King of German Mercenaries

Back at the Hoffman Manor, after Malin settled the five kittens, he began to settle the four fishermen. These fishermen have been fishing at the seaside for generations.

However, these families were unlucky. Their fishing boat capsized at sea (a fishing boat jointly purchased by four families). You know, fishing boats are the most important property of fishermen. If the fishing boat is gone, it means that the house has collapsed. Boats are expensive for ordinary fishermen. Without the fishing boat, the whole family lost hope. Although they were able to escape by being skilled in water, the hunger at home was unavoidable.

Seeing bankruptcy imminent, Marin just came to recruit fishermen. The four desperate families simply followed Marin...

Marin was by the river, helping them build a house and settling down the four families. But here comes the problem - they don't have fishing boats...

The four family members brought fishing nets, but there is no boat, so there is no use for it?

Originally, according to the wishes of the four families, they wanted to ask Marin to help them buy a Hanseatic speedboat that they were skilled in driving - a kind of dhow. However, Marin took into account that inland rivers are not the same as open seas. The wind is strong at sea, and the sails can drive the boat. In inland rivers, there is often no wind or light wind. By then, the sailboat was dumbfounded.

Large "inland seas" such as the Mediterranean Sea often experience no wind. Therefore, the Venetians and Genoa people are popular to use galleys. Driven by sails when there is wind, sailors paddle together when there is no wind...

Although the Ruhr is not small, it is not big either. It would be a waste to bring in Italian galleys for fishing. After much deliberation, Marin decided to use the oriental river boat, the scull boat.

Shaking boats are generally not large, with a maximum displacement of no more than ten tons. However, there is a great benefit of rocking the boat - it is labor-saving.

There is an old saying - "one scull with three oars", which means that shaking the scull once is equivalent to rowing the oars three times. The scull is an invention of the Orientals, and it is also a very scientific thing. His advanced point is that the scull is placed at the rear, similar to the ship propeller of later generations. The paddles are left and right, making it more laborious to row.

Marin recruited several boat builders from nearby towns and spent several days working together to build a small wooden boat with a displacement of about five or six tons and a scull. Not only that, Marin also asked the craftsmen to build a awning on the boat to facilitate shelter from the rain, which is somewhat similar to the awning boat in Zhejiang.

To be honest, although Marin knew what the captain of the oars looked like, he had never shaken the oars himself. So, when he first gave a demonstration, the boat was swaying and sometimes spinning. Fortunately, the Frisian fishermen he recruited were more talented than him. After a few days, Marin, who was doing the demonstration, didn't know how to shake the scull, but the Frisian fishermen did, which made Marin very ashamed.

Afterwards, a few Frisian fishermen began to drive their scull boats and cast their nets on the Ruhr River. It seems that no one catches the fish in the river in this era. Therefore, a few fishermen have a great harvest. Every time you fish, you can get back hundreds of pounds of all kinds of river fish.

As the lord who sheltered the four families, the Hoffman family got half of them, and it was the first choice. But what made Marin speechless was that Old Hoffman and the others (except Mrs. Mary) seemed to be eating fish for the first time. Both Old Hoffman and Adler were stuck by the fishbone and screamed in pain. Fortunately, the three children were not stuck.

After the two adults were caught by the idea, Mrs. Mary decisively ordered that children are only allowed to eat the meat without the spines on the belly of the fish. The rest is left to Mrs. Mary, who grew up by the sea. As a Frisian, Madame Marie grew up eating fish and naturally would not be stabbed. From then on, the Hoffmans ate fish, and Mrs. Mary covered the thorny flesh on the back of the fish. As for the meat and roe on the belly of the fish, other people will divide it up.

Marin also showed off his oriental cooking skills, which is said to have been learned from "Da Xian Einstein", using a custom-made Chinese iron pot from a blacksmith shop.

Made a lot of delicious meals. For example, fish, although there is no balsamic vinegar, but there is apple cider vinegar in Europe, Marin made a sweet and sour fish, which is delicious. Before the sweet and sour fish was out of the pot, the saliva of the younger brothers and sisters flowed into a long river...

But Marin also has a depressing place - it is difficult to find ginger in Europe, but there are onions and garlic. However, the taste is not so authentic.

