Chapter 134
Rum, specifically what I made is white rum with an extremely short aging period.
Since rum itself is originally made by fermenting and distilling molasses left over after extracting sugar from sugarcane...
Unaged rum is the cheapest among high-alcohol spirits.
At the current technology level, even soju diluted in green bottles is considered premium alcohol.
'I can make it, but making it doesn't make money or anything.'
Nevertheless, the rum captured the chiefs' attention completely.
"It's completely different from the alcohol we knew. Far from being cloudy and sticky, it's like transparent water."
"The aroma is clean but a bit spicy and strong."
While saying it's spicy and strong, the chiefs started emptying quite large glasses of alcohol.
From what I heard, it seems they've only drunk cloudy rice wine with low alcohol content that can be fermented quickly and easily.
They're no match for alcohol with at least 40% alcohol content.
And as I expected, the chiefs got drunk after just one glass.
Their faces turned red too, so it's about time to get up.
"Haha, this is really amazing! After one glass, I feel like I could take on 100 of those Nador bastards alone!"
"To drink something this good now, I feel like I've lost over half my life until now!"
Seeing how everyone's speech has become strange, it seems chaos will break out soon.
As long as it doesn't directly harm me.
It's a sign rum sales will rise vertically, so it's rather good.
At this rate, I was going to charge 10g of gold for 20 liters of rum, but it seems I could take 12g.
In terms of cost, since it's made with leftover residue from making sugarcane, it's essentially dirt-cheap alcohol.
Just processing it to slightly raise the alcohol content turns residue into gold.
Isn't this essentially the philosopher's stone?
'Father of chemistry Paracelsus, are you watching from underground?'
As I was ecstatic smelling money, Malik approached and put his arm around my shoulder.
"Hahaha, let me tell you! I killed those Nador bastards like beating elephants! Against an army of over thousands, I threw spears, shot arrows! And fired matchlock guns too!"
I should tell subordinates to keep supplying only rum here and escape.
If I don't escape now, I'll have to listen endlessly to the chiefs' boasts about the greatest moments in their lives.
It's not like money will enter my pocket for listening to that, so why bother?
No, even if they gave me pocket money, I don't want to go along with these old man-smelling humans' drunken rambling.
Chloe and Chris are waiting for me at the house the chief provided.
'They're also sexually frustrated from being confined on the ship.'
"I think I'm too drunk, so I'll be heading in now."
Saying that, I fled faster than anyone.
They say there's no paradise where you run away to, but I tasted heaven in my lodgings after fleeing from drunk uncles.
And from the next day, the refugees I brought immediately started teaching farming to the tribespeople.
**
"I'm glad things are going well as I thought, Chris."
Chris nodded with a faint smile.
"I thought there would be severe conflicts at first because of different religions and languages. Seems I worried for nothing."
Surprisingly, people don't fight with swords just because they use different languages.
If they believe in different religions, they wage holy wars (massacres) saying they'll spread their religion with guns regardless of era.
Moreover, unlike me, our Tuscan Empire refugees all live thinking God is really watching them, and are so devout they think missing one mass is a great sin.
'Even Chloe and Chris refuse to have relations with me and fast on days like Easter when they need to control desires and be pure.'
So I thought some problems would arise, but…
They got along very well except for not being able to communicate.
"Hey you there! I said you need to dig deeper with the shovel!"
Of course, the tribespeople absolutely can't understand when spoken to like that.
An interpreter is needed, but the only one who can interpret here now is Abdullah I brought from Nador.
The refugee who was trying to teach something verbally to them made a frustrated expression and ran over.
Then he directly demonstrated the motion to teach how to do it.
"Stick the shovel in the ground, step on the blade once with your foot! After stepping, scoop up soil! You need to connect a path to that puddle over there like this! Otherwise you can't farm!"
Though the tribesperson didn't understand about making an irrigation canal to the puddle, they followed the motions well.
Plowing fields with plows, sowing seeds, etc.
It's almost amazing to see everything communicated through gestures like that.
"Even if their religions are different, people can join hands for profit."
Chris and Chloe wouldn't believe it if I told them, but in this world there are many cases of people with different religions marrying and living well together.
