Volume 2 Chapter 20 - Reason for leeching a meal (1/2)

Building roads is a very expensive matter.

On earth, building public roads was something funded by the government, supplemented sometimes by private capital.  It was rare for a road to be completely built with private capital.

Because the roads connecting a country can be considered its veins, there was no doubt of its importance.  If it wasn’t controlled by the government, it could easily become a large problem.

If it was possible, Xu Yi naturally hoped that he could fully pay for the road construction plan across the Lampuri Kingdom.

But the fact was that the Lampuri Kingdom’s financial situation wasn’t that good.  The large companies and large nobles of the kingdom had plenty of money, just the kingdom’s finances were lacking.

Reflecting this onto Banta City, the City Lord Count Sean and the chairman of those large companies could live rich lives, but Banta City itself didn’t have much finances.

It was clearly impossible to build roads when the financial situation was this bad.

So Xu Yi gave up on letting Banta City and the Lampuri Kingdom pay for these roads and decided to pay for them himself.

Viscount Leslie’s advice before leaving could be considered a warning to Xu Yi.  It made him lose confidence and hope in developing on Viscount Leslie’s, or rather the Stagg Family’s land, so he had to develop the Falling Rain Valley.

Although the Falling Rain Valley’s position wasn’t bad, connecting the Falling Rain Forest and Crossing Mountains, allowing him to develop relationships with the Night Song Tribe’s elves and the dwarves of Norma Tribe and the Angola Tribe.  But it was still fifty kilometers away from Banta City and if he wanted to develop it, he had to connect them and had to first build a road to Banta City.

This road was around a total of length of between fifty to fifty five kilometers.  According to the Amrit Chamber of Commerce’s price of sixty silver coins per square meter of concrete, to create a road that was three meters wide, fifteen centimeters thick, wide enough to hold two horse carriages, adding the base price of constructing the road, it would cost a total of around one hundred and thirty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand gold coins.

It should be said that the price of this over fifty kilometer long road wasn’t high, but the Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn’t have enough floating capital now, so Xu Yi couldn’t pay this much gold coins.

“Isn’t this simple?  We’ll follow the old method and use cement as payment.”  Chairman Cruise patted his chest and generously said to Xu Yi, “We are old friends, I believe in chairman Xu.  We can help you finish this project and you can slowly pay.  I’m not in a rush, ha, ha……”

Xu Yi looked at him, of course he wasn’t in a rush.

According to chairman Cruise’s plan, he wanted Xu Yi to spend even more money on this road.  That way his Amrit Chamber of Commerce could keep their monopoly on the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s cement and continue to hold their advantage in the construction industry.

Of course Xu Yi didn’t reject this method.

He wasn’t willing to pay anyway, so using cement to pay was an acceptable method.

The cement factory had been in the Norma Tribe for some time and the dwarves were getting used to making the cement.  Then adding in the fact that the Ferstech Chamber of Commerce had made progress in developing the Magic Cement Mixer and other magic machines, the cement output of the Norma Tribe had greatly increased.  They went from last month’s amount of three thousand tons to this month’s amount of seven thousand tons.

And after the next two cement factories were added to the Norma Tribe and Angola Tribe, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce would be producing over twenty thousand tons of cement each month!

According to the price that Xu Yi had with chairman Cruise of one ton for six gold coins, it would only take a month or two for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to pay the costs of building this road in terms of cement.

Of course, if Xu Yi sold the cement publicly, the price would be over six gold coins per ton and would earn even more money.

But the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had too many construction products and couldn’t separate from the Amrit Chamber of Commerce.  Xu Yi was very happy to use cement to maintain the good relationship between the two companies.

The cement was mainly produced with the clay and limestone that the dwarves dug out of the Crossing Mountains, so the cost could be basically ignored.

“Alright, we’ll do this.”  Thinking of this, Xu Yi nodded and confirmed their cooperation again, “That’s right, chairman Cruise, I’ve heard that chairman Morgan has looked for you and wanted to develop a magic machine with your Amrit Chamber of Commerce?”

Chairman Cruise waved his hand with a look of disdain, “Che, that fellow has gone further than just looking for me.  He’s gone to every company in Banta City with a bit of power.  But there was basically no one that agreed to him because everyone knew that it would be hard to compare to your Frestech Chamber of Commerce in terms of developing magic machines.  Instead of undertaking this fruitless task, it is better to do things they excel in.  Don’t you think so, chairman Xu?”

“These words are quite right.”  Xu Yi nodded as he gave a cold laugh in his heart.

He believed it if the Amrit Chamber of Commerce declined the Falcao Chamber of Commerce’s cooperation deal to develop magic machines, but if they wanted him to believe that the Amrit Chamber of Commerce wasn’t interested at all in developing magic machines, Xu Yi wouldn’t believe it even if he was beaten to death.

Other than the Falcao Chamber of Commerce who didn’t plan on hiding themselves at all, almost all the large companies of Banta City had basically invested in developing magic machines.

It wasn’t just for the large profit magic machines brought, it was also to master the magic machine technology and develop magic machines that they needed.

Of the large companies of Banta City, not a single one could avoid using products made by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

Taking the Falcao Chamber of Commerce as an example, just last week, chairman Morgan had made an order of ten thousand small Magic Drills to Xu Yi.

At the same time, chairman Morgan had shown interest in the Magic Impact Crusher Xu Yi had mentioned.  He said that once it was tested, he would put in a large amount with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

The small Magic Drill had a selling price of seventy eight gold coins, so ten thousand of them was seven hundred and eighty thousand gold coins.

And the selling price of the Magic Impact Crusher Xu Yi mentioned went as high as two hundred and sixty gold coins per unit.  If one wanted to make a large order, one had to spend a large amount of gold coins without any doubt.

If the Falcao Chamber of Commerce could develop these two mining magic machines themselves and produce them, it would save them a large amount of gold coins.

The same situation as the Falcao Chamber of Commerce was shared by the Amrit Chamber of Commerce and the other companies.

All the other companies wanted to avoid the Frestech Chamber of Commerce earning large profits from this situation, but after using those magic machines, they had to admit that the magic machines were indeed very easy to use.  Right now, those companies couldn’t separate themselves from the magic machines.

Since they couldn’t separate themselves, the only method was to develop them.  They would strive to grasp this magic machine technology for themselves and no longer allow themselves to be controlled by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

Only other than some success on the Magic Fan technology that Xu Yi willingly handed out, as for the other magic machines, especially the large magic machines, the companies hadn’t made any development at all.

As these thoughts flashed in his mind, Xu Yi couldn’t help finding this funny.  He patted chairman Cruise’s shoulder and said in a friendly voice, “Of course, we are good partners.  If the Amrit Chamber of Commerce is really interested in developing magic machines, chairman Cruise can just talk to me.  If there is something I can help with, I will definitely do my best.”

“Really?”  Chairman Cruise’s eyes lit up, but he then caught himself.  He gave an awkward smile and shook his head as he said, “No, no, our Amrit Chamber of Commerce will honestly stay in the business of construction.  A complicated thing like magic machines is something chairman Xu and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce can play with, I won’t mess around.”

Xu Yi revealed a faint smile and didn’t continue this topic.  He then discussed the concrete plans of constructing this road with chairman Cruise.