Lord of Industrialization

The snow-covered village looks so peaceful, completely white and without a soul. Occasionally, there will be a few rabbits digging through the snow in the farmland in search of something to eat.

Hoffman walked forward in the snow with heavy steps, sinking into knee-deep snow with every step. The white air puffed out from his mouth and nose made him look like a steam engine.

A fence appeared in front of him. He took a deep breath and finally returned to his hometown.

This is an extremely ordinary village in the south of the Principality of Franconia, less than ten kilometers away from Wesson.

Even with such a small distance, Hoffman did not dare to take it lightly, but he had never learned martial arts and could only rely on a dagger and a slingshot to defend himself.

Beside the fence, a rabbit just emerged from the gap. It curiously looked at the large moving object in front of it. It looked a bit like a human, but there was a big bulge on the back.

Hoffman took out a slingshot and a stone ball from his pocket, and aimed it at the rabbit's head.

The farmland, mountains and animals here belong to the knight, and you have to pay for the skins if you want to hunt.

Hoffman walked into the village carrying the rabbit with broken hind legs. The whole village was quiet, with only the footprints around the well and the firewood piles of each house, and the faint smell of fireworks proving that there had been live people here recently.

An old man happened to come out to fetch water. He was wearing a red thick linen skirt with hay and rags exposed from the cuffs. When he saw Hoffman, he asked, "Are you back?"

Hoffman just answered, struggled to lift his tired and disobedient legs, and walked faster towards his home.

“Ding-deng-deng!!!”

The knock on the door was a bit urgent.

The door opened, and an old woman with a large piece of linen wrapped around her body to protect herself from the cold was stunned for a moment when she saw her son. The smile on her ravaged face gradually became brighter than the sun in the sky.

She excitedly turned around and shouted towards the house: "Master, my son is back."

Shouting, she pulled her son into the house, then quickly walked to the altar of the God of Light beside the fireplace and knelt down, thanking the god for blessing her son's safe return.

After closing the door, an indescribable smell rushed straight into his nose and poured into his forehead, suffocating Hoffman.

For him, he was used to this smell before, but this year he lived in the clean and tidy brother-in-law's house and the carriage factory dormitory for so long. When he came back, he found that he no longer seemed used to it.

The room was very dark, and the palm-sized flame in the fireplace brought some light to the room. Two pigs and a few chickens were sleeping in a dark place beside the door.

Hoffman walked over to the fireplace and set down his backpack, stirring up some dust.

Hoffman's father sat in front of the fireplace in a daze, his clothes and pants stuffed with rags, and the cuffs were tightly tied around his thin wrists with a strip of cloth to prevent the rags from leaking out.

He raised his head and glanced at his son's blacksmith uniform and the bucket-sized backpack on the ground, frowned and asked, "Are you spending your sister's money again?"

Hoffman proudly said to his father: "I bought these with my own wages."

His father looked at it carefully for a while and said with satisfaction: "It's promising."

His mother knelt by the fireplace and prayed to restore the altar of the God of Light. After standing up, she said to him: "You go to the master first. The housekeeper came yesterday to ask if you were back."

Hoffman didn't dare to neglect, so he immediately opened his backpack, took his things and left the house, arriving at a nice-looking two-story house in the north of the village.

He used to think that this was the most luxurious building in the world. Even the house that Grand Duke Franken lived in had at most one more floor than this one. However, he was arrested while staying one night in Nuremberg on the way to Weissenburg. scared.

When he went to his brother-in-law's house, he found that the master's house was nothing more than that.

As soon as Hoffman entered the gate, he handed the rabbit he caught when he came back to the lord's steward and whispered: "This is for you."

When the housekeeper saw this rabbit with a silver coin in its mouth, he laughed so much that the corners of his mouth almost split into his ears. He kept nodding and said: "I've been to the city, and I'll be promising when I come back."

Huffman bowed his body, his face full of flattery, and replied: "Thank you for letting me out at that time."

As he spoke, a few silver coins in his pocket somehow found their way into the butler's pocket, and then he continued: "Sir, my brother-in-law's place is very short of people recently. Just take a look..."

The housekeeper didn't seem to hear it, because he felt a little unhappy, and for no other reason than because Old Birch was someone who could speak in front of Duke Wesson. His money and status were much higher than his own, and Hoffman My sister, a woman from a serf family, was attracted by an old birch tree passing by because of her particularly big butt, and she became his wife.

As for why the prestigious old birch fell in love with a serf woman, I can only say that love is magical.

The State of Weisen has no control over the Principality of Franconia, but Old Birch brings some medicinal materials to the lord every year when he comes to purchase trees. In the eyes of the lord, his status is a little higher than that of the housekeeper.

Hoffman saw that the butler was unhappy, so he said: "I heard that Duke Wesson's carriage factory is recruiting people. Apprentices can earn 6 florins a year. If you can read, you can work for two years and do well." It’s not a problem to get 10 florins. My brother-in-law is very familiar with the carriage factory, so he can go to work just by saying hello.”

"Really?" The butler immediately became interested, "You're not lying to me, are you?"

"Really." Hoffman nodded firmly. This is how the carriage factory recruits workers. You can go there without being introduced.

His words touched the butler's heart. The butler's family has a son who is about the same age as him. Now the children in the knight's family are not living up to expectations. Once the master dies, his title will definitely be gone. This place will definitely be given to the new knight by the Grand Duke of Franken. As a knight, when someone has a new butler, he will be unemployed.

But the housekeeper was still a little worried and said, "What if you take too many people away and no one will farm?"

Hoffman replied: "This is easy to handle. The price of food in Wesson is very cheap now. Just use the money to buy it."

This village has more mountains and less land. Its grain output is only slightly higher than that of the previous Wesenland. It charges 60% of the rent. The landlords and serfs are miserable in their respective classes.

Hoffman, like everyone else in the village, was a serf. He had to pay a tax of 15 silver coins a year when he went to live with his brother-in-law. Otherwise, he was a runaway slave.

The steward thought for a while and realized that the money bought more grain than they could grow in the fields, so he said, "Okay, as long as there aren't too many people, the taxes will come back even if the people don't come back."

Hoffman immediately thanked the butler, then took out a fresh cucumber from his arms and gave it to him, saying: "My brother-in-law picked this from Duke Wesson's vegetable garden, a good thing he got from the peach stone, and there are two more Give the root to the master."

"Don't say anything. If Duke Wesson knows that we are going to be whipped, and the whipping will be done on the back, turn over and continue."

The housekeeper's legs immediately tightened. He had heard about this before. When Wesson was arresting gangsters a while ago, he was beaten on the back for theft, robbery and extortion, and he was beaten on the other side for rape and the like.

"Wait a minute," he said to Hoffman, "I'll take it and put it away first, and I'll take you to see the master later."

The lord here is a knight of the Archduke of Franconia. He suffered several serious injuries when he was young. Now that he is old, even though he is wearing thick cotton clothes and the fire in the fireplace is crackling, he still feels cold.

The lord was sitting in the rocking chair in front of the fireplace as usual, half asleep and half awake when he met Hoffman.

It's just that the butler repeated everything Hoffman said in the master's ear, nodding or humming from time to time.

Hoffman felt that the master might not be able to eat the cucumbers he sent.

When he was about to leave, the lady called him away and asked what women's clothing was popular in Weissenburg, how much it cost, and which store was good.

Fortunately, before he came back, he went shopping with his brother-in-law and sister. When his brother-in-law bought a winter skirt, he spent half an hour vividly describing to his wife the clothing street in the city and his sister's skirt.