What shocked Marin was that in this era, ginger was regarded as a precious spice imported from the East, and it was expensive. While not as precious as extremely expensive spices like cloves and nutmeg, they are still expensive. According to the old Hoffman, in northern Germany, a pound of ginger is generally worth 8 shillings (96 pfennig), and in some places with inconvenient transportation, you can change a sheep...

A sheep has dozens of pounds of meat. According to 2 pfennigs per pound of mutton (wholesale purchase price), it is also worth dozens of pfennigs, or about a hundred pfennigs, which is extremely expensive! In fact, taking into account the value of wool and sheepskins, a sheep is estimated to be worth about 160 pfennigs, which is about 1 mark.

(Note: Before the rise of Ottoman Turkey, the land trade between Europe and the East was still very smooth. Therefore, spices were not particularly expensive at that time. But after the rise of Ottoman Turkey, it began to block the land trade route, which made the price of European spices go crazy. For example, in the early Middle Ages, the price of ginger was only 2 shillings per pound. But because of the obstruction of the Turks, the price of spices began to skyrocket. When Turkey destroyed the Mamluk Dynasty in Egypt, the land trade routes were basically isolated. It can only be obtained by the Portuguese sea route. By the time of Elizabeth I, the price of ginger generally rose to the point of a pound of ginger for a sheep.)

Not to mention the ginger crop, after the entire Hoffman family ate the oriental dishes made by Marin, their mouths were full of oil, and they didn't care about their image.

Mrs. Mary seemed to realize the value of this kind of oriental cooking. She learned oriental cooking with Marin herself, and planned to open a restaurant in the city.

But Marin firmly disagrees:

"Mom, I know that using this magical oriental cooking technique to open a restaurant will definitely make money. But, have you ever thought about it? If there is such a delicious meal, those big nobles will let this secret technique go? They will definitely find a way. They took away this oriental cooking skill by accident. At that time, this may not be the luck of the Hoffman family, but a huge disaster. After all, the Hoffman family is only the lowest level of the empire..."

As soon as Marin said it, the smart Mrs. Mary reacted. She was born in a big noble family, and naturally knew the filth of nobles. What his son said was right, his family was only the lowest-ranking low-level aristocrat, and he couldn't bear the pressure from above at all. The Hoffmann family was powerless to resist just the Baron Bochum above them asking them to hand over the secret cooking recipe...

In the end, Mrs. Mary decided that this kind of cooking was mastered by herself, and she was limited to cooking it for her family...

...

On this day, Marin, who was full of food and drink, decided to go to the back of his own territory to take a look...

Strange to say, the Hoffmann family's 1,000-acre fief, in addition to the 200-acre land on the Ruhr River, and the other 800-acre hilly area, not only can't grow crops, trees can't grow, and weeds grow very poorly.

So, Marin decided to go to the back mountain to study, to see why the hilly area of ​​the back mountain is so barren...

Although Marin is not a geologist, as a history student, he is not bad at geography. It is not said that soil problems can be researched, but some simple common sense is still known.

Under the leadership of Marin, several able-bodied young men from Kahn went to the back mountain area with Marin to excavate soil for Marin to sample and investigate.

After investigation, Marin found that the land in the hilly area of ​​Houshan seems to be somewhat salinized. Therefore, the land here is very barren and the plants are not growing well.

This made Marin a little excited. He wondered if there was a salt mine underground...

This suspicion is not without reason. In later generations, Bochum was a famous mining city with abundant underground mineral reserves. Maybe, there is a salt mine buried under the Hoffman Manor.

You know, in the Middle Ages, salt was very expensive. How expensive is it? In the Middle Ages, as an island nation in England, the price of salt was relatively cheap, at 4 shillings (about 48 pfennig) a quarter (12.7 kg) (equivalent to 1.7 pfennig / penny a pound). In continental Europe, the price of salt in other regions is much more expensive than that in the United Kingdom, except that the price of salt in the Mediterranean coastal areas is similar to that of the United Kingdom.

In Germany, the price of salt on the northern coast is about 2.5 pfennig a pound. And inland, like Bochum, just a few hundred miles from the sea, it's about 3 pfennig a pound. Further south, inland, the price of salt can be as high as 5 pfennig a pound.

If a salt mine can be found underground at Hoffman Manor, it is basically no different from finding a silver mine. The salt of Baihuahua can be exchanged for the silver of Baihuahua, and there is no worry about sales. The Duke of Lüneburg, relying on the salt mines of Lüneburg, became a famous tycoon duke in Germany.

