69novels Chapter 315 Enemies Meet on a Narrow Road
Chapter 315 Enemies Meet on a Narrow Road
Chapter 315 Enemies Meet on a Narrow Road
Compared to the umbilical port, the port of tongues is practically a small port.
The port, located at the eastern entrance of the Santo Niño Canal, naturally attracts countless ships.
More than 60% of merchant ships traveling between the continent of Ancent and the Far East pass through the Holy Messenger Canal.
Unless their destination is unusual, they wouldn't easily sail their ships into the gloomy seas of the northern route, or take a long detour to the south.
Turn around only after arriving at Sun City.
The Silk Veil needed to reach the Far East quickly to deliver spices to that far-eastern region, allowing Leo's spice empire to expand to the other side of the world.
After establishing a distribution point, they immediately returned and headed to the New World.
So that Leo could quickly take over once the green-eyed people had finished gathering the new batch of spices.
During this period, supervision is also needed to monitor the management of the various chambers of commerce branches along this spice sales route, and to investigate any cases of embezzlement or bad debts, which will inevitably take time.
Based on this calculation, Leo estimates it will take a whole year to complete this entire trade route.
Therefore, Leo was racing against time.
Therefore, it is absolutely unacceptable to waste time taking a detour in order to save on the high taxes required for using the Canal of Santa Maria.
Rio could never do this, at least not until trade routes are able to operate autonomously.
However, staying at the umbilical port is necessary.
He must recruit seasoned merchants here, or poach talent from other merchant guilds, to act as his agents in the Principality of the Holy Envoy:
The Principality of the Holy Envoy is divided into the Northern Region and the Southern Region by the Holy Son Canal.
Leo has already found an agent for the Northern Region, while Umbilical Port is located in the Southern Region, so he is looking for an agent for the Southern Region this time.
Compared to agents in the northern region, agents in the southern region are more crucial.
It's not just that the southern part of the duchy has a better economy, but also because duchy cities with special status, such as Holy City and Sun City, are located in the southern region.
And because of the existence of the Holy Son Canal, the principality was also stuck at the throat of his trade routes.
To avoid difficulties in operating his spice empire in the duchy, he had to choose a suitable agent there.
Even one person isn't enough, since an individual's ability is limited.
Even Leo himself often felt that he didn't have enough energy.
Of course, he may not be the most talented and experienced businessman, but certain special resources and abilities he possesses give him a power that other businessmen cannot match.
Therefore, it might be necessary to find several outstanding businessmen to act as his agents.
Not only can you have someone to discuss things with when facing unexpected situations or market changes.
This is also to check and balance each other, so as to prevent the management here from falling into the danger of arbitrary decision-making.
Leo must exercise extreme caution when it comes to personnel deployment in such critical areas.
The principality naturally also had a chamber of commerce.
Despite the Vatican's assertion that any attempt to make money from money is blasphemous to God.
However, anyone with even a basic understanding of business logic knows that the main purpose of the Vatican's decree was to limit the influence of merchants and chambers of commerce on the Vatican's revenue.
However, the Papacy cannot completely restrict commerce in order to promote economic growth across the entire duchy.
Therefore, this decree is merely nominal and is only brought up in certain special circumstances, especially during political struggles.
In order to mitigate risks, chambers of commerce naturally need to adapt to local conditions.
As long as this decree exists, merchants cannot ignore it.
Therefore, the duchy's chamber of commerce is not called a chamber of commerce, but rather a charity.
It's not entirely just a title; the charity does occasionally make donations and do good deeds, but not often.
What Leo was looking for were those benevolent and virtuous masters.
Leo quickly learned the locations of the charity in Umbilical Harbor.
Money makes the world go round, and Leo just happened to have plenty of funds.
Leo amassed a fortune by recruiting merchants into his spice empire and charging them a franchise fee.
High-quality products can indeed make a businessman a lot of money, and the manifestation of a businessman's inner strength often lies in whether he can use "possibilities" to get something for nothing from others.
Leo is clearly very good at this, partly because his projects are good enough.
Leo also tried to invite several promising young businessmen.
After all, Leo himself was young, and he knew very well that many businessmen were not incapable, but simply lacked sufficient funds.
If given the opportunity to fully utilize their abilities, they can achieve no less than those who are presidents, curators, or philanthropists.
However, since they do not have enough achievements to prove their abilities, it will take a lot of effort to examine and test them to determine whether they are just good at talking or truly have real skills.
