The Righteous Player(s) Chapter 290: One bottle after another, noisy until dawn
It's only been half a month.
In this era where the flow of information is not yet convenient...
The news that the old grandmother had awakened from her dragon's sleep had spread throughout the world.
It was the Noahs who first discovered this. To be precise, they are the steam freighters gathered here in the cold winter.
The most important one is the company that led the veterans to change careers after the eldest princess failed in her bid for the throne. It is the maritime company with the highest comprehensive qualifications in the Kingdom of Noah that was tendered and subscribed by the royal family.
After the royal family acquired half of all shareholders, its original name no longer mattered.
It will receive a new, highest-status name - "Noah Marine Company" directly named after the kingdom without any additional suffixes. The business scope will also expand from pure sea freight to fishery, aquatic product processing, deep-sea resource mining, ocean trade, tourism and other areas.
After the port reopened in the middle of winter, ships from Noah Marine Company came almost every three days.
Either transporting people or transporting goods... Although the natural resources in Winter are relatively scarce for the time being, there are quite a number of high-value commodities in Winter -
The Amber Sea in the north of the cold winter is the largest amber collection place in the world. It can almost be called a "bare mine". As long as you drive a civilian boat over and fish it out with a fine fishing net, you can fish up a net full of amber just like fishing for small fish.
Li Dong’s frost beast blood and frost beast fur are also specialties sold only in Li Dong.
Although this is not a rigid need, because the cold winter has cut off external trade for a long time... and private breeding of frost beasts is not allowed. The frost beast products on the market have been essentially monopolized by the underground city, and are already more than seven or eight times higher than their actual value.
In addition, in the cold winter, offshore, there are the best quality and largest variety of plump sea fish in the world - it is a natural fishery that can feed half the principality and still have a surplus.
During the winter sea closure period, even Noah's nobles had no chance to taste it.
Because this thing is no better than frost beast blood, it is difficult to preserve and transport, so even transporting it to the underground city is very difficult... Even in the underground city with the most abundant product categories, winter sea fish is the most expensive ingredient.
Even more expensive than the highest quality beef produced by the Theocracy.
In the beginning, it was just Noah Marine Company. Every time I dropped off supplies from Winter, in order not to return empty, I would just bring something with me.
But they soon discovered that this thing could be sold for more than ten times the price in Noah... After all, in the dead of winter, fish is the least valuable ingredient.
Because fish in winter are "silly". They don't hide from people at all, they eat bait when they see it, and there are so many that it's impossible to catch them all - after all, grandma's domain also includes tradition. As the mother of all dragons, she and the cup-bearing girl jointly control the field of reproduction and rebirth.
On the seas that are not frozen by snowstorms, the fishing nets are full of big fat fish every time they come out to collect the nets.
That is because not all cities are on the seaside, and some places are relatively remote. When you go out to collect fish, you need to leave the small barrier and work in a snowstorm... The result is that as soon as these fish leave the water, they freeze into ice in the blink of an eye. The lumps are not as delicious as the former.
But in Noah, because these things are rare, delicious and difficult to transport and preserve, they have easily become the latest trend in the Kingdom of Noah.
The price of Winter Sea Fish has reached ten times the purchase price, and it is still rising. Among them, the price of live fish is even higher than that of frozen fish - after all, Noah's nobles are really not short of money.
After realizing the business opportunities, it didn’t take long for freighters from other companies to start heading for the cold winter together.
Soon, the number of merchant ships in Lidong increased to at least one every day. Later, it increased to three to four ships per day... Even the freighters from the United Kingdom had to go around Noah's side.
As for the latest batch of cargo ships, they are still doing business and loading goods in the dead of winter.
Without any warning, small barriers in various places suddenly opened at the same time - but amidst people's panic and fearful shouts, the blizzard that froze everything did not arrive.
The warm air is blowing in. The sun is shining brightly in the sky.
The ice in all the rivers melted instantly, and the frozen farmland thawed and regained its fertility. Even wild animals suddenly appeared... It was as if all the people in a country had traveled to another world.
People quickly realized what was happening.
Soon, the festive atmosphere of carnival swept across the country——
In the winter, people came out of their homes one after another and ran to the surrounding fields and mountains, looking at the green that was light but extremely real and full of vitality.
Almost every family took out all the food stored at home, pieced together and held banquets in the squares of various cities.
Soon the square was full, so every household simply cooked and gave away these stewed, not-so-delicious foods at their doorsteps and in the streets.
For people in the winter, wine is of course a must, so people dug into their pockets and bought all the wine they could. The tavern owners no longer make any money, they sell directly at the purchase price, and all the inventory is sold.
Even those businessmen from other places were dragged to participate in this unprecedented scale banquet.
When have they ever seen such a spectacular scene?
The so-called empty streets——
People from almost a city were all dressed in their most respectable clothes, eating free food and drinking free soup in the squares and streets, holding a bottle of cheap or expensive wine in their hands.
Every time you see other people, no matter you know them or not, no matter their status, no matter they are male or female, old or young, you should have a bright smile on your face, clink glasses and drink with each other.
They took off their hats, saluted, saluted the Grand Duke, called each other brothers, and celebrated in unison.
People laughed, shouted, sang, and danced at banquets and in the streets.
Bottle after bottle, noisy until dawn.
When they drank too much, they would hug each other and cry. The strong bear-like men would curl up like babies, whimpering in a dialect that no one could understand.
——In spring, even if you lie down on the ground after being drunk, you will not be frozen to death by the cold wind in the morning.
There is nothing more reassuring than this.
This is always the number one cause of death among young adults in winter.
So, why do these strong laborers and the backbone of their families drink all night and pass out drunk at dawn without anyone taking care of them?
That is self-evident.
Because they lack [hope]. Looking up, there is no hope at all.
Now, those days are finally over.
Noah’s merchants certainly couldn’t understand those random whimpering words.
But the smell of the stew, the red lights that never go out all night, and the carnival songs and dances will be remembered for the rest of their lives.
After these businessmen returned to China, they immediately informed everyone they could about "the beginning of spring from the end of winter." ~IndoMTL.com~ They described this strange experience vividly. Some people even wrote it and adapted it into an opera.
These merchants did not bring back any in-demand specialties when they returned home this time... they only brought boatloads of letters.
That was one letter after another.
It was something that Archduke Winter personally entrusted them to bring back.
——That is [Hope] itself.
The children and the elderly who stayed behind in the cold winter - the left-behind residents who were unable to work, wrote letters home one after another with the help of the priests. Calling their families back.
Every word is full of joy. Like a flame, burning the wanderer's return home.
Winter is over.
——Winter has turned into spring!