Warlord: King of All Clans

Looking at the cart of lead tools in front of him, Leo fell silent.

The Hobart family's knight territory has a high-quality lead mine, and there are also a large number of leadsmiths in the family workshop, producing high-quality and low-cost lead products. They have a monopoly on all the lead products in Isenbol.

In the past, Leo always thought that nobles must use gold and silver utensils, especially tableware.

But even in the other world, gold and silver are extremely expensive and rare metals. They are too scarce to circulate as currency, and even fewer to be made into gold and silver utensils.

Places like Isenbol are full of small nobles, so they naturally cannot afford expensive gold and silver utensils.

Some wealthy people collect several sets of silver tableware, which they usually keep hidden and only use when entertaining VIPs.

Copper and cheaper lead utensils were the main utensils in the lives of minor nobles.

When Leo got married and Uliyan was promoted to the banner, the surrounding nobles sent them gifts, including many bronze wares, which were already high-end daily necessities for the minor nobles.

As for the common people, they could not even use copper and lead utensils and could only use crude pottery and wooden products.

Leo looked at Rudolph, who had white hair at the age of 46, and finally found out why the members of the Hobart family looked older.

Out of good intentions, Leo could only gently advise: "It's better to use less of this stuff. Using too much will harm your health."

Rudolph was very unhappy, "Why do you say that?"

Leo was embarrassed to explain heavy metal poisoning and the like to him, because without investigation he had no right to speak. Maybe there was no such thing in the world, and there was another reason for the premature aging of the Hobart family members.

He could only make up a story: "Master Bobak told me that pottery is better than lead, because lead is harmful to the body."

Rudolph looked unhappy and just nodded vaguely.

In addition to a large amount of land, the Hobart family made their fortune from lead tools. Leo's words undoubtedly cut off their family's roots.

If word of this gets out, the sales of his lead products will definitely be affected.

Leo also realized this, so he didn't continue to persuade.

But then Leo added: "How is the lead mine output in your territory? Are there many lead ingots? If the price is right, Hewan can purchase a large amount."

Rudolf's expression changed immediately, and he smiled and said, "My family's lead ingots are of excellent quality and well-known in the North. They can be sold as far as Olenik. They are always in short supply. If you need them, I can give priority to selling them to you."

Leo smiled and nodded, without elaborating.

With his current status, he no longer needs to negotiate in person. After giving the order, the person in charge of Hewan will naturally go to discuss the matter.

The price of the Hobart family's lead ingots is not high, much cheaper than the iron ingots in the river bend. The high price is for the finished lead products.

After all, there are few experienced craftsmen who can make exquisite leadware, but there are many slaves or hired workers in the mines who dig and smelt lead ingots. The Hobart family's output of lead ingots is not low, but its sales volume is far less than that of finished leadware.

Other people in Isenpol bought lead ingots from the Hobart family and made lead products to sell, but they could not compete with the Hobart family who owned a lead mine.

Only foreign merchants coming from the lower reaches of the Anzeno River would regularly purchase some lead ingots and transport them to other cities for sale.

However, in the feudal lord society, long-distance trade was full of obstacles, and it was difficult for ordinary merchants to make big money except for aristocratic caravans and smugglers.

Rudolf said that his family's lead ingots could be sold to Olenik, but Leo just thought it was nonsense.

In the Earldom of Freilov, the Hobart family are all small Karami. Outside the Earldom of Freilov, they are not even considered nobles.

It is already very good if a few foreign businessmen come to place orders.

Of course, Leo purchased lead ingots not to make lead tools to sterilize the villagers in the river bend.

In the past, there was no source of lead ingots, so Hewan could only make iron projectiles as cannonballs.

Lead bullets were high-quality early gun bullets because they are relatively soft, easy to process, do not damage the chamber, and can ensure airtightness.

The density of lead bullets is greater than that of iron bullets, so they can be shot farther and with greater power.

With the artillery technology that Hewan currently possesses, if they want to fire long distances, they can only load it with stone bullets or copper bullets. The former has little power, and the latter is expensive.

If you force an irregular spherical iron bullet into the cannon and fire it, it will explode in a matter of minutes.

Moreover, due to the tight time schedule and lack of a large amount of experimental data to support the improvement of the artillery, the range of the artillery has always been low.

In addition, the caliber of the artillery is not large enough, and the killing effect of a single solid projectile is not obvious, so it cannot be used as a siege weapon.

To the extent that it can only fire shotgun shells and act as a large musket.

With lead bullets, Hewan's artillery can take the path of long-range shooting of solid projectiles ahead of time.

And even when firing shotgun shells, small lead bullets are more useful than iron bullets.

After finishing the trivial matters, Leo took Freya to wander around the lord's castle of Isenbol.

This is a medium-sized castle, located on the banks of the wide Anzeno River and built against the northern wall of Isenbol.

One of the corner towers is even more than ten meters deep in the water. Standing on the top of the tower, you can see the Isenpol Bridge not far to the west, the Isenpol Port to the east, and merchant ships shuttling across the river.

The Anzeno River was only a hundred meters wide at the river bend, but when it reached Isenpol, countless streams and rivers converged along the hundred miles, and the water surface had expanded to more than three hundred meters wide.

This is still the upper reaches of the Anzeno River, which can only accommodate small and medium-sized merchant ships. When you reach the holy city of Ancestors in the middle reaches, the width of the Anzeno River exceeds one thousand meters, which is wide enough for any large ship to pass.

Although the scenery here is spectacular, you cannot look too closely. The sewage from the entire city is directly discharged into the Anzeno River. The cleanliness of Isenbol is barely guaranteed by relying on the dilution and self-purification of the river.

Fortunately, in medieval towns, there were not many heavily polluting industries, and human pollution was mainly excrement and handicraft sewage.

From the culvert below the tower, sewage poured into the Anzeno River, attracting countless fish. It was not until it flowed a hundred meters downstream that it was gradually diluted.

The armed forces of the lord's mansion were disbanded and all the servants were cleared out, so it looked extremely empty.

At the entrance of the castle, the steward from Hewan was recruiting servants.

Teams of River Bay infantry and River Bay laborers are entering the castle one after another to garrison and carry out renovations.

Several kobolds were hiding behind the windows of the castle, furtively spying on the crowd outside.

Although Leo also liked the castle, he was more nostalgic for the cozy river house.

Stay here and rule Isenpol?

That doesn't exist. This mess gave Leo a headache, so he just threw it to Rigolav.

The complicated aristocratic relationships in Isenbol City, the disorganized industries, the various corruption and shady deals, if Leo were asked to deal with them, he would only go berserk and turn the table.

So in name Leo became the ruler of Isenpor, but in reality it was still Rigolav who was in charge.

Leo is only responsible for collecting taxes!