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43.47% Time Smuggling Starting from the Year 2000 / Chapter 50: In Germany, in 1866 (Part Two)

Chapter 50: In Germany, in 1866 (Part Two)

Editor: Tehrn

Huang Xuan went out. He brought back about 50 kg of wheat and gave them to the workers, at which the four got elated. They ate rye bread not because it was nutritious but because they didn’t have grains. This bag of wheat was equivalent to their wages of more than half a month. The female worker thanked Huang Xuan once again. She was holding the wheat so tight as if she was afraid that it might fly away. She patiently showed Huang Xuan the way to Kaiserslautern and asked kindly, “Have you come here on business?”

There weren’t many emerging industries in Rhineland, and manufacturing wasn’t thriving either. As a yellow person, Huang Xuan definitely wasn’t in the army. It seemed the woman had got it correct.

Seeing Huang Xuan nod, the female worker said urgently, “If you want to do business, there are a great number of businessmen at the Port of Ludwigshafen. The Duke of Württemberg, Ludwigshafen, built a palace there.”

Huang Xuan thanked the four and started walking westward. Since people could transfer and get supplies only in Kaiserslautern, no matter what their final destination was, they had to go to Kaiserslautern first. It would be best if there were carriages to be hired.

Rolin searched the materials and said, “Ludwigshafen indeed has the biggest port nearby and perhaps the most businessmen.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” To Huang Xuan, Rolin was omnipotent.

“I can only count the number of people in this region. All judgment must conform to the set conditions, and I can’t judge independently.”

“Whatever.” Huang Xuan waved his hand carelessly. He had to go to Kaiserslautern anyway.

“I am sorry. Because going to Ludwigshafen takes more than one day, I didn’t consider it.”

“I thought you had scanned this area.”

“Yes, I have, except for the excluded regions.”

“On the account of energy again?” Huang Xuan smiled.

“The search range must be defined. Even a level-one base can’t search the entire universe.”

“Fine.” Huang Xuan laughed. It was rare for Rolin to make a mistake.

Kaiserslautern was still a small town at the time. It was located in the center of the Palatinate Forest. It had become a small city with the highest coverage rate of the forest. Even its busiest street was lined with trees. Its only beer house was also under the shades. Its population was as small as 100,000, which was equivalent to a town in China. It had been even smaller in the 19th century. The forest had limited its development as well as provided it with resources. It had always looked so thin as if it could be seen through from one end to the other.

There was no market in town, and daily supplies were sold in the town center every morning, but it wouldn’t be open until the next morning. There were no consumer spots in town except the beer house where the logging workers, and also the only industrial workers, who worked outside the town, drank dark beer when having a break, and the restaurant where they occasionally went to eat.

The beer house was also a hotel. When Huang Xuan arrived, it was already nightfall, but the house was still busy. Huang Xuan walked in, uptight. Since he didn’t have a penny on him, he asked Rolin to take out a few kilograms of sugar and wrapped it with clothes.

“I would like to trade sugar for money. Will you take it?”

The bartender was puzzled. He shook his head and said, “You can try talking to Thomas.”

Hearing someone mention his name, a middle-aged man with a long beard, sitting at the other end of the bar, raised his glass and asked, “Who wants to talk to Thomas?”

Huang Xuan smiled at the bartender and walked toward Thomas.

“I need some money for the travel and want to trade this sugar.”

“You have found the right man.” Thomas looked like an alcoholic with bloodshot eyes. He put down the glass and took some sugar to taste. Huang Xuan doubted he still had his taste after he had drunk that much.

“It’s good. How much are you asking for it?”

Thomas’ beard fell into the glass. He took it out and drank another big mouthful.

Huang Xuan showed his disdain by wrinkling his nose.

“I want to spend the night here and go to Ludwigshafen in a carriage tomorrow morning. I’d like to trade the sugar for that,” Huang Xuan said with his back toward Thomas.

“No problem.” Thomas raised the glass again and said to the bartender, “Hunter, take him to a room. It’s on me.” Then he started drinking more beer.

Huang Xuan had wanted to remind him of the carriage, but seeing his face, he shook his head and walked away. The house stank.