But this is too advanced a thought, and it's not necessary now, so I have no intention of mentioning it.
"Well, the refugees who came here are desperate to change their fortunes. And the tribespeople are desperately trying to survive somehow by learning farming methods."
The group of refugees and minor offenders are people who have lived their whole lives receiving only disregard and contempt.
So when I brought them here, I kindly educated them on the ship.
In our empire, no, on the Albania continent, education basically means teaching while beating with wooden clubs.
'Unnecessary corporal punishment is not good educationally.'
It's not that I didn't use club teachers because I was worried about their character development, as I'm not doing holistic education to reform refugees into humans.
It's because learning while being beaten unnecessarily creates resistance to the learned content.
So I just repeated education with this content for 3-4 hours a day:
'This is the only place where you, who have only received contempt and mistreatment all your lives, can be treated as precious people.'
'If you don't think you can adapt here, I'll send you back to where you were.'
"But why didn't you bring women? Wouldn't it be more advantageous to settle them by 'marrying' them as you did before, Baron?"
Though it's not a statistically proven fact, they say married people are on average over 3 times more efficient than unmarried people.
The reason is that men work themselves to the bone thinking of the children and wives they have to support.
And that effect is so certain that it's said the biggest factor enabling human development from ancient to modern times was 'marriage' and 'monogamy'.
'That's why I married off all the refugees and settled them in our territory.'
I'm not a philanthropist either, so I need to extract maximum efficiency.
But the situation is a bit different for those here.
"Ah, that's a strategy to incorporate the refugees we brought into the ruling class."
"What do you mean by strategy?"
"This tribal alliance can't survive without me. The chiefs know that very well."
If I don't sell gunpowder on time, those Nador guys will think it's their chance and try to wipe these guys out completely.
"So direct personal connections with me are directly linked to influence within the tribal alliance. In fact, Malik was elected as the first grand chief at today's chiefs' meeting."
It's not that Malik became the first grand chief because he's incredibly great.
It's because of his merit in importing matchlock guns by forming personal connections with me, thanks to which the tribal alliance could survive.
"And all the refugees here are my subordinates."
Chris marveled hearing my words.
"The more refugees they bring in, the closer they'll think their tribe's relationship with you becomes. And the method of bringing them in is marriage."
"The refugees are healthy men too, so women would accept them without resistance even if their appearance is a bit different."
Then the refugees will naturally secure power here.
Those born with excellent brains could even rise to noble-like positions as I said.
"And this isn't the end."
Just then, Abdullah came running towards where I was.
"Did you receive all the money?"
"Yes, Baron! I received 120 kg worth of gold in kind!"
Converted, it's 30,000 gold coins, with a profit margin easily exceeding 80%.
It means I earned 24,000 gold coins.
"Wasn't there talk of selling more goods? There must have been many requests to sell rum."
I did entrust Abdullah with receiving the payment, but it's absolutely not that I entrusted it thoughtlessly.
'Abdullah has no use gathering gold here anyway.'
Here gold is just jewelry, with almost no value as currency.
So even if he embezzled, it would only endanger his life without any benefit.
Moreover, I remember exactly how much the payment should be.
"Yes, there was a request to bring 3 times more rum. And they said they'd like you to bring twice as much matchlock guns and gunpowder."
From what I hear now, the war with Nador is in a lull...
Asking for more weapons means they're definitely thinking of expanding their forces even by waging war with other tribes.
It seems they plan to accept those who come peacefully as second-class citizens, and mobilize those who don't come peacefully for 'currency mining' to buy weapons.
"Good, as expected."
Now if I just properly create a port city here, I'll essentially become the actual ruler of this colony.
Even without me directly investing money, the colony expands itself.
This is completely lucky.
"Abdullah, I appoint you as temporary administrator of this port city."
That guy can't go against me anyway.
And he's the most capable among the personnel I can leave here.
"Thank you, thank you so much!"
Yes, you won't die for a while now. You're quick-witted.
"I'll be heading back now. I'll trust and leave it to you."
**
And after Fabio left, Malik, who became grand chief, immediately took action.