Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 413: Ipiskopi Village
Cyprus is an island country. Strictly speaking, it is not a territory of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but an independent political entity and is considered an ally of the kingdom.

Although they are allies, Cyprus and Jerusalem are highly integrated on many levels.

Even politically, the head of state of Cyprus is none other than Gérisse himself.

Considering that Gairis is also the husband of the Queen of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, he holds the title of King of Jerusalem and is one of the heads of state of Jerusalem.

Therefore, to outsiders, Cyprus and Jerusalem can undoubtedly be regarded as a united state.

Of course, Gellis does not rule this place directly. Under his nominal status as head of state, the Cyprus government and the Cyprus Parliament are formed in his name.

The Cyprus Liberation Front and the Cyprus Church are the local political forces here.

The purpose of Garys' visit was to inspect the situation here.

Economically, Cyprus is in a customs union with the Kingdom.

There will be no more tariffs on commodity trade between the two countries, nor will there be import quotas or other quantity restrictions. Instead, a uniform tariff rate will be imposed on other countries or regions, and a unified trade policy will be implemented.

In terms of currency, Cyprus does not issue its own currency independently, but is highly tied to the currency of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Gellis actually doesn't pay much attention to the political affairs in Cyprus. Currently, there are basically two political forces in Cyprus: the Cyprus Liberation Front and the Cyprus Church that are constantly competing with each other.

The two sides maintained a situation of fighting but not breaking up, ensuring that the politics on the island still had a certain vitality.

What Garys is really concerned about is the production issues here, so he focuses his main energy on visiting and investigating various workshop clusters.

His current visit around Paphos Harbor made him quite satisfied.

The overall living standards of local craftsmen are quite good. They are very motivated in production and have sufficient safety awareness.

Although the scale is not large enough to be called a factory, they already have a certain awareness of scale management instead of relying solely on experience.

Afterwards, Garys visited some more places and made suggestions on some places with obvious problems, while Marwan took notes.

The island of Cyprus as a whole can be divided into two parts, with two mountain ranges.

To the north is the central plain of Mesaoria, which has a good agricultural base. After all, there are mountains on both the north and south sides that can protect it from the storms of the Mediterranean.

Coupled with relatively stable rain and heat conditions, and with a government covering the entire island that is able to organize and maintain the construction and maintenance of water conservancy facilities, the output is quite gratifying.

To the south is the Troodos Mountains, famous for its copper mines since ancient times.

In addition, the temperature difference between day and night in mountainous areas is slightly larger than that in coastal areas, which is relatively more suitable for the accumulation of sugar in various crops, thereby producing higher quality fruits or growing sugarcane.

Therefore, as long as Korna controls costs, its investment in Cyprus is basically a sure win.

After completing a tour of the island of Cyprus, Gellis finally returned to the port of Limassol and headed to the village of Episkopi.

This is the sugarcane plantation that Korna had previously set his eyes on, and there are currently many smelting workshops gathered here.

And compared to the smelting workshop I saw in Paphos before, this one is much larger.

In fact, this also means that the local roads are much worse.

In addition, there was an autumn rain not long ago, so even though the rain has stopped now, the roads are still somewhat muddy.

Gellis did not travel by carriage, and of course even if he did, it would not necessarily be comfortable.

Even though the carriages produced in Jerusalem today are equipped with springs for shock absorption, they may still have difficulty moving on these muddy and damaged roads.

In this situation where his boots were inevitably covered in mud and water, Gellis began to promote his railway plan to Korner beside him.

"Look, take the smelting plant here in Limassol as an example. It produces at least half a million pounds of iron every year. Over time, if it is not relocated, the output will only gradually increase."

"To produce these five hundred thousand pounds of iron, one million pounds of ore and three and a half million pounds of charcoal are required."

"Add to that various other raw materials and the transportation back and forth, and it can be said that there are six to seven million pounds of goods moving on this road every year."

"In other words, if it were open every day, this road would move about 20,000 pounds of freight every day."

"An ordinary horse-drawn carriage, even with two horses pulling it, can only carry about 1000 pounds."

"At least 20 carriages are needed to maintain transportation."

"And you have seen the result of these 20 carriages transporting goods back and forth. With the road conditions under our feet, if we want to improve transportation efficiency and use larger carriages to transport goods, I dare say the road will only be worse."

Korner looked at the deep ruts on the road and nodded subconsciously.

For Cyprus today, roads are no longer just for pedestrians to travel, but serve as blood vessels between various production sites, transporting large amounts of nutrients.

If you want to connect these places, more solid roads are the inevitable choice.

As to whether it is a railway or using stone slabs, those are other details.

The smelting site of Ipiskopi Village is located in the south of the village, near the confluence of two tributaries.

A Cypriot company invested in building a dam here, thus creating a small reservoir.

A canal was dug next to the dam to ensure that the water power could be used as much as possible.

Before the advent of the steam engine, a large number of workshops and factories had to be built around such locations if they wanted to produce efficiently.

Objectively, this limits the overall scale of the handicraft industry.

As far as Gellis was concerned, the smelting plant here was larger than the one he had seen near Paphos before, but it was still too insignificant compared to the factories that stretched for miles in later generations.

The surrounding forests are still lush and green, and you can even hear the cries and movements of wild animals from time to time, making you feel like you are actually in a primeval forest rather than in a metal processing center.

But for Korner, who was traveling with him, he still couldn't help but marvel at the existence of those blast furnaces.

The six-meter-high furnaces are like giants, with four of them lined up there.

The sight of thick black smoke floating into the sky was something he had never seen before.

