After more than an hourglass, the meeting had moved on to Kelun, the intelligence minister. Su Qin looked at him again.
"Kelun, get the intelligence network working. Make proper use of those moles in the dungeon. I have some lists of people with problems. Come get them from me later!"
"Mark those people and keep a close eye on them!"
"Yes, my lord!"
Su Qin then looked at Gery, the youngest official, who oversaw manufacturing. "Gery, what budget would we need to build a large smithy, and how long would it take?"
"My lord, I haven't calculated it yet!" "The slurry is still being adjusted too!"
Su Qin nodded. "Come see me alone once you've worked it out!"
"Yes, my lord!"
"Anything else to report? If not, I have one final matter!"
"No, my lord!" came four replies.
"Double the pay of all soldiers and ordinary administrative personnel. As for you four..." Su Qin exchanged looks with the four of them. "You'll receive ten gold coins a month. That's the final matter!"
One silver coin a month was enough for a person to live quite well. Of course, the monthly payroll would now come to 120 gold coins. But their current income consisted only of twenty gold coins from forging swords for passing knights and spears for weapons merchants, and Kelun's twenty gold coins a month from logging redwoods.
The main issue was that the safe area was relatively small. Few loggers worked in areas where barbarians sometimes appeared, and with their limited population, expanding the logging industry aggressively would leave them short of food!
After the ministers noted down their tasks, they slowly left through the meeting room's west door. Only Kelun stayed behind to guide his son in writing the minutes.
That night, on Gull Summit, the castle's highest platform, Su Qin sat at a table, admiring the bustle at the docks several li away. Yira continued pouring wine for him. "My lord, do you need me to arrange for some people to spread the Dragon God Faith among the populace?"
Su Qin shook his head. "Yira, from now on, call the Dragon God Faith the Qilin Faith in public. Say it's a religion from the east. We have too few loyal followers right now. We'll act once we have more."
"Yes, my lord!"
As far as spreading religion went, Westeros had no law explicitly stipulating which religion people had to follow, but traditional religions were quite deeply rooted in people's hearts. In the nobles' hearts, of course. The common people actually just followed whatever faith their local nobles followed. They cared more about survival!
At present, the religions of Westeros had no religious armies. Perhaps that had something to do with the Seven not performing miracles. In truth, what the Seven represented was quite good.
The Father represented judgment; the Warrior represented strength; the Smith represented craftsmanship; the Mother represented maternal love and nurturing; the Maiden represented innocence and beauty; the Crone represented experience and wisdom; the Stranger represented death.
Compared with the Old Gods and other gods, such as the Drowned God, the Lord of Light, and the Great Other, the Faith of the Seven, with its Seven-Pointed Star, seemed more normal no matter how he looked at it.
But as time passed, the faith had changed in character. Its monks had also become corrupted in the darkness. Even the male clerics in the churches commonly had the strange predilection of liking little boys.
But religion remained an important force in maintaining order, deeply rooted in the nobles' hearts. Su Qin drank cup after cup of wine, thinking about how to spread his faith.
After he finished drinking, he simply stared blankly at the various areas. He did not understand why the Many-Faced God and the Lord of Light wanted to spread their faiths in Westeros, or why the Great Other repeatedly brought about the Long Night and drove the Others to invade.
But clearly, these Old Gods and foreign gods were competing for something.
Faith? That was too simplistic...
There had to be something that particularly tempted them...
Su Qin thought late into the night without finding any clues, though the system had revealed quite a lot.
The system had countered the Three-eyed raven, Bran Stark's spying! That proved that, as far as the system was concerned, the Three-eyed raven was no good bird!
Early the next morning, Su Qin took out a map in his study and began planning the distribution of level 2 farms. Although construction had not begun yet, he would certainly give such an important food-producing region careful thought!
Su Qin stared at the wool map. "The area where the Gull River flows into Crab Bay definitely won't work. It's a natural harbor and commercial district..."
"The area ten li south of the large Redwood Forest isn't safe. Not suitable..."
"The suitable area to the west is too far away. We can't adequately protect it..."
"Then the most suitable area is to the east. The western area is relatively narrow, so let's set it aside for now."
"Reserve the area within five kilometers of the river mouth for the new city... Leave a one-kilometer strip along the eastern riverbank for grazing."
"Then, of the Gull Territory's three thousand square kilometers, roughly four hundred square kilometers are truly suitable for farming."
Westeros: 1 mu = 1,000 square meters.
"That's four hundred thousand mu of land, eight thousand level 2 farms."
"That's thirty thousand farming households. How many people could they feed?"
"A hundred thousand? No, once we plant high-yield crop seeds in the future, and add industry and commerce, we could reach a million!"
"Awesome."
Had any cities in the late Middle Ages had a million inhabitants? Perhaps, but certainly not many. The more people there were, the more trouble there would be.
Su Qin continued muttering, "Gulltown has such a good foundation. Commerce, a seaport, industry, agriculture, animal husbandry. No wonder it could become one of Westeros's five great cities."
Su Qin did not believe that there were no mineral resources in the Gull Mountains.
"Even Yaron's Runestone doesn't have conditions this good."
As Su Qin was thinking, a series of knocks sounded at the door. He called back, "Come in. The door isn't shut."
The person entered, and Su Qin glanced over. It was Gery. Su Qin asked, "Gery, is something the matter?"
Gery took out a sheet of paper with the cost of a smithy written on it in Chinese characters. They liked communicating in Chinese characters: few characters conveyed a great deal of information. They had even become obsessed with them.
"My lord, yesterday's cement was excellent. My double-layer stone-brick wall held up through thousands of hammer blows without any problems!"
"I went to test it in the middle of the night! When I came back, I immediately worked out the quote. A large smithy, including all facilities and materials but excluding labor, would cost fifty gold coins. A hundred workers could build it in a week."
Su Qin looked at the dark circles under his eyes and guessed he had not slept all night. "Thank you for your hard work, Gery. Your salary is now twenty gold coins a month. Don't tell the other ministers. Go get some rest first!"
"Yes, my lord!"
Su Qin looked over the quote. The main expense was the high price of stone bricks, and he began muttering.
"One special long stone brick costs one copper coin. Forty thousand bricks cost forty gold coins, with another ten gold coins for other materials. That's acceptable. As for workers, I can get their labor for free."
"Hiss! So expensive. Money flows away like water!" Inwardly, he felt grateful for the earl's daughter's gift. It had come to his rescue.
Finding a woman like her in this era was difficult. Noblewomen actually had very messy private lives.
Restraint and desire, A Song of Ice and Fire!
It had another name too: A Song of Killing and Fucking...
In the study, Su Qin touched his silk clothes, his heart filled with warmth. He needed to prepare a good gift for her.
"A jeweled necklace? Too vulgar!"
"Pretty clothes? She probably has plenty of expensive clothes she designed herself!"
"I'll keep looking. When the opportunity comes, I'll prepare a gift that can express my feelings."
"I'll have to choose carefully!"