Great time travel

Chapter 46. As expected of the Merchant of Venice (continued)
I have to admit that when collecting property in an unfamiliar land, having a functioning and highly efficient government organization do it for you is definitely better than the traversers running around in a ruin full of rotting corpses in a daze. It's much easier to rely on luck to pick up people's wealth.

Although the amount of gold, silver and jewelry that the Venetians can provide is not satisfactory, there are still many other valuable things after all.

The first is the wood hoarded by the Venice National Shipbuilding Factory - piled up like mountains, tens of thousands of tons of top-quality beech, oak, and some more valuable apple wood and walnut wood.At this time, Europe was sparsely populated and forest coverage was very high, and these natural woods were not very valuable.And Venice is the overlord of most of the Mediterranean Sea. Just for the huge consumption of shipbuilding and repairing ships every year, it is necessary to hoard a large amount of wood for use at all times.

Right now, due to the Black Death, more than half of the shipbuilders who lived in a densely populated environment and had poor sanitation conditions died in one breath, and the hoarded wood became waste for a while.In addition, there are many ships that have just been completed and become unmanned. They can only lie on the pier waiting to rot and rust, and they are simply dedicated to the "angels" as favors. billion yen.

The second is the poultry, meat animals and horses collected from the nearby countryside - as a prosperous city with a high standard of living, Venice consumes a lot of fresh meat, dairy products and poultry eggs every day. In the countryside near the city, Naturally, there will be a corresponding scale of non-staple food supply farms spontaneously generated.Now half of the city’s citizens have died from the plague, and the rest are in panic all day long and have no intention of feasting, so these backlogs of agricultural products can just be used to cover the bills: as green and pollution-free organic food, these things can be sold in the modern world The prices are pretty good.

Although Venice is a water city that uses boats instead of cars, there is basically no place to ride horses, but the territory of the Republic of Venice is not only an island city, but also has a large area of ​​traditional land in the Po River Plain in northern Italy, also known as "Veneto", plus a large piece of land in later Croatia, was called "Dalmatia" at the time, so it was still necessary to raise a certain number of horses-so, like other European countries, many wealthy and wealthy families in Venice They also have their own carriages and mounts, and the government also has a limited cavalry team.Although due to the impact of the Black Death, many horses have not been cared for recently, and many have died of starvation and disease, but if the government orders the remaining horses to be gathered together, there will definitely be one or two thousand horses.In addition, some donkeys can be recruited... Adding up all kinds of things, they managed to raise another [-] million yen.

Then there are high-grade stone materials such as marble and alabaster used in the construction of luxury houses-at the moment, the whole city of Venice is full of uninhabited haunted houses, only the tombs are selling well, and there is no market for building houses.As for the orders for export to other city-states... During the era of the Black Death, almost all cities in Europe had the ghostly appearance that there were more dead people than living people, and the living people would have to reproduce to fill up the urban space vacated by the dead. If it is full, no one will be willing to build a new house for at least ten years. Where will there be any demand for the construction industry?
But even so, the wealth that the traversers can find in the Republic of Venice is still far from the expected goal of 100 billion yen.In the end, even Professor Guo, who had full confidence in the oil and water of Venice, had to admit that he had made a mistake in his judgment—the Republic of Venice in the 100th century was indeed very rich, and it was indeed worth 100 million ducats in this era. property... But the problem is that property worth 100 million ducats in this era may not be able to be exchanged for [-] billion yen in the modern world:
In fact, Doraemon only managed to raise about 40 billion yen in Venice in the end...

"... Tsk tsk, in this case, it's only enough to pay off next month's loan interest, and then repay the 100 billion debt principal..."

Doraemon pouted to settle accounts, and sighed, "...and the [-] million yen that I borrowed from Koizumi Kazuki's 'organization' before, I can't continue to default on it...Although it can be done like this, it is considered Not bad, but... hey, let's keep going!"

——For the vast majority of debtors in the world, when the debts pile up like a mountain, they are likely to be discouraged and hopeless, and have no motivation to make money to pay off the debts.However, when there is only a little debt left, they often burst out with amazingly huge action power because of the desire to be "debt-free"... At this time, Doraemon is just at the back end. a state.

How difficult it is, in the past nights and nights of being in debt, Doraemon was woken up by nightmares almost every day, thinking that he was sent to a waste robot dismantling factory to pay off the debt, but after waking up, he Astronomical debts and monthly interest accrue.

Walking on this endless debt repayment road, he was weighed down by the heavy debts and almost lost his integrity, and even polished his innocent and kind nature. Sometimes when he thinks back, he feels that he has become less My past self was almost mentally ill... Now that it seems that liberation is not far away, Doraemon naturally has to fight hard to get rid of this nightmare that has plagued him for many days at once. .

In order to make a little more money, the traversers took the initiative to help the Venetian withdraw foreign funds——opened the [Random Gate] to various Venetian business houses abroad, and then let Governor Andre lead a group of big officials to be aggressive He rushed over quickly and ordered those expatriates to quickly hand over all the working capital and valuable goods on hand to pay the angel... After a long battle, a large group of expatriate Venetian businessmen, soldiers and diplomats were frightened. Officer, I don’t know how many times I used the [Random Door] to go back and forth. Even the poor Governor Andre was treated as a “devil’s phantom” and poured holy water several times. After that, the traversers finally got another 7 million Multi-yen, plus a bunch of unexpected bonus points:
"...spread the Black Death to London in advance, get 500 bonus points..."

"...spread the Black Death to Hamburg in advance, get 200 bonus points..."

"...spread the Black Death to the Netherlands in advance, get 500 reward points..."

"...spread the Black Death to Oslo in advance, get 300 reward points..."

