Chapter 864： Free Trade Zone under Ross

A short autumn rain suddenly dissipated the residual temperature of summer, the sky no longer rains and it is no longer slightly warm, the sky is filled with dark clouds, and the cool breeze from the North Pole is like the warning of the gods.

Winter is coming!

Fortunately, the farmers around Lake Mälaren are always afraid of the sudden frost during the harvest season. They even completed the wheat harvest before the rain.

The rain did disrupt the minds of people who intend to sell food for a while. Whether it is hulling or not, even oat stalks in a bundled state are temporarily stored in the barn behind the house.

When the earth became dry again, the threshing and growing operations resumed immediately.

Farmers around the Great Lakes are looking forward to this year's harvest season, not only because this year's harvest is not bad, but also because all farmers have gained an unprecedented power! That is, I personally rowed a boat to carry food to the "Melaren Grand Bazaar" which was renamed Stockholm again.

Once, if you wanted to enter the big bazaar to sell food, you had to pay a tribute to the manager of the bazaar after the ship docked, and then set up a stall and then pay another tribute. In the past, to deal with this situation, it was natural that the food seller and the buyer had negotiated on the lake to save a tribute.

However, foreign food sellers still have to buy a batch of daily necessities in the commercial street of the largest bazaar. In this way, the ships have to dock, at least the "landing tax" is inevitable.

To be fair, the rulers of the Melaren tribe in the past did not have a harsh attitude towards paying taxes. Any ruler hopes that the largest bazaar under his control will become more and more prosperous, but it is heard that the Ross people have developed a new tax model in the fur market in the north. The so-called all foreign merchants want to leave with the purchased fur goods. , Do not want to leave without paying a "departure tax". At that time, the Ross tribe controlled the fjord. As long as the fleet guarded the exit of the fjord, foreign merchants could not leave without paying taxes.

Since Rose's nobles did this, the chieftain of Mellaren, the leader of the tribal alliance, should follow suit.

The supreme power of the Mellaren tribe has circulated three times in the past ten years. The rulers have changed and the inventions for taxation have also increased.

As a result, small vendors may not be able to afford the high taxes or feel that tax payment is unnecessary. Since this market does not welcome everyone, it is better to leave the big lake by boat and go to the Tombstone Island market of the Rus people to do business. Although the Ross people also collect taxes, the taxes and fees are too low. What's more, the Ross people can provide more interesting products.

When Stockholm was still called the final stage of Birka, the trader structure of the bazaar quietly changed.

Small merchants disappeared one after another. The merchants still doing business here do not say they have huge power, but they are also well-off. They have the financial resources to pay tribute taxes and fees, and on this basis they can still earn financial resources.

Any ruler hopes that more and more such wealthy people will stay in the trading port for a long time. They have wealth and are generally noble, need more servants, need more enjoyment, and need weird things to decorate themselves.

These people are the consumers of Rose spirits, glassware, and cherished leather goods.

Most of them also have another identity-a supplier of bulk agricultural products.

The area around Lake Mälaren has a large population, which is an advantage. Her disadvantages are also considerable, lack of mineral products and lack of technology.

There are two fist products that local nobles can handle: grain and flax poles. Among them, food is the most important. The so-called grains are also divided into two types, oats and rye, of which oats have the largest yield.

The economy of Lake Mälaren is based on oats, or the economy of any ancient civilization is based on grain. It is the fundamental element of survival, but also a kind of currency.

The situation in Sweden is a bit special. People who can't farm can survive by fishing. After all, once they have a chance, they still have to get as many oats as possible. It is because in Northern Europe, where the climate is cold for more than half of the year, the moisture-proof oats can be stored for three years.

Although in the Swedish region around Lake Mälaren, in the past hundreds of years, all tribes have been reclaiming the wasteland and planting wheat, and it has been the past ten years that the large-scale export of grain as a commodity has been done.

Small farmers in the tribe understand that as long as they succeed in selling their surplus grain to truly generous buyers, they can get good things to improve their lives.

The small peasants think so, especially the great nobles of the tribe.

Who is the big buyer of food in Lake Mälaren? It's a Roth, not even one of them!

More than ten years ago, merchants from Lake Mälaren, as far away as the Roseburg Fjord, also rarely delivered food to the local area. Because the Ross people have long controlled the fishing industry in the Gulf of Bothnia, they have a small population and can fully meet their needs by fishing. What's more, the Ross people have a secret that is only known to a few nobles in the Mälaren area-they have connections with some people in the far east.

