European Financial Emperor - European Financial Emperor chapter 8

008 Accountant’s habit of filling rice bowls (2)

After leaving Australia in March 1819, the Benheren Fleet headed for Singapore, Southeast Asia.

This is because the port of Singapore began in earnest not long ago when English pioneer Thomas Stamford Raffles appointed the Prince of Sentosa as king.

Originally, Singapore was an unexplored area under Dutch influence, with only a small number of indigenous peoples.

However, the story changed when the British landed here.

Thomas Raffles built a trading port to develop this place in earnest, and as merchants flocked to the new port, money began to flow.

The guilds of Ben Heren’s fleet also set up a trading post here and landed in order to take a share.

In mid-May, Lee Hwan was still making a name for himself as a bookkeeper and cashier of merchants.

In particular, the biggest reason Lee Hwan enjoyed popularity was because of taxes.

From early in the morning, I heard a voice looking for Lee Hwan.

“It’s been a long time since the weather has been nice, so let’s not procrastinate!”

“Yes, I go!”

It had been raining for almost a full day and now it has calmed down a bit.

Lee Hwan set out on the road in the morning sunlight.

“It will be hot today.”

Lee Hwan, who turned 17 this year, was over 180 cm tall, so he was taller than most of the older men.

In addition, as the transformation period came, his voice became quite thick, and the fur on his face was also peeling off, leaving a dark beard mark at first glance.

With 30 books, Lee Hwan followed in the footsteps of the merchants.

Today’s trading items were matchlocks and gunpowder.

However, the expression of the merchants was not as good as expected.

“It’s like stealing raw money.”

“… … Damn Napoleon. If that’s the case, surrender before we buy a bunch of firearms.”

The most problematic thing in Wonhaeng is that the price of traded goods fluctuates.

Taken from noblemtl.net

Matchlock guns and gunpowder have always been lucrative items, but they also differed according to the times.

In 1815, Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo ended the long European War, and a Congress in Vienna was convened to discuss the establishment of a new European order.

By the convening of this Vienna meeting, the Benheren fleet suffered a great blow.

Shortly before leaving for the expedition, they steadily bought firearms that rose in price, but their value declined as the war ended.

‘Did Ben Heren in Heaven have anachronistic thoughts?’

The shovel operates on a very simple principle.

If there is demand, the supplier makes money, so the greater the demand, the more the gates remain.

However, since the value of goods varies according to the circumstances of the times, it can be said that reading the international situation is the most important part of business now.

It is unknown why Ben-Heren made such a decision, but the entire fleet suffered damage from it, and the originally planned readout was greatly reduced.

However, the merchants did not resent Ben Heren.

“The times are wrong, maybe it’s the people? Come on, let’s all put our things down on the frontier and go get a drink.”

“good!”

No matter how much the price has dropped, guns are prized in the frontiers.

It was natural to say that there are few people who know how to make it.

When Lee Hwan arrived at the customer, he checked the wagon and checked the quantity.

However, some of the boxes were flooded and became unusable.

“Uncle, Ross is 5.89%.”

“… … damn it It’s been pouring down all day, and his rain keeps pouring out. There is nothing I can do about it, I just have to throw it away.”

In this era, no matter how carefully you pack gunpowder, there are often too many variables to throw away.

It seems that such an accident happened today.

Lee Hwan removed the items that were not used in the book, calculated the break-even point again, and handed it over to the merchants.

The deal went well, even though there was some throwing away.

Lee Hwan made a deal and received a bundle of money.

“Come on, fees.”

“thank you!”

“By the way, where are you going to spend all that money as a young bastard?”

“I want to buy a gold mine.”

“gold mine?”

“Yes, gold mine.”

“haha! Dreams are so crazy! When are you going to save up so much money to buy a gold mine?”

That was correct.

But there are plenty of ways to win gold mines.

“You can buy undeveloped gold mines and develop them.”

“Ha ha, yes. try hard once The British say the bigger the dream the better.”

You will still think of Lee Hwan as just a kid with big dreams.

However, in the next 10 years, that thought may change.

After making the deal, Yi Hwan visited the smithy in the port of a Singapore settlement.

I was going to stop by on my way to lunch with the merchants and then go.

bang! bang! bang!

Even in a settlement, people cannot but use iron to survive.

Lee Hwan handed a silver coin to the blacksmith and said.

“I’m going to give you a design, so can you make it for me?”

“It’s not that difficult. But what are you going to give me a silver coin for?”

“The iron has to be handled with unacceptable precision, even by a single hair. Can you do it?”

The blacksmith from England nodded.

The craftsmen of this era had a fairly high level of pride, so they did not receive any quests they did not have confidence in.

It was because his reputation was being cracked.

Taken from noblemtl.net

Moreover, he was a man who worked not for money, but to make sure that his name would be passed on to his descendants in future settlements.

Luckily, Lee Hwan had met a real blacksmith.

The blacksmith who received the drawing from Lee Hwan tilted his head immediately.

