NOVEL NEXT Chapter 182: One Million Gold Coins Received
Luo Wei walked down the stairs. Balk and Barton heard the sound and turned to stand up.
"Respected Miss Luo Wei, good day!" Barton eagerly walked over and bowed to her.
"Mr. Hawkins, good day."
Luo Wei walked to the carved wooden chair by the fireplace, turned and sat down, gesturing: "Please sit, Mr. Hawkins, Balk."
"No need, we'll stand," Barton quickly handed her the leather ledger from his arms. "Miss Luo Wei, these are last month's detailed accounts of the cashmere business, please review them."
Luo Wei opened the ledger and was shocked by the numbers inside.
They had sold over a thousand cashmere dresses alone, over two thousand shawls, and even more various undershirts, cashmere socks, cashmere cloaks and so on.
The noble students at Siria Magic Academy didn't even total 400 people - she had underestimated the purchasing power of the Western nobles.
"How did you manage to sell so much?" Luo Wei found it incredible.
With the current production capacity of Hawkins' cashmere factory, they shouldn't be able to produce this much cashmere fabric in a month, right?
She pointed at the data in the ledger and asked: "Are some of these unfulfilled orders?"
Barton praised: "Indeed nothing escapes Miss Luo Wei's notice. Half of these clothes haven't even been made yet - many noble ladies paid deposits at the end of last year."
"That makes sense - so a quarter of the profits are from next month's revenue." Luo Wei continued reading, stopping for a long while on the final page.
Total sales of over 35,000 gold coins, gross profit over 33,000 gold coins, with a profit margin of 300% - even capitalists would shake their heads at such ruthless profits!
Initially, Barton had promised Luo Wei 30% of profits to show his sincerity, which amounted to 10,000 gold coins.
From the over 30,000 gold coins, after her 30% cut and paying the Church's tithe, the Principality of Lunkos' property taxes, and Siria City's commercial turnover tax, Hawkins' Shop was left with over 9,000 gold coins in net profit.
And from these 9,000 coins, they still had to deduct the losses from previous months, future order costs and high taxes, then reinvest in upcoming production.
By this calculation, after Barton Hawkins' busy half year of work, most of his earnings were taken by those who did nothing.
These deductions were painful - she felt bad for Barton.
However, as the saying goes, the wool comes from the sheep - the tax costs stipulated by the merchant tax system were already factored into the total product price.
For example, if she originally set a coat's price at 10 gold coins, and the city lord levied 1 gold coin in tax, this tax was directly included in the product price, selling to customers at 11 gold coins.
The 10,000 in taxes Barton paid actually came from the nobles who bought the cashmere coats.
Luo Wei put down the ledger: "Mr. Hawkins, thank you for your hard work these past months."
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"As long as there's money to be made, it's no hardship at all!" Barton said with a glowing face.
He stepped back and opened the copper chests on the ground one by one, revealing box after box of glittering gold that lit up even the brick walls of the room.
One gold coin weighed about 15 grams. Ten thousand gold coins equaled about 150 kilograms, or 300 jin of gold, filling four 15-inch copper chests.
Although gold refining technology in this era was backward, each gold coin still contained at least 70% pure gold.
In other words, she had received 200 jin of gold at once - equivalent to 50 million in modern currency.
This income came at the perfect time. She had been worried about funding for building the mulberry garden and lumber mill. Ten thousand gold coins would support operations for quite a while.
After seeing off Barton and Balk, Luo Wei called several servants to carry the gold coins to the second floor treasury, keeping the key herself.
"Bella, have you secured the wasteland in the suburbs?"
"Yes, master! The contracts and maps are right here!" Bella found the documents and held them out with both hands, eyes sparkling as she gazed at Luo Wei.
As expected of her master - as good at earning money as spending it. Master was her idol!
Luo Wei took the contract and glanced over it. Twenty acres of land, equivalent to about 120 mu, located in the southern suburbs - just enough to build a small manor.
She put down the contract and looked at the map.
The Siria City Lord was quite cunning - most of the twenty acres he rented her were rocky wasteland slopes and damp riverbanks. It would definitely lose money for growing crops, but was perfect for vertical farming.
The Western Continent had heavy rainfall, and mulberry trees couldn't tolerate waterlogging.
She really had to thank him for allocating her the area with the most water and slopes - solving both irrigation and flood control issues at once.
"Go hire some workers to till the soil - we need to prepare for transplanting mulberry trees." Luo Wei examined the flat map several times, circling a few locations with her finger before stopping.
"Actually, wait until I've surveyed the terrain and soil conditions there and made a plan before tilling."
Bella quickly asked: "Should I hire workers first?"
"Yes, hire both long-term and temporary workers. We need to build over ten large tiled houses in the manor, and dig ponds for fish farming and angling."
The mulberry-fish pond production model had been historically validated. Only a fool would ignore successful precedents, and Luo Wei was no fool.
"Yes, master." Bella hurried to note it down.
"Oh right, is the backyard ground prepared?" Luo Wei suddenly remembered to ask.
Bella: "It's ready, and we've carried in the manure fertilizer in buckets like you said."
"Let me see it." Luo Wei stood up.
"Ah?" Bella stammered, "But it's very smelly there, master..."
"It's fine," Luo Wei pulled out her personal handkerchief, "Let's go."
She strode toward the backyard with Bella hurriedly following.
Reaching the backyard, Luo Wei fell silent as she looked at the two mu of land covered in foul-smelling manure, holding her nose.
How did it get so smelly? The manure was scattered everywhere in piles, making it impossible to even walk in the field.
Bella said nervously: "Master, maybe we should go back, it's really..."
"It's my fault," Luo Wei took a deep breath, then nearly fainted from the smell and quickly covered her nose and mouth again. "It's my fault for not explaining clearly."
"Cow manure is best for fertilizer - it has lower water content and won't drip everywhere."
"The manure should be piled together, not spread across the field."
"Get some people to make the manure piles bigger and taller, about two meters high and three to four meters long. Cover the piles with plastic film... or use wheat straw or soil to cover them so the manure can heat up and decompose."
"Don't pile the manure in the middle of the field - put it at the edges. The piles need at least forty days to ferment to kill bacteria and parasite eggs..."
Bella nodded while quickly recording her requirements on her homemade wooden slips.
As the master's most reliable steward, illiteracy wouldn't do!
She had been learning to read and write from Roman for the past half year, and could now write fluently.
Seeing Bella struggling to write on the wooden slip with charcoal, Luo Wei suddenly paused mid-sentence.
She had gotten used to parchment after using it for a semester, but forgot many people in this world couldn't afford it and had no portable writing tools.
Since she was building a mulberry garden anyway, and mulberry bark was one of the raw materials for papermaking, she might as well produce paper too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
patreon.com/BZDXG - Unlock a HUGE stash of advance chapters now!
Dive deeper into the story ahead of everyone else!