It wasn't until the Ross tribe that great changes took place, and later those secrets were also revealed to the world.

The Rus suddenly had a huge demand for food, and were willing to bypass currency transactions and directly trade leather and iron for food.

This makes the big land nobles who hold a lot of surplus food ecstatic!

Once, the grain trade in the Lake Mälaren area was mainly to regulate the grain reserves of the various tribes. Suddenly, the Ross people who had disappeared for a long time came back. When they came back, their left hand was iron and leather, and their right hand was extended for food.

On the one hand, the land nobles stepped up to exploit their own tenant farmers, while on the other hand they also invested in the purchase of farmers’ grain. They often set a very low purchase price. The nobles on all sides exploited the peasants in one go, then changed hands and tried to negotiate a high price with the Russ.

The peasants who lack financial resources want to go to the Grand Bazaar to do business directly with the Ross people. They are willing to sell the surplus food at a low price, but the taxes and fees of the Grand Bazaar, which is not painful for the big businessmen, are unbearable for the farmers’ families. The lightness.

The land nobles and pure merchants around Lake Mälaren controlled the trading rights of the largest market in Mälaren. People are excluded.

The business atmosphere has evolved into this way. Isn’t it also a kind of harm to the largest and almost the only food buyer Ross?

Every year, the Principality of Ross buys up to one million pounds or more of oats in the Mälaren area. Wouldn’t it be a good thing if they could import them at low prices every year?

As a ruler, Rurik must be so for stability, because he is exploding on a large scale, and the children who could be fed with only a few supplies are now in a period of rapid physical growth. It is true that half-and-half children eat Laozi to death. The population of teenagers has reached 20,000, but the area of ​​farmland cannot keep up. If Ross can't get a lot of food from other places, Ross can also suffer from famine.

Although Rose’s current situation has improved, population, food output, and consumption are all fluctuating. At this stage, Ross still has to import grain to provide insurance for himself.

Ross merged with Sweden to form a larger kingdom of Ross. The Mälaren Bazaar in the past was eventually renamed Stockholm. As the owner of the traditional bazaar, Rurik can finally control the entire Swedish region according to his own wishes. Food trading.

You are a king, really want to continue to maintain close food transactions with all land merchants? It is completely possible to achieve end-to-end flat processing with those farmers, so that farmers who are interested in selling grain can directly deliver the grain to the king's hands.

Stockholm is tax-free for ten years. Anyone can do business as long as they bring the goods!

In the beginning, the king took over the trade fair and cleaned out most of the gangsters. Then the king took an armed parade, which was a further shock. Third, to clean up the fishing villages of Stockholm and let the merchants do all the bad things. The king acted as a mediator to dissuade the big merchants and landlords, thus creating trade space for civilians.

After the operation was fierce, the ruins of the fishing village disappeared.

In this area, as long as any farmer has the ability to row over with surplus grain, he can sell it openly in this area. Fishermen can carry a sack of grain directly to the buying station with flying flags, place the grain in a huge balance and measure it, and then change hands to get silver and copper coins. The peasants don't have to leave immediately when they get the coins, they can go directly to another stall set up by the king to buy various ironware and salt on the spot.

This is not a vision, but a reality!

The guards trained by the Governor White Fox changed their outfits. At first glance, they really became Ross' regular army.

The free trade zone is a protruding part deep into the lake. The king's subordinates help these farmers who sell grain to take care of the ships for free. The farmers sell grain to pay back and buy daily necessities. As long as they don't miss it, the transaction can be completed in a while.

This area was quickly crowded, but theft and robbery happened on the first day.

Because the farmer suddenly grasped a silver coin of real value, he deliberately showed it off when he was happy. The looting was also a farmer. It is not unbelievable that the coin had a malicious heart in front of him, but the Ross Navy and the trade zone patrol guard The troops guarded against this move.

"Hurry up and do this kind of thing in my area? Is this humiliating me? Then I will kill your family!"

The white fox felt bad intentions in his heart, and signaled that the gangsters who would be captured by his subordinates immediately rectified the law with the whole family.

Of course, I brought my own surplus grain to sell, because the sudden theft of money from other farmers resulted in a tragedy in which the whole family was beheaded.

