We got off the car outside the city gate of the town. When we entered the city gate, the guards guarding the city were a little nervous after seeing my machete. One of them stepped forward and wanted to stop me, but Diana simply

After talking to him for a few words, we entered the town smoothly.

We had talked about the small town of Petz on the road before. The entire town has a population of about 5,000 people, but it is an unexpectedly lively trading town. Walking on the main road in the town, I really felt that

The prosperity here can be explained by the wide and flat stone brick roads on the ground alone. Many of the buildings on both sides of the road are very solid stone brick houses. Occasionally, you can see two-story or three-story buildings. Residents'

The clothes are also very good, clean and tidy linen, leather and even occasionally gorgeous clothes similar to silk fabrics, but those people do not look like civilians. What makes me more concerned is that the clothing styles of many residents make me

It felt strangely familiar.

Diana introduced that this place is one of the transit points for several avenues in the southern part of the principality. Although it appears to be within the Earl of Ronan, it is directly under the management of the Duke. And the directions in which these avenues connect, except to the east, are lonely.

Outside the city of Wilsk, roads in other directions connect some large cities in the principality. When we were walking on the road, we saw several carriages carrying large wooden barrels passing by in a hurry. She told me that they came from more than ten kilometers south.

There was a convoy transporting live fish in the port city outside. Judging from their eagerness to leave the town through the north gate, the destination of the convoy was probably Ronan Castle, the direct fiefdom of Earl Ronan, or Trikla, the capital of the principality further away.

The scenery of this town is indeed very good, but we did not have extra time to explore the scenery of the town. Soon after following Diana into a street that seemed to be full of shops, we came to a shop that looked very old.

In front of the door.

When I entered the store, I first asked about an indescribable smell, like a variety of unknown spices mixed together, but I didn't hate this smell because it smelled very pleasant, just a little bit

A little heavier. Looking around the store space, the area of ​​less than 10 square meters is filled with all kinds of products and containers, from swords and weapons to pots and pans, although those pots don’t look like cooking.

The kind used for rice, it seems like this is a grocery store that sells everything.

While I was observing the situation in the store, Diana quickly walked to the counter and started talking to a very energetic old man. Before we chatted for a few words, I saw her taking out three items from a leather bag on her waist.

There were translucent stones of different colors, and the old man was very excited and took out a magnifying glass-like lens and looked at it carefully for a long time. Finally, he raised his head and said a few words before turning and entering the room behind him.

"What did you show him?"

"A stone infused with elemental magic."

"Planning to sell?"

"Of course, otherwise where will our travel expenses come from?"

"Are these stones valuable? The old man looked very excited."

"It's not bad, a stone like this is worth three Solis gold coins."

"How much is a gold Solis worth?"

"Hmm... How do I put it? Do you remember those carriages just now? The ones that transport live fish. One gold coin can buy a bucket of live fish, about 20 of them."

"No, no, no, this description is too strange. Is there a more direct metaphor?"

"Directly..." Diana looked around at the products in the store and then shook her head helplessly and said: "Sorry, I can't think of any suitable metaphor, because you haven't intuitively felt the consumption level in the principality, but if

In the 1930s on earth, a gold coin would have been worth less than 20 pounds."

I don’t know the specific gold content of the pound in 1930, but I also saw on TV that at a certain period before the war, 1 pound could be exchanged for about 7 grams of gold. 20 pounds was a huge sum of money for ordinary people.

, although it was not clear, she roughly understood that the three stones she had just sold were worth a lot of money.

We talked about the Kingdom of Misolis on the way here. The land area is not too big, about the same as Austria. The national financial resources are among the strongest in the entire human kingdom. However, due to the previous

The king's poor management led to excessive corruption, so the administrative and military strength lagged far behind. This was also one of the important reasons why Duke Michael dared to become independent.

Having said that, not everyone dares to invade the Kingdom of Solis at will. After all, the king controls two powerful knights. Not to mention the fighting ability of these knights, just the full body armor they wear.

Armor is enough to deter the armies of surrounding countries. After all, in this era, metal weapons are the most intuitive expression of the army's combat effectiveness. And it is also because people's concept of the army in this era still remains at the level of levies composed mainly of civilians and large-scale standing armies.

