Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Before leaving, Orville left some blacksmiths in Rome and asked them to continue making weapons and equipment. Some of the weapons and equipment in front of Ivar now came from this, but the main part came from Palfi.

The weapons factory jointly established by Orville and the other two has been continuously manufacturing various weapons and equipment. Some of them were given to Cleopatra to arm her army, and the other part that belonged to Orville was transported to Rome.

His army in Britain has armor uniformly issued by the empire, and occasionally some weapons and equipment will be transported from Rome to fill the gap, but most of the weapons and equipment are still left in Rome. Orville stored them in the manor for emergency use.

Now it's time to use them. These Vikings have become his own mercenaries to a certain extent, and they are half of his own people. Orville is almost not stingy with the combat effectiveness of his men.

Therefore, although their freedom was restricted to a certain extent, the Vikings had no objection - Orville sent armor and weapons and provided good wine and meat. It would be too much if they didn't know how to appreciate it. They had fought with the Romans and knew when they shouldn't push their luck.

After ensuring that the barbarians would not cause him trouble, Orville left the manor and went to his hotel to conduct a surprise inspection.

——

Without notifying the other party in advance, Orville broke into his hotel with a small team of guards and asked to check the turnover and warehouse conditions of the day. The feedback he received was pretty good.

The person he chose to stay in Rome to look after the house was Nicanor, a comrade-in-arms who had participated in the Palphic War with him, and the person who introduced Stilicho to Orville. Although his management ability was not outstanding, he had good character and was serious and responsible, and he had always done his job well.

There was no big problem in this surprise inspection. It was just that a few people were found to be lazy and a few guys were not clean and took some small things. This is a normal situation for a hotel. Orville was in a good mood and didn't even pursue their faults. He just scolded them casually. Then he sat at his desk and started to sort out his property.

As mentioned earlier, the situation in Greece has been not peaceful recently, and the number of Romans going there to study has also decreased. However, overall, the scale can still be maintained. Orville did not open a new hotel, nor did he cut his own industry. The current scale has basically reached the top. If he wants to expand further, he will have to expand in Egypt and Syria.

He shifted the focus of his career to the transportation industry. He has been purchasing new transport ships sporadically. So far, the number of ships he has is close to 200, and the scale has been growing at a considerable rate recently. It's not too much, but not too little. After a while, he should be able to be considered influential.

In addition, he also has an arsenal in Palfi, some scattered land in the mainland, and about 200,000 dinars of silver coins reserved for emergencies. Excluding the private and public industries in the British province, this is all his property.

Among the people in the Senate, this is a relatively good level. Of course, it is still not comparable to those wealthy people, but after all, he has accumulated these wealth quickly in a few years, which can be called "promising in the future".

Now, he is ready to expand his industry.

——

A few days later, Orville sat opposite several people in the office of the hotel, chatting with them calmly, but the people opposite him were obviously a little nervous, and they either stumbled or spoke very quickly and were a little slurred.

After Orville finished speaking, one of them interrupted and said, "Excuse me, Your Highness, the price of 200,000 dinars you offered us is too low. It is not realistic to acquire any of us individually, not to mention that you want to acquire all five of our bookmaking workshops at once. Although the scale of our five workshops is not the largest in Rome, they are also ranked among the best.

After discussion, we think we can give Your Highness a friendly price, how about 1.5 million dinars? We also admire your honor and sincerely want to cooperate with you."

The reason why these people are nervous is that they think Orville wants to use his power to force them to acquire their industries at a low price, but it is not easy to directly contradict the royal family, so they can only worry.

Orville refused: "I can only offer a price of 200,000 dinars, because I only have this much now," he waved his hand to stop these people from continuing to talk, "but I can show you something that you will definitely be interested in."

He asked the servants to bring a stack of yellowed papers and distribute them to the merchants around them, asking them to take a closer look.

"In the past, books were made using either parchment or papyrus, or even stone tablets. The cost of either method was very high. I have figured out a new papermaking method that can reduce the cost of paper by several times. I can provide you with this paper at a very low price, which can barely be considered as my technology investment.

You five companies will merge into one, and then I can give you 30% of the basic profit share, and we can talk about it later. After the merger, you will have both the advantages of size and cheap materials, and you will soon be the number one in Rome. I can guarantee that you will definitely make more money by then."

When he first arrived in Rome, he was thinking about making paper, but at that time, first, he couldn't accept such a new technology, and second, he hadn't made any usable paper. When he was working in Britain, he didn't forget about this matter, and he kept asking people to try it slowly.

Before Orville traveled through time, he was an ordinary modern person, with a slightly wider range of knowledge at most. He didn't know how paper was made, so he could only give a rough idea so that the craftsmen had a general idea of ​​the process in their heads.

Select and cut bark and other materials, soak them, and then steam them in a pot, dry them after steaming, and soak them again after drying. This process continues several times. Then remove impurities manually by boiling or trampling, and then beat the raw materials into cakes, and then cut the cakes into pieces, and then enter the pounding, pulping, scooping paper, pressing paper, and drying paper.

From the perspective of an ordinary person, he already knows it in detail, but it is this relatively detailed process that the craftsmen tried intermittently for more than half a year before they came up with the finished product.