The meeting ended, and Vigee, without embarrassing the envoy Eric, invited him to dinner.
After tasting the fine Bordeaux wines and dishes infused with precious spices, the envoy's demeanor noticeably softened, and
he lamented the Duke's kindness.
After three rounds of drinks, the envoy gradually relaxed his guard and, under Vigee's guidance, casually mentioned Eric's newly built castle.
"Ever since His Majesty and Ragnar captured York seven years ago, he had been obsessed with its stone buildings, saying that magnificent architecture helped to demonstrate the greatness of a lord.
That is quite true. Take me, for example. An hour ago, before the ship landed, I was immediately enchanted by your castle, and I am sure most travelers would be the same."
Vig: "Thank you for the compliment. In fact, I built the castle purely for defense. My estates are located on the north-east coast of Britain and
are often attacked by pirates. I had to spend an enormous amount of money to build this castle."
"An enormous amount?" The messenger was instantly intrigued. When he learned that Tain Castle had cost only two hundred pounds of silver, he exclaimed:
"That is incredibly cheap. Eric's castle, from the cutting of the stone to the construction, cost a total of 1,200 pounds of silver. This is only half-finished, and hundreds of pounds of silver are expected to be spent." One thousand
two hundred pounds!
How much money had Eric's men stolen?
Vig was immensely grateful. Fortunately, Heligief was well versed in Latin literature and construction, so the masons had not deceived her.
Holding back his inner shock, he took the glass and sipped. "Eric is a king. In addition to protecting himself from foreign enemies, his castle also has to perform administrative functions and receive guests from all over the world. He needs a large territory, so it is only natural that it is more expensive."
"Receiving guests?" The messenger's face fell. "There is no money in the treasury. Before the castle was built, guests could drink mead and sometimes taste the precious red wine from Frank. Now, ordinary guests can only drink beer.
Look, I do not intentionally slander the beer of Tynburg, it is just that the price is too low, not enough to show the status of a king."
"It's all right, it's all right. Beer has always been a drink for the common people. It's not comparable to wine and mead."
Vig didn't care about the messenger's comments and returned the topic to Eric's castle, where the conversation was about the income of the Norwegian kingdom and the salaries of officials.
Speaking about salaries, the ambassador complained bitterly:
"Since last August, Eric has been paying salaries in kind, including woolen fabrics, grain and amber. The type of goods often depends on the availability in the warehouse.
For example, in April we distributed woolen fabrics. As soon as we received the salaries, we immediately took the fabric to the market to sell. The increase in the supply of fabrics led to a fall in prices, and we generally lost from 10% to 20%…"
The dinner lasted almost an hour and eventually ended with the ambassador snoring.
After instructing the maid to take him to the guest room on the second floor to rest, Vig, fighting off sleep, took pen and paper to outline the information he had just received.
According to the ambassador, the Norwegian royal family's annual income from various sources was equivalent to 1,300 pounds of silver, slightly less than Wessex's.
"According to later measurements, Norway covers an area of about 380,000 square kilometers, Britain about 230,000 square kilometers, and Ireland to the west about 84,000 square kilometers. Eric, King of Norway, is even less wealthy than the Duke of Wessex. It seems that Northern Europe is completely unfit for survival."
Rubbing his eyes, Vig dismissed his worries. King Eric was old and cowardly, and his castle had exhausted its many years of fiscal surplus, making the possibility of an attack on Tyneburg virtually nil.
"If nothing happens, the next step will be a period of wrangling." After the
messenger left, Vig's life returned to normal. He attended to the affairs of state, spent time with his family, and spent his free time wandering the city.
One day, he came across a parchment workshop southeast of the city and discovered that the artisans had mastered an early method of making paper.
For many years, three types of paper had been used in Tyneburg: expensive parchment, papyrus imported from the Mediterranean, and birch bark paper, a technique pioneered by the shaman Kemi Wildfire.
Each had its advantages and disadvantages. Because of cost and quality issues, Vig had to use a mixture of:
high-quality, expensive parchment for official documents and correspondence,
parchment and birch bark for books, and
papyrus for informal occasions.
To reduce these costs, he shared his memories of papermaking with his craftsmen. Over the years, he finally figured out the process. From a
pond in the center of the yard, the craftsmen raked old, soaked linen, discarded fishing nets, and other materials, cut them into pieces, then mixed them with limewater and steamed them, stirring them repeatedly.
The steamed fibers were washed with clean water and pounded repeatedly against a tree, resulting in a flaky mass.
The workers then poured the mixture into a container of water, diluted it, and stirred it until it formed a turbid slurry. A wide wooden sieve was then dipped into the mixture and lifted horizontally, forming wet sheets. It was then dehydrated and dried, producing paper suitable for writing.
Having satisfied himself that the finished paper was of the required quality, Wig decided to move the workshop immediately.
With a population of over 3,000 and a booming trade, the technology of papermaking could easily leak out to the outside world.
So he planned to move the paper mill to the River Wear, a marshy area more than ten kilometers to the south, where the population was sparse and the secret could be kept secret. Although the technology of papermaking was eventually discovered, every bit of profit was worth its weight in gold.
After leaving the workshop, Vig calculated the profits of the paper business.
Paper was made from bark, old flax, discarded ropes and nets, making it inexpensive. Marketing was key.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe was in chaos. The literacy rate in the early Middle Ages was approximately 1–2%.
The vast majority of the literate population belonged to the clergy, and only a few merchants and artisans had basic literacy.
The aristocracy, on the other hand, favored military service over cultural education, delegating tasks such as bookkeeping and letter writing to administrators and priests, which led to the influence of the Church on administrative power.
As for the vast majority of farmers and artisans, they had no access to education, no need for literacy, and led a mediocre life.
In summary, the paper produced by the paper mill, in addition to supplying the administrative system, temples, and schools of Tyneburg, was mainly sold to monasteries throughout Europe.
The Church's impression of Tyneburg as a scheming and cunning pagan nobleman was obvious. Having realized that this high-quality and inexpensive paper was being produced in Tyneburg, the Church would probably publicly boycott it, while secretly studying related papermaking technologies, effectively ignoring Tyneburg's potential profit.
This realization immediately soured his mood.
"It seems that the idea of getting rich from papermaking is not very realistic. Well, satisfying domestic demand is a good idea. Since the formation of the Four Northern Counties, the demand for paper has been increasing. The advent of papermaking technology can at least relieve us of the high cost of importing paper."