Chapter 195 The exploiters of Unclas

The ordinary farmers of the Onkras tribe rushed to Gould's home with their meager savings, eager to buy some high-quality leather.

Even though they were tribesmen, Gould still priced the deerskin at six silver coins.

Clutching the few silver coins in their hands, the farmers gritted their teeth, most of them buying one.

With just one piece of clothing, a farmer can make enough leather jackets for two people. Although farmers usually wear linen clothes, in order to cope with the severe cold in winter, they need thick reindeer leather, because although this kind of leather is expensive, it has much better cold resistance than cowhide.

Gould only sold thirty deerskins for a mere gross profit of 180 silver coins. He would have been very happy with such an income.

Now his mentality has changed dramatically, and he no longer attaches special importance to such a small income.

Those soaps, especially those mixed with sulfur, the net profit from this one piece alone is equivalent to selling six deer skins!

In addition to deerskin, Gould also sold some rusty iron tools that Gould bought cheaply in Fort Ross to farmers in Oncras. For example, he sold some axes with rusty and broken wooden handles for one or two silver coins. It seems that what the farmers get is just a pile of scrap metal, but this is not the case!

Many farmers know how to build small stoves with mud and then burn scrap iron red. They can be painstakingly forged by themselves, and after final polishing, they become either hoes for digging the ground or axes for felling wood.

The gain from this transaction is naturally another small amount of money, but this small amount of money is extraordinary! The farmers received benefits, and many people felt that Gould was an outright profiteer. Only in this matter did Gould become a good leader.

Similarly, Gould also proposed to spend money to redeem the surplus grain in the hands of farmers. As for the price, just as Gould told the big leader Ungreave, the purchase price is 20% higher than the market price.

The farmers are interested, so that when the wheat harvest comes in August, they can hand over the wheat. Wouldn’t it be a huge profit to give Gould? !

Gould did not have such high expectations for this matter. The time coincided with the beginning of May, and the farmers' lives depended on the surplus grain in their hands. He felt that he could not get food from farmers immediately.

The geography of the Svealand Plain makes it impossible to grow winter wheat here. By May, farmers' own grain surplus stocks were not very much. By June, many farmers had to start cutting back on food and clothing, or the whole family went fishing in nearby rivers and lakes to satisfy their hunger.

The locals do not suffer from spring famine, they suffer from summer famine.

Fortunately, summer in Svealand is the warmest time of the year. At this time, the water and grass are abundant, and it is also a good time for them to catch big fish.

The population of Onkras is only two to three thousand, which is basically a large village in the oriental sense.

The fact is that Angklas is indeed a big village, but this village controlsThe farmland is quite large. In the era of rough farming, farmers everywhere, whether in Novgorod or Svealan, sown on a large scale, using a larger farmland area to earn as much food as possible under extremely low yields per mu.

The oats in the farmland are green and green, and a large number of farmers and their families went to their farmland to pull out weeds. After that, I look forward to the dew falling from the sky to nourish these nurseries.

Farmers are all dreaming about selling their excess wheat at a good price during the autumn harvest. The tenant farmers hope that after paying a hefty rent, they will still have enough money from selling grain to buy some useful production tools to further improve their lives. Even redeeming the land he had sold.

However, a purely man-made disaster suddenly struck.

It was just May, and the big leader Angreev gathered all the landowners in the tribe together and issued a decree to them.

"Each of you must hand over 10,000 pounds of grain to me within three days. I will purchase it at the price of ten pounds and one silver coin!"

Ang Grif is the leader of the tribe! He has the authority to issue orders.

Many of the landowners who were summoned were businessmen who had discussed matters with Gould before.

Everyone realized that Ungreave just wanted to suck a pot of blood from the people of the tribe, so what? You need to follow orders yourself.

Because one pound of silver coins buys ten pounds of oats or rye, which is the market price acceptable to everyone in the Svealand area. This market price has been like this for a long time. Although there are fluctuations, the fluctuations will never be the same. severe. And in July, on the eve of the wheat harvest, the market price will rise slightly. After surviving the summer famine and harvesting new wheat, food prices plummeted!

Ungrieve used his power to seize the surplus grain from the landlords. He did not think about stocking up and selling it to Gould with a smile after the market price rose.

Obviously this trick did not work on the profiteer.

Ungrieve didn’t want to be too slow, he just wanted to get a lot of wheat immediately, even if he spent all the silver coins in his bank to buy wheat! Because this guy Gould always keeps his promises when faced with white silver coins!

Ungreave has the ability to come up with 10,000 silver coins, but he is not worried about whether the landowners can each come up with 10,000 pounds of surplus grain.

