Volume 2 Chapter 84 - Can you live past forty? (1/2)

Chairman Cruise didn’t just come to report his deeds to Xu Yi, he also wanted to make another order with Xu Yi, buying more road work magic machines for the Amrit Chamber of Commerce from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. At the same time, he wished that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce would speed up their development, researching faster and developing new magic machines as soon as possible.

He also gave Xu Yi a very detailed list, describing the Amrit Chamber of Commerce’s road and river construction, as well as the difficulties that they had faced.

As for the places that could be replaced with magic machines, they were detailed out on the list. The meaning was that he wanted Xu Yi to study these problems first.

Xu Yi looked over the list, but he didn’t say that he would be able to quickly solve these problems.

There was no other way, the capacity of the magic research facility and the magic machine workshop were limited and there were countless problems to solve. Even if Xu Yi had a bunch of mechanical engineering knowledge that he brought from earth, he needed to cooperate with these two sides to develop the magic machines.

Chairman Cruise of course knew this, so he could only urge him and he couldn’t say anything else.

When chairman Cruise finished with his list, the Fersen Carriage Company’s chairman Pompeii came to Xu Yi’s side.

He came to ask Xu Yi about the toll booth that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had placed on the Banka Road.

The Fersen Carriage Company’s road between Banta City and Saltan City was close to being finished. Although there were already toll booths on the road and they earned quite a bit from the tolls, this was the Fersen Carriage Company’s first time doing this, so chairman Pompeii lacked confidence.

“Relax, her highness has already promised me that as long as his majesty is in power, the agreement we signed with the royal family will never change. You can just keep charging tolls, there’s no need to worry.” Xu Yi was very clear on what chairman Pompeii was worried about, so his words were very direct.

As expected, when he heard Xu Yi say this, the expression on chairman Pompeii’s face relaxed quite a bit.

“Then that’s good. I always felt that taking tolls on roads the people used seemed like being a bandit, so I felt a bit unsettled. Hearing you say that his majesty supports this plan, I feel much more assured. Even if we are bandits, we are bandits approved by his majesty, ha, ha……”

Xu Yi rolled his eyes at him, “Who said that we are bandits? Do bandits pay to build roads? Relax, the people who are scolding us are just people who don’t understand new things. I guarantee that in a few years, when this matter is all over the kingdom, everyone will be used to it and no one will be scolding us any longer. Just now chairman Cruise told me that they would be starting construction on another seven roads. When the seven roads also have toll booths, you can see if people still curse us.”

“Another seven roads?” Chairman Pompeii was instantly overjoyed. “At this speed, wouldn’t our Lampuri Kingdom be filled with roads in just a few years? If it is like this, this would really be a great thing for our Fersen Carriage Company. Chairman Xu, do you know that after the Banka Road was opened, our house carriages have been running thirteen more trips each day between Banta City and Karma City! If all the kingdom’s roads are changed, then our horse carriage business will be much better than before!”

Xu Yi was speechless as he stared at the easily agitated chairman Pompeii. If he was this excited from thirteen extra trips a day, if the engine was developed and he could run over a hundred trips a day, wouldn’t he faint from his excitement?

After talking about the matter of toll booths, chairman Pompeii asked Xu Yi if they should build another two roads, connecting Banta City to the further Canberra City and Norton City.

Although Xu Yi was very interested in this proposal, right now the Banta City renovation project was ongoing, therefore he didn’t know how to deal with these two roads. Then again the Amrit Chamber of Commerce was building another seven roads for four other companies, so they couldn’t spare manpower to build these two roads, so he would postpone this proposal.

“Chairman Xu, if chairman Cruise could learn from you and share the Amrit Chamber of Commerce’s road building techniques, wouldn’t there be more companies building roads?” Chairman Pompeii said in a voice filled with pity.

Xu Yi looked at him, thinking that his words might be referring to something. Thinking about it, he softly said, “The technique is not important, the more important thing is people. Chairman Cruise’s hair is turning white from his anxiety, but he still can’t recruit enough people. Their Amrit Chamber of Commerce is taking more and more work, so they are lacking more and more people. Otherwise why do you think that after going out for a month, he only accepted the projects for seven roads?”

Chairman Pompeii revealed a bitter smile, “His lack of people is still alright. Right now there are people from all over coming to Banta City, so sooner or later he can recruit enough workers. But our Fersen Carriage Company is lacking horses right now and they have to be horses that have the endurance to run long distances. This thing is harder to find compared to people, my hair is turning much whiter than chairman Cruise’s.”

Xu Yi gave a shrug, showing that he couldn’t help.

Although with Xu Yi asking, Seveni had allowed the Fersen Carriage Company to buy the horses that couldn’t become military horse, compared to the people flooding into Banta City and bring all kinds of goods, the military horses were just a drop of water in the flames, it was far from being enough.