With the enthusiasm of looking for salt mines, Marin directed Kahn and several others, using Chinese shovels, to start digging in the back mountain...

After digging a lot, finally, in a small hilly valley in the back mountain, several meters deep underground, Kahn dug out a black shovel...

"This is... coal..." Marin opened his mouth in surprise...

There was no expected salt mine, but coal was discovered...

Marin thought about it, but also felt normal. Where is Bochum? Ruhr area. The Hoffmann Manor is on the banks of the Ruhr River. In the Ruhr area, coal mines are everywhere, and coal is dug up in the hills behind Hoffmann Manor, which is very normal.

It's just that coal was not as valuable as salt in the Middle Ages, and it was not very popular...

why? It's normal, everyone has to eat salt. And coal, people do not necessarily use. Coal can be used as fuel, as can firewood. In areas far from coal mines, instead of taking great pains to transport coal from distant places, it is better to pick firewood on the spot for fuel.

Unless, in the city, whether firewood or coal, must be brought in from outside. Moreover, the transportation in this city should be convenient, and the transportation in the coal mine should be convenient.

It is the Middle Ages now, not the age of steam engines with astonishing coal consumption. Plus there are coal mines everywhere in the Ruhr area. So, coal mines are not that valuable.

But then again, the back hill of the Hoffman family was originally a wasteland. Now, there are coal mines anyway, so this place will not be wasted.

When the whole family learned that there was a coal mine in Houshan, they were very happy. Right now, coal, although not very valuable, can be sold for money. Moreover, the Hoffmann estate is right on the Ruhr River. At that time, as long as a wharf is built on the Ruhr River, coal can be shipped out for sale. The Ruhr River connects to the Rhine River, which can reach many cities, and the transportation is very convenient.

However, coal prices are really low right now. A charteron coal (288 gallons, weighing about 1.5 to 1.7 tons) retails for only 3 shillings (36 pfennig) in the Ruhr area. Even if it is pulled to the big cities on the Rhine, it is only about 5 shillings. For salt, a quart (12.7 kg) can be sold for at least 4 shillings. So there is no comparison between coal and salt.

But in any case, the Hoffman Manor is convenient for water transportation, and it is still profitable to dig out the coal and sell it to various cities. Old Hoffman invited a professional miner to make an assessment. According to the assessment, the hilly area of ​​the mountain behind Hoffman Manor is full of coal underground. And, it's all first-class coal. It is estimated that it is not a problem to dig out a few million charterons. The coals that are estimated to be excavated are not more than 100 meters deep. As for the ones below 100 meters, it is still difficult to excavate with medieval technology. If nothing else, the drainage of deep wells alone is a big problem. In the 18th century, the British invented the steam engine in order to pump water from deep wells. The Watt steam engine is actually perfected on the basis of the coal mine pumping steam engine, and it is not the first invention at all.

Because of the discovery of the coal mine, the old Hoffmans and Marin began to urgently discuss how to mine the coal and transport it for sale.

First of all, the Hoffman family must go outside to recruit a group of serfs to be miners. Now there are too many serfs that can't be accommodated in the manor. The main reason is that serf families have many children, and the manor needs limited serfs. Therefore, every year, the manor will drive away some redundant serfs. These serfs were forced to work as coolies in the city or in the mines. Just like Hoffman Manor, there were seven or eight young men who went to the city to work as coolies. Marin knew that digging coal underground was dangerous. The coal mine of the Hoffman family is obviously an underground coal mine. Although it is not buried deeply, it is also underground, not open-pit. Going down a mine is dangerous. Coal mines often explode and collapse. Therefore, Marin was reluctant to use the serfs of the manor as coal miners. Therefore, recruiting people outside is the best option.

Then there's the matter of transportation. After the mine was excavated, tracks were laid, and the minecarts were pulled along the tracks to the Ruhr River. This distance is also about two kilometers away. After pulling it to the Ruhr River, the Hoffmann family will also build a pier for the merchant ships that pull coal to berth.

The Hoffman family had no merchant ships themselves, so they could only contact those middlemen and ask them to come to the wharf to pull coal. Of course, then the Hoffmans would get at most 2 shillings for every Chartron coal. But even so, it can increase the income of the Hoffman family by a lot. After all, purely farming, the income is not high.

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