Chapter 95 Gatharix Development Direction

"Then, work hard for me."

"We will, Your Majesty," said them enthusiastically.

"Let's take a break first before going into the main topic."

"Isn't this the main topic?" asked Mark.

"Hahaha, unfortunately, no. I won't gather all of you simply just to discuss the company reorganization structure alone. We will continue this meeting after lunch. You guys go to the dining room on the first floor. I already asked the kitchen to prepare food for you."

....

Roughly one hour and a half later,

After enjoying their extravagant lunch, his employees return to the meeting room. The king is already waiting for them. The quill in his hand is constantly moving as he is writing something on paper. Beside him is a stack of papers which was previously not there. The king isn't aware of their presence.

Not until one of them makes a noise which causes his focus disrupted.

Riz looks up and sees his employees standing at the entrance of the meeting room. They look at him awkwardly.

"Why are you guys standing there like a piece of wood? Go and take your seat."

For a few minutes, they keep glancing at each other. None of them says anything until Emily braves herself to ask a question.

Emily asks, "Are you not having your lunch, Your Majesty?"

"Nah, I am not feeling like eating too much this afternoon. Meat sandwiches will do for me now. If my stomach is full, I tend to get lazier. The documents will end up increasing day by day. Besides, my brain works better during hunger. I will fill my stomach during dinner later."

Their respect for the young king has reached a new height. While they're having a full-course meal, the king is simply content with a sandwich and quietly does his work.

After taking their seat, the king finally stops writing. He scanned their faces first before opening his mouth.

"Everyone, this meeting is about the future plan for the companies. Let's start with the Paper and Publishing Company first," said Riz with his sight shifted toward Emily.

He then explains the plan he has to increase the company's profit.

Currently, his Big Bookstore which directly links to his publishing company sold nothing aside from textbooks, newspapers and some stationaries. People don't regularly buy those products. His bestselling item is definitely newspapers but it comes only once a week.

Therefore, it is easy to understand why people especially students don't go there unless they absolutely need to.

Diversification of products is needed if he wants people to continuously stream into his store. And to achieve this goal, he needs a product capable of attracting their interest.

Thus, Riz settled with books.

With an increase in literacy rate among his citizens, they soon will carve for non-academic reading materials.

People love stories. They often listen to stories from travelling bards as a form of entertainment. But, bards don't stay in one place for too long. They move together with their stories and leave people waiting for years before returning back to the same place.

However, stories can be preserved in books. Making it one of the best forms of entertainment.

First, he starts by introducing children's books followed by short stories and finally novels.

He had read countless novels from various genres in the past. Some of them are still fresh in his mind. Once he introduced one or two children's stories, others will follow suit.

Not only he can fill this boring world with books but also provide a new profession to his citizens, an author.

In the past, commoners here couldn't possibly think of writing a book but now the situation has changed. An aspiring author can send their manuscript to his publishing company to be reviewed. If their book is interesting, his company can publish it and sell it in their store.

"Do you think my plan is feasible, Emily?"

She vigorously nods her head, "It is definitely possible, Your Majesty. But, to do so we need to add the printing press to increase production. The company is currently barely operating without losses. It only generates a small number of profits thanks to advertising. Certainly not enough to cover the cost."

"No worries. I will give you the money. Anything else?"

"Do we need to expand the store as well?"

He gives an order to Emily, "Secure the land for now. Once we have the manuscripts ready, I want you to open the bookstore in the towns. We only have three stores in three big cities. It is not enough to grab the market."

"Understood, Your Majesty."

Riz turned his head to Luis. "For the financial company, I want you to expand Royal Bank to every city and town. Make sure its services reach all levels of society. Ohh ya! One more thing, send all Bagyarosia coins people deposited to the mint."

"As you will, Your Majesty."

"Next is my largest company, the mining company. Jason, give me the rundown on the iron and steel division first."

"Yes, milord. The introduction of the Bessemer process has exponentially increased our production rate. Due to the large number of workers we have, I decided to add another converter. However, I reduced the number of workers by twenty per cent because they were unneeded. Our steels were exported to Turtevekesia and Sidgean. Just last month, we successfully crossed half a million mark in profit by trading with Sidgean. They pay us approximately 521,000 Ryn worth of gold."

"I finally tasted a big profit from my company. But, why to Sidgean need so much steel?"

Jason can only shake his head, "I'm afraid I don't know, Your Majesty. I offered to deliver the goods to Sidgean because of the large purchase they made but got rejected. Instead, their merchants are the ones who are coming to pick up goods. Forgive me for my incompetence."

"It's okay. I will have someone check it. Overall, I am satisfied with your performance. And I expect the same thing from you too, Charles."

"I'll do my best, Your Majesty."

"Good. Paul, your job is to build a new cement processing plant near the limestone deposit. As you already know, a highway from here to Rogvor is going to be built. Those companies are gonna need a large amount of cement. You can follow these drawings for the new plant."

Riz passed the drawings for Paul to look at. The scale is larger than the existing one but he made some tweaks here and there.

His plan is to let two processing plants up and running while the highway construction is ongoing. When the project is finished, he will close and tear down the plants near the outskirts of Rafoldrod. Its location is too close to the city. Inhabitants there might fall ill because of it.

"Your Majesty, what is this steam engine?"

"It is a new source of power to replace the water wheel. I will let you know when I have a working prototype. Coordinate with Elric to build the rest first."

"I shall do as per your order."

"Finally, it's weapon time. James, I want you to expand the production line of flintlock muskets and ammunition. I need a large stockpile of weapons to be used in case of an emergency."

"Should I stop arquebus production?"

"Yeah, our soldiers don't need those anymore. And give this to Goban. He knows what to do."

Riz passed three sets of drawings of new weapons to be added in his arsenal. Now that Naharog manages to manufacture his artillery, he needs a new weapon as a trump card.

The first one is a 3-inch ordnance rifle, a wrought iron muzzleloading rifled cannon. It's rifled artillery with grooves cut into the barrel. These grooves help the shells fire spin in flight and move in a straight line causing their accuracy to improve.

"This...? Is this our military new artillery?" James asked.

"Yes, it has a longer range than the previous one."

"Do I need to stop producing the 12-pounder, Your Majesty?"

Riz denied, "No, absolutely not. We can't stick with only one type of artillery. We have to diversify our inventory."

"If you say so."

Alongside the new artillery is a hand grenade which he named HG- Model R1. This hand grenade copied the first grenade used by grenadiers in the 17th century. It is a small iron sphere roughly the size of a tennis ball.

"Is this hand grenade fused with a slow-burning rope, Your Majesty?"

"Yeah, I thought it would be a waste to let them simply throw away the excess we have. So, we should repurpose its usage. It is portable and causes a lot of damage."

"This is a brilliant invention. In future, this like a portable cannon they can carry. And the last one is....matchstick?"

James read the description of the matchstick. His eyes widened, "This... It's so simple to make it. It is useful and so practical."

Riz sternly says to James, "No matter how excited you are, it's only for military use for now. We can sell it to the public yet. If it falls into enemies' hands, they might use it against us."

"I understand, Your Majesty."

Riz shifted his attention from James to the rest of his managers, "Alright, everyone. I guess this is all I want to say. Please proceed with the plan I've told you about. Feel free to contact me if you've any problem you aren't sure of solving."