'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 3: The Prophecy

It's A Go...!

The 3 ladies were dismissed as they had gone through a successful demonstration and they can't help to touch their faces after the wash. They discovered that the freshness of their skin after the scrub was really exfoliating for the skin.

Furthermore, it's a local product so the prices when they are sold should be not expensive and they could afford to even smother their faces 3 to 4 times daily...!

They were wondering what kind of scents they would be made available soon.

I looked at the happy faces of the three ladies and concluded that their demonstrations earlier had been a complete success. As long as the products were kept in a cool place away from sunlight it would be fine.

Even if the facial cleanser had turned a bit hard and looked like a cake, a few drops of water should make it smooth once again.

Of course, the life expectancy and the duration of a ¼ pound of those would normally last about a week in their T&B.

Who would want a product they would last months, right?

The faster it finishes up, the more people would go and purchase them...!

I clapped my hands loudly and announced, "It's a G-O, ladies and gentlemen."

"Engineers, prepare for the construction of 2 of these factories for the peanut butter and fruit jams to be running concurrently in one while the Pomade, toothpaste, toothbrush and facial cleanser would be under one roof."

"Ben and Frank, come up with the statistics for the unemployed and get them to be deployed to the factories based on a small scale of workers on a two 8 hours shift first."

"Ben, turn some of the workers inside the current production areas to be line leaders so that they would serve as role models and leaders to the new workers, alright?"

The engineers saluted as they noted it down in the journals and then moved to the minimap as they moved two long models and placed it within the factory or the production zone.

Ben and Frank pumped their fist in the air as they too got their wives to help them check the number of available women and grown children that would be readily employed based on the statistics in their journal.

After a short check, Crystal mentioned to her husband that there would be enough manpower to deploy to the factories and production lines concerned.

One line would be assigned to make the chunky peanut butter in the first shift and the second shift would be concentrated to work on the creamy peanut butter type.

Several women would be assigned to prepare the monkey nuts from their shells to stir-frying them and removing of the skin through a winnow.

Once the process and been done, the monkey nuts would then be handed over to the peanut butter production line.

That would be the third line, of course, and it would be held outdoors since it is going to be messy with all the skins from the roasted monkey nuts.

Everyone was pretty busy organising their work when the attention now was focused on the platters of deep-fried fish balls and fish cakes. I motioned for them to dig in as I announced to everyone about the future of these two foods.

"Strongbow, the fishes were bought by the pound and then the head, spine and bones were removed from it, leaving only the meat behind, am I right? These fishes, are they a speciality to be made into these type of balls where it could be deep-fried or boiled into soups?"

Strongbow was halfway biting into a deep-fried fishcake that he held in his mouth and hurriedly swallow the pieces in his mouth and hid the one that was half-eaten in his hands.

Even he himself could not resist the wonderful fish cakes when it had been deep-fried and served with some dippings.

"These Toli shad fishes live in brackish or coastal waters and it is available throughout all the season."

"It's meat could be steamed, garnished with garlic and shallots, deep-fried, make into a fish soup and of course, into these fish balls and fish cakes."

"I had made a small demonstration on how to remove the tiny bones which were quite a nuisance if one does not know how to remove them during descaling et cetera. But once the bones had been removed, this fish is a joy to eat."

"The method of catching them is also easy, all the fisherman need to do is strung a long net across the mouth of the sea and river where it meets and periodically the fisherman would retrieve the dishes that got stuck in the nets."

"The fish balls and fishcakes had a composition of 50% meat and the rest would be wheat flour and additives and seasoning."

"It would be kneaded into flour and make into small balls and dropped inside the hot boiling water for a while before being scooped out."

"This boiling water was used to hold the balls into shape and once it is being kept inside the chiller or freezer, it could be stored for months, Your Majesty."

It seems that Strongbow also loved to chat once given the opportunity before when he explains about the types of ales and coders he wanted to introduce to the community.

Marcel was there and when I looked at him, he got his journal ready before him since he knew I would be asking about the fishes and all.

"The fishes were brought in by you, right my dear friend? So how much was it being sold in the grocery market in the fish and shells section?"

"2 coppers per pound, Your Majesty, the whole fish before cleaning," Marcel replied and I find that the prices are comparably cheap. "Dear, how much did you purchase the fish balls and fishcakes for?" I turned and asked Heather and she replied was 3 coppers per pound.

"Well, considering that the fish meat is only 50% and wheat flour and other seasoning had been added to it, 3 coppers per pound would be good. So how much would it cost for a frozen product once it left this town to other towns, Marcel and Maricel?"

"It's 12 pennies or 12 coppers for a silver, Your Majesty. We could sell them at 4 coppers per pound, earning a single piece of copper per pound as a profit, excluding the wages of the delivery guys and the procurement of the low chest freezers."

"Strongbow, these fishes would weigh an average of how many pounds when they are brought in to the fish section for sale?" I inquired and he replied that the fishes would weigh somewhere between the range of a lowest 4 pounds right up to 10 to 12 pounds per fish.