The bed in the room was made of birch that was hard and uncomfortable. Huang Xuan got up early. The house was quiet.

“Sir, the carriage is leaving soon. Are you coming?”

“Of course.” Huang Xuan washed his face carelessly and went with the bartender. He thought Thomas was effective despite his sloppy looks.

However, he changed his mind as soon as he saw the carriage, which was a four-horse one, filled with eight people.

“Are you coming?” The coachman was a Prussian with a weathered face and a gruff voice.

“Thomas paid for him.” The bartender tried to help.

Obviously, it was a coach shuttling between two places. Huang Xuan hadn’t known there already were public coaches in Europe, and he had intended to hire a carriage for himself.

The carriage was smelly. “I’ve made a mistake and brought this to myself,” Huang Xuan thought.

A Prussian man with fair skin was sitting opposite Huang Xuan. The woman with brown hair next to him seemed to be his wife. They were whispering intimately. Huang Xuan wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but their voices kept coming into his ears.

“Fisher, are we going to cut the woods too?”

“Yes, Hartig is right. Planted coniferous forests have more volume growing points, and the output will be higher.”

“Are we going to buy saplings and fertile?”

“Certainly. I think the coniferous forest is a better choice.”

Although Huang Xuan knew eavesdropping was bad, he couldn’t help asking in a low voice, “Rolin, what are they talking about? Planted forest?”

Rolin searched the materials and answered, “It was an afforestation campaign in the 19th century. Hartig was the minister of the Bureau of Forestry of Prussia, who advocated cutting down all the trees and planting conifers that grew faster like crops.”

“One can do that?” Huang Xuan was shocked.

“Of course, it failed eventually. But from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, it was popular, and the output was indeed higher. However, their extreme mode of production finally led to the degradation of the soil and the diminishing of the forest. Many trees died of pests and diseases.”

“They must have cut down many natural forests.”

“They had kept cutting for 50 years and regretted it.”


Chapter 51: In Germany, in 1866 (Part Three)

Editor: Tehrn

The Port of Ludwigshafen was the second biggest port of the Rhine River. Because it was inland, it had become a distributive center of cargo. It was also a regional hub with a great number of shops, prosperous commerce and an ideal import and export market. Ports had all along been the means of transport of bulky goods. A lot of human resources had been conserved thanks to the application of water power, and whenever there was an enormous amount of goods, ships were the main means of transport. Modern ships could carry as many as ten tons while each train carriage could carry only 60 tons. A train with 30 carriages couldn’t carry as much as a regular ship of the 19th century. In 1825, when the British Stockton-Darlington railway, the first permanently public transportation facility carrying a steam engine, which was made up of the engine, the coal slime car, 32 freight cars, and one passenger car, the traveling train had had a carrying capacity of only 90 tons.

Ever since Huang Xuan had got off the carriage, he had noticed that he was surrounded by people passing by hurriedly. Except for the different dress and environment, it seemed to be a port city with a busy lifestyle. In the yard where the carriage was parked, there were countless huge logs, only when seeing which, could one understand how many trees the Germans had cut down. Maybe even the Germans couldn’t count the number themselves.

That Prussian man named Fisher disappeared after he had got off the carriage. The horses were neighing. Huang Xuan walked on tiptoe to avoid the dung. After he had got out of the yard, he started walking toward the dock. Only the workers in short jackets, who received the minimum wages, kept looking at Huang Xuan. The Junkers walked as quickly as they could when passing by Huang Xuan, and the ladies even covered their noses.

Huang Xuan was furious. He would have kicked his ass if anybody had dared to treat him like this back at home. However, now, since he was abroad, he had to put up with it.

Rolin was confirming the locations of the grain trading companies. In this region, the chamber of commerce from Hamburg was the most powerful. Although the legendary Hanse Alliance had been over for a long time, the merchants from Hamburg still held a strong position in the circle, who could only be evenly matched by the French.

Frankly speaking, the atmosphere of the commerce in Prussia at the time wasn’t favorable. It had more than 300 vassal states and 6,000 kinds of currencies. There were over 30 passes which levied different taxes from Hamburg to Ludwigshafen. In the 21st century, the Americans are asking for free trades and the abolition of the tax system, while in the 19th century, the Prussians were paying 30 kinds of taxes for their happy business. Thus, psychological qualities formed by cultivation.

