Lord of Industrialization

The terrain of the Kingdom of Tarago is a plateau with complex terrain and few products in the middle, and rich hills and plains in the coastal areas.

In the central plateau, most of the external water vapor is intercepted by the high mountains like walls on all sides, resulting in less rainfall. Because of the complex terrain and inconvenient transportation, it has been a place that military strategists have not fought for since ancient times.

The nobles there are all nesting in their own small acres and three-point land, and they will be loyal to whoever controls the rich coastal areas.

Therefore, some people jokingly call the war in the Kingdom of Tarago a "hat brim war", whoever can knock down the surrounding hat brim, the whole hat belongs to him.

There is also an iron wall mountain range to the west of the Kingdom of Tarago that separates it from the Kingdom of Madeira, and the St. George Fortress is on the east side of the mountain range.

The Kingdom of Madeira is surrounded by the sea on three sides, mainly hilly areas, but there are no high mountains. Most of the water vapor from the ocean floats away in the air, making it barren due to lack of water. Only the eastern land irrigated by the water vapor intercepted by the iron wall mountain range is rich.

Therefore, the Kingdom of Madeira has always wanted to cross the Iron Wall Mountains and occupy the "hat brim" of the Kingdom of Tarago.

For this reason, the Kingdom of Tarago has been resisting the attack of the Kingdom of Madeira in the Iron Wall Mountains. Gradually, a warlord group headed by Archduke Suarez emerged, with a large number of veterans.

Now Archduke Suarez wants to compete for the throne of the Kingdom of Tarago, and needs to draw troops, but he cannot give up the defense line of the Iron Wall Mountains, otherwise he will be attacked from both sides.

Now that the reinforcements of the Principality of Wessen and the Osmaga Empire have arrived, Archduke Suarez can draw his core team to join the battle for the throne to defend the important fortress area.

War is not just about fighting on the battlefield with weapons, but more importantly, logistical support.

The Western Front Corps is different from traditional armies. Weapons and equipment cannot be supplied on the spot. They need to be transported from the Principality of Wessen thousands of kilometers away by sea to the city of La Cobriga, and then to the Fortress of St. George.

The road from La Cobriga to Fort St. George is about 300 kilometers and is easy to travel. Frederick thinks that after sending troops, he should first send people to guide the road to be further built into a wider gravel road, which can be used by horse-drawn carriages and cars.

But this is not enough. The Wesson Army needs a logistics base to build a vehicle and ordnance repair factory, a food factory and a hospital.

In theory, Frederick needs to be present in person for this matter, but he is still in Milan at the moment, and it will take at least three months to get here.

Frederick appointed Eugene as his plenipotentiary representative at the beginning, and Archduke Suarez appointed his eldest son Luis as the plenipotentiary envoy, and the two sides began negotiations.

Eugene was born in a powerful family in the Kingdom of Gaul and is very familiar with this kind of negotiation. Few people in the Principality of Wesson can compare with him.

He did not have a formal talk at the beginning, but went hunting with Luis in the nearby mountains, so that problems could be handled easily.

Frederick sold a batch of firearms to Archduke Suarez that were not officially equipped but were only used as technical reserves. This type of gun uses steel ball core Minié bullets. The bullets are connected front and back and installed in the cylinder on the right. The chamber is a ""-shaped iron block with a round hole. The iron block is pushed to the right in front of the cylinder and the bullet enters the round hole. When the hand is released, the spring sheet pushes the iron block and the bullet back to the chamber to complete the loading.

In battle, a skilled shooter can quickly replace the barrel after the bullets in the barrel are used up, and fire at least 30 bullets in one minute.

In the battle last year, Louis commanded two hundred guards equipped with this gun to stop several cavalry attacks of the Kingdom of Gaul with bullets like raindrops.

Now he likes this gun very much and also takes it when hunting.

He knows that the Wesson Army is equipped with better weapons, but he can't be too greedy. For now, this is enough.

A group of pheasants appeared in the bushes. Louis raised his gun and shot, and shot the fattest three in one breath.

The attendants next to him released the hounds and brought back the prey.

Eugene held a double-barreled shotgun. For him, hunting was a sport, not a battlefield, so he only used sports products, even though many places used double-barreled shotguns as military standard equipment.

Negotiations were naturally based on sky-high prices. He said casually, "Grand Duke Wesson wants a place to build a logistics base."

Louis nodded and said, "No problem. A few years ago, my father offered a reward of baronial title to anyone who could cure my mother's curse. Grand Duke Wesson can get this reward."

His mother suffered from gynecological diseases at that time, and later it was Frederick who sent allicin to cure her.

People in this era lacked a correct understanding of this type of disease and believed it was a curse from God, so it caused political passivity when fighting for the throne.

Frederick first cured Mrs. Suarez, and at first some political enemies thought it was some kind of witchcraft.

But later Frederick cured old Louis's sepsis with the same medicine, and old Louis was the boss behind these political enemies, so they all shut up.