"That's great then. Ben, we would need Strongbow to be out from the Greasy Spoon at times and be involved to teach the new workers on how to strip the fish clean and then made into fish balls and fishcakes."

"It would be processed and then stored into the cold storage. We would need a lot of dry banana leaves to wrap these fish balls and fishcakes per pound."

"We won't be using a linen beeswax type of bag because it would incur additional costs. Anyone that has a better idea on how to store these products and for safe transportation from here to the other towns, please do let me know, yes?"

"I need more involvement in these areas and we need to strike while the iron is hot. Engineers, please allow for another factory to be built to handle just the seafood only."

"Ben, please arrange for the whole works to be involved for the factory and inform Priest Walter that we need fresh running water inside the factory as well to clean the fish and such."

"Frank, the town councils would be assigned to clear the fish bones regularly so that it would not invite those blue bottles or green bottle flies. These nasty flies are the bane for all diseases especially food poisoning...! "

The twins watched me commandeering the meeting and they wished that they are adults or may be grown up a little bit more so they could help out their Daddy and Mummy in running the economy of the town. It would be fun if the 4 of them are involved in these projects...!

"Yes, Your Majesty. Crystal and Gwen had helped to take note of it for us and I am sure they are literate enough, compared to us old fools when it comes to reading and writing. We will get down to it as soon as we can and once the statistics are complete, I would report to you, the workers that would be totally deployed without disrupting the workers they tended to the fields. Your Majesty, do you wish to deploy those farmers who would be in their rest period for the winter? I may ask them for their vote if confidence since they would be getting extra salary if they worked in the factories during this lull period to come."

Ben highlighted to me and even though it may sound like a good deal, I would not be letting the farmers work in the factories due to some reasons.

The first reason is that the farmers had toiled from dawn to dusk and had been facing the weathers for straight 9 months.

Their work not only consisted of cultivating the lands since they would be involved in harvesting, bringing the spikes of wheat to be shaken off.

Secondly, the farmers would arrange the seeds accordingly inside the grains drying kiln where it would be forced dry for some hits before being air-cooled and stored inside the Granary.

Thirdly, part of it would be dehusked and brought to the windmill not once but twice milled. That gives our bread a unique fluff that no other Bakeries had before.

Fourthly, It would then be stored into the vats and into the Granary where the boys would load them according to their variety and it would be sold and distributed to the Bakery and grocery store respectively.

This would be labelled and distributed out based on FIFO — First In and First Out movement of goods.

In other words, the grains and flour inside the Granary would always be fast as the turnover of the movement of those goods would be rather brisk.

Besides, I knew these farmers had worked long and hard and got a bonus during their lull period even though they are not working was already a great blessing for them.

No Lords of the land would pay 8 silver coins to every farmer who dies not toil the lands for three straight months, would they?

Rest is well earned for them and the farmers needed their rest after toiling tirelessly for us and the community.

There would be more farmers that would be deployed per crop field soon as the engineers were tinkering with their grains seeder to eliminate the need to actually use the children to bury the seeds once the seeder had passed the length of the crop fields once.

Once the children were not involved in the burying the seeds after the grains seeder had passed, the children would be handling the machines themselves too...

In this way, the children who had no desire to study in school and preferred to follow the footsteps of their parents would soon be handling their own crop fields by coming Spring.

"There's no need to get the farmers involved, my dear friend. We would work on those unemployed ones and then get ready for an influx of new residents coming in. Tell me, how many thatched houses do we have available right now?"

Frank looked at me and nodded his head as he agreed and at the same time was surprised when he was told that new immigrants would be coming to our town to reside.

"We have more than 1500 thatched homes left, Your Majesty. I believed Bob Charlton and son along with the 120 builders are doing a swell job at constructing the homes as we speak as they had devised a technique like what we used to do for the bamboo defensive structures before."

Ah...the old bamboo defensive structures that helped snare some wild boars from stampeding on our vegetable garden back then.

I could still remember the time. The bamboo was set up on stages and passed down the line, thus the term staging was used.

Once the bamboo was set up in a certain form, it was passed down to compete for the next phase and repeat until the product was complete within a short period of time.

It was so efficient that it took a matter of days to complete the bamboo defensive structures all around the settlement before...!

"That's good to hear, my friend. Well, let's say we would be expecting a huge welcome of 1500 more households and that would yet be another 4500-6000 more residents to our current 3500 citizens altogether."

Ben and Frank let out a huge 'WOW' when they heard of the sudden influx of immigrants coming in.

Even our Macleod Coliseum would have difficulty to support that many spectators and attendees.

In the future, Eagle, who became High Priest Eke would be conducting his sermons over at the Macleod Coliseum in time to come and also be using Anastasia to project and amplify his voice soon.

His little Chapel could at the most handle 500 attendees packed together like sardines... Hahaha.

Everyone heard and clapped their hands at the wonderful news as we loved on to the next part of our meeting.