Chapter 180 Fruit Wine Business

After the reorganization of the army, Richard came to He'an Primary School. After a year of study, the older children have mastered basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division arithmetic and the writing of thousands of words.

These children, who are fifteen or sixteen years old and about to become adults, will graduate next spring.

Compared with the playful children of eight or nine years old, these older children have experienced hardships and know the value of knowledge. It is not easy for their families to send them to study, so they study very hard and basically complete the three-year basic studies in one year.

After mastering the elementary knowledge, Richard arranged all thirteen graduates in the army headquarters. This group of people is the first batch of staff trained by Richard.

Those who are strong and able to practice breathing methods all began to practice breathing methods and were trained as military staff. Those with less talent can also serve as the most basic logistics personnel because they have mastered superficial mathematical knowledge.

When he has free time, Richard will also teach them drawing knowledge and assign them some drawing tasks, requiring them to mark contour lines.

After this group of people are trained, Richard will be able to perfect the establishment of the staff system, establish logistics, combat and other subjects, and form a complete and efficient command agency.

Bonova, Connie, and Alice, three children with magical talents, also recognized the text on the meditation method, completed the preliminary meditation method training, and became the lowest magic apprentices.

These three children have low magical talents. Unless they make significant contributions to magic research, Richard will not invest magic resources in them.

The three children learn knowledge at the Riverbank Primary School while interning at the Territory Hospital.

When they learn the spell to treat minor injuries, they can sign a contract with the Territory Hospital and become formal staff of the hospital.

Anne has a good magical talent. In one year, she has been promoted to a medium magic apprentice. She has learned two zero-ring magics and can help Sofia do some simple magic experiments.

It was October, and the first snow fell in the Harland Territory.

Every year when it snows, Richard is very busy, for fear that there will be omissions in his work and the new slaves will be frozen to death.

The six thousand slaves captured this year were basically settled by Richard on both sides of the Harland Valley.

The orcs built a military station at the northern entrance of the Harland Valley, with ready-made buildings. The noble coalition of the Geda Province also stationed here for several months and strengthened the fortifications.

The wall inside the military station was relatively simple, with thick wood coated with mud on the outside and rammed earth walls inside. There were trenches outside the walls, and moats were dug to introduce water sources.

The three-way intersection where the military station is located is a strategic point.

Dividing this place to Richard actually increased the burden on the Harland family.

After the reorganization of the army, Richard sent the third infantry battalion to station here, and six thousand contract slaves were responsible for reclaiming farmland suitable for cultivation in the valley.

There are a large number of wild orchards on the hillsides on both sides of the Harland Valley.

Because this place is the key point for the orcs to station troops, it has not been developed.

Now this territory has been divided to the Harland family, and Richard has built a castle at the entrance of the valley and stationed troops.

The large tracts of wild fruit trees on both sides have development value.

The picked fruits can not only be sold for money, but also made into candied fruit with brown sugar.

In addition, Richard also requested to build a winery in the valley to use the fruit resources on the mountain to brew fruit wine and enrich the types of wines of the Harland family.

The brewing of fruit wine is not very complicated. The winery has trained seven or eight qualified winemakers in the past few years. After a little exploration, they have developed fourteen fruit wine recipes.

Because the packaging of fruit wine is more sophisticated, glass bottles produced in the territory are used.

The price of fruit wine produced in the Harland territory is five times more expensive than that of white wine. One silver coin can buy four bottles of fruit wine.

Fruit wine is not sold in small quantities. When purchased, an exquisite portable wooden box is also given. The packaging is higher-end than the wine on the market.

The taste of fruit wine is sweet and the degree is not high. The cost is actually slightly higher than that of white wine.

This kind of wine is mainly aimed at the mid-to-high-end market.

Noble ladies and young ladies often hold banquets. If the fruit wine of the Harland territory can become the wine for the nobles' banquets, it is estimated that a lot of money can be made.

If the market cannot be opened up among the nobles, even if the price is reduced, it is estimated that no money can be made based on the current consumption level of Harland Territory.

Richard sent the brewed fruit wine to Black River Fort.

In recent years, Mrs. Aura likes to hold various banquets and spends a lot of money every year.

The biggest expense of holding a banquet is the consumption of alcoholic beverages. The ladies are not used to drinking white wine, which is too strong. Mrs. Aura spends hundreds of gold coins every year to buy red wine from the south.

Using the fruit wine produced in the territory can save a lot of money.

Although Mrs. Aura thinks that red wine is more upscale for banquets, drinking red wine will make her feel noble.

However, it is difficult for her to refuse Richard's request, and the packaging of the fruit wine is good, so she used it several times at the banquet. Unexpectedly, it won unanimous praise from the noble ladies.

Because the price of fruit wine is only half of that of high-end red wine, the nobles of Black River County are also willing to save some.

As the sales of fruit wine are getting better and better, in the northern region, the red wine from the south has been completely squeezed out of the market.

After all, the three earls of the southeast are too far away from the northern border and do not have much influence in the north. They simply couldn't compete with the Harland family, which was rooted in the northern border.

They had no choice but to give up the northern border market and focus their efforts on the capital.

Richard had also looked for wine merchants in the capital, but he couldn't get into the market in the capital. The third earl was almost blatantly using violence to monopolize the market.

The red wine business can bring tens of thousands of gold coins to the three earls every year. If anyone dares to cut off their financial resources, they dare to kill people and exterminate their clan.

Now the wine of the Harland family has monopolized the market of the three provinces in the northern border. Richard only wants half of the income from the sales of wine in the territories of Duke Jonathan and Duke Edward, and the rest is all for the two dukes.

Although there was a war this year, the wine business has grown slightly, with a net profit of 13,000 gold coins.

However, because the market in other regions cannot be opened, the profit of the wine business is about to be saturated.

Richard estimated that if another two or three thousand gold coins were added, it would almost reach the top.

Richard walked on the snow and came to the Harland Valley for inspection. He found that most of the slaves who joined the territory this year lived in simple wooden houses.

Because the brick kiln factory is 50 kilometers away from the Harland Valley, there is no water transportation at such a long distance, and not many bricks can be transported at all.

Relying on the carriage to pull a little, it is all used to build a military station.

Without bricks, only wooden houses can be built.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of wood resources nearby, so not many people froze to death.

Because this batch of slaves was in the first year of developing the territory, the conditions were not very good, and the old and weak ones could not survive. Richard also saw several frozen children being eaten by wild wolves on the roadside, which looked very pitiful.