A heavy snowfall in early winter annihilated the entire border between the County of Burgundy and the Principality of Swabia. The border war that had been fierce for a month or two was also covered by the heavy snow, and the thick smoke and war flames were temporarily extinguished.
Due to the arrival of the heavy snow, Art, who had originally planned to enter the hinterland of Swabia to attack, had to lead his army with a small amount of looted goods before the heavy snow closed the road and quickly retreated to the border in chariots. He was temporarily stationed in an abandoned village on the border east of Geneborg. He waited for the snow to melt before continuing to attack the Swabian border.
Similarly because of the heavy snow, Earl Randy, who rushed back to Onan City from the Swabian Palace, also stopped his attack. Randy was already gnashing his teeth with hatred for the bone-attached maggots. On the day he returned to Aonan City, he was preparing to assemble an army to besiege the Burgundian army that was deep into the country. Then, as soon as he finished deploying the battle, it started to snow heavily, and he had to suspend the attack.
While the border battlefields were resting and recuperating, a large-scale armed caravan was still walking on the King's Road in Yona Province.
This caravan is not large in size, with fifteen iron-clad four-wheeled vans and two ordinary accompanying carriages, as well as armed guards, officials, and handymen, totaling only about twenty people.
Of course, there are also several families of Swabians who quietly came to Burgundy from the border areas. They are the families of the craftsmen in the valley.
Able to walk in the snowy road without any hindrance, the carriage of this caravan is certainly not an ordinary carriage, or rather a bit unusual.
· Road and Snow Carriage, this is the name given to this kind of carriage by Art. In the mountain folk confederation of southwest Burgundy, such carriages are called sleigh carriages.
Unlike the sleighs used by mountain folk, the caravan's snow carriages can both walk on the snow and can also walk on the carriage path like a normal carriage. Its production is very simple - there is a side panel in the carriage that is a special curved head board. This side panel is roughly as wide and as long as the carriage. The front end of the side panel is slightly upward, and there are four brackets to fix the wheels on the side panel.
The side panels are just side panels for daily walking. If the road is blocked by heavy snow, you only need to remove the side panels, place them on the bottom of the car, and then fix the four wheels on the brackets corresponding to the side panels. The carriage can immediately become a sled commonly used by mountain people, which is convenient and practical.
Few people are willing to travel far in winter, let alone the cold winter weather with heavy snow.
However, the caravans of the European trading houses had to seize the opportunity of the snowy winter for freight trade.
The past year has been a year of rapid expansion for the Continental Commercial Bank. Seizing the opportunity of Provence's post-war recovery, the Continental Commercial Bank has established a firm foothold on the southern goods trade route in eastern Provence under Art's planning and the strong manipulation of Salt and others. The southern branch of the Continental Commercial Bank has several branches. It can almost control the fate of the entire eastern trade. Several important city fortresses in eastern Provence have strongholds of Continental Commercial Banks, and many nobles and wealthy merchants on the eastern trade lines have joined the influence of Continental Commercial Banks, becoming the foundation of Continental Commercial Banks.
The favorable situation in the Southern Continent failed to appear in the Northland. For more than a year, the power of European commercial banks in the Northland of Burgundy has not been improved correspondingly to that in the Southern Continent. Although Art also occupied a share of the southern goods market in the Northland after the Dean family was destroyed, the traditional business strength is still deeply rooted, and Art's southern goods have never been able to fully occupy the terminal profits in the Northland.
After the relationship with Bernard was completely broken, Ater's southern goods were affected in Thorne, Codor and Besançon, and the directly-administered southern goods trading houses were reduced from three to Lucesin.
Hence the civil strife in Northern Ireland, the trade of southern goods in the north has become even more miserable. In the midst of the war, how many people have the thought and spare money to spend on luxury southern goods?
On one hand, there is an increasingly large supply market for goods from the Southern Land, and on the other hand, there is a shrinking sales channel for goods from the Northland. This makes everyone in the European trading houses anxious.
Fortunately, they opened up a trade channel from Provence to the Kingdom of France in time. Although that route did not have an advantageous position, it could still barely absorb the goods gathered from the south.
At present, the line between Provence and the Kingdom of Northwest France is in charge of Lavin, the commander of the armed escort of the Continental Trading Company, and Manid, the newly promoted steward of the Continental Trading Company.
· As a vacancy in the southern goods market in northern Burgundy, the Yona Province has established a stable goods sales network under the trial of Baron Antayas of Andermatt Castle. The European Commercial Bank has been directly involved in it and accounts for most of the profits. However, by the same token, people who are in war do not have much thought to spend money on luxury goods, and the southern goods market in Yona Province is also in a sluggish state.
When the domestic situation was worrying, Ater was determined to open up the southern goods trading market in the Principality of Swabia, so there was a story about Salt personally leading a caravan with the secret assistance of the governor of Glaru County, Herreth, to sneak into the southwestern border of the Swabia Principality to trade southern goods.
The Swabians may not have taken the small-scale war in the north seriously at all, or they may also be eager to obtain sufficient sources of southern goods trade from the Count of Burgundy. When Salter led a caravan full of goods across the border into southwestern Swabia, the lords and wealthy merchants did not have the slightest hatred.
The plundering that Salt worried about did not happen, nor did the heavy taxes.
On the contrary, when the lords who operated secretly and the merchants who operated openly showed extreme welcome after knowing Salt's identity.
It’s no wonder that the Principality of Swabia is located in the northern interior. Their current channel for obtaining southern goods is only Lombardy. To enter Swabia, southern goods from Lombardy have to travel a long way over mountains and ridges, and the price is naturally unattainable.
Years ago, the Principality of Swabia could still obtain some supplies of southern goods from merchants in the Count of Burgundy. However, in recent years, there have been frequent wars between the two countries. The Count of Burgundy has begun to strictly restrict the supply of southern goods to Swabia. Swabia has fewer and fewer sources of relatively cheap southern goods.
It happens that the wealthy businessmen and nobles of the Principality of Swabia like these things, so there is a huge gap in southern goods.
At this time, a caravan of southern goods suddenly appears in front of you, telling you that not only are the goods abundant, but the price is cheap (the southern goods imported into Swabia used to take a detour from Besançon, and after layers of resale and increase, the price has been several times higher). Of course, the shrewd Swabia will not let go of such an opportunity.
So within three days of sneaking into Swabia, more than a dozen carts of southern goods were sold out, and several merchants and lords had already established secret connections with Salt. Of course, Viscount Herreth was also involved.
After Salt sold the goods from the South, he also purchased a large amount of fine iron through those lords and merchants. The steel produced in the hinterland of Swabia is an excellent raw material for forging weapons and armor.
"Lord Salt, I really didn't expect that the Swabians could buy our goods at such a high price and let us back safely. You said that we are at war with them now, how can they treat us as friends?" The newly promoted caravan guard captain is a veteran officer who retired from the army due to injuries. He has just joined the caravan and does not understand the situation of the caravan.
Salt put his hands into his cuffs and glanced back at the caravan behind him from the horse, "The Swabians are not stupid, wars may break out every year, but they cannot live on war forever. They need to spend money to eat, and we are what they rely on to eat and spend money." Protecting this spring is the right thing to do. If he robs this batch of our goods, he will forever cut off a way to make money..."
While Salt was chatting with the captain of the caravan guard, a mounted guard at the outpost returned to the group, "Lord Salt, Captain Sasse, we are five miles ahead to Bramon. Lord Spencer of the army is already waiting for us outside Bramon."
“Okay, let’s order the caravan to speed up and we’ll get to Bramon before dark!”