Struggle in the Steam Age

And while Lawrence was chatting with the old shaman, it was time for lunch. Under the invitation of several shaman apprentices, Lawrence and the others stayed in the big tent and enjoyed a meal including dairy products, mushrooms, chicken, and some fresh vegetables and grains. Obviously, based on the habits of the old shaman, this should also be a common diet in this area.

Unlike the eating habits of people engaged in animal husbandry that everyone imagines, a piece of land used for animal husbandry can support far less people than for planting. At least for those who raise cattle and sheep, the food they usually get from cattle and sheep is mainly the dairy products they produce rather than meat.

More importantly, because of the fragility of the mountain environment, the soil in this area is not very thick. If you want to plant something, it is easy to cause irreversible soil erosion. Under such circumstances, if you want to develop planting here, it is easy to cause rocky desertification in this area, which is obviously not a good idea.

Fortunately, this meadow is part of the entire island economy, so various materials that cannot be produced locally, such as those grains and meat, can be transported to these alpine meadows in a timely manner through river and cableway transportation. This avoids destructive exploitation of local resources.

In addition, the ratmen and tauren found a lot of land in the surrounding mountains that could be used for small-scale cultivation. In addition to being able to grow medicinal fungi and herbs, there is also a lot of open space for planting some edible vegetables and fungi to supplement the lack of food in this grassland.

After lunch, Lawrence and the others bid farewell to the old shaman and began to wander around the town. This small town is very simple because it has just been completed. For example, in terms of defense, there is only a circle of civil walls and bastions on the outside, and a circle of water-filled moats on the outside.

The various buildings in the town are similarly crude. Except for the church and a few core buildings like warehouses or town government, which are built with rammed earth and wood, most of the buildings are temporary. Tents for temporary living, but the wells and sewage ditches used for city water supply have almost been repaired at this time.

Of course, this situation is only temporary. According to the plan, with the development of this area, a series of buildings such as waterworks and biological sewage treatment plants will be built at one time, and the current buildings in the city will gradually be replaced by permanent buildings. It's just that it will take several years to develop to that level.

After confirming that the development of this meadow was on the right track, Lawrence and Safir left the meadow and returned to New Sauer Port.

But what he didn't expect was that when he just returned to the city, he received a telegram from the commissioners stationed in the Holy Visby Empire.

This group of special commissioners was Lawrence and the others who were sent to the Holy Visby Empire to escort the batch of spoils of war. When they entered the port of the empire with the pledge, they received an invitation from the royal steward soon. After talking with the butler, they felt that they had to inform Lawrence of what they had talked to the butler before.

"The steward of the royal family suggested that instead of spending a long time thinking about using that batch of interest-free loans to purchase something, we should use this money as a reserve for currency issuance to issue the island's own currency." Read carefully After the telegram, Lawrence spoke to Nora and Safiel.

"What do you think of this suggestion? After all, according to our previous plan, the issuance of currency on the island should be carried out after several stable harvests of food, and when medicines have entered mass production from the laboratory. Only in this way can we guarantee the currency we issue There is enough economic backing for the currency. Wouldn’t it be too hasty to issue it now?”

"I don't think there's any rush in this." As soon as Lawrence finished speaking, Nora immediately expressed her attitude.

"We made that decision before because most of our wealth was converted into various fixed assets at that time, and there was not enough hard currency to be used as a reserve for currency issuance, but now this problem has been resolved."

"Yes, I think Nora is right." Safiel, who had been in charge of various trivial matters on the island before, also said at this time.

"And another point is that the things we purchased when we came to this island were enough for our use in a short period of time. Now if we use all the newly acquired large sum of money for investment, it will easily lead to some unnecessary backlog and waste.”

Putting the money there will not produce babies, so, according to the original plan, Lawrence intends to invest the money in his own property. However, considering the current development of various industries, they analyzed that only half of this wealth may be immediately invested in development, while the other half cannot be effectively used.

But for Lawrence, this is already the best investment direction, at least it is much higher than the income in the bank. After all, in this era, the National Bank not only has no interest on such large deposits, but also charges a certain amount of storage fees. And those investments of commercial banks are not insured.

But now hearing what the two ladies said, Lawrence suddenly realized that he had indeed made a very good development plan before.

But now the specific situation has changed, and it is obviously out of date to hold on to the original development plan. So he quickly changed his mind.

"You are right. Since we now have such a large amount of unexpected wealth, our current plan should indeed be changed." Lawrence nodded to the two ladies and then looked at the corner of the room "It's a bit late today, we can have a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the situation in detail."

Early the next morning, Lawrence called all his subordinates to discuss the matter. This includes the cooperative staff who are currently issuing the island's work point coupons, the priests of the Fortune Church, a group of administrative staff led by Safir, and Bayer's housekeeper who has been in charge of this aspect before.

During the meeting, Lawrence and the others prepared sufficient and detailed data to make a thorough statistics of the island's current development. It turned out that the current economic volume of the island is not very large, but the overall economic structure is very healthy. At the same time, it can be seen that it is on the eve of a kind of rapid development.

"Your Excellency, I think this is the best time to issue currency." After reading the summarized data, Butler Bayer was the first to stand up and said. "On the one hand, because the development trend of the island is very good now, so not having our own currency has hindered the development of our economy."

"On the other hand, the island's economic scale is not large now, so it is a good time to issue currency. If the economic scale is large, it may not be so simple to issue currency. Especially the work-point coupons we issued before have obtained It is recognized by most of the people on the island, so the issuance of currency can be said to be a very smooth thing.”

At this time, Steward Bayer is actually implying that Lawrence, with the speed of development on the island, will soon have major powers and even the mainland of the empire eyeing the currency issue on the island. At that time, it will be difficult to maintain a certain degree of economic independence. Much bigger than it is now. Therefore, it is very necessary to quickly issue your own currency to occupy a hole when the economic scale is not large.

"Yes, we also think that we can now issue the island's own currency." As another important person in currency issuance, the priest of the goddess of wealth also said at this time.

"Actually, the island has met all the requirements for currency issuance before. The only thing that doesn't meet is the reserve for currency issuance. Now that this requirement is also met, I think my lord will approve the island's currency issuance. "