When I returned to the mansion, the first person to greet me was Chris.
"Welcome back, Baron. I hope your trip was not too exhausting."
"Thank you for coming to greet me. By the way, where are Chloe and Erika?"
"Lady Chloe is taking a bath, and Lady Erika is at her family’s home. She said she’ll be back by tomorrow afternoon. Should I send someone to fetch her?"
It was already quite late at night, so there was no need to hurry her return.
There was no urgent matter I needed to discuss right now, after all.
"No, there’s no need for that. It’ll be enough to send someone tomorrow morning to contact her."
"Understood."
"Anything happen while I was away?"
"Nothing major, but the Commercial Affairs Bureau granted you the authority to establish a Poultry Farm Guild."
The authority to establish a Poultry Farm Guild.
The power contained in this authority was far greater than I had anticipated.
If I fill out a few required documents for the Commercial Affairs Bureau, I would naturally become the Guild Master of the Poultry Farm Guild. Moreover, anyone wishing to build a poultry farm across the country would have to get my approval.
"All chickens circulated within the Toscanian Empire will now pass through your hands, Baron. Congratulations."
Hearing those words, my mind began to race.
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Would it be profitable to establish a guild like everyone else does and control all the rights related to chicken farming and eggs?
Or should I forgo some of the profits I’m currently making and, instead of creating a guild, present a new form of management—eliminating the unreasonable and unethical guilds, and making a grand national choice for the prosperity of the people (the Rothschild family)?
How could I make as much money as possible?
‘As the great investor said, is long-term investment the right path?’
"Baron, are you troubled by something?"
"I’m thinking about how to earn more profit, not just by setting up a poultry farm guild. I wonder if there might be a better way."
Chris also pondered alongside me.
"You seem very ambitious, Baron."
"Is that a problem?"
"Well, all merchants should be ambitious. My father was quite greedy, too. If he had 999 gold coins, he’d struggle to earn just one more to reach 1,000. I admired him and became a merchant because of that."
What was important here was that I didn’t extort the wealth of someone whose entire fortune amounted to a single gold coin.
Other merchants might use a bit of force to shift the wealth of someone who only had one gold coin to their name, but I didn’t take the wealth of the poor.
This was my minimum ethical line.
‘Because those poor people with nothing but a spear would come after me.’
We call that the ghost of communism.
The exploitation system that makes money should be sustainable—what use is it if you get killed by a spear after getting too greedy?
"My father used to say that if you want to make a lot of money, you need to take big risks. The more risks you take, and the more reckless the actions, the bigger the reward if you succeed."
The biggest difference between the West and the East.
It could be said to be the difference between having stocks or not.
In the West, whether among monarchs, nobles, or commoners, everyone was obsessed with making more money.
They searched for new trade routes, spices, gold, and silver, determined to increase their wealth.
But the initial investment was so high that the concept of “diversified investment” had to be developed into a finely tuned system.
And that became stocks, which led to the Age of Exploration and various advancements.
Thinking about it, there’s still no Age of Exploration in this world, and there are no stocks.
‘I guess I’ll have to introduce stocks, then?’
Using the advantages of stocks to show the advanced wisdom of the British Empire and the East India Company is a task of historical importance.
"The guild establishment authorization certificate—I’ll go to the Commercial Affairs Bureau later to take care of that, so don’t worry about it."
I planned to go to the Commercial Affairs Bureau and say I wouldn’t be creating a guild. Instead, I’d gather money from across the country and create a poultry farm on a scale that could handle the national demand for chickens.
And if I consistently paid dividends to shareholders...?
Everyone would inevitably become advocates for stocks, praising the god of stocks.
‘They say beginners in stocks, once they taste the rise, will never be able to turn back.’
Then, all of Tuscany would fall into stock addiction. Some might go to check the water temperature of the Han River, but...
The circulation of wealth would continue, and the economy would grow wildly.
Of course, it wouldn’t grow to the level of the Industrial Revolution, but...
For this time period, things would change drastically, so much so that it would feel like a revolution.
"Understood, Baron. And upon further thought, there’s another important matter."
"What is it?"
"It’s the issue of the heir to the Rothschild family."
Indeed, it was an important matter, but I was only 23 years old.
Erika was just 15, Chris was 20, and Chloe was 21.
If I were in my mid-thirties, I might have agreed with that, but as a noble with a life-and-death heir issue, this seemed a bit premature.
"Chris and I are still too young, aren’t we? There’s no issue with pregnancy at all. Even Duke Visconti had a daughter at the age of 60."
Men may lose their fertility with age, but as long as the woman is young, one can still have children at any age.
This often leads to succession disputes between the firstborns from a main wife (usually in her early twenties) and a concubine, which can cause political upheavals in the country or family.
‘Even now, somewhere, there must be a political struggle due to a late-born child.’
Chris pushed me toward the bed as I spoke.
"You often go to dangerous places like Ifriqiya, don’t you? And the Rothschild family doesn’t have a collateral branch."
In general, noble families without an heir face extinction, and if there’s no heir, the family disappears. Of course, if they erase the family without an heir, they don’t know what the former retainers will do.
So, they typically find someone with the right to succeed, even from distant branches, to carry on the family line.
Even if I die, our family won’t break apart.
Most likely, the family will pass to Duke Visconti.
‘But that would mean all the achievements I’ve built up would go to the Duke.’
"There are good points to not having a collateral branch, but it also makes the heir issue more important."
Chris said that and began unbuttoning my shirt as she pressed her body against mine.
"And the former Baron Medici also mentioned that our family’s lack of an heir is worrying."
I had long been independent from my father.
Although it had been a while, he was still my father.
If he intervened in the family’s management, I could warn him not to overstep his bounds...
But I couldn’t stop him from advising me to make an heir for the family’s future.
No, even if I were a military officer in service, if I were the head of the family, I’d still go to my superior and say:
‘This unfilial son still has no children. Please grant me leave to secure the future of the family.’
Such demands would be accepted without any objections, and they’d give me a few months’ leave.
Chris, pressing herself tightly against me, whispered:
"You’re not going to let me sleep tonight, are you?"
As my lower body began to fill with blood, the door opened and Chloe appeared.
She gave orders to the butler standing nearby.
As soon as the orders were given, I heard the sound of the door locking.
Though it wasn’t yet winter, I felt a chill run through me, and I even started to feel cold.
"Master, please wait for just a moment."
Chloe changed into a bathrobe, the kind I’d expect to see in a hotel room.
The robe was loose, so her figure wasn’t accentuated, but the exposed skin from various gaps in the fabric caught my attention.
And, on top of that, there was the charm of a woman who had just finished a bath.
"Do you like this position?"
Chloe gently moved her hands to raise my arm as she placed my head on her knee.
"Anything you want, Master. You’ve worked hard, so you deserve to rest now. Erika will be late tomorrow, too, since she’s visiting her family."
Nervous, I swallowed my saliva.
"Please give me the fruit of love."
As usual, the next day, I couldn’t perform my official duties due to muscle pain and exhaustion.
After I gathered myself, I immediately headed to the Commercial Affairs Bureau.