Night fell, and lamps were lit indoors. Though it was not summer, the windows had been opened to let in the cool breeze, yet tiny insects still flew around the lamps in the tightly shut room.
After entering her bedroom, Bonaparte did not hurry to prepare for bed. Instead, he spread the map beneath the lamp.
"You told me to find a new center from a scalene triangle, then form a new equilateral triangle." Bonaparte stared at Georgiana. "All this time, I had been thinking of the obvious and forgot another possibility."
"What?" Georgiana asked.
"Shift the central industry from textiles to other industries," Bonaparte said.
"It won't be that easy, Leon Sterndale," Georgiana said gloomily.
"Then what about this?" Bonaparte placed a bill of exchange on the table.
Georgiana looked at him in confusion.
"Issuing a bill of exchange is effectively sending a sum from one trading port to another, or to the site of a fair, where it is paid out in another currency. A bill sent from Lyon to Antwerp is issued in Lyon's exchange currency, francs, then paid in Dutch guilders upon reaching Antwerp. Sometimes, the money cannot be withdrawn from the bill at all. We encountered that before during our campaigns. To cash out a bill that has not yet matured, one must pay interest in advance. That charge is called discounting. The most important thing in business is recovering payment for goods, and what merchants value most is credit. The advantage of a bill of exchange is that it can fly through the air. Merchants need not carry heavy currency, yet cash can still circulate. During the Renaissance, Piacenza and Saint George City were Europe's commercial centers. Piacenza was ten leagues from Milan, and the fair there was established by the Genoese. At the