Louis continued, "The title my father originally gave me was only a court noble, but it's not impossible to seal it."

The news that Frederick and the royal family had partnered to build a shipyard in the Kingdom of Sardinia had already come, so Archduke Suarez also had some thoughts.

Although Frederick had an affair with Archduke Suarez's daughter Penelope, Archduke Suarez and Louis did not think that this was enough to be used as a bargaining chip to achieve their goals.

And they didn't have too many chips in their hands. They could only follow the current tradition and use land to tie Frederick to themselves, otherwise they would not be able to defeat the Duke of Aranzati, who was backed by the Kingdom of Gaul, in the battle for the throne.

Eugene realized the political factors behind it and couldn't help thinking about the bottom line given by Frederick.

Now Frederick is trying to win over allies everywhere, so he is very generous.

There are mines in the Kingdom of Tarago, although not many, but they are still mines.

One of the bottom lines given by Frederick is to build a smelter around the minerals, and they can give them 40% of the shares.

In addition, some light industrial factories can be built to absorb the families of the smelter workers.

Eugene didn't know how to do business before, but he will learn a lot after being in the Principality of Wessen for a long time.

Not to mention that his friend Metzger's family is in business, and they often talk about this topic.

"I think Grand Duke Wessen can build a smelter here." Eugene's words made Louis' eyes light up, "I think I can give you all the markets in the north of the Inner Sea."

Louis was calm on the surface, but he was a little excited in his heart.

In war, whoever controls steel is closer to victory.

Moreover, steel has always been a profitable business, and can even be used as a political bargaining chip. Not to mention far away places, controlling the steel sales of the Kingdom of Tarago can gain great political benefits.

Eugene noticed that Louis's eyes had changed just now, and he knew that he had been impressed, so he stopped talking about the shares and continued, "Grand Duke Wesson should also build a metal manufacturing plant to make some parts for repairing weapons, not to mention making farm tools and the like."

"There is also a canning factory. It is indeed inconvenient to bring it from the Duchy of Wesson. It is better to build one here relying on marine resources."

Louis pretended to ask casually, "Can the sales of the canning factory be given to us?"

The central plateau area is poor, but the landlords still have some money.

It's just that the means of preserving meat these days are limited, and the landlords can only eat fresh meat when slaughtering livestock. On weekdays, they can only eat dry meat such as bacon and bacon.

The Duchy of Wesson has been selling canned food for so long, naturally someone has learned it.

For example, canned fish, shrimps and the like made of pottery and soil can let the landlords eat a bite of soft meat.

It's just that the road is difficult, and the pottery is often damaged on the road, so the price is not low.

The cans of the Principality of Wessen are made of slime hard plastic, which is strong and light, not easy to damage. In addition, the shipping cost of thousands of kilometers is not much more expensive than the pottery cans.

If this can can be produced locally, saving the shipping cost from the Principality of Wessen, it can make more money.

Eugene replied: "On the premise of ensuring that the soldiers on the front line have enough food, it is not a problem to sell the rest to you."

As long as you don't mention the shares, it doesn't matter who the sales rights are given to.

Eugene was afraid that Louis would react and had to settle the matter first, so he said seriously: "Let me make the decision. For all the factories built by Grand Duke Wessen on the territory of the Kingdom of Tarago, the sales rights in the area north of the Inland Sea will be given to you."

"We can now determine these conditions in the form of a memorandum."

Louis' eyes widened. Everyone knows that the products produced by the factories of the Principality of Wessen make money. If he monopolized the sales of these products in the Kingdom of Tarago or even the Kingdom of Lisenburg, how much money could he make.

At this time, he suddenly became alert. Why did Eugene give such generous conditions?

He soon thought that it might be because Eugene's father was the commander-in-chief of the Gaul army on the other side, and he used this method to avoid suspicion.

Everyone has their own selfishness. There are many cases of people using their boss's money to make profits for themselves during negotiations. Louis had cheated his own father before, and he was also cheated by his subordinates. As long as it does not exceed the bottom line, it will be fine.

After Louis figured this out, he began to feel embarrassed. This was too much, and the price on his side seemed not enough.

He asked cautiously: "What do you think about making La Cobriga the fief of Grand Duke Wesson?"

La Cobriga was just an ordinary fishing village before. Later, after good clay was found nearby, the pottery industry rose. The sea vessels transporting pottery promoted the development of the port, and now it has developed into a small city.

In Louis's view, although the taxes here are high, they are a world of difference compared to the smelter.

Eugene suddenly realized that he seemed to be playing too big, and soon thought of the problem.

In his view, Louis and Grand Duke Suarez are both traditional aristocrats, skilled in military and politics, but not in business.

This is because the Kingdom of Tarragona is relatively poor, and its business is far less developed than that of the Kingdom of Gaul and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The business atmosphere is not strong, which leads to the fact that the nobles rarely come into contact with big business and are short-sighted in this regard.

So Eugene began to hesitate, whether to stop while he is ahead or make a big loss.