The moment he stepped inside, he felt a wave of heat.
The smithy was very spacious. Straight ahead, two bare-chested smiths were hammering a red-hot piece of iron on an anvil.
Weapons for sale stood on either side: greatswords, spears, and shields, though there were few of each.
One smith kept turning the nearly formed iron with tongs while the other hammered it.
Su Qin glanced over. They were making a spearhead. He walked over, and both men looked up.
Both were bare-chested, but they recognized Su Qin as their lord at a glance.
They hurriedly set down their tools and greeted him. "Greetings, my lord!"
Su Qin nodded. "Hello." Then he asked, "What are your names?"
Both men had black hair, blue eyes, fairly long beards, and powerful builds! One answered, "My lord, my name is Red, and beside me is my younger brother, Kend. What are your orders?"
Su Qin smiled and nodded, slowly shifting his gaze to the spearhead on the anvil. "How many spears can you make in a day?"
Red scratched his head. "My lord, we can finish one spear a day."
"One?" Su Qin was somewhat surprised!
Su Qin slowly walked over to the weapon racks at the sides, picked up a spear, and hefted it a few times. He thrust it hard into the ground, and the spear punched straight through a stone paving slab, lodging in the earth beneath.
The brothers exchanged glances and gasped!
Pulling the spear out, Su Qin examined its head for a while. There was little wear; the quality was decent! He looked up at the brothers. "Good craftsmanship!"
Kend immediately replied with a smile, "Of course, my lord. I've been smithing for over ten years!" Red immediately shot Kend a glare.
Su Qin smiled. "It's fine. I like you speaking freely with me." Both men visibly relaxed.
Returning the spear to its place, Su Qin thought for a moment, then asked, "Can you explain the process of making a spear to me?"
"Yes, my lord," Red answered immediately, then explained to Su Qin how they forged spears.
"To make a spear, we first melt the iron. Once it's melted, we put it into a mold to give it a rough shape, then hammer it into form. Once that's done, Kend sharpens the edges, while I prepare the shaft..."
"Stop, stop..."
Su Qin interrupted and asked, "How long does that process take?"
Red thought for a moment. "My lord, shaping takes three hourglasses, and sharpening takes two."
"So you spend the whole afternoon making the shaft?" Su Qin pressed.
"Yes, my lord!" Kend chimed in, but his brother Red continued, "My lord, making the shaft isn't easy. First, we have to carefully plane a squared redwood stick into a round shaft. Redwood is very hard, my lord!"
"And we have to keep measuring the diameter!"
"Then we soak the shaft in insect-repellent solution for one hourglass. Afterward, we wrap woolen cloth around the grip, bind it tightly with thin woolen cord, trim off the excess, and fit the spearhead to the shaft. By the time we finish, it's evening."
After Red finished his detailed explanation, Su Qin nodded.
Looking at the nearby weapon rack, Su Qin asked, "Then if you only made spearheads, could you finish two a day?"
Red and Kend exchanged glances. "My lord, that would be no problem at all! If we worked a little harder, we could even finish three spearheads a day!"
Su Qin waved a hand and looked intently at them. "Red, Kend, would you be willing to take apprentices?" The two exchanged glances, then slowly nodded. Taking apprentices without their lord's approval really would have been difficult, since this counted as the lord's private property.
After finishing his inspection, Su Qin slowly walked out, feeling relieved. He had instructed Red and Kend to take one apprentice each. There was no need for them to do all the odd jobs themselves.
Of course, production would remain at one spear a day. These spears were actually quite good, on par with the wooden spears of the Kingdom of Dorne.
This was because Runestone Territory had a local specialty: redwood. Hard yet resilient, this timber rivaled the ironwood of the Kingdom of Dorne.
Of course, the price was not low either. A redwood spear sold for one gold coin. Weapons were very expensive here!
His main purpose had been to see whether the income recorded by the system differed from the actual income. There did not seem to be any major problems; it was accurate.
The smithy actually brought in thirty gold coins a month, but after deducting labor costs-the smiths' wages of one gold coin-and the regular cost of iron ingots and other materials, it earned roughly twenty gold coins a month.
After inspecting this asset, Su Qin left South Street.
Looking at the sky, he saw it was not yet noon. Su Qin headed for West Street in Gulltown. There was someone he needed to meet there: Kelun, the timber merchant!
As lord, Su Qin had already confiscated his property and that of several accomplices. In theory, he now owned those three businesses.
Su Qin had released Kelun, though he remained confined to the lumberyard. From what Su Qin had learned, the three men's lumberyards stood side by side, which was rather orderly.
The task of taking over the property had originally been assigned to Telang, his civil administrator, or Master of Coin. However, Telang was busy with registration that day, and tomorrow he needed to organize the distribution of food.
The storehouses still held a great deal of rye and buckwheat flour, enough to feed nearly a thousand people for a year.
Westeros loved stockpiling grain.
This was among the things the former lord had not managed to take away. In fact, it was Su Qin's real wealth at present.
Before leaving, Fett had taken his accumulated gold coins with him and given Su Qin some necessary information and contracts. He was actually still very loyal to the Earl.
