Craftsman

Agnes entered the ground-floor hall. The floor was bare, the dome unadorned, and the walls lacked curtains. It looked utterly shabby, with even the windowpanes pried out and replaced by wooden boards.

"Why didn't you choose a better residence?"

Vitus replied, "Centurione abandoned the city and fled, and his soldiers took the opportunity to loot the town. The original ducal palace was burned down, so I could only pick a relatively intact residence. Although the interior facilities are rudimentary, the main frame is well-preserved. We'll have to make do."

Following Vitus's guidance, Agnes toured the entire residence and felt it was inferior to the dwelling of an ordinary merchant in Florence.

"It's too simple. I'll write to my father to send various furniture and hire a painter to create a fresco on the hall's dome."

Vitus quickly added, "Don't hire top painters like Donatello; pick someone decent."

The next morning, Vitus summoned blacksmiths from Florence and local ones. After an inspection, he selected four individuals with the best skills and hired them at a high price as full-time blacksmiths.

"This is your task for this phase: to forge the parts according to the blueprints and assemble them with iron pipes to create a new type of firearm."

Vitus explained the function and specific structure of the trigger. After his explanation, a blacksmith named Lambert replied, "This isn't complicated. I once assisted my master in repairing the clock tower in the municipal square. Its core is a set of complex mechanical escapements, especially those metal gears of varying sizes. The processing difficulty far exceeds that of the trigger you mentioned."

Recalling his glorious past, Lambert became more animated, claiming that the trigger was a minor task unsuitable for him. He should be undertaking more challenging tasks—building a mechanical clock tower and having his name passed down through the ages with this landmark structure.

"Where would I get the money to build such non-military projects?" Vitus gave a casual excuse to fob him off:

"You'll make triggers for now. If the opportunity arises, I'll recommend you go to Constantinople to build a mechanical clock tower. It's the City of Worldly Desires. If you participate in this project, the fame you'll gain is unimaginable!"

He assigned tasks to the four men. Lambert and another person were responsible for making parts, while the remaining two would produce iron pipes. To speed up the process, they could recruit youths as apprentices, with all expenses covered by the ducal palace. The blacksmiths would also receive an additional "training subsidy."

Vitus asked, "Any other questions?"

The four blacksmiths exchanged glances and fell silent. Vitus urged them to start as soon as possible and then returned to the ducal palace for lunch.

"You're back?"

Agnes was sitting by the dining table, lost in thought. Seeing her husband return, she quickly instructed the maid to serve the food. "Fortunately, I brought two chefs this time; otherwise, we wouldn't even have delicious meals. Were you talking with those blacksmiths just now? Was it necessary?"

Agnes, from a merchant family, had an almost instinctive intuition for business. She believed that Achaea lacked iron ore and needed to import iron from other regions, so the profit margins in the metal processing industry were bound to be low. It would be better to invest in other industries.

She pondered at the table for a long time and decided to use part of her dowry to start her own silk weaving workshop.

The silk weaving industry had very high profits. Vitus had considered it, but there were unavoidable risks.

"The silk weaving industry requires a large investment of time and capital. You plant mulberry trees, and it takes three years for them to grow before you can harvest the leaves. You also need to find someone to buy silkworm eggs, build a ventilated and heated silkworm room, and hire experienced weavers.

Moreover, caring for silkworms is far more troublesome than you think. If you're not careful, they'll get sick, leading to a sharp decrease in the yield and quality of raw silk."

He tried his best to persuade her, but Agnes became even more determined. Helpless, Vitus could only agree to allocate a large piece of land to her and find something for her to do, so she wouldn't pester him all day.

Two days later, Vitus and his wife left Andravida with their guards. On one hand, they were looking for suitable land; on the other, they were inspecting the agricultural output of the region.

It was already late February, and the cold was gradually receding. They traveled south along the coastline, with the azure Ionian Sea to their right. Near the shore, the water was a clear turquoise, and smooth pebbles could be seen underwater. Further out, the water deepened into a pure indigo, and the sea surface in the distance turned a deep blue, almost merging with the sky.

To the left of the road, the terrain gradually rose, forming rolling hills. Some hills had infertile soil with large areas of exposed gray rock. Scattered flocks of sheep roamed the hillsides. They were small and had messy wool, but possessed astonishing agility and balance as they leisurely grazed on wild grass.

Some hills had less rock and were planted with olive trees in large groves. The Peloponnese has hot and dry summers and mild, rainy winters, an ideal environment for olive tree growth. The olive groves were spaced widely apart, and other crops were planted under the shade of the trees, seemingly legumes and vegetables.

On the hillsides, some farmers were harvesting olives, using specially made wooden rakes to strip the fruit into wooden frames. Vitus leaned in to observe and found that the fruit was deep purple, even black.

He asked a male farmer, "Why are you harvesting so late? Shouldn't you have picked them earlier?"

The farmer replied with a wry face, "Last year, during the war, we fled to our relatives in the inland mountains to take refuge. We only returned home last week, just in time for the end of the harvest season."

The olive harvest season lasts from October to early February of the following year. Green olives harvested in October are suitable for pickling, while olives harvested later become progressively darker and are suitable for pressing into olive oil.

Now, at the end of February, Vitus estimated that the quality of this batch of olives would be poor, and the resulting olive oil would not fetch a good price. "Goodbye, and good luck."

The convoy continued on its way and stopped at a village where local farmers were busy pressing olives. They used stone mills to crush the olives, extracting a large amount of oil and water mixture. After letting it settle for a while, they scooped the oil floating on the surface with spoons and stored it in clay pots.

For many years, olive oil has been the most important export product of the Peloponnese, sold by Venetian merchants to other regions for lighting oil lamps, making soap, as a seasoning, and in cosmetics. Furthermore, olive trees grow on hillsides and do not compete with land for wheat cultivation, making them a perfect cash crop.

On the way, Vitus also observed the farmlands in the plains, which almost all followed the prevalent three-field system in Europe:

The land was divided into three parts. One field was sown in autumn (winter wheat), one field was sown in spring (such as barley, oats, or legumes), and the remaining field was left fallow. The three fields rotated, completing a cycle every three years, thus maintaining soil fertility.

From Vitus's perspective, this agricultural method was more efficient than the earlier two-field system and was already sufficiently refined, with no immediate need for improvement.