British hegemon

Chapter 108 Recruiting Talent

Chapter 108 Recruiting Talent

The bald man's wide eyes finally brightened. After a moment of stunned silence, he suddenly said seriously, "Master, it's too noisy here. We definitely won't be able to sleep tonight."

"I remember there's a nice hotel nearby, it's quite secluded." As he spoke, he kicked the black dog next to him.

The black dog was also stunned by the high price and said blankly, "Yes, this place is indeed not suitable. Let's go to another one." With that, the bald man and the black dog pulled the young horse herder toward the door.

Roger shrugged helplessly, turned around, and followed a few followers who seemed to be fleeing out of "Demon Night".

The group of men, their desires raging, eventually settled down in a secluded hotel, looking disheveled. It seemed that the bald man and the black dog had left in the middle of the night, only returning close to dawn. You could guess with your toes what they had been up to.

The next day, after getting up and having breakfast, Roger arrived at the castle hall with several attendants. Now that he was a member of the Merchant Guild, he was no longer restricted in entering and leaving the castle.

Roger wanted to recruit a business assistant, but business talent isn't something you can just find anywhere on the street.

Before coming to Dublin, Roger had consulted his uncle Jeffrey.

Jeffrey pointed Roger to a shortcut—Dublin is a commercial city, with dozens or even hundreds of merchants from all over the world coming and going every day. Most of them come here to trade, but there are also many merchants who come here to make a living.

Why? Because any business operation can result in losses and bankruptcy. Businessmen who suffer losses or go bankrupt usually seek help from business guilds, generally hoping to borrow a high-interest loan as capital to turn their lives around.

Lucky ones might be able to borrow some money from the Dublin Merchants' Guild, but most small vendors came full of hope and left with dejected faces.

Jeffrey told Roger that every year, the bodies of bankrupt businessmen would float down the River Liffey north of Dublin.

Waiting downstream on the River Lefèvre would be too late, so Roger chose to stop the bankrupt merchants before they jumped into the river.

This matter was to be handled by the bald man and the young horse herder.

Whenever a dejected merchant came out of the guild, the bald man would approach him with a stern face and try to strike up a conversation, showering him with empty promises if there was any hope.

The bankrupt merchants who came out of the guild hall in disappointment were initially delighted to hear that someone was willing to hire them to do business at a high price, but their interest waned when they learned that the person was from the north.

In three days, only one penniless small vendor, facing dire straits, decided to risk his life and try his luck.

This man was named Mann, an Irishman, thirty-two years old, nicknamed Goatee, and was originally a wool buyer who traveled through rural markets.

Goatee didn't want to talk about how he went bankrupt, and Roger didn't ask any further questions. He gave him a trial weekly wage of five pence and said that he could get a share of the profits from every trade he completed.

Goatee, a businessman, was very interested in such a reward. It was this special "dividend" that made Goatee agree to bring his wife and two daughters to Scotland as agreed after settling on the Isle of Arron.

While the bald man and the young horse herder waited for the down-on-his-luck merchant in the guild hall, Roger was also busy.

In Ireland, which was still fragmented, Dublin, which was under the de facto rule of the English, was the political, economic and cultural center of the whole country. In addition to its thriving commerce, it was full of churches and monasteries.

What for? To borrow money. Roger needs money, a lot of money.

These days, Roger is like a dead pig that isn't afraid of boiling water, or someone with lots of lice who isn't afraid of itching.

After receiving a hundred pounds investment from his uncle Geoffrey, Roger recalled what he had heard from a merchant during his last visit to Dublin: the French king's oppression of the church and his intention not to repay loans.

Roger was aware of the historical fact that the Knights Templar were ultimately destroyed by the French King, and he also knew the timing of Black Friday. However, it was hard to say whether history would change its course because of his own wings.

However, Roger knew that the organization started out by lending money at exorbitant interest rates, so even if it didn't disappear, it could still borrow a lot of money. If it were suddenly destroyed, it might even be able to get rid of a debt.

Roger is a man of action; he does what he says he will do.

It wasn't hard to find out; I found out for two pennies at the tavern.

However, after asking around, it turned out that there was no permanent office of the Knights Templar in Dublin. The only office of the Knights Templar in Britannia was located in London, England.

Going to England was unlikely, but the tavern owner told Roger that there were secret lending operations linked to the Knights Templar in churches and monasteries near Dublin, but these were not accessible to ordinary people.

So Roger, along with Blackie and Weakling, visited all the churches and monasteries in and around Dublin. In each place, Roger loudly proclaimed himself a descendant of Brian Bolou, the First High King of Ireland, and presented his newly acquired identity documents as collateral, hoping to borrow money to help him restore the glory of his late king.

The result was not hard to imagine: the repeated rejections left the two, Black Dog and Weak Chicken, red-faced with embarrassment.

Roger didn't seem to care. Although he hadn't managed to swindle the money, at least he had established the reputation of being a descendant of the High King of Ireland. This thing was useless now, but who could say it wouldn't be useful in the future?

During his stay in Dublin, Roger wanted to establish communication with the French, the Hanseatic League, or the Spanish (Castilla) and Portuguese on his own, but after weighing the pros and cons, he decided to rely on his uncle Jeffrey as a reliable channel.

For the next two or three days, the young horseman and the weakling Gildo ran around the city with a shopping list, trying to collect as many bottles and jars as possible and all sorts of unheard-of dark ingredients as possible for the alchemists on Holly Island.

Roger, along with Baldy and Blackie, continued to wander around the workshops and shops in the city, investigating the market and secretly learning techniques, while also trying his luck to recruit some skilled workers.

Roger was really lucky this time. He found a large workshop in the northern suburbs of Dublin that cast church bells and could make the best bronze bells in Ireland.

Roger has transformed into a purchasing agent for a newly built church in the north, heading south to procure the best bronze bell for the new church.

Because Roger was dressed in fine clothes and had two attendants, a bald man and a black dog, the workshop owner allowed them to enter the workshop and observe the bronze bell making process, which broadened Roger's knowledge and opened his eyes.

However, after the group spent the entire day in the workshop observing the entire process of casting the bronze bell, the workshop owner finally realized that these guys were not buyers who came to purchase the bronze bell at all.

In the end, Roger had to spend ten silver pennies to buy a "visit ticket" from the workshop owner for the next day.

It wasn't that he didn't want to poach workers, but the walls here were too hard. When Roger subtly revealed his intention to hire workers at high salaries, the workshop owner immediately called over several burly men who looked like guards to accompany him on a tour. Roger could only obediently memorize the bell-casting process.

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