King of German Mercenaries

Four kilometers west of Thorenche, over a low hill is a narrow sandy beach. The sand on the beach is very fine. If it is placed in modern times, it will definitely be a good place for swimsuit beauties to lie down and bask in the sun.

Of course, this is the Middle Ages, and everyone wears robes. Not to mention beauties, men don't dare to take off like that and lie on the beach. Otherwise, the priest of the church will definitely rescue you, the snake spirit, and maybe even tie you to the stake to play human meat barbecue...

Not far to the east of this beach is a small freshwater lake called Lake Horon, which can supply freshwater for living.

Building a salt boiling center is not that easy. First of all, to choose a suitable site, it must be at the seaside, and the seawater must be salty enough, clean and free of any pollution.

Second, to recruit enough people. Generally speaking, a large salt pan requires at least two or three labors to take care of it. One person is responsible for burning the fire, and the other person watches the pot. Another person is responsible for fuel handling. After the salt is boiled, remove the salt from the pot and pack it well.

And a cooking salt center, definitely can't use only one pot, it has to set up a large row of cooking salt pots. Therefore, a lot of manpower is needed.

Not only that, but the transportation of fuel and salt also requires a lot of manpower. For example, the salt-boiling center that Marin built on the beach near Lake Horon first had to build enough salt-boiling stoves. Secondly, it is necessary to build houses for the salt-boilers to make life easier. Finally, from the port of Terhorencher to the salt-boiling base, a flat road has to be built to facilitate the transportation of briquettes.

Although, it is only about 4 kilometers away from Thorenche to the center of boiling salt. However, the western half of this road has to pass through a hilly area, and the construction is a little more difficult.

In addition, Marin had to send people to the big cities to order a large batch of large iron pots and bricks to build the stove and the house. As for housing, Marin thought about it and decided to use adobe houses. Adobe houses are cheap to build and comfortable. In addition, the construction speed is also fast. But to build the salt-boiling stove, Marin still plans to use a lot of brick and lime.

Because, he intends to use an energy-saving earth stove (also called a firewood-saving stove), and the high chimney of the energy-saving earth stove must be built with bricks...

In a previous life, Marin's hometown was in the countryside, and the village used to promote energy-saving soil stoves for a period of time.

The so-called energy-saving soil stove is actually very simple. It is to build a thick wall around the stove, so that when the fuel in the stove burns, the energy does not leak out to the surrounding.

You must know that ordinary earth stoves use one or two layers of bricks around them, which is not thick enough. When burning inside, the temperature of the furnace wall is also high, and the energy is diffused through the furnace wall, and the effect is similar to that of a heated kang.

However, if the furnace wall is greatly thickened, the heat of the flame in the furnace will not be easily dissipated through the furnace wall. In this way, the energy utilization rate of the energy-saving stove is greatly improved.

Moreover, the chimney of the energy-saving soil stove is higher. Because the high chimney is easy to produce a siphon effect, which sucks away the flue gas in the furnace, and at the same time automatically sucks in air from the air inlet, which helps combustion.

According to the technician who promoted the firewood-saving stove in the previous life, the firewood-saving stove can save one-third to one-half of the fuel compared with the old-fashioned earthen stove, while the cooking time is reduced by one-quarter to one-third. .

Therefore, firewood-saving stoves are very powerful. Marin's use of this technology for boiling salt can be considered a strict cost control, and it is a model of capital management...

In order to build this salt boiling center, Marin decided to recruit labor force. Because there is a serious shortage of labor on the island, and they have to engage in their respective occupations. Therefore, if Marin wanted manpower, he had to find it on land.

At the end of the 15th century, after more than a hundred years of recovery, Europe recovered a lot of the population lost due to the Black Death in the 14th century.

Originally, many manors were in short supply of labor. But a hundred years later, after several generations of reproduction, many manor labors began to appear surplus.

for example,

The number of acres of a certain manor is fixed, and the number of serfs recruited by the serf owner is just right. However, serf families do not necessarily have only one boy.

Therefore, the serf owners were not very happy to support the redundant men if there were no other industries that required a large amount of labor. Therefore, many sons of serfs could not even inherit the status of their fathers as serfs.

These people either go to other newly opened farms and become serfs. Or, go to town as a coolie. Even so, many people have difficulty finding work. As a result, many people became beggars and refugees. The courageous and powerful, some became mercenaries, and some became robbers...

