When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 598 Sugar Factory and Industrial Vouchers
When Leonardo was shocked by the description in Rufaire's letter, Rufaire had not actually arrived at the Holy See yet, and he had heard the description of the Holy Chariot from Armand.

After the constitutional convention ended, Rufair, Abaz and his party followed Catherine to Rapid City.

His Majesty the Saint Grandson did not return, but went to his hometown, Upper River County, with Jeanna, Meliati and others to handle an important matter.

After a brief stop in Grand Rapids, Catherine stayed to deal with the issue of industrial bonds and asked Armand to take the three of them to visit Fort Jeanne d'Arc.

The first stop for Armand and others was the industrial area on the outskirts of Jeanne d'Arc.

Wooden pulley cranes can be seen everywhere in the industrial area on the east bank of the Ibe River. In the rows of trench foundations that extend in all directions, workers wielding mattocks are breathing heavily.

The covered carriage moved forward in the mud and soon stopped beside an old monastery estate.

Surrounding the square monastery building are five sugar-making workshops under construction.

Since the new sugar-making workshop had a larger number of employees and was different in nature and form, Horn specifically named it "Workshop" to distinguish it from the previous small workshop.

These workshop buildings were all based on the classical revival concept proposed by Witt, the deputy mayor of the Holy Trinity, and detailed in design by his grandfather Fant. They were then built under the supervision of Rocker, who almost followed Horn to Dazexiang.

Originally it was not his turn, but in order to compensate him and cover up his own behavior of abusing his power for personal gain and promoting his grandson, Fant still gave the project to him.

I have to say that Rockel may not be good at design, but he does have a down-to-earth personality.

The sugar-making workshop in front of us is built with red bricks and bonded with mortar. The roof is made of wooden beams and sloping tiles. The total area is about 500 square meters and 8 bricks were used.

"This workshop, including the copper pot for boiling sugar and the stone pot for stirring and crystallizing, plus the construction costs, cost about 480-550 gold pounds." Standing next to Armand, Halkin introduced the building in front of him. "Please look, this is the cooling and crystallization area. The processed sugar water will crystallize here and become white sugar. Look at these ventilation windows, how spacious they are."

Following Rufair, Abaz glanced at the sugar factory in front of him with melancholy.

This sugar-making workshop is different from the wooden shed they have at home, as it uses a monastery-style corridor design.

From the entrance to the exit are the raw material storage room, refining and purification room, cooling and crystallization room and the finished product warehouse at the exit.

Whenever the workers complete a process, it is sent directly to the next processing room, instead of the common practice in small workshops where the master and his apprentices complete everything themselves.

Five sugar-making workshops guard the large monastery in the middle like a group of fortresses. According to Halkin, the sugar will be packaged and divided in the monastery, and then transported to the nearby transshipment terminal by horse-drawn carriages.

The transshipment terminal can handle 50-100 tons of cargo per day.

This throughput is quite ample for the current transportation of sugar and grain, but Abaz sees strong ambitions behind it.

Halkin scooped up the finished sugar on a ceramic plate and waved the bond brochure in his hand:
“I’m not lying. The efficiency is relatively low in the first year, and the profit may only be more than 200 gold pounds, but it will definitely be enough to pay back in two years, and it will be profitable in three years, and it will double in four years!
Therefore, our Megdi Industrial Bonds offers a super high interest rate of 10% for five-year industrial bonds, which is enough to offset the risk.

I am also a businessman, I know business is difficult. It is easy to make a profit of 1 dinars from a 2 dinar business, but it is difficult to make a profit of 100 gold pounds from 10 gold pounds, especially for five consecutive years. "

"Industrial voucher?" Abaz repeated the unfamiliar word. Apparently it was a new term, combining the prefix of craftsman and the suffix of debt.

"Yes, it's an IOU. You lend me money, and I pay you back when I make a profit."

"Participate in the shares?" Abaz's eyes lit up instantly.

In the empire, joint-stock partnership caravans were not new. Several merchants would pool their money to hire a ship to do business, and then distribute the profits according to proportion.

The autonomous city of White Sands introduced the concept of shares and increased annual dividends.

After that, the reform of the Magdi Chamber of Commerce allowed the circulation of shares in the Rapid City Stock Exchange, which formed stocks.

The stock trend has gradually spread in the Kingdom of Fran and the Kingdom of Norn in recent years, so Abaz knows the concept of shares.

Since Horn used alchemical technology, it was equivalent to openly engaging in high-tech and the "black industry" defined by the Empire.

The new nobles had neither the policy to allow alchemy nor the technology to purify brown sugar. Horn even found the royal family to act as a bridge, so they could only watch and worry.

But if we can invest in these industries, we may be able to recover the lost profits.

Halkin shook his head: "No, no, no, we will pay the principal and interest regardless of whether the industrial bonds make a profit or a loss. If the loss is so great that it cannot operate, there are generally three situations: debt-to-equity swap, auction, or debt restructuring.