Not many kingdoms can afford it, not even the Solis Kingdom.

There is actually another interesting thing about this matter, that is, Diana mentioned that the concept of "knight" does not come from this world, but is an imported product brought from the earth by the reincarnated people. The history of the birth of knights is still unknown.

Less than 100 years ago, so not every country has a chivalry system.

"How about you try this."

Diana tried it on me for a while with a simple cloak. After trying it on for a long time, she felt dissatisfied, so she brought another one over. She picked around and finally chose a heavy gray cotton and linen one.

Cloak, it is said that cloaks made of this kind of fabric are a bit expensive, so ordinary merchant guards cannot afford them. And just because we plan to dress up as a businessman with a small background, we have to spend some money on the outer clothing.

.

Usually many of these businessmen have aristocratic backgrounds or simply come from declining aristocrats. Although they dress plainly, they occasionally wear some extraordinary items, such as the machete I wear and the magic cloak she wears. Yes, I

I just found out this morning that the cloak she is wearing is a magic item. It is said that it can not only prevent fire, cold and corrosion, but also offset some magical damage. It is really amazing.

In short, her plan is that in addition to buying a few pieces of travel outerwear, she also needs to add a small amount of civilian goods, because the "goods" she prepared before are too few and too novel, and more ordinary goods can be used to better cover up, or even necessary

Sometimes I could use it to bribe the guards. So in addition to buying me a cloak, she also picked up a travel backpack, which seemed to be about 50L. The workmanship was also very exquisite and some areas were made of leather. She

After checking the backpack, I took some pottery jars with unknown contents and some bundles of dried plants from a nearby container. In short, it seemed that these things were used as cover-up props. They were not many, but they were good.

Not too cheap.

I asked curiously and learned that those jars contained soup powder, a condiment that was inferior to spices, salt and sugar, and that the dried plants were processed smoked vanilla, which also belonged to the noble class.

Things that are looked down upon but cannot be used by ordinary people.

After we selected the goods, we waited in the store for a while until the store manager came. Diana explained that he actually went to a nearby large chamber of commerce to change money because his store did not have that much cash.

Diana said a few more words to the old man, and then the old man took out two cloth bags of different sizes. He handed the smaller one to Diana first. From the slight metal friction sound in the bag, I roughly understood what was inside.

It was a gold coin. Judging from the weight, it was about 7-8 gold coins. The reason why I didn't think there were 9 gold coins in it was because there was another bag containing silver coins and copper coins.

The same currency information we learned before is that the official currency of the Solis Kingdom is divided into four categories, gold coins, silver coins, copper coins and iron coins. Let’s not talk about gold coins for now. Silver coins are the currency with the highest usage rate and the largest circulation, whether it is merchants or merchants.

Or civilians, whether they are buying goods or daily meals, even the lord's fief serfs under the earl occasionally use silver coins for consumption, and they can even be used in some markets in other kingdoms.

Copper coins are relatively unusual, because their appearance rate in the Principality of Michael has been getting lower and lower in recent years. This is not because everyone has become rich, but because there are too few copper mines in the Kingdom of Solis and the Principality of Michael.

.Although this is a more credible statement, Diana said that the Kingdom of Solis has actually been secretly recycling copper coins in recent years, and the reason for this is unknown.

The iron coin is a bit malicious. It was originally a new currency issued by the Kingdom of Solis to replace the dwindling copper coins. However, its recognition is not high and its circulation area is very few. However, the scope of the use of this currency in the Principality of Michael is limited.

Currently it is only limited to the settlers. It is said that this is a method used by the local nobles to control the settlers, restricting the settlers' property to prevent their outflow. Although I feel that the control method is stupid and Archduke Michael does not agree with this approach, but it is very

It's a pity that the Grand Duke has no control over this group of lower-class nobles. After all, even if I am not a historian, I have heard that sentence.

"My vassal's vassal is not my vassal."

When I returned to the money bag in the hands of the store owner, I did find a lot of silver coins in it, and occasionally I saw a few khaki copper coins. But the appearance of these coins was unexpectedly rough, and the workmanship looked too rough.