The reason why the German mercenaries were able to develop was not only because of the tradition of martial arts of the Germanic people, but also because the surplus children of serfs could not find jobs.

Now, Marin is going to those manors with too many people, recruiting a group of honest and hardworking serfs to help him cook salt. Of course, they had to help Marin build the salt-boiling center first, and the road to Thorencher...

To this end, Marin made another trip to the German region. He did not recruit in the Netherlands. Because, the accents of people in the Netherlands are very different from those in other parts of Germany.

Marin speaks German, Latin and Frisian, but not Dutch. Therefore, Marin felt very laborious to communicate with the Dutch, and he had to bring an interpreter.

It seems that both Dutch and Frisian are West Germanic languages ​​and cannot communicate with most German dialects. This is also one of the important reasons for the separation of the Netherlands and Greater Germany. For example, in the Westphalia region where the Marin family is located, although the accents are different, it is still possible to communicate with the Saxons and Austrians by speaking slowly. But in the face of the Dutch, the Germans in the German-speaking area are a little blind...

For the sake of convenience, Marin went directly to his hometown in the Ruhr area to recruit the surplus labor of those manors...

With the help of old Hoffman, Marin quickly recruited 500 serfs and followed him to cook salt on Texel Island...

Marin, is your method of boiling salt reliable? Mrs. Mary asked worriedly.

Of course it's reliable, the British make a lot of money on this! When he quietly told Mrs. Mary about the profit of boiling salt, Mrs. Mary also grew her mouth in surprise.

But since cooking salt is so profitable, why don't others do it?

Mom, not everyone can successfully purchase a large amount of coal. The Netherlands lacks wood and firewood, and they have to import it from other places to burn firewood. It is not as convenient as we use ships to pull coal. Moreover, the whole of Western Europe, also The Ruhr region of Britain and Germany is rich in coal. The British have already started to use coal to cook salt to make a fortune, and the coal in the Ruhr area has not yet been developed. And I am the first German to make a fortune with coal boiling salt!

Marin was right, though, using coal to cook salt is hugely profitable. However, there are already very few coal-producing regions in Europe. In Western Europe, it seems that the Ruhr area and northern England produce large quantities of coal. If you want to learn this trick in other places, you have to have coal. Moreover, because of underdeveloped technology (mainly suppressed by the Holy See), many people do not know that the calorific value of coal is much higher than that of firewood.

Marin, my child, you are so smart! However, you have to consider a question!

what is the problem?

Sales problem! Boy, you can boil a lot of salt, but you have to find a way to sell it to get rich!

Do you have any advice, mom?

Cooperate with the merchants of the Hanseatic League. Those Hanseatic merchants have many privileges in the empire. If you cooperate with them, you will be able to ship in large quantities. Otherwise, your salt will be difficult to sell. Besides, you You must not be an enemy of those Hanseatic merchants. If you are an enemy of them, they will block your sales of salt! Mrs. Mary is very knowledgeable, he knows that Hanseatic merchants walk sideways in the empire. He was afraid that Marin would be young and aggressive and would clash with the Hanseatic merchants.

Speaking of which, Mrs. Mary's grandmother's family was also a businessman. At the beginning, her grandmother's family had offended the Hanseatic merchants, and as a result, they were suppressed to the point of sadness and almost went bankrupt. If it wasn't for the help of the Bullock family back then, Mrs. Mary's grandfather would have gone bankrupt and committed suicide. It is precisely because of this that Mrs. Mary's grandfather, when the Bullock family perished, risked great danger to take in Mrs. Mary's father and marry her daughter to him. So, Mrs. Mary didn't want Marin to go the same way. You must know that the Hanseatic League is very powerful. They control the trade privileges of many cities in the Holy Roman Empire, pay less taxes than others, and have more convenience than others.

Although countries such as the United Kingdom and Denmark began to compete with the Hanseatic League, the Hanseatic League will not decline in the short term. The real decline of the Hanseatic League has to wait until the rise of Dutch merchants. But the Netherlands has not really developed it yet, and Antwerp has not developed. Therefore, this year, the Hanseatic League is still very good. At least, in the German region, they were invincible.

I understand, Mom, I'll be careful about this! Marin said solemnly.

After that, Marin found the Wiggins Chamber of Commerce in Cologne again and hired their ships to transport these 500 serfs to Texel Island...

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