“Master, the Quebec Province food purchasing team has left. They bought 200,000 jin of potatoes, along with a considerable amount of soap, porcelain, and other goods. They spent a total of 1,200 gold coins here,” Gazia reported to Richard the day after he met with the purchasing team leader.
Although Richard didn’t ultimately offer any discounts, the Governor’s purchasing team from Quebec still left with full loads.
Richard had expected this outcome, as his goods had not yet reached Quebec Province on a large scale, and the Governor was sure to profit from the purchases.
The food purchase team sent by the governor of Quebec Province was not holding back. There were nearly two hundred carriages, each drawn by four horses and capable of carrying over a thousand pounds.
These carriages were equipped with iron axles and even iron wheels to bear the heavy loads.
The entire convoy stretched for several hundred meters, an impressive sight that most merchant teams couldn’t replicate. Such a fleet required not only a large number of carriages and horses but also a substantial number of guards.
As the convoy passed, many merchants looked on enviously, as their teams could not compare in scale.
To Richard, transportation in this world was still quite outdated.
Although the food purchase team carried a lot, traveling between the two provinces still took at least a month—this was even after Richard had improved the roads leading to Stone Fort City; otherwise, it would have taken even longer.
The merchant team Richard had assembled used carriages that were far superior, custom-made online with contemporary bearings and tires, making it much easier for horses to pull and significantly increasing their load capacity.
Nonetheless, long-distance travel still required considerable time.
This small episode quickly passed, and construction on Richard’s territory continued vigorously.
The weather was gradually cooling down.
“Master, winter is approaching,” Mia said.
Indeed, winter was coming.
That day, Count Zane also came by, inquiring whether Richard had thick clothing for sale.
“When winter arrives, many people freeze to death each year. In past winters, some would hide indoors, but this year is different; many people’s homes have been destroyed by the rebels, and even more may perish from the cold this winter,” Count Zane said.
Richard had already noticed the signs. Around his territory, more people were visiting clothing stores, inquiring about warm clothing.
Richard paused and began to contemplate.
His territory now housed a significant population. Nearly half of the population from the northeastern region had moved to his domain.
In the past, other nobles might have objected to this, but given the current situation, none had said much.
Many nobles were even relieved to have fewer refugees in their lands, as these displaced people could become a source of unrest if they went hungry.
Most of these new residents were relatively young and strong, with some entire families having relocated. After all, Richard’s territory offered excellent benefits.
Many of these people had saved some money after working for Richard for a while, especially since he provided one meal a day; some even lived off that meal alone to save money.
Richard didn’t mind as long as it didn’t affect their work efficiency. Now, it was time to start thinking about winter preparations.
By the time winter arrived, Richard’s potato planting plan would be complete, and he did not intend to halt his construction projects even in the cold months.
However, working in the freezing weather would require sufficient warm clothing for the workers. Additionally, the residents on his land would also need thick clothes.
So, after meeting with Count Zane, Richard only streamed for an hour that day before browsing for clothes on the online marketplace.
The platform was brimming with clothing options, but Richard had to consider the cost.
In this world, many households couldn’t afford thick clothes for everyone in winter. Cotton did exist, but it was scarce and too expensive for the average family.
Most commoners would spend years collecting animal fur for their clothing linings and sew the garments themselves. Some would huddle indoors, burning whatever they could find to keep warm, and even use leaves for insulation.
Only the slightly wealthier could afford clothes with cotton. Nobles had more choices, such as fur coats, woolen garments, or cotton-padded clothes.
Winter clothing on the online marketplace, such as down jackets, ranged from a few hundred to several thousand yuan for the more expensive ones.
Richard planned to buy a few of these high-end options, but they would be targeted at the nobles. A down jacket or cotton coat that cost about a thousand yuan could be sold for dozens or even hundreds of gold coins, and the nobles would surely be willing to pay.
Especially down jackets—nobles in this world had never worn such high-end garments.
However, to provide clothing for ordinary people with adequate thickness, even the cheaper cotton coats would cost about a hundred yuan. Converted to this world’s currency, that would be roughly equivalent to the cost of one silver coin.
This was a price that the people in Richard’s territory could now afford.
But Richard couldn’t simply buy at cost and sell at cost. Ensuring the livelihood of the people was important, but he wasn’t going to purely do charity work.
If the prices were set too high, only the earlier groups of settlers, or families with soldiers and craftsmen, could afford them, while ordinary people would find them out of reach.
“Why not just buy second-hand clothes?”
After browsing for a while, Richard found some stores selling used clothing. The prices were much cheaper.
“Yes, this is the way to go.”
Richard quickly devised a plan: to purchase clothing from the online marketplace and categorize them into several tiers.
The first category was aimed at nobles and wealthy merchants, with prices calculated in gold coins.
Another category targeted some soldiers’ families in the territory, as well as the families of craftsmen, teachers, and some officials working for Richard. These individuals were among the relatively affluent families in the territory.
Richard would select cotton-padded clothing with a cost of less than 200 yuan, and sell them for over 10 silver coins.
Beyond that, there were second-hand clothes.
Richard found several stores, but some of them lacked the capacity to provide large quantities of used clothing all at once.