What's worse, the rough irregular round coins are printed with stamp patterns that look like they were hammered by hand. Some of these patterns are crooked, shallow and deep, and few are complete patterns at all. As for copper coins, they are similar, but in terms of color

It is judged that it is probably a bronze coin rather than a red copper coin.

I took advantage of Diana's inspection of the gold coin and went over to take a look. The shape of the gold coin was pretty good. Although there were some flaws, it was still very round on the whole. At least it could be seen that the coin was made from a high-quality mold.

.

After the boss took out a dozen silver coins from his purse, Diana chatted with him for a few more words. After saying a few words, she suddenly called me and ran out hurriedly. I followed him without knowing why.

Only when she went up did she learn the reason. The boss had just told her that the latest carriage convoy to Welsk City was about to leave. Since the area there was generally poor, there were only three carriage convoys to Welsk City every day.

This is the second trip today, and the last trip will have to wait until the afternoon. If you want to take that trip, I'm afraid you can only arrive in the evening.

After the two of us ran across two streets, we finally found 5 taels of large carriages in front of a building that looked like a station. It seemed that they were a fleet of carriages traveling between cities, except for the two cars at the back that looked very big.

In addition to the large tarpaulin truck with armed guards, the other three carriages with wooden carriages are also quite large. It seems that these carriages are "public buses" from another world.

Diana found a desk nearby that looked like a conductor's and handed over two silver coins. Then the other person didn't check, just scratched a few times with a charcoal pen on a piece of wood and let us get on the bus.

I followed Diana a little nervously and boarded one of the manned carriages. After all, this would be my first close contact with the indigenous people, and I would play a foreign warrior from the Eastern Kingdom of Iles, because

I don't understand the language, so I don't need to speak. If someone wants to say hello to me, I just need to gesture with my eyes like a ruthless character. The rest is left to Diana, who plays the role of a small noble from Venetia, a friendly neighboring country that is close to the principality.

After boarding the carriage, the space inside is indeed very wide. There are rows of comfortable-looking benches on both sides. They are almost full of guys who look like businessmen. This is not a derogatory term, just because of those people's

The dress and figure really look like a "businessman". However, there are also some surprises. There are also a few people wearing weapons who look like businessmen's guards. Some look more heroic and cheerful, and some have very gloomy faces, but in general

They all wore weapons and looked good at fighting.

I followed Diana to an empty seat in the back of the carriage and sat down. Then she started her performance, chatting very skillfully with a fat businessman sitting next to me, while I was like

The "qualified" bodyguards observed the situation in the carriage with cold eyes.

I was somewhat impressed by the wonderful craftsmanship of the craftsmen who made this carriage. There were at least nearly 20 people sitting in such a large carriage. The space seemed a bit crowded, but the air circulation was very good, and the wood used to build the carriages was also very strong, even on both sides.

The outer walls are covered with iron sheets, which I believe cannot be penetrated by ordinary crossbows.

Just as I was observing the carriage, a businessman guard suddenly came over to greet me. He was a middle-aged man who seemed to be very enthusiastic. He extended his hand to me with a smile. I followed the settings mentioned before.

, responded to the other party very naturally with a somewhat indifferent look. As expected, my eyes seemed to irritate the other party. He put down his hand with some displeasure. When he was about to say something more, Diana finally came over to help me cover.

.

The brief exchange between the two seemed to make the other party understand that I didn't speak Annuo, but for some reason she spoke to the other party for a long time. Suddenly the other party looked at me with apologetic eyes, and after saying a few words that seemed to be an apology,

He returned to his seat and chatted with his companions, and they all looked at me from time to time.

I really wanted to know what Diana had just said, but since I "couldn't speak" I had to endure the itching in my heart and continue to remain silent. Inadvertently, I saw a person who looked like a guard sitting at the door of the carriage talking quietly.

Watch me.

I pretended to suddenly notice his gaze and looked at him with a fierce look, but the other person also looked away in a very natural manner. If I hadn't just noticed that his gaze was not right, I might have done it.

I was fooled by him. This person was the first problematic guy I found after getting in the car. Although there are still many people quietly looking at me, there are generally only the same types of people. Except for the guy who just started talking to me.
To be continued...