So, the landlord has a surplus of food? !

Bah! The landlord's family also has no surplus food.

The landowners of Onkras, while they collect rent from tenant farmers, they will also take their whole families to farm. Simply as a vampiric exploiter? With the current agricultural production capacity, it is not particularly realistic.

The landlords grow some of their own grain, collect rent in kind from the wheat, and then row their own boats to do business during the off-season to maintain their wealth, which is greater than that of ordinary people.

The big leader issued an order to forcefully buy wheat. What else could the landlords do?What to do.

They secretly cursed the big leader for his wealth obsession. Afterwards, they took their own people to the tenant farmer's house and ordered them to hand over their surplus grain.

For this matter, it is definitely not possible to rob openly.

The landlords were businessmen, and they would not do business at a loss, so they took out money below the market price and ordered the tenant farmers to hand over their surplus grain.

For a time, because of Ungreave’s decision, the entire tribe was in a state of uproar!

A large number of farmers looked sad and reluctantly took out their own surplus grain, holding the little money donated by the landlord in their other hand. Some people were unwilling to hand over food, so they were beaten up by thugs raised by the landlord.

Facing this situation, the homesteaders who have not gone bankrupt can't help but worry about their future. As for the tenant farmers who had lost a large amount of surplus grain, the only thing they could do was to go to the homesteaders and exchange their silver for some grain at a high price.

The accumulation of capital is full of blood and tears. In order to obtain benefits, Ungreave would rather abuse his own people.

The same is true for the homesteaders. Since they can sell the small surplus grain to the tenant farmers who have lost most of their rations at a high price, why not do so?

Life is so cruel. The lower-class residents of Onkras are struggling hard, while the middle-class and upper-class people are trying every possible means for their own interests.

Who is the biggest winner?

It is Gould, this big businessman who has been enjoying himself for a while after returning to his hometown! This ball of suet!

Let’s talk about the agricultural situation in Onkras.

The population of this tribe is more than 2,000, of which there are 400 prime-age men. These people are basically farmers. On average, each farmer independently takes care of an area of ​​approximately 20 acres in the east. land. They just used iron hoes to turn over the soil, and then scattered seeds at will. They didn't even have time to build an irrigation system, even though there were many streams and lakes near Onkras. Therefore, it is not particularly difficult for a farmer to take care of 1.3 hectares of farmland.

Compared to Novgorod, because all employees in Svealan use iron farm tools and the climate on the Baltic coast is milder, rough planting can still achieve a yield of one hundred pounds of oats per mu.

With no deep plowing, no chemical fertilizers, or even an irrigation system, the yield per mu can only be this way.

A strong farmer eats a pound of wheat every day. A family of four or five people consumes about three pounds of wheat every day. And in terms of wheat consumption, farmers in the Svealan region are similar to farmers in Novgorod.

In the end, the entire tribe consumed about 300 tons of oats every year.

The food output of the entire tribe is around 800 tons all year round. Occasionally, in extremely beautiful and fertile years, the food output can be as high as 1,000 tons! But of the 800 tons, 160 tons are used for growing grain. The food available to the entire tribe always barely exceeds 600 tons.

It seems that farmers except food rations,There is still plenty of food equivalent to rations.

Grain cannot be calculated like this.

Homeowner farmers will sell their grain during the harvest season in exchange for other daily necessities. Three hundred tons of wheat is equivalent to 760,000 pounds.

If all the wheat is sold, the tribe can theoretically earn at least 70,000 silver coins.

Most of this money flowed into the pockets of landowners, wealthy businessmen and the big leader Angreev. A dozen large households share this cake with hundreds of farmer families. The large households eat the largest cake. The money they earn from selling grains only reaches four to five thousand silver coins on average per large household.

The most ordinary farmer may only spend forty silver coins on food every year. Children and women consume much less.

Only when wealthy households have large amounts of money do they engage in special pleasures.

The agriculture in Onkras is like this. The situation in the entire Svealand region, even for the richest Melalen tribe, is similar.

However, the Danes further south have a better geographical environment and their food production capacity is much superior to that of the Svealand Plains controlled by the Siwea Tribe Alliance.

The Vikings needed to plunder hard currencies such as gold and silver from the sea to enrich their wealth, but the most important material that could support their expedition was food.

On May 10th in the Julian calendar, Gould had been staying at home for some time.

Others are at home and fully aware of the troublesome things that happened in the tribe during this period.

And everything that is happening is exactly what he expected.

"You say I am greedy for money, but the result is that you are the same. Ungreave, do you think you care about your own people? No! You and I are actually the same." Gould said to Unger Reeve did not comment on his behavior. Since they were all desperately searching for surplus grain, it was time for him to count his money and accept this batch of wheat.