If the debt is converted into equity, it is equivalent to converting the money you get from buying industrial bonds into shares. "

In order to raise money to finance huge military spending, Horn used bonds as a financial instrument in many different ways, but the speed of development was so fast that Abaz was not familiar with the concept.

But through Halkin's narration, Abaz gradually understood.

Unlike stocks, bonds pay dividends regardless of profit or loss, which means they are repaid first. Although they lose the benefits brought by capital appreciation, they have low risk.

Moreover, the brown sugar purification technology is unique in both policy and technology, and there is also the support of the Fran Royal Trading Company. They are even an independent force within the Kingdom of Leia, and the new Fran nobles cannot interfere.

This sugar and grain trade is 100% profitable. Not only is it profitable, but it is also very profitable. Although the returns are not as high as direct equity participation, it is better than making no money at all, and it is also stable.

"In fact, you can consider becoming our broker in the Kingdom of France. We can give you a commission of 0.5%." Armand's eyes flashed with a hint of coldness and cunning. "I think those old nobles will definitely like bonds."

The head of the Abaz family was engaged in the blue ocean market of sugar trade, and he had not yet reacted, but Venise's stinky face twitched suddenly.

His family mainly makes money through overseas grain trade and futures, and he knows this very well.

The land nobles were all old money families, and now with the massive influx of precious metals and cheap grain from the Flesh and Blood Court, prices were soaring, and the money in their hands was slowly depreciating.

Some of the nobles enclosed land to raise sheep, switched to growing cash crops or engaged in business, and quickly transformed into the current new French nobility, that is, the robe nobility.

The rest either do not have the conditions, are too embarrassed to do so, or have failed in their transformation, and are extremely anxious about the depreciation of their real estate and assets. These people are the sword-wielding nobles.

Although bonds have low yields, they have low risks and are stable, which best suits the conservative mentality of the sword-wielding nobles. If they can still be traded, they are simply a king bomb.

If this business is done well, the profits will be no less than those from sugar trade. The only problem is the national credit and long-term sustainability.

If the Kingdom of Leia defeats them in the future, wouldn’t all the money be lost?
"Do you have three-year industrial vouchers?"

"For a three-year term, the interest rate is probably less than 7%."

"It doesn't matter if the interest rate is a little lower, the question is whether you can pay the principal and interest on time?"

"You can rest assured about this. We will sign a multilateral net settlement agreement with the Fran Royal Trading Company."

"Is it possible not to go through the Fran Royal Trading Company?"

Watching the two people communicating with Halkin, Armand smiled faintly and said, "You two might as well write a letter to your family and ask if you can set up a chamber of commerce on your own. We will contract with you according to the region, whether it is sugar or bonds."

"What do you two mean?" Rufeel asked suddenly with a pout.

"Ah? I didn't mean that..."

"That's not what it means. What does that mean?"

Armand suddenly felt a headache. He shouldn't have made such a joke and asked Rufaire to go to the barn to take a look. Now this little girl was dissatisfied with him for everything.

But for the sake of Saint Sun's industrialization plan, we can only continue to welcome him with a smile for the time being.

They need these new French nobles, or in other words, they need the money in the hands of the new nobles.

If industrialization is to be completed, a large amount of capital investment is needed. Catherine once estimated at a royal meeting that the metal currency in the entire Thousand River Valley is only worth about ten tons of gold.

With per capita income of less than one gold pound, it is difficult to support oneself, so how can there be so much spare money to invest in industry?

It is absolutely impossible for Qianhe Valley to complete industrialization with its own capital. It either has to exploit the farmers madly or accept investment from foreign capital.

Horn doesn't like to make money from poor people. He takes money from whoever has money.

The Franks are rich, so he wants to earn money from the Frankish nobles, especially those sword-wielding nobles.

If you cannot pay it back, you can follow the will of the Holy Father to launch a holy war to exorcise the demons and reduce the foreign debt to zero through creditor restructuring.

This bond trick can be used not only on the Franks, but also on the nobles of the Thousand River Valley itself.

The empire forcibly fixed medieval production relations and suppressed productivity, thereby forcibly suppressing the profit-seeking and mobility of capital.

Then don't blame Horn for taking advantage of the Thousand River Valley policy and opening a small hole in the sluice gate of this money dam.

It is still just a trickle now, but when he is able to defeat the Kingdom of Leia in the future and truly establish the Thousand River Valley as a country, the national credit he has established will be enough to guarantee his own stable payment ability.

By then, the imperial capital that has been pent up will roll in and completely destroy the economic dam erected by the empire.

After comforting Rufiel with "I'll play some wind-up guns with you this afternoon", Armand wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and said, "This is what the sugar factory looks like. There are workshops around here. Do you want to take a look?"

"We might have to..."

"It's not even noon yet. It's too early to go back now. Please accompany us to look around."

Amid the complex expressions of jealousy, sadness and despair on Venise and Abaz's faces, Ruffier took over the conversation and said to Armand with a smile.

(End of this chapter)