For Rio, who was in a hurry, the cost was a bit too high.
Therefore, he won't invite or investigate too many potential businessmen.
Another reason is that these young businessmen are unable to provide Leo with sufficient financial assistance.
Some businessmen who have deep roots in the local area will not rashly follow suit just because of tempting possibilities.
These merchants perfectly fit the criteria for Leo's agents, and Leo usually pays extra to invite them to join.
There were additional promises, but more often than not, it was simply a matter of buying people off with gleaming gold coins.
Leo once gave away three hundred gold coins at once.
A year ago, Leo could never have imagined that he would be so generous.
But if he doesn't broaden his horizons, Leo will forever remain just a small businessman.
However, this does indeed show that Leo needs a huge amount of money.
Therefore, if it's a profitable opportunity, Leo might forgo some possibilities.
Leo rented a luxurious villa in the port and hired the port's best chef and a large number of servants.
Tonight, Leo will host a dinner here to entertain the guests he has invited.
What he wanted to build was the greatest business empire in history.
Its influence spans four continents!
Therefore, as long as Leo has enough funds, he will never skimp on extravagance.
Only when businessmen who are usually fond of luxury and indulgence are amazed by Leo's arrangements will they have more trust in Leo's projects.
This is called packaging.
No matter how delicious an apple is, it will never sell as well as an apple that looks good.
If the boss were willing to display a few attractive apples as samples, his sales would definitely increase by several percent.
The banquet was held as scheduled, and all the invited guests arrived without fail.
He didn't rush to talk about business.
First came the banquet, then the dance, followed by the card game.
Of course, various prayer ceremonies are indispensable in the principality.
Leo even spent a lot of money to hire a bishop to preside over the ceremony.
You say God's representative won't be tempted by worldly, dirty money? That just means you haven't given enough.
Leo, of course, understood that money couldn't buy everything.
But everything can be bought off, only what is bought off is not necessarily money.
Leo may have understood these things before, but now he certainly understands them much better.
Wealth can indeed broaden a person's perspective, at least for businessmen.
After everything was finished, Leo invited the merchants to a carefully decorated room to discuss matters with them.
Leo would dismiss all irrelevant people, except for his two green-eyed bodyguards and spies.
He showed these people what spices were and explained their value to them.
Next, he invited these businessmen to join his business empire.
Of course, some people will be persuaded, while others will be unwilling to take the risk.
If Leo hadn't valued those people in the first place, he would have let them go.
However, Leo will make them sign a contract with him.
This is no ordinary contract, but an extraordinary contract that Leo learned from "The Contract of Disqualification".
He would infuse it with his own energy and write it according to a certain format.
Oh! We must not be careless!
Any clause in a contract can be exploited by either party, so it is essential to leave no loopholes.
Those who violate the treaty will pay a heavy price.
Of course, even if these merchants were very knowledgeable, they might not have seen many extraordinary contracts.
Therefore, they would probably have a hard time seeing through the trap Leo left in the contract.
It wasn't that Leo was a shrewd businessman; it was just a precaution.
The construction of the empire cannot afford any mistakes, and Leo must minimize the risks.
As long as they don't breach the contract, Leo won't exploit any loopholes in the agreement.
If Leo sees value in a person, he will use various methods to bring them into the plan.
Only the remaining merchants were qualified to continue negotiations with him.
Leo will reveal the whole plan and offer even more enticing benefits than before.
They will most likely join, and they must join.
However, since everyone's needs and sacrifices are different, Leo would talk to them privately.
The only constant is that they need to sign a supernatural contract with Leo.
It differs from the previous extraordinary contracts, but the purpose is the same: to restrain these merchants.
Of course, Leo was not enslaving his opponent.
Because the contract binds both parties, Leo only needs to provide a guarantee.
The bigger the business gets, the more important stability becomes!
These matters would require Leo to spend an additional two full days after the banquet to finalize them.
This included his negotiations and arrangements with regional agents.
In short, it was extremely difficult.
Fortunately, Leo was already familiar with the route, and that's how he got there.
Leo did this at every important port.
The umbilical port is the penultimate or third port he needs to deploy.
He knew very little about the situation in the Far East; he didn't even understand the language there.
Leo was not yet clear on how the deployment in the Far East should proceed.
Perhaps we'll need to investigate further to find out.
Perhaps Leo could recruit a private translator in advance, so that he could learn about the situation in the Far East and, incidentally, learn some language.
Merchants negotiate with their tongues, and language is the foundation of negotiation.
