The Founder of the Great Financial Family

Chapter 43 (2)

Andrew and Joshua, who went around the corners of the territory to find tenant farmers growing barley and hops, bought all the supplies they had by the time the sun set, and piled them up in the warehouse separately managed by the church.

The funds used here were all provided by Rockefeller, and the beer and its ingredients were indiscriminately bought by the priests of the church and Rockefeller's two younger brothers.

As days went by, all things related to beer in the Montefeltro territory became increasingly scarce.

Whenever there was any available, church members or children from the Rothsmedici family would buy it without any consideration, causing supplies to run out.

A few days later.

After hearing the situation, the lord, Chester, belatedly stepped in and hurriedly visited the church that monopolized beer to ask the reason. However, he couldn't get any answers from the priests who just claimed it was God's will.

"Why beer?"

After meeting with the head priest, Lord Chester showed a puzzled expression on his way back to his estate. His overseer, Siron Mark, had a similarly confused look.

"What's the point of doing this?"

"Well, I'm not sure about the reason, but it's true that beer has become scarce these days. It used to be fun to have a drink at a pub after work, but that fun has almost disappeared as supplies have dried up. I never thought the church would buy so much beer. They even took all the ingredients."

"They won't do the same in the neighboring territories, will they?"

"If they're determined, who knows? But why would they?"

"If there's a reason, they would do it. We can't even guess why, so we just stand by and watch."

Monopolizing a particular product was not a good thing from the lord's perspective.

The most important thing for the lord was the stability of the territory.

It was an act that jeopardized that stability, so naturally, there was resistance. The problem was that the driving force behind it was the church, which even the lord himself couldn't easily interfere with.

"No matter how much I ask, that snake-like head priest won't tell me anything. What kind of secret plan is this?"

The overseer, who was walking beside the lord, also had the same question.

"Looking at the situation, there must be something we don't know. That head priest is a very intelligent person and not someone who would do something pointless."

"I just don't get it. No matter how much I think about it, I can't understand the reason."

Lord Chester sighed deeply, recalling the head priest who had asked for help in the past.

Why was a church member so interested in money?

If they were church members, they should live in poverty. What's the point of church donations?

As if it wasn't troublesome enough that they needed money for various reasons due to the wars that occurred near the territory, they were also annoying about church donations.

'I don't want to associate with that person who kept begging for church donations whenever he got a chance.'

"Did they have any separate businesses? Without me knowing?"

The overseer recalled the reports he had received from his subordinates and answered.

"I heard that the church is starting to cultivate barley and hops now."

"What? They bought so much that they almost ran out, and now they're going to cultivate more? Is their god obsessed with beer or something? Usually, it's wine."

"I'm not sure either. It would make more sense if they were doing a winery business. Why beer specifically?"

"They're not planning to build a brewery, are they?"

"Come to think of it, I did hear about a brewery. It's not very big, but it seems they're investing a decent amount of money to build a brewery as well."

"What? Not only are they cultivating barley and hops, but they're also building a brewery? What kind of secret plan is this? Are they planning to make a lot of beer and sell it?"

"I don't know about that."

"Besides, building a brewery would require quite a bit of money. Where are they getting the money to build it? There's no way a small church like that has emergency funds."

"Well, usually they would borrow money from a bank, but..."

Taking out loans was one of the things the church despised the most.

Because it was deeply related to the sin of usury, which was blasphemy.

"Considering the interest, it doesn't seem like they borrowed money from a bank."

"Then what, did money fall from the sky? Or did they build the brewery for free?"

"Not like that, but..."

Overseer Siron Mark just shook his head with a puzzled expression.

"I don't know. Anyway, it seems certain that the church is trying to monopolize beer for now."

"Is there nothing better to do than monopolize beer?"

The lord briefly thought about the monastery in the neighboring territory.

In the diocese on the outskirts of the empire, which was financially struggling due to the small amount of church donations and offerings, they sometimes carried out small businesses as self-help measures.

It wasn't strange for a church in financial difficulty to carry out its own business, but it was hard to accept that the business was related to beer, rather than a winery.

"If they were making wine, I would have understood. Wine is already being produced in many places."

At that moment.

An idea crossed the overseer's mind.

"Could it be... they changed to beer because they couldn't compete with wine?"

"What do you mean?"

"Wine is already produced in other places, right? The neighboring monastery has a large vineyard and a pretty big winery factory."

"So?"

"Since they can get wine from the neighboring territory, they might have changed to beer. If they produced wine, it would be insignificant compared to the neighboring monastery, so they might have thought to compete with beer instead."

"Hmm..."

It wasn't a completely satisfying answer.

However, the overseer's words didn't seem entirely wrong either.

If the church, which used to beg for church donations every day, started a small business for survival, it would make sense that the business should have some competitiveness, which could be accepted as basic common sense.

"We can't stop them since it's a church matter."

Even the lord, who was like the sky, couldn't dare to act recklessly in God's domain.

They couldn't easily stop whatever the church was doing.

Knowing this, the lord frowned.

'It looks like I've been played.'

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