The World Online

4th month 30th day

It was once again the time to sell sea salt. Northern Salt Fields had made a monthly profit of 3600 gold.

In the other business pillar of the territory, the Langshan mine fields, the monthly profits reached 8500 gold due to the number of miners increasing to 5000, exceeding Northern Saltworks’ by a large margin and becoming the largest industry in the territory.

With this added with the 900 gold he had on hand, now Ouyang Shuo had 13000 gold. This sum looked enormous, but deducting the daily expenses, the funds that could be used weren’t that much.

Ouyang Shuo took out 5000 gold and passed it to the Finance Department to use as the financial expenditure of the territory.

Firstly was the military expenditure. As the military expanded, the costs would increase. Just the military costs was already a huge amount.

Ever since the territory became financially independent, Ouyang Shuo increased a soldier’s monthly pay by 10 times. A rank 1 soldier would earn 10 silver a month, a 9th rank 90 silver, a sergeant one gold, a captain 5 gold, and a major would get 20 gold a month.

With the cavalry unit as an example, the average rank of a soldier was 4 and the cost of the basic soldier was 180 gold, adding in the 50 sergeants, 5 captains and one major, the unit cost 275 gold. 4 units cost 1100 gold. Further adding in the food, weapons, and equipment costs, the military cost around 1400 gold.

Secondly would be the government expenditure. As all the Departments and Divisions were filled up, the costs were very high too. A basic white collar worker was paid 1 gold, secretary 10 gold, director 25 gold. Adding the cost of ink, paper, and overhead costs, the monthly expenditure was around 500 gold.

There was also public expenditure. To raise up funds for the system auction, finish the city walls, city protection river, city rebuilding, Friendship Town’s city walls and road works, not forgetting the pay of the construction workers, which was 100 coppers, it cost 1000 gold.

But as these works were a 1 time off thing, they weren’t a part of monthly expenses.

Apart from those, as the scales of the logging camp, mine, quarries, Armory Division, Bow and Crossbow Division, weapon workshop and other military related industries, the brick kiln, pottery workshop, shipyard, and other territory businesses increased, the monthly cost had exceeded 1500 gold.

Especially military businesses like the Armory Division. Hiring all the special talents, their salaries were definitely high. An apprentice earned 30 silver a month, basic talents 1 gold, intermediate talents 5 gold, and advanced talents earned 10 gold a month.

Lastly, there was also one big point, which was the welfare package. Every person that entered the town would be given a package that cost around 15 silver. Every day, the main camp was getting 75 new people, which added up to 340 gold a month, adding the other 3 towns, this was close to 1000.

The above few were the 5 main outputs and didn’t include education, public sanitation, and other outputs. The 4th month’s income was only 1000 gold, without the salt pans and the mine, the Financial Department would not be able to handle this.

Ever since privatization happened in the February, most of these outputs were invisible and not seen.

In the March, these financial problems started to show up, only because Ouyang Shuo was busy with the auction did he cover them up.

Now in the April, the financial situation finally turned for the better, not having such a high deficit. Only then could Ouyang Shuo use the profits to cover for the negatives in the previous two months.

One could say that only in the April was privatization finally completed. For the past two months, there were many plans that had not begun or started. Only with the saltpans and the mine helping out the financial situation was Ouyang Shuo able to succeed with privatization.

Now the salary of workers in Shanhai Town had reached near to that of King city. While other territories were struggling for food, Shanhai Town had started privatisation. And when 80% of the populations were struggling to keep warm, people in Shanhai Town were no worse off than people in King City.

The reason why Ouyang Shuo did this wasn’t only to make his people rich and thus his territory would become richer. The deeper motive was to make use of their advantage to raise the spending of the residents, causing the economy to boom. As long as they had money, they would be willing to spend more on food, clothing, beer, and jewelery.

All of this was related to one another. He’d put in a huge investment with the hope of getting returns in the near future. Only by making the cake bigger could he raise the tax revenue. His real motive was to be able to sustain the territory purely on taxes without businesses and industries like the Northern Saltworks and Langshan mining field.

No matter what, the golden goose would one day die off. The mine would have a day when it was empty and the saltpans would have a day when its income would be too little. One must always think for the future, and Ouyang Shuo didn’t want to be a lord that only cared about short-term monetary gains.

After giving the money to the Financial Department, he still had 8000 gold on hand. He was obviously not going to let this money sit around.

Ouyang Shuo went to the Intermediate Market and spent 200 gold for advanced market blueprints, ready to upgrade it and start trade routes and businesses. Only with the trade platform could Shanhai Town start trading with allies.

Ouyang Shuo opened a special tab and searched for secret manuals. Apart from the 3000 gold for reserves, with the remaining 4800 gold he wanted to gather secret manuals.

There were very few king rank and above secret manuals, and they didn’t separate between real or fake. An average copper secret manual was 50 silver, black steel was 2 gold, silver was 10 gold, and black gold was 50 gold. The manual he had given to Song Jia was a gold level authentic secret manual.

As for secret manuals above gold rank, they were very rare. They would occasionally appear, but emperor rank secret manuals did not. As for god level and saint level ones, they wouldn’t appear on the market.

Ouyang Shuo obviously only gathered the authentic and good secret manuals. Unexpectedly, he bumped into an emperor-level spear secret manual . Its selling price was 1000 gold.

Ouyang Shuo bought it without hesitating, and took a look at its stats.

Name: (Emperor rank)

Routines: Dahua spear/Flower War spear/17 spear/Military War spear/Lihua Bamu spear/Xiaohua spear

Stances: Whitesnake spit letter/Swallow steals nest/Green dragon lands/Dragon shows its tail/Eel escapes from hook/Exploring the ocean/Lion dives on deer/Kid hugs heart/Cloud piercing flame/ Dragon goes into the hole/Wolf claws at the heart/ Cow sows field/ etc.

Ultimate: Throat Killing Spear, Huima Spear

Evaluation: Yang family spear, Full name: Yang Family Lihua Spear, passed down from Nansong army general Liquan’s wife Yang Miaozhen. The spear technique is heroic, Both front and back is firm, Attacks like needle, and Returns like thread. The speed will make people unable to keep up. The throat lock spear is something ghosts cannot block. The Huima spear is something gods and deities find hard to defend against.

The was regarded as the best spear technique, as it had many stances. Ming Dynasty Qin Jiguang pointed out in his book that the spear changes so much based on the situation that no one can adapt to it’. Getting this secret manual meant that Ouyang Shuo finally had his main spear cultivation method.

An emperor-rank secret manual was so hard to get in his last life, and there were not many god-rank secret manuals. As for saint-rank ones, those were of legends and no one had seen them.

To master an authentic emperor-rank secret manual was very difficult. Ancient spear practitioners started at a young age, and only after blood, sweat, and tears, along with help from masters, could they master it. Players only used the technology to train in it. If they did not spend 4 months training their basic spearmanship, they probably wouldn’t even understand the secret manual.

Apart from this emperor-rank secret manual, Ouyang Shuo did not meet another suitable secret manual. He did not find even a king-level one.

As he had no choice, Ouyang Shuo spent the remaining 3800 gold on 76 authentic gold-rank secret manuals, practically sweeping everything from the market.