That shouldn't be difficult; in the past few days, Leo has seen several brown-skinned people at the port.
People in the Far East are not necessarily of this skin color, but those of this skin color generally have blood from that region.
But perhaps due to being too busy, this matter has not been dealt with.
The third day passed in a flash.
Having completed the necessary tasks at the umbilical port, Leo needed to set sail immediately for his next battlefield.
Reluctantly, he climbed out of the soft velvet bed in the villa, took a quick shower, and changed his clothes.
If it were any other businessman, a beautiful woman would surely have gotten out of his bed, wrapped her arms around him from behind, and flirted with him.
But Leo never became too obsessed with that desire, and besides, he had too many things to deal with and simply didn't have the energy to waste.
Leo had just changed his clothes when he heard a rapid knocking on the door.
Upon opening the door, standing before him was one of his crew members, whom he had recruited at the elbow angle; he was a highly experienced seaman.
Normally, he would stay on the ship.
However, Leo did not strictly restrict him from seeking pleasure in the harbor while the ships were docked.
Unless there are special circumstances, he would not come to provoke Leo.
Leo immediately realized that his Silk Veil was in trouble.
Then Leo noticed bloodstains on the man's body.
Leo immediately sensed something was wrong: "What's going on?"
"Attack!" the sailor exclaimed. "The ship is under attack!"
Most of the sailors on the ship were not good at fighting.
The two green-eyed men, who were slightly stronger, were stubborn and insisted on following Leo, refusing to leave a single one to guard the ship.
Therefore, if someone were to attack the ship, there would truly be no chance of fighting back.
But who would dare to openly attack a ship in the harbor?
A paladin order can patrol the port at any time.
Isn't what they're doing just asking for their own destruction?
Leo dared not linger, and immediately set off back to the port to investigate the situation.
When he arrived at his berth, he was completely dumbfounded.
His huge and sturdy four-sailed ship had vanished without a trace!
Several paladins were standing on the springboard over there.
Leo rushed forward to inquire about the situation, and the paladin immediately replied:
"I received the report and rushed over immediately, but by then the boat had already set sail. They moved very quickly, clearly prepared, with the aim of seizing your boat."
Leo asked, "Did you send a fleet to pursue them?"
"The Duchy has no fleet except for Sun City," the paladin said. "And by the time we notified the ballistae to fire, we found they had already escaped the area."
"Your defenses, hahaha, are far too lax!" Leo roared.
"We have always only defended against intruders from outside the port. It is normal that we failed when dealing with criminals who came from inside the port for the first time."
Leo was speechless, but he knew that arguing with these paladins was pointless; the important thing was how to get the ship back.
The problem is, he took all the gold off the ship; there was only spices on board.
But someone who knew the value of spices and knew that he had spices on board could not possibly attack his ship.
So, who exactly were the ship thieves, and what were their motives?
Leo asked the sailors around him and that's when he found out.
The man had just paid the berthing fee and told the port staff that they would be departing today when the ship was attacked.
Leo didn't believe it was a coincidence; the other side must have been waiting for this opportunity.
In this way, the port will not suspect the sudden departure of the ship, and the giant crossbow will not immediately stop the ship.
The sailor then told Leo another, even more crucial piece of information.
The attacker had brown skin!
Orientals!
Leo immediately drew a conclusion.
However, although Leo did intend to hire a translator.
But so far, he has not had any contact with any people from the Far East, so how could he be being targeted?
No.-
Thinking of this, Leo's eyes suddenly flickered—
Not all of them; I've had contact with a group of Asians!
In the New World, Leo nearly died at the hands of those people and paid a heavy price to escape.
And that group's goal was spices!
Leo squinted. What a small world.
Leo then learned that there was an abandoned ship in the port, and that the original crew members were all brown-skinned people.
Leo wasn't in a hurry. He simply gathered his remaining men and recruited a few more crew members to board the ship.
Then, he set sail in the boat.
Leo's expression showed no sign of panic.
He would burst into laughter from time to time, but he still couldn't control himself from emitting unpredictable, almost manic laughter.
Leo was certain that the Silk Veil was not being followed by other ships, so he and that group could only have met by chance here.
Given this, their destination is easy to guess—the Far East continent.
Once he knows the opponent's movements, Leo has nothing to fear about not being able to catch up.
Leo stood at the bow of the ship, gazing at the waves ahead.
And with extraordinary silk threads bluer than the sea, a contract was written on the surface of the pupil.