"...spread the Black Death to Copenhagen in advance, get 500 bonus points..."

"... spread the Black Death to Danzig Port in advance, get 100 reward points..."

……

When Wang Qiu accidentally noticed this problem, he finally remembered that the place under his feet seemed to be a plague area that needed to be quarantined, so the Governor of Venice should be asked to disinfect their bodies first, and then go through the [random door] to go to the opposite side to do business , everything is already too late...

——Many people who could have lived in peace for another year or two before suffering from the catastrophe of the Black Death, now have to bear the butcher knife of the disease in advance... Fortunately, during the process of ransacking one house after another just now, The "angels" did not forget to vaccinate all the Venetian merchants and their family members and employees who were dispatched abroad, and they should be able to survive the upcoming Black Death outbreak.What's more, these places were originally going to be swallowed up by the Black Death one after another, and none of them could escape. Now it's just "slightly" ahead of schedule.

But no matter what, millions or even tens of millions of innocent lives are about to be called by the Lord months to years in advance because of their sins.Now, Wang Qiu and the others really played the role of "World Destroying Demon King" again... Eh?Wait, why do you say "again"?

All in all, even after returning most of the overseas investment that can be returned quickly, the money squeezed out by the Venetian is still far from the goal of the traversers.So, the doraemon who was anxious to get angry drove the Venetian to do business to make money, it is best to collect gold and silver directly!

He first opened the [Free Door] to the Mali Empire, which is rich in gold in West Africa, and asked Venetian merchants to exchange gold with local black uncles using surplus materials such as salt, glass beads, and dyed linen in the warehouses of the Republic government.This business went smoothly at first, because the price of salt sold by Venetians to Uncle Black was much lower than that of Arab merchants who needed to use camels to carry salt blocks across the Sahara Desert, and Uncle Black in West Africa did not have cotton cloth from Indians. , I don't think the European linen is too rough... So this deal can still go on for a while.

It's a pity that this business has not been opened for a long time, and it touched the sensitive nerves of the Arabs who have monopolized this gold trade route for a long time. Soon, many aggressive Muslim businessmen came from nowhere, holding scimitars and crossbows. How do these European guys behave... Doraemon originally planned to use a lightning storm to beat all these troublemakers into coke, but the Venetians begged Doraemon to stop and retreat-it turned out that these Arab merchants are also regular customers of the Venetians. They used to do transshipment business at both ends of the Sahara Desert. They bought goods from the Venetian merchant fleet at the ports along the Mediterranean Sea, and then loaded them on camels and transported them to Uncle Hei’s territory in the south... Now, taking advantage of the other party’s absence Note that picking up a bargain is enough.If you really fight for this bit of gold, breaking the rules and hurting the peace, then what should you do with the business every year in the future?
In this way, the traversers and Venetian merchants ended their business in West Africa with less than fifty pounds of gold, and then reopened the [Free Door] to the Mayapan Kingdom in Central America (the last famous large-scale kingdom in history. Mayan city-state, which still exists at this time), in an attempt to obtain gold in America—although this Mayapan city-state is not the same as the Mayan kingdom that Doraemon’s five-person team visited in their great adventure, the language and customs are quite similar. Doraemon only performed a few "miracles" familiarly, and was regarded as a guest of honor by the Mayans and treated with hospitality...

But when it came time to raise money, trouble came again—these Mayans were completely in the stone age, with almost no gold or silver!Although there is a bit of jade, the texture is also very rough, and the Mayans regard them as precious, and Doraemon is too embarrassed to force them to take them out.

In fact, there are no decent metal mines in the entire Mayan civilization area, let alone gold and silver mines.The currencies they traded were cocoa beans, obsidian, and shells, and they regarded a few pieces of shiny pyrite as rare treasures... In the end, the traversers returned almost empty-handed and disappointed, but the Venetians after an eye-opening In addition, I bought a lot of American specialties such as corn, pumpkins, peppers, and tropical fruits.

Next, Doraemon finally found the right place and opened the [Random Door] to the foot of the Andes Mountains in South America, the real land rich in gold and silver in America, on the future map of the Inca Empire, and was delighted to see, Most of the local aborigines wear gold and silver... However, using things like glass beads, knives, iron axes, and cloth, they exchanged a dozen gold earrings, gold bracelets, and small gold ingots with the local aborigines, and then After the other party was satisfied and dissipated, and unwilling to do more transactions, the traversers discovered another problem: they came too early!
—It is true that there are many gold, silver and copper mines scattered in the Andes, and they were exploited in large quantities in prehistoric times.But at this point in time today, the Inca Empire has not yet been born, and the gold in the Andes has not been concentrated in a certain "great capital". If you want to collect a lot of gold and silver, you have to go one tribe after another. Village after village, it takes countless transactions... Although the Venetian merchant must have this patience, the traversers, Doraemon to be precise, can't wait.

So, after dragging back a few wretched-looking alpacas (grass mud horses) from the Andes, the governor of Venice, who had been in a good temper and had been beckoned by the passers-by before, was traveling around the world Andre.Dandolo finally revealed his real plan with a smile on his face:

"...My lords, if you just want to collect gold and silver, why do you look far away? Although there are not many gold and silver coins in various cities in Europe, if you collect them together, you can make up 100 million ducats. And these cities are now trembling in the face of the plague, longing and looking forward to your salvation - as long as the noble angels grant us the status of a plenipotentiary agent, let our envoys come forward on their behalf and negotiate with various cities and kingdoms' Get the price of "Salvation" and continue to lend us the wonderful door that can lead to all parts of the world, so as not to delay our envoy's time during the envoy's journey, then there must be good news coming soon of……"