Lord of Industrialization

"Welcome home, master!"

Christian led the upper two rows of young and beautiful maids to line up at the gate to greet Frederick.

Frederick left the royal estate and went directly to the city of Cologne, where Christian purchased a new mansion for him.

The city of Cologne draws several tributaries from the Rhine River to prevent fires and discharge sewage.

The block separated by a river where this house is located is full of mansions of powerful people. The neighbors are either rich or noble, and patrols of the city defense army pass by from time to time.

The house is located in the southernmost corner of the block. It is a triangular plot of land. The side facing the street in the north is about 60 meters long. The sides facing the river in the east and west are about 70 and 80 meters long respectively. To the south is an equilateral triangular four-story building with a side length of 30 meters. There is a A triangular patio, a terraced garden between the building and the street, a servant's house, a stable, a garage and a wall separate the garden from the street.

Frederick glanced at the door, which had been replaced with his family crest.

He came down from behind Dawn and asked the person who took care of Dawn to lead him to the horse pen. The steward behind Christian immediately led the way himself.

Frederick sent the maids away and saw that the garden was bare, all the original plants had been shoveled away, and now only the soil was left.

Christian followed and reported: "This mansion originally belonged to the Adikon family. This family is famous for the presence of many naval officers. Now there is a young Baron Adikon left. He sold his property and prepared to build a fleet. "

"The land, buildings and furniture of the mansion are worth about 25,000 florins in total. Baron Adikon is willing to sell it to us for 20,000 florins of Wesson unlimited commodity vouchers. I have signed a contract with him. , just wait for the voucher to be delivered.”

Frederick stopped when he heard this, thought for a moment, and said: "Give him a voucher of 40,000 florins. The extra money will be considered my investment. If he needs it, I can sell a batch of revolver rifles." give him."

Naturally, he wanted to engage in maritime trade, but it was hard to find professionals in this area. He could only cast a wide net as an investor to see if he could find a suitable spokesperson.

In terms of weapons, he felt that the folding rifle was indeed a bit of a pitfall as a main battle weapon, so he enlarged the revolver into an eight-bullet rotating rifle and fired round lead bullets.

Christian immediately agreed and said that he would go to negotiate with Baron Adicon tomorrow, and then continued: "I found the housekeeper and the head maid here. I knew them before. They are husband and wife. It turns out that they are small nobles in the lowlands and have no inheritance rights. My children have worked in many business families for more than ten years and have a good reputation."

At this time, he said with some caution: "Some of the servants here have served my family before, and their abilities and reputations are trustworthy. Others are recruited through the guild. They are all clean-blooded and have no criminal records or bad habits in their family members." A son of a good family."

Frederick just nodded and said nothing more.

He and Christian walked around the house. Most of the wooden furniture was there, all the decorations had been sold, and kitchenware, tableware, bedding, etc. were all newly bought. Psyche had already touched them in her bedroom. The fish is reading.

In the patio, Christian asked: "Sir, what kind of decorations do you want to purchase?"

Frederick frowned, this troubled him.

This is the royal capital, so the decorations must not only be exquisite and expensive, but they must also not be as meaningless as country bumpkins, otherwise they will make a fool of themselves.

But this is not impossible, he said: "Teacher Psyche will be here for a while. I will tell her later and ask her for help."

"You didn't use cash to buy the house, just use the money to buy decorations."

In terms of art, he was sure that he was not as good as Psyche. Maybe one of the antiques he bought had been touched by this master before.

After discussing the matter, the two went to the study, and Christian handed a stack of invitations to Frederick.

Some of these invitations are written on traditional parchment rolls, with beautiful flower festivals tied on the outside with colorful ribbons. Some are made of white cardboard produced in Wesson, folded in half, with exquisite hand-painted patterns on the cover, and also tied with ribbons.

Frederick read it over and saw that some important ministers of the kingdom were invited to attend dinners and dances, some ladies were invited to attend tea parties, and some scholars invited him to discuss issues when he was free.

He sorted through it, putting the ones he wanted to participate on one side, and the ones that couldn't participate due to time conflicts and the owner's relatively low status on the other side, and then asked Christian to reply one by one.

It costs a lot of money to go on an army expedition. The Wesson Army's logistics standards are currently considered exaggerated by others. The logistics supplies provided by the Kingdom are definitely not enough, so at least this gap must be earned back.

So he prepared a lot of novel products and planned to advertise them while attending various events.

Frederick finally asked Christian to go to the garden to measure the floor plan in preparation for building a glass greenhouse, and then went to talk secretly with Psyche.

Psyche was still lying quietly on the bed reading a book. After sitting on the edge of the bed, Frederick asked, "Is the investigation clear?"

Psyche nodded coldly and asked him: "As the rumors say, what are you going to do?"

Frederick immediately replied: "Let the church come this time. Let's do this first, and then do that. The church will definitely not be able to sit still. It will definitely investigate, and it will definitely be found out after the investigation. It will be up to them how to deal with it then."

Psyche said speechlessly: "You do know how to kill someone with a borrowed knife."

Frederick sighed deeply and said: "I also want to do it myself, but I am not strong enough."

Psyche didn't say much.

Frederick knew very well the process of troubling her to do things, so he said first: "Let's go to the street and see where there is delicious food. I'll treat you."

As a result, Psyche gave him a blank look and said angrily: "You are a Duke now, so you should look like a great noble. How can any noble go shopping and eat in restaurants by themselves?"

"If you want to buy anything, ask the merchant to bring you the goods to choose from. If you want to eat, ask the cook to come over and cook it for you. When you have money and it goes bad, you can have it delivered to your door."

Frederick finally heard a black line.

He likes to go shopping, but how can it be decent for aristocrats and ordinary people to crowd together? For this reason, Ah Fu and the others have said similar things before, but he fooled them by inspecting the territory.

So Frederick went to the housekeeper and asked him to invite a chef from a good restaurant in Cologne, but he was greatly embarrassed.

The butler asked nervously: "Excuse me, sir, are you dissatisfied with the cook? What kind of cook do you want? I will change him immediately."

The kitchen is an important department in the house and is directly managed by the housekeeper. If the new master is dissatisfied with the cook, it is not difficult for him to think more about whether the master is dissatisfied with him and is therefore beating himself up.

Frederick was stunned. He had never even drank the boiling water boiled by the cook here. How could he be dissatisfied?

So he explained: "It's not that I'm dissatisfied, it's just my first time coming to Cologne and I want to try the specialties and delicacies here."

The housekeeper understood and said doubtfully: "Then just let the cooks do it. Their skills are much better than those on the street, otherwise I wouldn't hire them."

Frederick understood. "Learning literary and martial arts will bring you goods to the emperor's family" can also be used as a cook. Even if it is not a palace, it is naturally better to be a chef for a nobleman than to work in a restaurant.

"Okay," said Frederick, "I'll try my cooking skills tonight."

When dinner time came, only Frederick and Psyche were having dinner in the restaurant.

The table was filled with sumptuous dishes, some of which Frederick had not expected.

On the plate in front of him were several slices of soft white bread, smeared with butter and sprinkled with cheese slices and raw onions. It tasted pretty good.

Of course, pork knuckles are indispensable here. The method here is to pickle the pig's knuckles in salt water. The taste is salty, but it goes well with light beer.

Then there are the bread rolls stuffed with minced pork, pepper and butter, and the soup made with pork belly and peas, which are all delicious.