Starting Today, I’ll Work as a City Lord - CH 42

When Liu Feng walked into the living room and saw the blood on the corners of Tory’s mouth, his eyes twitched. Remembering the report that Niu Ben had gave him earlier, Liu Feng wanted to laugh.

“Sir Tory, please sit,” Liu Feng said, waving his hand and ordering people to bring more refreshments.

“Thank you, Baron Liu Feng,” Tory said, slowing sitting down. He eagerly looked at the pastries on the table, suppressing his urge to just grab the pastries. He could not afford to lose face for the nobles of Bei Feng City.

“I would like to thank Bei Feng City for its generosity and willingness to sell us wheat,” Liu Feng said, taking a sip from the teacup. His behavior had become more and more noblelike in the past few days.

“This is a trivial matter with mutual benefits.There is no need to take it to heart, Baron Liu Feng,” Tory said.

He did not dare to underestimate Liu Feng anymore. All the details he had seen from the time he entered the castle showed that Liu Feng had an amazing living standard. It was at least a dozen times better than the living standards of the nobles of Bei Feng City.

As for the life of the commoners, Tory didn’t care at all. They were just there to provide for the nobles anyways.

Tory thought about the butler named Niu Ben, who wore better clothes than him. He then thought about Liu Feng’s clothes, which were even better. He had never even seen that style before.

“Then, Sir Tory, what business did you come for?”

Liu Feng went straight to the point, as he didn’t have time to argue. There was a good show to watch that night, and he had to oversee preparations.

Hearing that, Tory tried his best to sit up straight. From Liu Feng’s point of view, however, Tory’s whole body was basically his belly.

“Baron Liu Feng, my father, who is Bei Feng City’s City Lord, hopes that you can open up the hide trade in Xi Yang City.”

Tory continued before waiting for Liu Feng to reply. “Of course, our Bei Feng City will continue to open up wheat trade for you. We have accumulated enough wheat to last for 2 years.”

Bei Feng City was close to a river, so it had a ton of fleets, which often go to other cities for trades. Wheat was the main food source in this world and was an important product.

Liu Feng believed that Bei Feng CIty had enough wheat stored to last for 2 years. The idea of hide trade made him thought of something, and he couldn’t help but smiled a bit.

“Oh? Hide trading? It’s not a big deal. I can agree,” Liu Feng said. Not only could hide be used to make warm clothes, they could be used to make leather armor for war.

Xi Yang City was one of the cities closest to the Forbidden Mountains, which had tons of beasts.

Every year, the hunters in the territory would hunt a bunch of wild beasts and skin them and sell the skins at high prices.

“Really?” Tory was stunned. He had thought it would take a bit of bargaining, so he hadn’t expect Liu Feng to agree so easily.

“Sir Tory, there isn’t much else is Xi Yang City, but there are a lot of hide, which can generate plenty of income for the residents, which is a good thing,” Liu Feng said, smiling. He did not mention the fact that he had no need for leather armor, as he already had iron.

Besides, he realized that Bei Feng City wasn’t in a good spot, since they came to ask for hide directly. Most merchants purchased military supplies secretly.

Tory frowned and wondered if there was a scheme. Any nobleman with some knowledge would know about the importance of hide.

Every city banned selling hide in large quantities. Some cities even banned the act of selling and buying hide, and the city owner collected all the hide.

Of course, only the hides that could be made into leather armor were included. These hides include wild boar hides and rhino hides.

“Baron Liu Feng, do you have any requests?” The only thing Tory could think of was the Liu Feng had requests.

“Oh?” Liu Feng was stunned for a bit, and he faintly smiled. “Of course. We need a lot of wheat. We also need cattle, sheep, and horse. We just need the cubs though.”

“That’s all?” Tory was even more confused. He couldn’t understand the request at all. He could understand young horses, as they could become war horses when they grew up. He couldn’t understand cattle and sheep, however, as theses animals could only be used to as a source of food.

It took forever for cattle to grow up to be old enough to be killed and skinned to make armor. It was much better to buy other hides, like boar hides.

Sheep fur was good as it could make warm clothes, but the meat was extremely bad. Only the commoners liked to eat them.

“Yes, that’s all!” Liu Feng learned that everyone was like Tory and thought that cattle meat tasted bad.

Liu Feng almost died of laughter when he learned that people raised cattle as pigs to for their meat and then took their hide.

Liu Feng thought about the level of technology in this period and understood. The commoners didn’t use horses or cattle to farm and did it manually instead.

In this era without iron tools, many people used stone hoes to cultivate the land one by one. Planting wheat that way would obviously lead to a low yield ratio and starve many people to death.

There were no shortage of hides in Xi Yang City, but they lacked these three animals. Only the inland had them. It was said that these animals came from far away and were very rare.

Liu Feng was going to put rings on the cattles and make them farm cattles. He would then bring out the plow and get iron hoes and improved seeds from earth.

Next year, Xi Yang City would be able to leave famine behind completely and there would no longer be any need to buy wheat from Bei Feng City.

Translator Note:

Sorry, I felt sick last week so I didn’t translate. I feel better now, so I think I’m back to the schedule.