The public execution shook the entire trading floor, and the headless body was deliberately hung up by the white fox's messenger to deter everyone, and the trading floor became extremely orderly.

Farmers from multiple tribes now completely bypass the local nobles and do not care about the attitude of their neighbors. They rowed their boats straight to the free trade zone in Stockholm.

Although Lord King hung up a sign written in runes, the so-called purchase price for this year was one silver coin and fifteen pounds of oats.

This is a very low purchase price, but smart farmers can still make a calculation. Even some people have never even been to Stockholm. At that time, they didn't have the money to pay the "landing tax", so they could only look at the big bazaar from a distance and leave in a hurry. Because tribal fishing boats from far away cannot fish in the waters of the Melalen people, wouldn’t they steal fish after staying for a long time?

Farmers who came from afar and lacked financial resources gave up about two hundred pounds of oats. Due to the time and climate, these oats were not even properly dried. The whole of them was a little damp. Therefore, the Ross people announced a very low purchase price. It is the farmers who are in the wrong.

If you simply sell food, the farmers will feel that they are a bit disadvantaged, but when they see the variety of ironware that the Ross people have taken out and their prices, they all smiled.

It has long been heard that the ironware sold by the Russ is cheap, but after being bought by big merchants and transported to more remote settlements, the price immediately skyrocketed.

Farmers of small tribes who live in remote areas often need half a year of harvest to get an iron axe, so that many families still use a lot of stone tools and wooden tools.

The mass-produced casting axe is priced from three silver coins to ten silver coins depending on the width of the axe. It is made by casting molten iron in a blast furnace into a embryo, and then calcination at a high temperature to make the surface lose carbon into carbon steel. After natural cooling, the blade is roughly polished and then quenched, and it can be put on the market. The processing cost of this axe has become quite low due to the scale effect, and it is naturally completely inappropriate as a weapon, and it is completely sufficient for the needs of the people's production and life.

Farmers will buy a small hand axe for only three silver coins. On one side is the roughly polished axe blade, and on the other is a flat hammer head, with a cheap wooden handle pestle in the center hole of the axe head. You can buy a decent hand axe for about fifty pounds of oats. You should know that in the past, you bought axes from profiteers, and at least four hundred pounds of oats are gone, and the quality is definitely not as good as that of the Ross people.

Since the first earthen blast furnace in Ross began to flow out molten iron, the overall cost of iron casting has become lower and lower.

The iron axe is the iron tool that people everywhere need first, because everyone needs tools with their hands to cut wood. The second iron weapon is the spearhead, but this iron weapon can only be used as a harpoon and a short spear for hunting. With a little modification, it is a very cost-effective war weapon. It is still made of cast iron, and its performance is completely inferior to that of the carbon steel spear used by the Ross military. Although the price is higher than the axe, the sales are still hot.

For those farmers from small tribes, they don't have any qualifications to be picky now. They don't think they are being pitted, and since the king is willing to sell, he immediately exchanges food for them. In this way, ordinary life is improved triumphantly, and when enemies are met, the whole people are better equipped with iron spears and iron axes than in the past.

Arctic Fox and Lurik witnessed the grand occasion of the free trade zone. Since the beginning of the grain trade this year, a large amount of grain has entered the warehouse in Ross.

Those farmers have shown a very strong desire to trade. Now they are busy buying ironware to improve their lives. Once their production efficiency is improved by the ironware they can create more surplus wealth and have the ability Buy higher-value Ross products. Who would be willing to suffer from generation to generation? Who doesn't want to enjoy every day like those big landlords?

Lurik entrusted this matter to the white fox. Regarding the direct transaction between the king and the common people, the fact that the white fox is responsible for this is the responsibility of the governor.

Rurik himself is not idle, this year is the first year of trading with farmers, it is not the bulk of this year's grain trade.

The real grain transaction is the transaction between the king and the land nobles. This year it involves the delivery of eight standard armed cargo ships. The nobles had a large amount of fertile land, and there were also a large number of serfs and tenant farmers under them. The larger the tribe, the smaller the proportion of self-cultivating farmers. Therefore, all the people who come to sell food in the free trade zone come from small tribes, and there are not many farmers from large tribes.

In the Melaren area, the largest grain and flax trade is still the direct trade between Ross and the local land nobles.

In this matter, it was King Rurik who personally took the lead.

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