“By the way, where is this stuff used?”

“It’s a part.”

“part?”

“I can’t tell you what kind of machine it is because it’s a secret.”

The blacksmith refused the blueprint because it was a secret.

“I don’t know the purpose, but I can’t make things. Whether you use this to kill animals or people is not up to me, but knowing where to use it can give you soul to create.”

It was this stubbornness that made it difficult for artisans to survive in this era.

In the flood of the industrialization era, it was never a matter of making money to breathe life into an object.

Lee Hwan was forced to give an explanation.

The drawings showed a very small hammer-like object, smaller than a human finger.

“I’m going to hook it up to a spring condensed lock, then release it in one shot and hit something.”

“You hit me?”

“Yes, it is used to hit the back of an object the size of a human finger.”

“Hmm, that’s right. Well, it might be easier to understand.”

“How long will it take anyway?”

“Should it take that long? Are you on your way to lunch?”

“yes that’s right.”

“I’ll have lunch and rest for a couple of hours before coming back.”

“I know. Then trust me!”

Lee Hwan, who had left his belongings at the blacksmith, visited the woodworking shop this time.

Along with the ironworks, the woodworks are essential workshops that are indispensable for human life.

Lee Hwan also handed a blueprint and a silver coin to the woodworking craftsman.

“Can you make this without an inch of error?”

“What is this? It looks like the handle of a gun.”

“Right. It is similar.”

“But what is this elongated thing? Is it the barrel cover?”

Lee Hwan nodded.

The carpenter confidently nailed it to visit us after lunch.

“I can stop by on the way home from dinner and then go. Do you have any patterns you want?”

“Then, please engrave it with the pattern you are most confident of.”

“Okay, let me do that.”

Lee Hwan went into a restaurant selling light lunches with merchants.

The menu was all about selling fried potatoes or fish or adding bread to it, but there were quite a few people there.

While eating lunch, sandwiched between merchants, Lee Hwan was imagining in his head the combination of the blueprints he had handed over to the artisans earlier.

‘If only the ball is completed, does it mean that all the parts are completed? The problem is to make ammunition to fit inside.’

Since I was learning business, it was my turn to create something that would make a lot of money.

So, what Lee Hwan thought of was ‘Hwagi’.

What Lee Hwan ordered today was a ball for a gun, a barrel cover, and a handle.

So far, Lee Hwan has been walking around the port, stopping by iron and woodworking shops to make and collect parts one by one.

The three months he had collected was enough to make a gun now.

After the study, it was clear that Lee Hwan would probably stand on the road to wealth.

‘I can make gunpowder slowly, well.’

The production of gunpowder and cartridge casings was now the last task given to Lee Hwan.

If this problem could be solved, Lee Hwan could learn business and become a commander of the world.

How long have you been eating like that?

In Lee Hwan’s ears, he could hear the merchants talking.

“Guys, have you heard of it?”

“What do you mean?”

“These days, the British game is not serious.”

“Well, it’s hard to make a living on people, where is it for a day or two?”

“No, it’s not that, you say that it’s even harder for people to f*ck?”

“Huh! England under heaven?”

“Rude… … . They say that there was some kind of movement and workers smashed machines and burned factories.”

“Why are you destroying their feeding machines?”

“As the Napoleonic Wars ended, more and more people died of starvation. The war special has come to an end.”

Britain was emerging as a great empire, but it had many problems internally.

Among them, the biggest problem was the post-war settlement with Napoleon that took place over 25 years.

Britain was the main force in the Allied Forces against France in the war against Napoleon, and after 25 years of bloody fighting, it was finally victorious.

However, after 25 years of continental warfare, the government’s financial condition was in a mess, and the war special disappeared, and the economy was heading into a recession.

Factories in industrial cities such as Manchester, where industrialization was achieved due to the Industrial Revolution, closed one after another, and the peasants who supplied military supplies went bankrupt one after another.

To make matters worse, when the war ended, as many as 300,000 veterans poured out, and the economy was in a state of panic.

Unemployment, arrears in wages, and job insecurity, the life of British peasants fell to the bottom.

In the end, they even started the ‘Ludite Movement’ to make a living by destroying the machines that had been developed through sophistication.

“So we went back to the factory, printed the products and sold them, and the British also got the boomerang right.”

“Nevertheless, overproduction is a problem, I don’t know what’s really going on.”

It was a problem because there was no place to sell even if the competition was difficult.

The reason Europe had no choice but to move forward to colonization was because there was a problem in the development of the domestic economy, even if they had fought and roasted among themselves in that narrow land.

‘The flood of colonies will soon overtake Northeast Asia.’

History was constantly vibrating.

On the way back to the fleet after eating.

Lee Hwan received the parts made at the ironworks and woodworks.

“Um, good! Perfect!”

There was a reason why Lee Hwan had been wandering around the forge for three months so far.

This is because standardization of parts was in progress.

In the next five years, it was clear that the paradigm of the gun market would change completely.