ruthless, and advanced productive forces will always crush backward productive forces.
(End of this chapter)