However, there was one shop that specializes in recycling old clothes. Upon hearing that Richard needed hundreds of thousands of old cotton garments, they were overjoyed and stated that they could deliver over one hundred thousand within a week, with the remaining quantity available within a month.
The price was quite cheap as well, with each second-hand cotton coat priced at 10 yuan.
Richard ended up spending over a million yuan to buy a batch of over a hundred thousand second-hand cotton-padded clothes.
These cotton clothes would be sold at the price of 1 silver coin each, still yielding a tenfold profit. However, there were initial purchase restrictions—only those working for Richard could buy them.
As for Richard’s soldiers, he planned to have custom uniforms made for them, with each soldier receiving two sets, free of charge.
Yes, Richard placed great importance on the military.
Additionally, he would distribute clothing directly to craftsmen, blacksmiths, teachers, doctors, and officials in the territory. However, their family members would not receive the same treatment.
Beyond this, Richard would also provide clothing to the demi-humans— minotaurs, centaurs, and fox people currently in his territory.
These demi-humans were now exceptionally loyal to Richard.
For instance, the minotaurs were completely obedient to Richard’s arrangements; even when he offered to pay them wages, they refused, feeling guilty since they had been eating so much meat every day.
The centaurs and fox people were similarly grateful.
The presence of these beastfolk also made Richard’s territory more stable, as they served as a deterrent.
Especially in the eyes of the human soldiers.
Of course, the soldiers were currently very loyal to Richard, so there would be no issues, but this balance of power was necessary. With the beastfolk around, the soldiers wouldn’t become arrogant even after successive victories.
And so, the winter plan was set.
With food and clothing sorted, winter was no longer a threat.
Three days after placing his order on the online marketplace, Richard’s batch of second-hand clothing arrived in large quantities.
After the arrival of these clothes, Richard made a point of inspecting them.
These second-hand clothes were not particularly worn out.
The economy in the other world was already quite prosperous, with abundant resources and a high standard of living. For some women, clothes worn for just a year might no longer be desirable the following year.
Men tended to keep clothes a bit longer, but even men’s clothing generally didn’t last for many years.
Most of the so-called used clothing had no damage whatsoever, and some items even looked new after a wash.
To the people of this world, they seemed better than new clothes!
In this world, many people’s clothes still had patches everywhere.
In contrast, the clothing from the other world might have patches too—but those were intentionally added for style.
Richard was quite satisfied after his inspection.
This also revealed a new business opportunity to him. These second-hand clothes could be purchased in bulk and resold. After all, they were dirt cheap and available in large quantities.
Given the population in the other world, there was a vast supply.
The store Richard bought from likely had connections to source more used clothing from other places.
Moreover, Richard realized that if he were to sell these clothes elsewhere, setting the price at 1 silver coin might be too cheap. The price could definitely be marked up.
They could even screen the clothes, selling those that were nearly new and of high quality as new items.
But for now, Richard was mainly focused on safeguarding livelihoods, so he was content with just a tenfold profit.
After all, as a lord, he couldn’t sit back and watch his people freeze to death.
“My Lord, these clothes are fantastic!”
After the arrival of the used clothes, Richard summoned Fred and tasked him with distributing the clothing to stores.
Fred was amazed by the quality of the second-hand clothes. Although some of the styles seemed a bit odd to him, the quality far exceeded his expectations.
Fred was even a bit excited. Some of the coats in the batch were so appealing that he felt tempted himself.
【Wow, look at all these second-hand clothes.】
【Winter is coming.】
【Anchor, I have a lot of old clothes at home. Give me an address, and I’ll send them to you.】
【I also have some. With over eight million viewers in the stream, if each person sends a few pieces, you won’t have to worry about running out.】
【True, but how do you send them to the anchor in another world?】
【I guess the anchor must have a channel; otherwise, how would they get such good things?】
【…】
In the live stream chat, when viewers saw the massive pile of old clothes Richard had stored in the warehouse, they started discussing excitedly.
Richard noticed some of the comments.
However, as for the address—he had no intention of revealing it.
Currently, the number of viewers in his live stream had already surpassed eight million.
With such a high viewership, it was impossible that the official authorities from the other world had not noticed.
However, neither the authorities nor Douyin (the streaming platform) seemed to have any way to deal with Richard’s live stream.
The authorities hadn’t taken any action yet.
Richard didn’t know if his purchases on the online marketplace had caught the attention of the officials.
He used his home address for the purchases, but Richard wasn’t sure how the system managed the deliveries. It was best to keep the address undisclosed to avoid any unforeseen complications.
“Fred, categorize these clothes and start selling them. Let the local residents choose first. Each family member of the residents can buy two pieces, while non-residents can only buy one piece. The price for non-residents will be twice that of the residents. Do not sell to merchants or nobles yet.”
Richard instructed Fred.
“Yes, my lord!”
Fred responded.
Soon, under his management, the old clothes were sorted and displayed in the square for sale.
Thanks to newspaper publicity, everyone in the territory knew that Richard was releasing a large quantity of old clothes.
Immediately, the square in Florencia City was packed with people.