King of German Mercenaries

Four kilometers west of Gotthollenche, a narrow sandy beach is over a low hill. The sand on the beach is very fine. If it rests in modern times, it is definitely a good place for the beauty of swimwear to lie down.

Of course, it is the Middle Ages now, and everyone is wearing robes. Not to mention beautiful women, men dare not lie on the beach like that. Otherwise, the priest of the church will definitely "redeem" you the snake ill, and may even tie you to the torture column to play "human barbecue" ...

没 Not far to the east of this beach is a small freshwater lake, called Lake Huron, which can supply the fresh water needed for life.

It is not so easy to build a salt cooking center. First of all, to choose the right site, it must be by the sea, the seawater must be salty enough, and it must be clean and free of pollution.

Second, we must recruit enough manpower. Generally speaking, a large salt pot requires at least two or three laborers. One person is responsible for burning the fire and the other is watching the pot. The other person is responsible for fuel handling. After the salt has been cooked, remove the salt from the pot and pack it.

For a salt cooking center, you must not use only one pot. You have to set up a large row of salt cooking pots. Therefore, a lot of manpower is needed.

Not only this, but also the transportation of fuel and salt requires a lot of manpower. For example, Marin's salt cooking center on the beach near Lake Huron must first build enough salt cooking stoves. Secondly, it is necessary to build houses for salt workers to facilitate life. Finally, from the port of Tholencher to the base for cooking salt, a flat road must be built to facilitate the transportation of briquettes.

Although, from Tholencher to the salt cooking center, it is only about 4 kilometers away. However, the western half of this road goes through a hilly area, and the construction is slightly more difficult.

In addition, Marin had to send someone to the big city to order a large number of large iron pots and bricks to build stoves and houses. As for housing, Marin thought about it and decided to use adobe houses. Adobe houses are low cost and comfortable. In addition, the construction speed is fast. But to build a salt stove, Marin still plans to use bricks and lime in large quantities.

Because he intends to use energy-saving earth stoves (also known as firewood stoves), the high chimneys of energy-saving earth stoves must be made of bricks ...

In the previous life, Marin's hometown was in the countryside, and the village once promoted energy-saving soil stoves for some time.

The so-called energy-saving earth stove is actually very simple, that is, the wall of the stove is built thick so that when the fuel in the stove burns, the energy is not leaked to the surrounding.

You know, for ordinary clay stoves, one or two layers of bricks are used around, which is not thick enough. When the inside is burning, the temperature of the furnace wall is also high, and the energy is diffused through the furnace wall. The effect is similar to that of a fire.

But if the furnace wall is greatly thickened, the heat of the flame in the stove will not be easily radiated 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 earth stove should be tall. Because the high chimney easily produces a siphon effect, **** the smoke in the furnace, and automatically **** in air from the air inlet, which helps combustion.

According to previous technicians who promoted wood-burning stoves, wood-burning stoves save one-third to one-half of the fuel compared to old-fashioned clay stoves, while burning stoves save one-quarter to one-third .

So, firewood stoves are often powerful. Marin used this technology to cook salt, which can be considered a strict cost control, and is a model of capital management ...

In order to build this salt cooking center, Marin decided to recruit labor force. Because the island ’s labor force is severely inadequate, and it also has to engage in its own profession. Therefore, Marin had to go to land to find manpower.

末 At the end of the 15th century, after more than a century of recovery in Europe, a large number of people lost due to the Black Death in the 14th century recovered a lot.

In the past, many manor labor shortages. But a hundred years later, after several generations of reproduction, many manor labor began to appear surplus.

For example, the number of acres in a certain estate is fixed, and the number of serfs recruited by serf owners is also just right. However, the serf family may not have only one boy.

Therefore, the serf owners would not be very happy to feed those extra men unless there were other industries that needed a lot of labor. Therefore, many serf sons cannot even inherit the status of father serf.

