Our family is in decline

Lance had seen the modern steel forest, but he was not too shocked by Totnes at first. At most, he was a little novel about this alien-style city.

But soon his feeling was gone, replaced by another feeling - crowded.

Directly down from the Inland River Wharf is the Wharf Commercial District, where commerce is extremely prosperous. There are no mud-walled thatched houses like those in rural towns. They are all stone-brick buildings, at least two or three floors, and all the buildings are crowded together, as if they can't wait to see each other. Use up all the space.

The passages between the buildings are even more cramped, forming countless dark paths. Only the main road is slightly wider.

Restaurants and hotels can be seen everywhere on both sides of the main road. Some shops put up awnings and put them up for sale. There is a dazzling array of goods. They are no longer limited to the necessities you usually see, but there are many more with enjoyment attributes. The hawking of the vendors on the street makes this street even more popular.

Lance walked around, stopping from time to time to ask about prices, trying to understand the price level here.

The prices of goods here show two extremes. Some handmade products are much cheaper than in Owendo City, but food, for example, is much more expensive.

You don't need to think about it to know that there are too many people gathered here, and manpower is not valuable, so the handicraft industry is very developed. Once scale is achieved, the cost will be suppressed.

On the contrary, the prices of some items that need to be shipped from outside will be superimposed, such as freight, rent, profits, etc., of course, they will be much higher.

And this is the fundamental logic of businessmen's existence, to make profits by transshipping goods.

But Lance was not very interested in these, and instead followed the location described by Barton in his memory to the place where the craftsmen gathered.

There are a little less people here, but as soon as you get closer, you can hear the sound of blacksmithing, and there are not just one or two. The whole street is hung with iron felt and wooden signs with stove signs, and blacksmith workshops are located among them.

【Workshop】

This area gathers most of the skilled craftsmen in Totnes City, and the current street in Reims is a casting-related industrial cluster.

A workshop is usually a storefront with a workspace at the back. Things are sold in the front and crafted in the back. The weapons produced by some masters can be sold for hundreds or thousands of gold coins.

Lance walked into a random store and could see that most of the customers here were in need of weapons and armor, which was evident from the proportion of things hanging in the store.

But that's not what he came for today, he came for farm tools.

Why does he want the refugees to go back?

It is to cultivate the land, and these require agricultural tools. In this era, most of the agricultural tools are still wooden. As for the iron agricultural tools, it is not that there are no, but there are few.

The clerk here greeted the customer when he saw him and wanted to introduce him.

"I wonder what the guest wants? We only need a full set of knight armor..."

"Stop, stop, stop!" Lance raised his hand to interrupt and took out a drawing. "See if you can do this. I need a lot of it."

Three hundred lumber axes, a thousand sickles, a thousand hoes, a thousand shovels, a hundred plowshares, all without the need for handles.

At first glance, this business was from a large farmer. The clerk knew that he could not decide the amount, so he immediately ran to the back to ask for instructions.

The curtain was opened, and Lance felt a hot wind blowing out, and then a shirtless strong man walked out. His body was muscular, his arms were thick, and his finger joints were thick. It looked like he had been doing hard work for many years.

Maybe it was because he was still swinging the hammer just now, but the leather apron on his waist and hips was darkened, and there was a thin layer of sweat all over his body that was shiny under the light. Coupled with the bald head that had gone bald early, he felt very strong just by looking at it.

In other words, it is difficult for ordinary blacksmiths to survive and maintain their workshops here.

After some discussion, the factory owner was only willing to accept part of the order because the quantity was too large and the time was too short.

Of course, the profit is relatively low and not as good as weapons and armor.

He was not in a hurry. There were too many factories here. After finding a few, he quickly completed the order.

In other words, he just got a batch of money from the Ascension Sect, otherwise the order would only be half at most.

And when he got rich, he would directly double the order, because the price of farm tools here is at least 20% cheaper than the cost of making it by himself. The more the quantity, the cheaper the price becomes, and the quality is more guaranteed.

The blacksmith shop in the territory took up most of their time to maintain weapons, and they had no time to make farm tools.

One of the major tasks of coming to Totnes has been completed, but Lance did not leave in a hurry. Instead, he continued to wander around the workshop area, looking for a workshop that made firearms.

The current loading problem of firearms means that they are not strong in actual combat. Only a few people can see the war potential contained in them. Its more attributes are to replace heavy swords and serve as decoration for those gentlemen and wealthy businessmen.

Therefore, most of these craftsmen who make firearms have not formed a large scale, but take a boutique route, and you can see the gorgeous decoration on the finished gun bodies.

It's just that Lance can't equip his soldiers with these luxury goods. He needs something that is durable and cheap, and there is only one place where these meet his requirements.

That is the affiliated workshop whose full name is [Totnes Gunnery Academy]. Important people have long seen the war potential of this thing and have been promoting it, and even built an academy to cultivate talents.

There are officers who specialize in training for practical combat, and Patton is one of the best, but more are the craftsmen and apprentices who make these, and these are the majority of teachers and students in the academy.

In order to maintain the operation of the academy, it is necessary to generate income, and this affiliated workshop is one of them. It produces gunpowder and guns, undertakes most of the empire's firearms orders, and also represents the pinnacle of the empire's firearms technology.

Whether it is the guns seized from the artillery regiment or the ammunition from Jean's warehouse, they are all products of this factory. The only difference lies in the logo printed on them.

The shop of the Academy Factory is on this street, and it even has a large facade. When you go in and see that the finished products they display are basically practical, they are obviously different from those luxury goods that often cost tens or hundreds of gold coins.

A basic short-barreled musket here only costs twelve silver coins, and the basic long-barreled flintlock gun costs only one gold coin, which converts to twenty silver coins.

But there is one thing to consider. Firearms are different from cold weapons that can be picked up and chopped directly. Several things are required to activate them.

Flint, gunpowder and projectiles are all consumables, and this is the biggest consumption in the future.

Lance estimated the cost of setting up a musketeer team and the maintenance cost, and found that the average lord really couldn't maintain it.

But he couldn't bear to let go of his children to trap the wolf. The traditional military training cycle was too long, and the threat from his ancestors was imminent. To protect and regain the territory, he needed the presence of the army. He had to quickly expand his strength in a shorter time.