Chapter 422: No Tax on Drink

"So you’re planning to turn the whole Britz area into one big drinking party?"

"Yes, my lord! The saltpeter farm is complete, but what we’re short of most is piss and dung!"

"...That’s so blunt I don’t even know what to say."

The reason Markus had given us the warmest welcome of anyone upon our return was that he saw our soldiers as walking piles of manure. That was why the victory feast had been held in Britz, a short distance from Vintenheim.

When this area was named Britz after Markus’s surname, the saltpeter entrepreneur had made no secret of his ambition. He would make Britz the most prosperous district in all of Vintenheim.

Like Beverly Hills to the rest of Los Angeles.

It’s going to stink to high heaven, though.

Half the supplies gathered for the carnival season had been lavished on the soldiers who had protected Vintenheim. Fortunately, far from objecting, the people had insisted on releasing the rest of the supplies at once and holding the carnival early.

So the carnival had been moved up, and Markus had seized the opportunity. He devised a large-scale project targeting not only the people of Vintenheim but also the construction workers and soldiers who had come from outside.

He kept pressing me, insisting that running the saltpeter farm required enormous amounts of piss and dung. Frankly, it was so absurd I nearly lost the ability to speak.

"Isn’t it a bit much for a Christian to be talking so openly about piss and dung?"

"What do you mean? As a saltpeter expert, I tell you piss and dung are pure gold!"

"So you want every household to collect its waste and send it to Britz?"

"That’s right, but I have a far grander plan in mind."

I had thought he was one of the sane ones, but it turned out he was every bit as crazy as the rest. Even Leonardo clicked his tongue, grumbling that the man sang the praises of piss and dung without a shred of dignity.

"My lord, first we build a massive tavern in the Britz area and draw in the construction workers and drinkers. Lower the price of drink a little, and they’ll come flooding in and piss and shit to their hearts’ content!"

"Good grief, that sounds like you want to turn it into an entertainment district."

"And what better place than an entertainment district to produce piss and dung?"

Enough, you lunatic.

Ahem. It was certainly a good method, though. But lowering the price of drink a little wasn’t enough. If the drinks were genuinely dirt cheap, wouldn’t even more drinkers gather? Like moths to a flame.

To do that, I would need to sort out a few small tax matters first.

"Then I’ll lend a hand as well. I won’t collect the liquor tax in the Britz area."

Markus’s eyes went wide; he clearly hadn’t expected such a decision.

It seemed he had never dreamed I would go this far to support him.

"Is-is that true? Oh, my brilliant lord! It couldn’t be more perfect!"

"I promised you my full support, didn’t I? This is a trivial matter."

The liquor tax did account for a considerable share of tax revenue. But the exemption was limited to the Britz area, and to keep the saltpeter farm running smoothly, I could easily make a concession of that size.

"What other materials do you need?"

"Piss and dung are the foundation, but mixing them with the other ingredients is what matters most."

As Markus explained, making saltpeter required a process far more complicated and finicky than I had imagined. Waste, humus, lime powder, ash, rotted straw, and the like had to be kneaded together in the right proportions.

Then the foul-smelling mixture had to be piled up into walls like an earthwork, after which it had to be left to decompose, much like fermentation, and keeping that process going was no easy task.

I hadn’t known saltpeter went through such a complicated, filthy process. How many people must have rolled around in fields of waste to work this method out? The thought sobered me in spite of myself.

And even after all that effort, the success rate was only fifty percent. Saltpeter farmers apparently call on the Lord more fervently than anyone at harvest time. No wonder a barrel of black powder cost five gold coins.

"It has to be watered regularly with the right amount of waste and water to keep it going. Otherwise, the saltpeter won’t form and the whole crop could be ruined! I desperately need your help, my lord!"

"It’s a smelly agenda item, but certainly one worth serious discussion. So?"

"As it happens, there’s a giant cesspit right next to Rosenheim!"

A giant cesspit.

The grand duke or the crown prince would be furious if they heard that.

But Markus was only being blunt. It really was a cesspit.

Breisburg had a population of thirty thousand, exceeding its sanitation capacity, so the waste piling up in its streets had to be cleared out regularly. I knew that better than anyone, having worked as a street-cleaning supervisor.

Every major city in Europe suffered from the same problem.

Paris in France and Prague in Bohemia were said to be especially bad.

"You’re not asking me to supply that, are you?"

"Exactly, my brilliant lord! I need Breisburg’s cesspit!"

Oh, Lord!

I found myself calling on God without meaning to.

In the end, I surrendered completely to Markus’s zeal. I had promised my full support, and I couldn’t go back on my word. He went off in high spirits, saying he would handle the negotiations himself.

I could already picture the Administrative Minister’s face. It was a very smelly plan, but a fairly plausible one. We were in the middle of building a large-scale saltpeter farm, so naturally the "materials" were needed on a large scale too.

And there was a splendid, bottomless cesspit right next door. Rosenheim was the first in the Beren region to build a saltpeter farm, and there was no competition yet, so the price of dung would stay, quite literally, dirt cheap.

Besides, it wasn’t a bad proposal for the Breisburg government either.

They would earn income in proportion to what we paid.

Their pride might take a hit, but that was the price of expensive gunpowder.

"Fifteen guns damaged?"

I frowned at the report from Oscar, the gunner captain.

What had he just said? Oscar shrank back like a turtle pulling into its shell.

"Ten guns whose powder residue wasn’t cleaned out in time, and five whose internal parts broke from the impact while we were attacking the enemy. It happened because I failed to manage my men properly."

Broken parts were one thing, but failing to clean out the powder residue was unforgivable. The gunners had been drilled again and again to scour their barrels without fail.

"I can’t let negligence in weapon maintenance slide. I’ve stressed over and over that they treat their guns like their own lives, precisely to prevent accidents in real combat."

"So I’ve disciplined those ten men. As for retraining and preventing a recurrence..."

"No, it’s not a lack of training. Their attitude is rotten."

Being too drunk to maintain their weapons doesn’t even count as an excuse. Why not clean their guns before drinking? Ten out of fifty was a considerable proportion.

In the end, those men were held responsible for the maintenance failure and sent back to the training camp. I instructed the instructors to drive them several times harder than raw recruits. Thus was born the disciplinary training unit.

Once they had been put through the wringer, the sense they’d lost would come back to them.

Ralph, the powder manager, would have to undergo weapons training alongside them.

As gunner captain, Oscar was held accountable for the management failure and had his pay docked. The gunners had been reveling in their victory and growing cocky at the feast, and this treatment snapped them back into discipline.

They remembered the nightmare of the training camp.

With even their own captain punished, that was more than enough to bring them to their senses.

"Defeating nearly five hundred enemies with only a hundred and fifty men is truly a remarkable achievement. I never imagined those painfully slow-loading guns could be such powerful weapons."

Viktor, having read the battle records, said his view of firearms had changed.