In three days, the big merchants did not plunder 10,000 pounds of wheat as ordered.

Although the task was not completed and Ungreave was filled with sacks and mountains of wheat, he did not mean to blame him.

More than a dozen wealthy merchants plundered 80,000 pounds of last year’s oats within the tribe, but only paid the farmers a total of 6,000 silver coins.

The wheat was first transported to the mansion of the big leader in Angreve, and the big families received as many as 8,000 silver coins of their own.

In any case, although the big families are dissatisfied with the fact that they are the villains who are ordered to abuse the tribesmen, since the big leader has spoken and the task falls on them, they cannot lose anything.

The big players earned a total of two thousand silver coins.

It’s okay now. At noon on May 10th, Ungreave organized some people, pulled a two-wheeled cart, and rushed to Gould’s house with a large number of sacks filled with grain. .

The outdoors suddenly became noisy.

I drank a lot of mead at noon, lay on a bearskin mat, and accepted the two brieGould, who swallowed women, pinched their feet and served them, really couldn't stand the noise outside.

By chance, a mercenary hurried into Gould's bedroom.

"Sir! A group of people are coming outside."

"I understand." Gould was a little impatient, "I don't want to do business today, let those farmers go away ."

"No, sir. It's the big boss. He's coming with a lot of goods."

" Goods?" Gould's slightly drunk head started to stir. He immediately asked: "What kind of goods is it?"

The mercenary speculated: "Maybe it is a pile of wheat. Sir, you know, in the tribe these days..."

"Anna Verla. Get my clothes and dress me."

Gould changed into his loose and gorgeous clothes. In order to show his generosity, Today he is really wearing a ferret coat. A snow fox fur hat with beautiful feathers was placed on the head, and a cowhide bag with a gold ring was tied firmly. He also slightly stroked his beard with a wooden comb and ordered the two maids to follow him.

The thick wooden door was opened, and Ungreave was in high spirits this time when he came to Gould's residence again.

For 80,000 pounds of wheat, he had paid the wealthy businessmen one hundred pounds of silver coins in advance.

He came today to make a fortune with Gould. To this end, Ungreave even put his own large scale on a trolley and brought it with him.

Ungreave is dressed in gorgeous clothes, but he is still not as richly dressed as Gould. Because Gould's family members also came out of their residence, and many maids and mercenaries came to watch.

Living in this mansion surrounded by wooden walls, even the maids, their clothes are simple yet gorgeous.

The two distinguished people met, and after some polite greetings, Ungreave enthusiastically introduced his wheat.

"Look, here are 80,000 pounds of wheat. Now, where's your promise?"

Gould looked at the large number of sacks on the carts, and then stared at Ang Grif's eyes asked knowingly: "It's all wheat? Where did you get the wheat?"

"This? Just leave it alone."

"Okay, I I'll buy it at the agreed price. That's twelve silver coins for one hundred pounds of wheat." "Yes," Angreev smiled and nodded.

"Before that, I have to inspect the goods first."

"Oh? You don't believe me?"

"No! I believe you, Great leader. This is a rule. I have to inspect the goods." After that, Gould shook his neck and ordered: "Jevro, take the brothers to have a look."

Nordic. There are tools like "food spies", but mercenaries like Yevro have their own methods.

Ten mercenaries drew out their swords. The quality of their iron swords was far inferior to that of steel swords, but the swords had bleeding slots. They poked their swords into the sacks and pulled them out, so that the two bleeding troughs were filled with food.

Jevro turned back hurriedly: "Sir, it's all food, no problem."

Gould was relieved and breathed a sigh of relief.

"So you feel relieved?" Ungreave asked.

"Don't worry! We like your grain, let's start weighing it now."

Gould saw that the other party even brought a scale, so it didn't matter, because he didn't have any intention. On the weighing scale, there is a shortcoming.

After weighing, all the wheat, including the sacks, weighed 82,000 pounds.

Faced with this data, Gould shrugged: "It stands to reason that your sack also has weight, so I will suffer a loss here! It should be more than 9,800 silver coins, I will collect it for you Integer, ten thousand silver coins!”

“Hey! This is good.” Upon hearing the price, Angreev’s face blossomed.

All the grain was quickly moved into his own warehouse, and Gould immediately took one hundred pounds of silver coins from his own bank to pay for the goods.

The tribal farmers who sold a small amount of surplus grain to the tenant farmers made a small profit, the tribe's merchants also made a fortune, and the leader Ungreave made two thousand silver coins! And what about Gould? With Rurik as a big seller, Gould is the biggest winner.