It was precisely such a behemoth that required awe-inspiring facilities to produce enough iron that gave Gellis the idea of ​​paving the road directly with iron.

The gap between the East and the West is highlighted here.

For China, which produces millions or even tens of millions of kilograms of pig iron, the metal smelting industry in Cyprus is really not good enough. These four six-meter-high furnaces are not all in operation at the same time, and in order to maintain the operation of these furnaces, there are more than a hundred craftsmen working here every day.

The original village of Ipiskopi has significantly improved its overall income level by providing services to these craftsmen.

In the village of Ipiskopi, there are dormitories for the craftsmen, fixed shops selling general merchandise and goods, and even special taverns and bakeries that provide fresh food.

It is called a village, but in fact it can be considered a small town.

Together with some foreign businessmen who come here to purchase steel or provide materials, the population here has long remained at around 600 people.

Farmers from other nearby villages would come here from time to time to buy various things and hold gatherings periodically.

In general, in the morning and evening every day, this place is bustling in a different way from other villages in this era.

For the people of Ipiskopi, their every day basically starts around seven in the morning, when the village's bronze bell is rung to remind the craftsmen who are not on duty to get up.

Then, they would wash up and have breakfast before the second bell rang at 8:30, and rush to the blast furnace to prepare for work.

Except for an hour for lunch and rest at noon, we have to work until 5:30 in the afternoon.

Excluding the one-hour lunch break, a complete working day is roughly 8 hours.

Although this period of time may not seem long, it was extremely torturous for medieval craftsmen who were used to being free from constraints.

Moreover, metal smelting itself is a high-risk, physically demanding job.

Working half a day next to a blast furnace may result in as much salt and moisture lost as three days of work by an ordinary farmer in the fields.

If the salary wasn't really high, Gerard wouldn't have stayed here for long.

But what if the salary is high?

With so much pressure from work every day, one always has to find a way to vent it. Although there are widows in the village of Ipiskopi, they can do some semi-hidden business.

But gambling is Gerard's favorite thing.

As for gambling, from the perspective of probability, as long as you participate enough times, it is almost inevitable that you will lose all your money.

Over time, Gerard found himself in a situation where he was sometimes rich and sometimes poor.

The workers around him couldn't help but shake their heads as they watched this guy fall.

If he wasn't really good at blacksmithing, the foreman in charge here would have been thinking about firing him to avoid getting into trouble.

In fact, if the smelter had not provided lunch every day and a certain amount of meal expenses, Gerard might have gone hungry every now and then.

But even so, Gerard was not grateful. In his opinion, all this was what he should do.

After all, a smelter is called a smelter, but it does not really only produce pig iron. In fact, the freshly molten iron can be directly used to cast finished ironware in the presence of a mold.

Coupled with certain craftsmanship and the cooperation of highly skilled blacksmiths, many high-quality finished products can be produced.

When it comes to blacksmithing skills alone, Gerard believes that no one in the field can compare to him.

But so what?

He could only earn three or four gold coins a month, just like other craftsmen, and his life was neither good nor bad, which made him accumulate a lot of resentment.

This is actually the difference between the iron smelting workshop in Jerusalem today and the blacksmith shops in Europe.

For the Jerusalem iron smelting workshop today, the role of individual highly skilled blacksmiths is actually no longer so prominent.

In the blast furnace foundry industry where quantity is the key to success, a large number of skilled workers who are proficient in each work process are truly indispensable.

This also made Gerard feel that he was not valued.

And Gerard was unwilling to teach his many years of blacksmithing experience directly to the workers around him.

After all, in his opinion, those were the things that allowed him to make a living, and they were things he had learned by working like a slave for his master and enduring great hardships. So why should his co-workers learn them for nothing?
Many things are stuck here, which is caused and constrained by the level of social productivity at this stage.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem never developed to the stage of assembly line factory production.

"Gerard, are you done packing? If you are, come here right away!"

Not long after Gerard stuffed the bag of gunpowder into the designated location, the foreman outside hurriedly urged him to do it.

After responding twice, Gerard ran out with a smile on his face.

I heard that some important person is coming to visit, but so what?
Gerard was tired of everything here anyway. According to the previously arranged procedure, he was only responsible for placing the gunpowder bags, and someone else was responsible for lighting the fuse.

Wait until the explosion happens, and then take advantage of the chaos to escape.

As agreed before, we went down the river all the way south. At the river mouth, there was a boat ready to pick us up.

By that time, everything here will have nothing to do with him.

The craftsmen were standing in groups on the site, and when Gerard came out, he realized that he was still late.

Many workers have been resting here for quite some time, eating some beautiful-looking bread in their hands.

There were many people who came to inspect, and among the three leaders, Gerard only recognized one, Marwan.

As for the other two, they looked well-dressed and were distributing food and asking about everyone's well-being.

Gerard curled his lips again. This kind of work is what Cyprus companies like to do the most. How much is it for a few loaves of bread? If you have the guts, give him a raise!
Of course, he wouldn't show it on his face.

When the middle-aged man, who was obviously taller than him, came up to him, he exchanged some formal politeness and spoke in a very friendly manner.

"From what I hear, you sound like a Frenchman? Why? Are you here on a pilgrimage? How is life here? Do you have any difficulties?"

Faced with such polite words, Gerard naturally shook his head and just kept saying that he was living a good life.

Many of the foremen and workers who heard this smiled sarcastically but did not expose the truth.

After this step was completed, the foreman led these important people who came to inspect into the workshop.

(End of this chapter)