Chapter 43 March 404 AD Tennessee-Success Breeds Success (Patreon)

                Nda was in the heart of the Merchant Guild. It was mountain territory, mountains filled with pine trees, rivers, and factories. The rivers in their heartland were some of the best in the world for building waterwheel factories, and they had so many rivers that it would take two hundred years for them to run out of places for waterwheel-powered factories. That was fortunate for Nda, as his factory was currently being built.

                The Merchant Guild was so happy that Nda brought back a water-powered weaving machine and a water-powered thread machine they outrightly promoted him to an elder at the ripe old age of twenty-two. Becoming an elder among the Merchant Guild required Nda to have a certain amount of wealth, so the Merchant Guild was gladly building Nda a factory to run the new machines.

                The new machines were not exactly what Nda brought back, as the entrepreneurs tore down the two pieces of machinery and built their own version with Merchant Guild techniques and materials. The Merchant Guild's material was in some ways inferior as the Paulsland machines they bought had several parts that were made with stainless steel, a metal the Merchant Guild had never come across before. Due to the adjustments in the design, there would be teething issues with the new machines, and that was fine, the Merchant Guild would pay for the cost of the teething issue until they had a finished product to bring to production. The Merchant Guild planned on building at least a dozen cloth factories as they wanted to have a monopoly on cloth in their territory. Although Nda’s factory would not be finished for a year, the constant adjustments in these new machines kept him very busy.

                On a personal level Nda married the granddaughter of the richest elder in the entire Merchant Guild. It was a sign of trust, a show of their alliance, and a deference to Nda’s wisdom as Nda established contact with both Rome and Paulsland.

                Despite all this success, Nda had one trait that every elder in the Merchant Guild had: the desire for more. Despite everything Nda had, he wanted more. Despite everything Nda had brought back, the Merchant Guild wanted more. With that in mind, Nda was called to a meeting with the elders of the Merchant Guild’s heartland to discuss acquiring more.

                On the day of the meeting, Nda made his way to the Merchant Guild’s administration building. It was the tallest habital building in the world, as the Merchants Guild had long ago learned how to make steel frame buildings. The administration building was built at the peak of a rocky mountain and was just over three hundred and fifty feet high. Its walls were made from brick and glass. It showed the tremendous wealth of the Merchant Guild, and the guild was very happy to show off their building to any visiting leader to show the futility of fighting against them. The building even had running water thanks to pumps that brought water to cisterns distributed throughout the building. Although the building was very tall, the Merchant Guild had yet to invent the elevator, so the more important you were, the lower the floor you were on. Since the elders were the most important people, they met on the ground floor. As for reaching the top of the mountain, that was not hard as they had water-powered pulley systems that pulled carts filled with people and goods to the top of the mountain. This was just another thing that showed the surrounding tribes and nations their superiority.

                This was Nda’s first time at a meeting with the other elders at this particular building. Over the last year, he had been busy either traveling with the weaving and thread machines, meeting with elders along his travels, overseeing the dismantling of the machines, overseeing the development of the prototypes of the guild’s versions of those machines, getting married, and overseeing the construction of his own factory. When Nda reached the administration building, he was brought directly to the meeting room where several of the elders were already waiting and discussing things. In all four walls of the meeting room were guild copies of clocks and lanterns. Nda smiled when he saw them, as they were evidence of the improvements he had made to the guild.

                The Elders trickled in for nearly fifteen minutes until finally, Elder Beeso entered the room. Beeso and Nda gave each other friendly nods, as Beeso was Nda’s wife’s grandfather. Nda owed the man a lot, and Beeso was glad to use Nda to grow his family's wealth.

                Beeso started the meeting by saying, “With our contact of Rome, and now Paulsland, we have a lot of decisions to make.”

                One of the elders that Nda didn’t recognize asked, “In regards to all the new technology?”

                “No. The new technology will take years, if not decades to digest. For instance, we are building two new steel mills to make enough steel frames for our version of the communication towers. The new medicinal books are amazing, but half of them are useless, at least until our people bring their seeds here from across the ocean. We have so many new products, from coal oil, to lamps, to clocks, and many more, that we will be having meetings about their supply chains for at least a decade.”

