For the countries where the outlying islands of the stars and seas are located, as long as these islands can be their own, they can be maintained without local support at ordinary times, and it is enough to use these islands after the outbreak of war. As for the relationship between these islands, it is not important to them.

After all, for the lords or hereditary governors of those islands, the most important thing to survive in this dangerous ocean is to have enough backing. If there are no countries behind, these scattered islands and islands The weak power on the upper level can easily be completely destroyed by certain cults or extraordinary monsters.

The most important thing is that after entering the industrial age, these islands lacking sufficient coal and iron ore are destined to be unable to go too far on this road of development, and their demand for heavy industrial products has become one of the countries and these islands. The strongest bond between.

The countries behind the islands even support the cooperation and exchanges between the islands from a certain perspective. In addition to reducing the cost of maintaining the islands, they can also use these islands as vests for some unsuitable exchanges. For example, the negotiation of certain sensitive issues, and the secret exchange of some special materials.

So after confirming that joining this customs union is beneficial and harmless to him, Lawrence expressed his desire to join the customs union and discussed this issue with Viscount Nicosia. During the discussion, the Viscount also learned that Lawrence was preparing to open up land to grow food, so he decided to sell him 150 well-trained cattle at a low cost.

"I did this because you decided to plant food crops." Looking at Lawrence's somewhat surprised expression, Viscount Nixia said seriously: "For us, the biggest problem with all nearby islands is that they cannot support themselves in food. . It would be great if your island can make up this link."

According to Mr. Viscount, the islands were opened up sooner or later. At the time of development, the earliest developers all chose a single operation, and chose to plant various tropical cash crops on the island in order to maximize their own interests.

After all, that era was the beginning of the era of great navigation, and everything from a foreign country sold very well. For example, the prices of spices such as nutmeg and cloves have been fired to sky-high prices. In this kind of frenzy, it is understandable that the owners of those islands choose to operate in a single way.

However, with the waning of the voyage and the development of the transportation industry, those spices and tropical crops have also returned to a reasonable price. At this time, every year the islands need to spend a lot of money to buy food in those countries on the mainland has become a very painful thing.

However, the high price of food is not mainly due to unreasonable pricing by the merchants, but because the islands are outside the sea, the cost of transporting the food itself is very expensive, and even in certain seasons, the freight price will be higher than that of the food itself price. Therefore, people on these islands have to eat the high-priced food even if they are no longer happy.

"Then why didn't you grow food before?" Lawrence asked in a puzzled way. "For example, I think many of your plantations can actually grow food."

"But then we have to shovel the original cash crops in the plantation." The Viscount Lord shrugged and said. "Although it takes a lot of money to buy food every year, compared with the loss caused by reducing the amount of cash crops, the money spent is still more worthwhile."

Lawrence was surprised when he heard the words of the Viscount, because in his impression, the food issue was the top priority under any circumstances, and he needed to be 100% in his own hands. This is why he prioritized food planting when making plans. Of course, this is also related to the fact that the working group of the Agricultural Church found that the land was indeed suitable for growing food after a field survey.

Therefore, he was shocked by the viscount's approach of agreeing that the food was completely dependent on external procurement. But soon Lawrence was relieved, after all, different regions and different worlds have different situations. It must be a very inappropriate thing to take the experience of the previous life to cover it.

Of course, this does not prevent Lawrence from sticking to his plans and views to continue growing food. After all, he has always believed that food security is the top priority, and people who don't have enough food in their hands will always feel unsafe.

Anyway, grain is hard currency, and it is always useful to store more. If you can't finish it, it can be used to make wine and alcohol. Especially since I mentioned the importance of disinfection before, the consumption of alcohol has been steadily increasing, so it can be regarded as a rather profitable business to produce alcohol at this time.

While Lawrence was thinking about these issues, Viscount Nicosia was a little uneasy watching him sitting there without saying a word. He thought that his remarks just now made Lawrence feel that he was a bit disadvantaged, so he is now reconsidering whether to grow food on the territory according to his original plan.

So he hurriedly looked at Lawrence and said: "Of course, if you are willing to grow food, Lord, we will certainly not let you suffer. Today I will discuss this issue with the lords near me, and finally I will come up with a I think the right plan came out. Although I don’t know what everyone is willing to give in the end, I can assure you that the conditions we put forward will never make you feel that you are at a disadvantage."

"--Oh. That's naturally very good." The words of Viscount Nicosia made Lawrence reflect from his meditation. After thinking briefly about what he just said, Lawrence made an affirmation to the Viscount Answer. "At least this year I will definitely plant a batch of food crops. If the cooperation is happy, it is not impossible to plant them like this every year."

Anyway, in this situation, Lawrence has more initiative, because those food crops are basically annual crops, and it would be very difficult for him to change the content of the planting. If the lords of these islands are too stingy, the big deal is that after a round of food crops, he will switch to growing cash crops on other arable land besides guaranteeing rations.

After receiving Lawrence's promise, Viscount Nicosia's brows were loosened, and then he patted his chest to assure Lawrence that although he didn't know how everyone would price the grain after it was planted~lightnovelpub.net~, he was willing to send a ship To ship grain to Lawrence’s island, Lawrence does not need to pay the freight of even one copper plate.

He had no way to transport before, mainly because these island owners generally only had a few small offshore vessels in their hands, and they could only sail between the island or the surrounding islands. There is simply no way to transport food for one's own island across the vast sea between the island and the new world. But if you just run some short sea routes, the difficulty will not be great.

During the subsequent visits to other islands, Lawrence also discovered that the region has a great demand for food. At least those lords expressed their support more or less after they learned that Lawrence would produce food on the island, and provided him with a batch of cost prices and even a certain discount on the cost price when Lawrence was purchasing. goods.

It took Lawrence half a month to visit this time, because in addition to the hospitality when visiting certain islands but staying for one night, he finally returned to Nicosia to join the customs union. Extraordinary Meeting.

Although only the surrounding lords participated in this meeting, because there were six lords in addition to Lawrence, it exceeded the lower limit of the limit of five lords. So in accordance with the rules, they held a short meeting and announced the acceptance of Lawrence and his new Sauer Island into the customs union.