Transferring Production Capacity

Victor weighed it in his hand; a single copper ingot weighed over 40 kilograms, which was indeed difficult to lift with one hand. An ordinary person might get injured if they weren't careful, but this weight was nothing to him.

At this moment, Octavia walked over, squatted down, touched the copper ingots, and said, "This batch of copper will be processed into copper wire at the Steelworks for our next research and experiment. After all, we can't mine copper in the short term, so we have to be frugal."

Victor handed out the copper ingots, clapped his hands, and said, "Don't worry, although large-scale mining is not possible, I have already given instructions to Blue Lake Bay Outpost."

They would regularly collect high-grade ore and bring it back with them when the supply convoy returned.

The quantity may not be large, but it's enough to meet your experimental needs.

Octavia jumped up with joy. "Thank you, Viscount! This will allow us to speed up our next experiment."

Victor then toured the Steelworks, noting that it had changed considerably since his last visit.

Inside a factory building, Victor noticed that many large iron pipes were installed on the wall at a height of one person.

"Your Excellency, these heating pipes were installed according to your suggestion, using cooling water produced during our smelting process."

With this, the room temperature is much higher, and we no longer need to use a stove for heating.

Currently, both the Arms Factory and the Machine Factory have connected to our factory's pipelines, and everyone has given positive feedback. However, the temperature can sometimes be too high, and it's easy to get burned if you're not careful.

Victor was about to reach out and touch it, but stopped in time after hearing Rafam's words.

"Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. It's normal for something new to have some problems at first. We can improve it gradually and just remind everyone!"

By the time Victor left the Steelworks, it was already dark. Victor and the others followed Bob directly to the Arms Factory's canteen.

Bob had already arranged dinner. Although the Arms Factory's chefs might not have been very skilled, the food was quite good, and Victor.

After dinner, Bob took the initiative to ask Victor if he could give a work report.

After a moment's hesitation, Victor agreed to Bob's request.

Bob led Victor directly to his Ducal House, Bob Victor to sit in the head seat, and sat directly opposite him.

"Sir, I just wanted to report to you on our recent work."

Riverside Town has just completed its upgrade, and many things are still being sorted out. Fortunately, everyone is working hard and has made a lot of contributions to the territory.

Riverside Town currently has more than 130 factories of various sizes, with a total of over 7,000 workers, making it the absolute core of the territory's industry.

But I recently heard that they want to dismantle the existing industrial enterprises in Riverside Town. Isn't that going too far?

We know that the development plans for the territory need to be balanced, but there is no need to split up and relocate the factories in Riverside Town.

"Sir, I'm telling you this to discuss whether we can change this plan."

After listening, Victor smiled and shook his head. Bob was a little anxious and was about to continue when Victor replied, "The carrying capacity of Riverside Town is almost at its limit now. The number of workers and their families in Riverside Town has reached 8,000, and many of them are dual-income families."

They have relatively sufficient income, so they naturally want to live a better life. They are quite willing to spend money on food, clothing, and daily necessities. The surrounding settlements mainly supply you with agricultural products other than grains.

Due to terrain limitations, the arable land area in these settlements has reached its limit, meaning the quantity of agricultural products they can provide has reached a bottleneck.

Therefore, the scale of Riverside Town cannot be expanded in the future, and I may even reduce its current size depending on the situation.

Upon hearing Victor's explanation, Bob was speechless. After all, the Viscount's explanation was strange in its approach, yet it made sense.

"I just wanted to know how the things you prepared are going?"

"Well, sir, the curved handle saw and the fast horse saw have been designed and completed. The Machine Factory has produced the first batch of samples according to your requirements."

We're testing it now, and it's definitely much more efficient than previous logging methods—at least twice as fast.

"Only double? That's still too little."

Victor was somewhat dissatisfied.

"It seems we need to speed up the research lab's progress. Once the first batch of power Steam Traction Engine is completed, we need to build some logging machines."

"A logging machine?"

"Yes, it's a logging machine with an additional power source, which is much faster than logging by manpower alone."

Bob was curious about the machine Victor was talking about, but considering that many of the things Victor mentioned had come true, he was also looking forward to the new product.

"Sir, why are you still designing and manufacturing these logging tools? Didn't you say our logging camp is about to close?"

"Who said it was going to close down? It's just downsizing. Didn't you say the factory was short of workers?"

By downsizing the logging camp, I can reassign these workers to companies that are short of labor.

Other businesses, including charcoal factories, will also be closed, and their workers can be reassigned to other companies.

After hearing this, Bob quickly said, "It's certainly a good thing to be able to add more important factory workers, but the logging camps and charcoal plants are still very important, after all, they provide our factories with a very important supply of raw materials."

"That's true for charcoal plants. The charcoal used by Steelworks for steelmaking is produced by charcoal plants, but logging sites aren't that important."

As far as I know, our timber mainly comes from the Black Pine Territory, accounting for about 90% of the raw materials. We harvest less than 10% ourselves.

From the perspective of timber supply costs, reducing logging operations is also necessary.

As for the charcoal factory, I plan to transfer the entire factory to Black Pine Territory, allowing them to produce charcoal directly at the production site and supply us with the finished product via water transport."

"This! My lord, shouldn't you reconsider?"

Although the charcoal factory's technology is not advanced, it would be a shame to just transfer it for nothing!

Bob really couldn't understand Victor's approach—why would he give away the charcoal plant for free?

"Bob, you're the Town Mayor of Riverside Town now, you need to have a broader perspective. Have you been reading the territory's gazette lately?"

Bob shook his head. He knew what the Territory Gazette was, of course. It was produced by Victor's secretariat, summarizing various information about the territory. It was essentially an internal newspaper of the Two Rivers Territory government system.

However, Bob has just become Town Mayor and has a lot of work to do, so he hasn't really been paying attention lately.

"You can go and take a look at this issue of the bulletin and see what the commercial situation of the territory is written by the commercial director Rabik."

Trade between our territory and Black Pine Territory is now very close. We mainly buy timber from Black Pine Territory, while Black Pine Territory buys much more.

This situation led to a large outflow of gold and silver from Black Pine Territory, and even caused a drop in prices and a barter system within Black Pine Territory due to the lack of gold and silver.

This is an unhealthy economic exchange and is not conducive to our further cooperation with Black Pine Territory.

Therefore, I plan to transfer the charcoal factory to Black Pine Territory to increase the goods they sell to us, and try to balance the trade volume between the two sides.

At this point, Victor is no longer worried about Markut and his territory making any moves, since the Two Rivers Territory not only has troops stationed in Black Pine Territory, but its economy has also been thoroughly penetrated.

Originally, the population engaged in the timber industry in Black Pine Territory already accounted for one-tenth of the territory. With the relocation of the charcoal plant this time, it will basically absorb all the remaining idle labor force in Black Pine Territory.

From then on, if Black Pine Territory had any other ideas, Victor only needed to stop buying timber and charcoal from Black Pine Territory, and Black Pine Territory would have no choice but to comply.

In response to this situation, Victor has begun establishing a timber and charcoal reserve system.