Volume 4 Chapter 34 - Banta City’s changes (1/2)

The year 3783 on the continent passed very quickly for the people of the Lampuri Kingdom.

To the people of Banta City, it seemed like it passed in the blink of an eye.

His highness Eric had led the northern army to attack the Sack Kingdom in the beginning of the year and received a victory. Then his majesty Lampuri Thirteenth fell to his illness, causing his highness Eric to suddenly turn from a prince to a king.

When his highness Eric took the throne, her highness Seveni was no longer the City Lord.

The new City Lord didn’t change Banta City too much at first, so people thought that Banta City would develop smoothly like normal.

But facts proved that it wasn’t as simple as everyone thought.

When summer came and when the weather was burning hot, there were a series of dazzling changes in Banta City.

First the Frestech Chamber of Commerce agreed to the requests of the magic machine industry management department and in order to develop Lampuri Kingdom’s magic machine industry, they decided to give a part of their magic machine technology to the companies decided by the department.

This was different from when the Frestech Chamber of Commerce sold their technology.

According to the «Banta Times», when these ten companies received these technologies, they only paid the Frestech Chamber of Commerce a symbolic amount of transfer fees. If they added in the manpower and machines the Frestech Chamber of Commerce invested, it was almost equal to giving it for free.

Even if the «Banta Times» didn’t say it directly, anyone with a brain could see that this wasn’t a normal transfer. It was clear that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was being forced by the department, or rather being forced by King Eric to agree to this.

A week after the «Banta Times» released this report, the editor in chief Nakhi announced his leave, as if he was verifying this guess.

In less than half a month after the Frestech Chamber of Commerce transferred this technology, there were several dozen small and large companies that appeared in Banta City in one night.

Among these new companies, there were the ten companies that had been named by the department.

As for the remaining unknown small companies, naturally many of them had unclear relationships with the ten companies.

The appearance of these companies didn’t affect Banta City at first, but once the burning summer passed and the slightly cool autumn wind swept through Banta City, everyone in Banta City felt that these company, or rather the technology the Frestech Chamber of Commerce transferred brought some clear and unclear changes to the city.

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The Falcao Chamber of Commerce’s chairman Fuller Morgan was feeling a bit annoyed recently.

It was close to the end of the year, which meant that they were getting closer to the year end report the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had to conduct.

Before this, chairman Morgan never felt annoyed over this because the Falcao Chamber of Commerce’s main industry was iron. It had always been stable without waves, so he as the chairman only had to get good stats and he could easily do his job.

But this year was different.

Or rather, from three years ago, it was already different.

Three years ago, because of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce appearing and driving the magic machine industry in Banta City and the entire Lampuri Kingdom, because people demanded more and more magic machines, naturally the demand for iron increased.

With this large demand, the Falcao Chamber of Commerce’s iron sales soared each year. Just with last year’s iron sales, it had beaten the sales from five years of when the Frestech Chamber of Commerce still hadn’t appeared.

Because of the appearance of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s steel mill, with iron being replaced by steel in various places, most of the iron the Falcao Chamber of Commerce produced went to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to be refined to steel. The remaining bits were sold to people who still used normal cast iron.

Even if Xu Yi had reached a deal with Duke Jole in secret, as there was more and more demand, the price of the Falcao Chamber of Commerce’s iron ores eventually grew higher and higher.

Just last year, the Falcao Chamber of Commerce made a net profit of four million gold coins just selling to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

According to the estimates of chairman Morgan, as the Frestech Chamber of Commerce expanded last year, with production bases in the various cities of the kingdom, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s iron demand would increase again. It meant that the net profit the Falcao Chamber of Commerce could earn from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce alone would break five million gold coins.

At first it was going well, but chairman Morgan never would have thought that his majesty Lampuri Thirteenth would suddenly pass away, turning Batna City into this.

Among the ten companies assigned by the department, the Rockefeller Chamber of Commerce received the steel smelting technology from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. In just two short months, they had built five steel mills with the help of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

Compared to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s two steel mills, the Rockefeller Chamber of Commerce’s five steel mills were bigger and produced more, smelting more than three times as much steel as the Frestech Chamber of Commerce from before.

Naturally they had a high demand for iron smelting all this steel.

Properly speaking, chairman Morgan as the Falcao Chamber of Commerce’s chairman should be happy to see an increase in the sale of iron, but he didn’t feel happy at all. Rather he felt quite annoyed.

The reason was very simple, the Rockefeller Chamber of Commerce gave a very low price.

When the Falcao Chamber of Commerce sold to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, because of the agreement from before and even with preferential treatment, they sold it for ten gold coins a ton.

But the Rockefeller Chamber of Commerce actually cut that price in half, only offering five gold coins per ton!

This price was even lower than the price the Falcao Chamber of Commerce sold iron at before the appearance of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce!