Volume 2 Chapter 58 - Banta City’s new plan

Volume 2 Chapter 58 Banta City’s new plan

“Raising funds?” Xu Yi was stunned, “Lord Count, you’re raising funds from me? What a joke!”

“It’s not a joke, you’ll know if you take a look.” Count Sean pointed at the document in front of Xu Yi.

Xu Yi opened the document to take a look and found that it was a plan that was targeted at Banta City as a whole.

According to this plan, Count Sean wanted to rebuild Banta City as a whole, connecting the villages around Banta City to Banta City. It would be no longer like the previous Banta City and previous villages outside the city, they would all become one.

To achieve this, first they had to build roads.

The reason before why the villagers outside Banta City and the citizens in Banta City belonged to two different worlds was mainly because transportation was just too difficult.

According to the stats of this plan, there were currently seventy three villages outside Banta City and there were only thirty four villages that had roads connecting to Banta City. The rest of these villages didn’t have a single complete road that was connected to Banta City and even many of these villagers had never taken a single step out of their villages.

So the first step of this plan was to build enough connecting roads, linking these villages to Banta City.

Like this, whether it was the villagers in the villages or the citizens of Banta City, they could all associate with one another.

“According to the inspections of the people I’ve sent, there are quite a few valuable items hidden in the villages on the mountains or in the swamps, but because there is no way to transport them, they are all being wasted. Among them is the Magma Berry that you mentioned to me last time.” Seeing that Xu Yi had already finished reading the first few pages, Count Sean said, “If we can build roads connecting to these villages, we should be able to improve the lives of the villagers living there.”

Xu Yi looked at the serious Count Sean and was almost mistaken that he had returned to earth.

“Count Sean, this idea isn’t bad, but it’s very hard to implement this plan.” Xu Yi pointed at the map on the plan awkwardly and said, “Look, it’s easy for those thirty four villages that already have roads, we can just fix up those roads and connect those villages, but for the remaining villages……Based on the map, we can build a single road that connects them for most of these villages, but there are some that it is impossible for.”

“I never said we would solve them all at once, that is too unrealistic.” Count Sean waved his hand and said, “My goal is to first solve the road problem of these thirty four villages first and develop them first. As for the other villages, we’ll slowly think of a solution after studying them further.”

“That is more like it.” Xu Yi nodded. He carefully looked over the map before saying with a bitter smile, “But Lord Count, the closest of these thirty for villages is less than two killometers and the furthest is more than twenty kilometers away. If we were to build roads for all of them, it would be around four to five hundred kilometers of road. This…..”

“I’ve already calculated it, it’s a total of around four hundred and sixty kilometers of road. According to the rate of the Falling Rain Road, it should cost around nine hundred thousand gold coins.” Count Sean followed up.

“Nine hundred thousand gold coins……” Xu Yi looked at Count Sean with a difficult expression, “Lord Count, although our Frestech Chamber of Commerce has earned a bit of money, it’s impossible for us to take out nine hundred thousand at once. Not to mention, it’s a donation……It’ll be hard to explain this to the other people of the company.”

“It’s not given up for free, what are you worried about?” Count Sean looked at Xu Yi, “I’m looking for your help, so of course there are benefits for you. Could it be that I don’t even understand such simple logic? Listen well, according to my thoughts, as long as your Frestech Chamber of Commerce can take out that much money, I can exempt the Frestech Chamber of Commerce from paying taxes for a year. Other than this, for the villages that have new roads built, your Frestech Chamber of Commerce can receive the rights to develop them for three years. It means that your Frestech Chamber of Commerce can take whatever you want, as long as the villagers don’t complain and you don’t kill and pillage the villagers.”

Xu Yi’s eyes lit up, “Then I can do what I want in those villages?”

“It can be considered this.” Count Sean nodded, “As for whether you can earn money and how much you can make, it’ll depend on your skills.”

Xu Yi instantly began calculating in his heart.

If he agreed to Count Sean, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce could avoid paying taxes for a year.

According to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s current profits, they would earn at least three million gold coins in a single year.

If they could avoid paying taxes, they would gain at least four hundred thousand gold coins.

Then the cost of building the roads would only be five hundred thousand gold coins.