But a mistake was a mistake. Otherwise, every trip the Earl made would be dangerous.
Su Qin had previously taken out some food for the residents, a small benefit for Gulltown's five hundred local households and the refugees!
He could also give the refugees some support, but he could not simply hand out food. They had to work for it!
For the elderly Master of Coin, Telang, counting and distributing the food would keep him busy for some time. Of course, Su Qin would later arrange for people to investigate discreetly, to prevent deception and concealment!
He could not let Aitron hold too much power. He needed to appoint a civil administrator of his own.
Soon, Su Qin paid Kelun a visit. The workers there were still working; they now belonged to Su Qin! Kelun and his family lived at the timber storage yard!
Su Qin spoke with Kelun in his bedroom for a while, then took Kelun's youngest son with him when he left.
Su Qin told Kelun to consolidate the three lumberyards and hire some people to cut redwood. Redwood was very popular among the nobles of Westeros, but its output was controlled by the nobles of the Gull Peninsula.
This timber grew only on the Gull Peninsula, and anyone cutting it needed a logging contract granted by the lord.
Before leaving, Su Qin gave Kelun a task: develop ten informants, none of whom knew anything about the others.
Their first task was to monitor whether the Master of Coin properly distributed the food. Su Qin had Kren swear loyalty to him before the Seven.
Thus, Kelun became Su Qin's intelligence minister. Su Qin agreed to pay him one gold coin a month and further promised greater rewards if he did well.
Although Kelun had previously been a lackey of the Earl of Wickenden, Su Qin no longer feared his rebellion. He had helped Su Qin catch more than forty moles and had no way back.
After arranging for evidence to be gathered against these people, Su Qin immediately had them beheaded.
As for Kelun, having no way back was the greatest loyalty! His loyalty had already reached [85]. Su Qin believed that rewarding him after some time would raise it further.
Su Qin took away his youngest son, Kerry. Kerry was only eight. Su Qin intended to keep him close and carefully train him, which would also serve as a restraint.
Under the law, all resources within the territory were the lord's private property. A redwood tree took ten years to mature. As for how many mature redwoods stood in Su Qin's Redwood Forest in the Gull Mountains, they were practically beyond counting.
According to the original work, the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros covered an area as large as Brazil-8.5 million square kilometers. The Kingdom of the Vale alone covered 600,000 square kilometers, and the Gull Peninsula covered at least 10,000.
Gull Territory and Runestone Territory were actually earldoms of equal standing, but for particular historical reasons, Gull Territory differed from its counterpart in the original world. It was now a barony subordinate to Runestone.
How large was Gull Territory, then?
It currently covered a little over thirty percent of Runestone Territory, or more than 3,600 square kilometers. Quite small. Half of Gulltown's territory consisted of the mountainous terrain of the Gull Mountains, which held many ores. Of course, beasts such as eagles, tigers, coyotes, and black bears also lived there, and legends even spoke of some kind of magical creature.
Below the Gull Mountains lay a vast redwood forest and the Gull River! The Gull River flowed straight into Crab Bay on the Narrow Sea!
Su Qin's redwood forests covered a vast area and were difficult to manage properly. As a result, many illicit merchants and illegal loggers operated there.
Kelun's lumberyard was actually quite profitable. Its original workforce of sixty or seventy could cut more than two hundred trees a month.
Each redwood tree sold for three silver coins. Even after labor and transport costs, the net profit was one hundred copper coins, or one silver coin!
Monthly income could reach around twenty gold coins, mainly limited by roads and population. Certainly, far fewer redwoods were cut than grew.
Of course, some other merchants and nobles in Gulltown also held logging rights, all in areas allocated by the former lord. These were effectively small fiefs.
Those civil officials each had a patch of redwood forest! Su Qin left these fiefs untouched. He already held the vast majority of the redwood forests himself and did not mind letting them have a share. Their holdings did not amount to even a fraction of his.
Gull Territory was further divided into four smaller territories: Gulltown, Augustus Castle, Keir Keep, and Aite Keep.
This territory had good potential and could support at least several hundred thousand people, yet Gull Territory's total population was currently below ten thousand. Technology, medicine, and productivity severely constrained population growth!
The snowball effect was the most frightening! Commoners lived in poor conditions, dumped excrement directly onto the ground, and had rats running everywhere. It was easy to fall ill.
Once illness struck, it became a plague, killing people in swathes. A slightly nasty wound left someone close to death once it became infected. In somewhat worse-off areas, even the groundwater was salty.
Thus, Westeros had a relatively small total population. In his previous life, Su Qin had read some people's estimates that Westeros had only around twenty million people, most concentrated in the south.
In truth, few nobles cared about population. They only needed to indulge in luxury and extravagance. For the better nobles, simply preserving what they had was already quite good.
Moreover, Westeros was still a feudal civilization. The slave trade did exist. Buying and selling people was actually terrifying too.
Here, an ordinary person's life was worth little.
On his return, Su Qin had forty more gold coins in his system inventory. He had collected the earnings from the smithy and lumberyards.
These were also the lord's current private industrial assets and Su Qin's source of income.