Struggle in the Steam Age

"Of course, I know this kind of invitation is very rude." Seeing Lawrence just staring at herself with a polite smile on his face, Aunt Mia did not put on any elder posture, but put her own He said with a very low posture, "But now the problems we have encountered have threatened the survival of the family, and you are probably our last hope."

"Please don't say that. Although I have made some achievements in agriculture, I still have a lot of shortcomings compared with those masters." Sure enough, every nobleman is not a fuel-efficient lamp. But Lawrence would not be fooled by these simple flattery to take on those tasks for himself. "So if you have anything to say, please tell me first. I can only say that I will try my best to help you."

Lawrence would not be moved by this kind of words. He felt that the other party's reason for looking for him must not only be the one that was said, but also had a high probability to be related to his good relationship with those churches. But now, he felt that he could hear what the other party wanted from him.

"Well, the specific situation is as follows." Seeing that Lawrence was not stunned by the ecstasy soup, Mr. Viscount, who is the family, quickly sat up straight in his seat and explained to Lawrence earnestly. He also realized that Lawrence could not be treated as an ordinary young man, so he simply put away his previous thoughts and just discussed the matter.

In fact, if Lawrence was a mage, the Viscount probably wouldn't dare to make such a test. After all, as long as an accomplished mage is intellectually able to crush ordinary people and even other professional extraordinary people, it is a pity that Lawrence is a warlock who depends on his appearance, so he was subconsciously regarded by Viscount Doropia as the one he usually sees. Those dudes who talk a lot but have no real talent.

However, just when Lawrence went around with them and refused to answer, Viscount Doropia realized that although the man in front of him was younger than his son, as a person who could surpass several previous lords The island that had to be given up successfully gained a foothold, and at the same time led the island to develop better and better. The young man in front of him is definitely not as innocent as he looks.

Therefore, Mr. Viscount quickly changed his original plan. They honestly told the reason why they invited Lawrence to visit their home this time. As he narrated, Lawrence's brows became more and more frowned, because the issues he narrated were really tricky.

According to Mr. Viscount, they were one of the first nobles who followed Emperor Constantine XI to this new continent, so they also obtained a large amount of land. Taking advantage of this advantage, they slowly managed their own farm. He even became one of the richest nobles in this country more than two hundred years ago.

But then it was very unfortunate that the patriarch of the family did not know why several generations of inexplicable extinction led to multiple branches competing for the position of the head of the family. At the same time, the weather was not very good during that time, making the family as The farms that are the backbone of the economy have experienced large-scale production reductions or even no harvests.

Under internal and external troubles, the whole family soon fell into decline, and the original farms began to be sold to other people. Until now, Mr. Viscount's grandfather settled the family's internal problems decades ago and became the head of the family. Only by relying on the remaining manor and the surviving relationship did he slowly clean up the mess and revive the family a little bit.

It's a pity that it is very difficult to get back many things after they are lost. Those forces that became powerful by devouring the power of the Viscount Doropia's family will never allow them to come back. So after some struggles, they wisely chose to give up their original food planting, which brought their development back on track successfully.

You know, the Viscount Doropia family was the top three food suppliers of the empire back then. Those who want to make this decision can also be regarded as outstanding people. However, considering that the family is only good at farming, they finally chose to plant cotton as the way out of the family, because according to their previous analysis, people need to wear clothes besides eating. So in order to be safe, I naturally chose to grow cotton.

After all, if one wants to engage in the traditional business of raising sheep and shearing sheep in this era, there are already many families in the entire empire, including the royal family and several powerful dukes. They certainly don't welcome newcomers into the field to get a piece of the action. The Viscount Doropia back then was quite self-aware and knew that he could not get involved in these matters.

Not to mention that the manors regained by the Viscount Doropia family after the disaster were not small, but the problem is that most of them are no longer the fertile land in the past, but only some by the river. Just sandy land with plenty of water. This kind of land is not suitable for raising sheep at all.

As for the other batch of land is hilly, it is indeed possible to plant mulberry trees and raise silkworms. But the problem is that something like silk is still a little extravagant, and it is not a material used in ordinary people's daily clothing. Moreover, due to various objective reasons, the New World is not as good as Aurora in terms of silk production, and even inferior to the second-class Yingzhou products. And things like luxury goods are standard, and if they can't be top-notch, it's meaningless.

For example, the New World can now produce some silk, but because of quality problems, there is no way to sell it as a luxury. On the other hand, the manufacturing cost of local silk could not be reduced at all, so it was impossible for merchants who produced silk to popularize this kind of fabric as a common textile material to ordinary people.

Fortunately, with the development of gunpowder weapons, people found that among the textiles that can be used for the outermost layer of various propellant and explosive packages, silk is actually the best, which successfully found a very good market for silk in the New World. But this also correspondingly turned silk into a military product.

Although the Doropia Viscount family has the habit of joining the army as a traditional nobleman, but because they have been paying attention to the operation of the family farm before, their connections in the military have been kept at the minimum that a traditional Viscount family should have. Naturally, it is impossible to intervene in this military-specific business.

So after repeated weighing, they can only choose cotton as the type of plant they grow. The result may be due to the favor of the goddess of fate, or it may be due to the bottoming out because of the bad luck before. The Industrial Revolution started just as they started steadily growing cotton, which became an extremely important industrial raw material.

So taking advantage of this upsurge, several generations of Doropia Viscounts transformed the wasteland little by little, and expanded the irrigated area to increase cotton planting through the construction of water conservancy projects. In addition, they also opened several textile factories to further process raw materials in order to obtain more wealth.

But this process of wealth accumulation has been interrupted suddenly since last year, because a large number of pests appeared in their cotton fields. To make matters worse, although they tried to stop the pests with a series of measures, including burning cotton fields, they still failed to stop the spread of the pests.

"This large-scale pest pest is likely to have supernatural power." Aunt Mia said, "Because we have adopted various methods of pest control, including the pesticide you invented not long ago. Although various methods can quickly kill the pests on cotton, the problem is that every time they are completely wiped out, there will always be new insects coming out of nowhere."

"Leaving aside the extraordinary power, I would like to ask if those pests and diseases were really wiped out at that time?" Lawrence asked, because of the cognition of this age, the principles of some pests and diseases are not well understood by everyone, so it is probably just them I feel that cleaning up the pests and diseases on this land does not mean that it is really cleaned up.

"It should be—really wiped out." Aunt Mia said uncertainly. "At least that's what the farm workers say, and that's what some of our experts have checked."

"But the strange thing is that the pests broke out again in many places later, which was completely beyond our expectations. That's why we sent someone to invite you, because you are a professional in this field and have more knowledge, maybe He can give us some different suggestions.”