As for whether he could earn that five hundred thousand gold coins from the villages……Xu Yi couldn’t guarantee this now, but he had enough confidence to achieve this.

“Alright, then we’ll do this. But Lord Count, it’ll take some time if you want to build these roads and we can only slowly start with one village at a time.” Xu Yi thought about it and used his finger to draw a circle around Banta City, “I feel that first we should mark an area of ten kilometers around Banta City to create a network of roads first. Then we slowly advance outwards before we connect all of Banta City with roads.”

“Un, this idea isn’t bad, it’s quite realistic. Alright, we’ll just follow this idea first. But let’s put the idea of building roads aside first, let’s first look at the contents of this plan first.” Count Sean flipped through several pages before pointing at a map and saying, “This is part of my plan for a suburb in Banta City, what do you think?”

Xu Yi looked at it and couldn’t help knitting his brows, “Lord Count, why does it seem quite familiar?”

Count Sean laughed, “Of course you would find it familiar, this blueprint was made based on the Falling Rain Valley.”

Xu Yi suddenly understood and carefully took a look, finding that this map had many similarities to the design of the Falling Rain Valley. For example, the separation of industrial and living areas, as well as a network of roads connecting it.

But after looking for a while, Xu Yi found a problem.

“Lord Count, the industrial area that you’ve designated, there are clearly two villages in this area.”

Count Sean waved his hand, “Just have them leave.”

“Then what about compensation?”

“Compensation?” Count Sean looked at Xu Yi in surprise, “Just have them leave, what compensation?”

Xu Yi was instantly speechless, this was the forceful eviction of the Sines Continent?

Thinking about it, Xu Yi said to Count Sean, “Lord Count, just leave this project to me. Chairman Cruise and I are very familiar with this matter.”

Count Sean looked at Xu Yi with a bit of surprise, “I just wanted your opinion on this, but since you’ve taken the initiative to take this project, that’s good. Alright, I’ll leave this project to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the Amrit Chamber of Commerce, I’ll wait for your results.”

Xu Yi nodded in response.

After discussing some general details with Count Sean, he rejected his invitation to eat a meal before Xu Yi left the City Lord’s Manor.

It was currently sunset, so the temperature was much cooler. There was a breeze that blew past and brought a bit of a chill.

The street by the City Lord’s Manor was regulated, so it was considered peaceful. When he turned the corner and entered the street by the City Lord’s Manor, he immediately found that even though it was close to dinner, there were many people still on the street wandering around.

All kinds of people walked through the streets. Some seemed like they were taking a strong, but most of them looked like they were rushing about, like they had many things to take care of.

There were countless shops that lined both sides of the street, as large and small vendors took up pieces of space on the road, calling out their wares.

Seeing this crowded and busy scene, Xu Yi couldn’t help feeling emotional.

He remembered when he first came to Banta City. Because of how remote this small city was, the rhythm of the city was quite slow and it was very peaceful.

But now just after a single year, this small city had become this bustling.

According to the stats of the City Lord’s Manor, the current population of Banta City was more than twice what it was last year.

There were less than fifty thousand people last year, but now there were over a hundred thousand people.

Moreover, this was just the main city inside the walls. If that included the people living outside the walls, the current population of Banta City would be three times what it was last year.

The reason why this situation occurred was because there was an explosion of jobs in Banta City, so the amount of manpower in Banta City wasn’t enough to satisfy this demand.

Adding in the drive of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and their large demand for manpower, the average wage in Banta City was rather high.

So the people of the surrounding cities, including Karma City, Saltan City, even the further Canberra and Norton Cities had people who came to Banta City looking for work.

Now that Banta City was filled with people from all different cities, one could hear the difference in accents for the universal language of the Sines Continent when walking through the streets.

This scene reminded Xu Yi of the special economic areas when they first developed on earth.

Of course, the scale was still much smaller.

While having these thoughts, Xu Yi was walking towards his home.

Today Still said that she wanted to make dinner with Vivian, so Xu Yi was looking forward to that.

After walking through half the street, there were several horse carriages that slowly moved by Xu Yi.

Xu Yi looked over and saw that those horse carriages had the mark of the Sarank Chamber of Commerce. Thinking about it, he began walking towards those horse carriages.