A Capable Maid - Ch. 50

[amjustaweeb]

i had to look twice at the frog to make sure i wasnt seeing things

 

[midnight2630]

?
i´m pretty sure there are LOTS of people who would love to cultivate sugar. He just needs to bring them to the region with good climate and give them land to plant.
(well, the original people who didn´t want to work with the prince would be doomed but...i´ts a way.)

 

[hippoanon]

@1ORIN

there are a lot of sugarcane uses beside sugar, the by product of sugar are molasses.

molasses can be fermented into rum, which was the fuel of sea trading. it also can be given to cattles, to fatten them faster.
the other is bagass/cane pulp, can be used as fuel. but thats not a problem.

by using Co-op or guilds in some case. the guild/co-op can negotiate a fairer price for the farmers instead. and they usually can give "loan" to farmers. such as seed, fertilizer, food, etc..
another solution is to not trade all the sugar, but educate on how to process the sugar to another "refined" product and make it the speciality of the area. candy making probably, or liquor products?

if, a big if, they succeed, it will probably attract a lot of other business/trade. since more money means more spending. which in all can be taxed by the kingdom?

so even if they can't taste the sugar now, they probably can in the future.

 

[kylie_aliah]

You can see how the author really thought out her plot line.

 

[personal852]

Let's go diabetes

 

[Aichan]

@arnoldstrife

If this story is truly set in the period of middle to late middle ages, the peasants wouldn't be eating wheat anyway. Only the nobles or upper class society would be eating wheat. For the peasants, wheat was just part of their taxes. The peasants eat rye, and they like it better that way because rye rarely fail, so they can eat more if they plant rye. If they plant wheat, if it fails, not only will they be unable to pay taxes, they won't be able to eat either. So commonly, only a small part of their land would be used to grow wheat, to be paid as taxes.

In this story, if they switch to paying taxes with sugarcanes, the value of their taxes would've been doubled or tripled, which means they can dedicate less land to paying taxes and farm more food for themselves. Of course, different countries do it differently, but they're in the equivalent of the Holy Roman Empire, where the emperor actually has power.

 

[hippoanon]

hmm, another problem from sugar cane farm, they don't really need a lot of worker when it's off harvest season. but that's a common problem for farming community.
but still it probably won't be a plot anyway. just a thought

 

[Wizardrone]

the powder of happiness, cavities and diabetes.

@Aichan agreed but i think the period time must be after late middle ages to renaissance mainly because the existance of the palace, not because they didn't exist before but with a new age of power, wealth, knowledge and fancy dresses the nobles stopped living inside a castle as a permanent residence and it was around that time that happend a palace boom as a home for royalties as well as institutional buildings.

but at the this is the world built by the author so anything could be.

 

[jackalan]

Sugar is the powder of obesity, hyperactivity, and tooth decay. Thanks chef!

 

[kksuika]

"powder of happiness"
Me: immediately associates that with the illegal powder stuff on the news 🤣

 

[macroblitz]

Happiness huh

 

[beemo_bb]

Thank you for the update!!

Ahh such a slow burn this is

 

[comeonnow0]

@sertoots I hope you understand why that makes zero sense. They could just trade finished goods using the intermediary merchants. Again, zero reason to trade the seeds. It is actually counter-productive to the empire's goals of strengthening the empire because then it makes the halidom more self-sufficient. That means less reason for the southwest sugar region to become big because then it'll compete against the halidom.

There are numerous examples of this throughout history. Trading the source of an industry is disadvantageous compared to trading finished products in many, many cases.

Other countries already trade finished goods with the halidom. No reason the empire can't do it too.

This is just horribly planned and tries to shove things in.

 

[celedruin]

@comeonnow0
You seem to have the trade backwards. The empire is trading food for the halidom's seeds, so the disadvantage goes to the halidom.

 

[gabie]

thank you for translating!

 

[comeonnow0]

@celedruin No, the disadvantage goes to the empire. Look at the silk trade. It originated in China. It was a state secret as to how silk was made. Leaking the information was punishable by death. China therefore had a basic monopoly on the production and sale of a highly desired product, finished silk products. It was Byzantine/Greek/Roman (different words for the same peoples at the time) monks who stole the secret by stealing silkworms. This enabled them to start their own, separate industry that reduced the monopoly power of China.

If the empire trades sugarcane seeds to the halidom, then the halidom will be able to start its own industry. That's literally the entire point of it. That empowers the halidom to become a competitor to any sugar sales that the empire tries to make.

This is basic economics and history.

 

[Enoril]

@comeonnow0 For god's sake the empire is the one RECEIVING seeds and the halidom is the one GIVING them for food.

 

[weelin]

@comeonnow0

i think you got the trade mixed up, the empire is getting the sugarcane seeds from halidom in exchange for food iirc

hence worth why they need to find a suitable location to grow the sugarcane industry + manpower

 

[mangasprite]

The powder of happiness, eh? Definitely not another white powder of happiness that I know about. *sweats*

 

[whitewindswolf]

Coca—ke! Made with the powder of happiness lol
Somebody please spoil me this series, I want to know all that happens 🥺