"For now, I want each of you to take one hundred flintlock rifles back to your barracks," Jason instructed his commanders. "Get the men familiar with them. We'll start their training slowly, and as more rifles are assembled, we can equip all the soldiers under your command."
McCann, Kent, and Marbu stood before him, their faces lit with excitement.
"Yes, my lord!" Kent declared, his voice booming with enthusiasm. "I'll take the rifles back to the barracks right away and get the lads started on their drills!"
"With a weapon this powerful," McCann added with a grin, "I doubt anyone in all of Westeros will be a match for us!"
Jason nodded, then turned his attention to Marbu, who was responsible for overseeing the entire military factory. "Are we having any issues with gunpowder production?"
Marbu shuffled his feet and scratched his head. "Well, my lord, it's a good thing you warned us about the dangers of making granular powder. We've mostly avoided any major incidents." He hesitated for a moment before continuing, "We did have one accident, though. A man was carrying a jar of finished powder, and he tripped. The jar fell, and… it exploded. He died instantly, but thankfully, no one else was harmed."
Jason felt a pang of regret, patting his forehead. He had stressed the safety protocols repeatedly, but he knew that with something as volatile as gunpowder, mistakes were inevitable. The important thing was that the casualties and losses were minimal.
He placed a firm hand on Marbu's shoulder. "See that his family is compensated. And remind everyone, every single day, about the importance of safety. We can't afford to be careless."
The primary challenge in gunpowder production was acquiring a steady supply of saltpeter. Jason had no intention of sending his men to scrape it from the walls of latrines and stables, the traditional method in Westeros. Instead, he simply ordered a large batch of industrial-grade potassium nitrate from a fertilizer factory in the modern world.
Charcoal and sulfur, the other two components of black powder, were abundant in Westeros. Combined with the high-quality potassium nitrate from his world, they could easily mix a potent explosive. Jason had provided them with the optimal ratio discovered by modern science, resulting in a gunpowder far more powerful than anything Westeros had ever seen.
A sense of urgency filled Starfire City. They were preparing to march to Winterfell and join the armies of the northern lords. A convoy of one hundred freight carriages was being readied to follow the cavalry south to war. While some carriages were loaded with tents, weapons, and other military equipment, the vast majority were filled with food.
Jason's primary objective wasn't just to fight; it was to recruit. The war had devastated the Riverlands, creating waves of refugees who were desperate for their next meal. By offering food, he could swell his ranks. Most of the provisions pulled by his carriages were intended not for his own thousand cavalrymen, but for the starving people he planned to find.
Among all the food items, one, in particular, had become a sensation with his soldiers: cheap canned fruit, which Jason had sourced from his home world.
His purchasing department, through Fusion Trading , had found a small cannery that produced them at an astonishingly low price. A large, two-kilogram glass jar of fruit cost only four yuan. They came in a wide variety of flavors—apple, orange, grape, peach, and pineapple—making them an instant hit.
The canned fruit was just as popular with the common folk of Starfire City, who were willing to pay a hefty price of one silver deer for a single jar.
At first, Jason was puzzled by its popularity. He assumed it must be incredibly delicious, so he opened a jar to try it himself. He took one spoonful and nearly spit it out. It was sickeningly sweet. He suspected the canners had dumped a pound of sugar into every jar. No modern person would find it palatable.
Yet, the people of Westeros adored it. To them, the overwhelming sweetness wasn't a flaw; it was a luxury. It was easy to understand why. For commoners who spent their lives struggling just to have enough to eat, sugar was an extravagance reserved for high lords and kings. The taste was something they might experience once in a lifetime, if at all.
Now, for just one silver deer, they could buy a massive jar of sweet, syrupy fruit. It brought a small measure of joy and happiness to the hardworking laborers of Starfire City. A single four-pound jar, used sparingly, could last a family for a month. Adding a spoonful or two to their morning porridge transformed a bland meal into a delightful treat. Sweetness was the taste of happiness, and the people of Starfire City couldn't get enough of it.
When his sister, Lila , confirmed that people preferred the sweetest possible version, Jason, though slightly baffled, understood the market. He sent a message back to his company in the modern world with a simple instruction: "Tell the factory to add more sugar. The sweeter, the better."
Oliver , in the Purchasing Department at Fusion Trading , was confused by the request. He couldn't imagine who would want such a cloyingly sweet product, but the boss's orders were clear. He picked up the phone and called the fruit canning factory, relaying the new requirement. The factory owner, overjoyed, immediately patted his chest and promised it would be done. He guaranteed that the sugar content of every can would be at least twenty percent.
Considering that standard canned fruit typically had a sugar content of no more than ten percent, this new batch required by Fusion Trading would be twice as sweet. For the canning factory, this was a golden opportunity. Hunan province was a major producer of oranges, and every year, tons of cheap, unsold oranges would rot in the fields. Fusion Trading's massive order meant these oranges, once considered waste, were now a valuable resource.
The main costs for a bottle of canned fruit were the glass jar, labor, and utilities. But with the production volume soaring, the cost per unit dropped significantly, yielding a net profit of nearly half a yuan per bottle. It was an incredibly lucrative business.
Fusion Trading's orders were immense—five million bottles a month. At four yuan per bottle, that translated to twenty million yuan in sales. Oliver informed the factory that the large-scale purchases would continue indefinitely. In response, the once medium-sized cannery doubled its facility, boosting its production capacity to eight million bottles per month.
This meant the factory was now processing sixteen million kilograms—or sixteen thousand tons—of various cheap fruits every month. Even at a low price of 500 yuan per ton, that generated eight million yuan in value for the fruit alone. Defective fruits that would have otherwise been left to rot were now being turned into a profitable product, providing a significant extra income for the local fruit farmers. Everyone was happy: the farmers, the factory owner, and of course, Jason.
With production stabilized at such a high volume, Jason cut the price in Westeros by half. At just fifty copper stars a bottle, the canned fruit became an affordable luxury, and its popularity exploded across both Westeros and Essos. Merchants from every corner of the known world, especially from the wealthy Free Cities across the Narrow Sea, placed massive orders. The citizens of those prosperous city-states were far richer than the average lord in Westeros, and they eagerly consumed most of the supply. The eight million bottles produced each month were sold out almost as soon as they hit the ports.
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