These people either go to other newly opened farms and become serfs. Or go to town as a coolie. Even so, many people find it difficult to find work. As a result, many people have become beggars and refugees. Bold and strong, some are mercenaries, some are robbers ...

The reason why German mercenaries were able to develop was that in addition to the tradition of giving up warfare in the Germanic country, there were also factors that spared serf children could not find work.

Now, Marin is going to those mansions with a large population to recruit a group of honest serfs to help him cook salt. Of course, they had to help Marin build the building of the salt center, and the road to Tholencher ...

To this end, Marin took another trip to the German area. He did not recruit staff in the Netherlands. Because people in the Netherlands, the accent is very different from the rest of Germany.

Marin speaks German, Latin, and Frisian, but does not speak Dutch. Therefore, to communicate with the Dutch, Marin felt very laborious and had to bring a translator.

It seems that Dutch and Frisian are both West Germanic and cannot communicate with most German dialects. This is also one of the important reasons for the centrifugal separation of the Netherlands and the Greater Germany. For example, in the Westphalian region where the Marin family is located, although they have different accents, they can still communicate with Saxons and Austrians more slowly. But in the face of the Dutch, the Germans in the German-speaking area are a bit blind ...

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

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

"Marin, is your recipe for salt reliable?" Asked Mary, worried.

"Of course it is reliable, the British earn a lot of money from this!" When he quietly told Mrs. Mary about the profit of cooking salt, Mrs. Mary also grew up in surprise.

"But since 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 firewood. They need to import firewood to burn firewood. It is not as convenient as we use coal to pull coal. Also, throughout Western Europe, For example, the United Kingdom and Germany's Ruhr River region are rich in coal. The British have started to use coal to make salt to make a fortune, and the coal in the Ruhr area has not yet been developed. I am the first German to make money with coal!

Marin is right, though, using coal to cook salt is very profitable. However, there are few European coal-producing regions. In Western Europe, it seems that the Ruhr area and northern England produce a large amount of coal. If you want to learn this trick elsewhere, you have to have coal. Moreover, because technology is underdeveloped (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! But you have to think about it!"

"what is the problem?"

"Marketing problem! Boy, you can cook a lot of salt, but you have to have a way to sell them in order to get wealth!"

"Do you have any suggestions for that mother?"

"Cooperate with the merchants of the Hanseatic League ~ www.readwn.com ~ These Hanseese merchants have many privileges in the empire. If you cooperate with them, you can ship a lot. Otherwise, your salt will be difficult to sell. And you must not be hostile to those Hansa merchants. Oppose them, they will block your salt sales! "Mrs. Mary is very knowledgeable, he knows that Hansa merchants are all sideways in the Empire. Gone. He was afraid of Marin being young and violent, and clashing with Hansa merchants.

Grandma said that Mrs. Mary's grandmother's house was also a businessman. At first, her grandmother's family had offended Hanse merchants. As a result, she was crushed to an end and almost went bankrupt. Had it not been for the help of the Brock family, Mrs. Mary's grandfather had gone bankrupt and committed suicide. It is precisely because of this, that when Madam Mary's grandfather died, the Brock family took great risks, took in Madame Mary's father, and married her daughter. Therefore, Mrs. Mary did not want Marin to follow the same path. You know, 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 Britain and Denmark began to compete with the Hanseatic Alliance, the Hanseatic Alliance will not decline in the short term. The real decline of the Hanseatic League will have to wait for the rise of Dutch merchants. But the Netherlands hasn't really developed it yet. Antwerp hasn't developed it yet. Therefore, these years, the Hanseatic League is still very good. At least, they are invincible in the German region.

"I see, Mom, I will be careful about this!" Marin said solemnly.

After that, Marin once again found the Wiggins Chamber of Commerce in Cologne, hired their ships, and transported these 500 serfs to Texel Island ~ www.readwn.com ~ Welcome the book readers to read the latest, fastest, most popular The serial works are all at ~ www.readwn.com ~ Please read for mobile users.