Unexpectedly, there were nearly 100 grain-trading companies in Ludwigshafen, which made Rolin’s search very easy. Thanks to Bismarck, in the 1850s, the industry of Germany was developing rapidly; the supply of agricultural machinery and fertile was increased by a lot, and the export of grains was much more than before. Meanwhile, Russia was defeated by the Crimea Republic, revolution was taking place in Poland, and France was adopting military actions in Mexico. All these countries had become Germany’s importers.

In comparison, the trading companies purchasing lumber were much more. Ludwigshafen was the only port in the Pfalz State, the biggest forest in Germany, which would become the biggest timber producer in the world 200 years later.

A great deal of produce and logs would be loaded at the port and transported to Hamburg and London, and then to the other parts of the world. The French merchants were wandering in Ludwigshafen where two-thirds of the grapes in Germany were grown, most of which would be loaded on ships and exported, becoming the cornerstone of the Blood and Iron Policy of Bismarck. The gentlemen behind the counter were also making hundreds of thousands within minutes.

Huang Xuan looked at a man busy writing something on the account contemptuously. Then he knocked at the desk and asked, “Do you take grains?”

“Of course.” The Prussian man looked up in excitement and saw a person who apparently wasn’t European and was even dirtier than the local farmers.

Huang Xuan had been walking all day, and next had been on the stinky coach for half a day, then he had stayed in a shabby hotel where there had been no hot water for a shower or wash. And Rolin was so stingy that he wouldn’t be willing to use energy to clean Huang Xuan up. Maybe he would when seeing Huang Xuan be thrown out. But the Prussian man didn’t do that because in Prussia, there were a lot of farmers sending grains here after a day’s hard work, and they all looked like Huang Xuan. Although Huang Xuan’s clothes were like rugs, and there was more mud on his feet, a business was still a business.

“What are you selling?” The man put down the goose quill pen in his hand and looked behind Huang Xuan.

“Do you take wheat? And at what price?”

“50 Talers every 1,000 pounds,” the Prussian man answered honestly but didn’t raise his head. The average yearly income of a Prussian family at that time was 150 Talers; for poor peasants, maybe 50 Talers. Since it wasn’t in a reap season, the man probably didn’t believe Huang Xuan had 1,000 pounds of wheat.

The Taler was the silver coins of Prussia. Compared with that of other principalities, its value was steady. About three years later, Bismarck would take advantage of the reparations from France to reform the currency and establish the Mark system. Right now, Germany was mainly using Talers, pounds, and francs.

The francs here weren’t the French currency but a kind of gold coins possessing the same value as the French francs and circulating in Europe, forming the Alliance of Latin Currencies, which was the foundation of the European Union.

Huang Xuan shrugged and said, “Then 4,000 pounds of wheat will be 200 Talers, won’t they?”

“Sure.” The man finally raised his head and sized Huang Xuan up. “Do you have 4,000 pounds of wheat?”

“Yes. Do you want to take them?”

“Where are they?”

“I put them in the lane ahead,” Huang Xuan lied.

“Kamps, go with him and get the wheat,” the accountant said to behind him, then he looked at the account book on the desk. It seemed that 4,000 pounds were just a little episode to him.

Huang Xuan smiled and stepped away from the door beside the accounter. A young man growing a whisker walked out. “Where is the wheat?

“Ahead.” Huang Xuan pointed casually.

Rolin put about 4,000 pounds of wheat without packaging in the lane. Kamps was surprised to see the grains were piled up like that. “You just put the wheat on the ground? It will get damp.”

Huang Xuan instantly changed his opinion on this young man. “Not bad. He knows about getting damp. It’s a shame that he doesn’t know the existence of time machine in the world.”

Huang Xuan shook his head and said, “There was an emergency at home. I was in a hurry. So I had to just put it like that.”

“I will ask somebody to move it.” Kamps still felt it unbelievable. He turned and then said, “You stay here to make sure the grains are safe.”

Huang Xuan agreed and sat on a pile of wheat from 200 years later.


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