                The elder asked, “If we are not going to talk about the new products, then why are we here?”

                “Because we need to discuss the new trade partners. Rome and Paulsland have both already been very valuable to us, and we need to increase our trade ties with them. I have put off this meeting for some time because Nda was too busy to be a part of it.”

                All the elders turned to Nda, and one said, “Shouldn’t we bring that Roman Shaman to the meeting if we need an expert.”

                Beeso turned to Nda and asked, “What do you think?”

                “The Roman is a priest and would likely be offended if you called him a different religious title. That said if we brought the Roman here, then all you would get was a Roman’s view of the Merchant Guild, when you need a guild member’s view of Rome and Paulsland.”

                Beeso said, “Give us your view of the two.”

                “Both nations are too large. It will be very difficult to establish a monopoly with them. That said, both nations have ideas, technology, and medicines that we do not have, so we have no choice but to trade with them. That isn’t to say that we are ignorant savages, we have some technology they do not have. For instance, although they use water-powered factories to smelt large amounts of iron, both nations still make steel by hand. They have no idea that you can replace hammers in the production of steel with rollers, which makes steel far more quickly.”

                Beeso asked, “So what do we need to do with those nations?”

                “What we do with everyone else, supply weapons to both sides. This will both increase our wealth and make them weaker than us. Rome is at war with both Paulsland and the Cubans. That brings up another problem, the Cubans have been a thorn in our side for decades. It didn’t matter much when the only nation to trade with to our south was the Cubans themselves, but we should be using our southern port to trade with Rome and Paulsland.” The Merchant Guild would have acted sooner, but they did not know about the Casarabi City states, and the Totonac Empire was historically difficult to deal with.

                “How would we do that when the Cubans are legitimate master sailors? In the past, we tried to raise a fleet to overcome their Sea Wardens, but the fleet was soundly defeated. They tried to invade, but their Sea Wardens were easily defeated by our buffalo riders.”

                “In this part of the world, the Cubans have jealously guarded the sea from all newcomers, but now that we have met new trade partners, we should be able to use their master sailors to bring down the Cubans. I bet we could even get the Romans to pay us for the right to destroy the Cuban fleet.”

                Beeso smilled, turned to a servant and said, “Bring the Roman to us.” As the servant left to obey, Beeso turned back to Nda and said, “We won't have to wait long to see if there is a chance for your plan to work.”

                As the elders waited they asked Nda about Rome and Paulsland. Nda answered their questions as best as he could. Nearly an hour later Leo the Priest was brought into the room.

                When Leo saw Nda sitting alongside the elders, he smiled and said, “Nda it appears you have moved up in the world.”

                Nda smiled and said, “In no small part, thanks to you, my friend. Perhaps if we have time we can catch up after this meeting is over but right now we need to discuss our mutual enemy, the Cubans. I assume your government has kept you up to date on their war with them.”

                Leo had no reason to lie, “Yes. The Cubans have been able to use their Buffalo archers to overwhelm a small legion. If it wasn’t for other wars, we would be able to easily overwhelm them.”

                “The Cubans are a thorn in our side as well. They constantly raid our southern coastline and have made it impossible to use our southern port. We would like to ally ourselves with Rome and help each other defeat the Cubans. The problem is that we do not have the expertise at sea like the Cubans or the Romans do. Would you be willing to write a letter to your people asking them to send teachers for our people?”

                “Teachers in what?”

                “Navigation, shipbuilding, and experienced sailors. Your people have ships we have never dreamed of, much less have the ability to sail. Ships that can help us help your people destroy the mutual thorn in our side.”

                “I cannot promise anything.”

                “We understand, that said any help will allow us to help Rome.”

                “Fine, I will send the letter, but they will likely want something very valuable.”

                “What?”

                “Your bows.”

                Beeso interrupted, “I think we can handle that.”

                And so several crates of compound fastfire bows began making their way to Rome.