Thinking of coal transportation at sea, Marin suddenly thought of the Columbus fleet that was still bumping on the ocean. Calculating the time, Columbus's fleet should be in the coastal area of West Africa at this moment.
Originally, da Gama returned to Lisbon on September 9th. And Columbus for not wasting that time in Mombasa and Malindi. Therefore, Marin can be sure that Columbus will be able to return to Europe in August.
The return of Columbus is definitely a great thing for Marin. Because Columbus will return full of expensive spices, so he has to exchange them for money, and Marin will be extremely rich. At that time, he said that he has the money to start a plan to dig a large-scale canal in East Frisia and build a large number of Dutch windmills to drain the water from the swamp and transform it into good farmland.
There are too many swamps in the East Frisian County. As long as they can be transformed into arable land, there will be more than a hundred thousand Ugrams of arable land, which is equivalent to nearly 1.5 million mu!
However, digging ditches for drainage and building a large number of Dutch windmills requires a very large initial investment. In this era, even a tycoon like the Duke of Saxony could hardly afford to transform a thousand square kilometers of swampland. It's not that the Duke of Saxony can't afford the money, but that he has a lot of places to use the money, so he definitely can't spend all the money on swamp reconstruction.
After several years of development and management of the West Frisian Islands, Marin has deeply realized that the development of wasteland requires great investment.
For example, Marin wants to develop 10 Ugrams of land (120 mu of land). First of all, he needs a population, at least a family of serfs. The West Frisian Islands have no people, so they must go to the inland area to recruit.
However, to recruit a family of serfs in the inland area, Marin can't go into battle in person, right? Definitely hire someone. If you hire someone, you have to pay. One day's wages, as well as travel expenses, meals, and accommodation expenses, all have to be reimbursed.
Then, bringing a family of serfs to the islands cost a lot of travel expenses. You recruited them, so you have to pay for the travel expenses yourself? You have to pay for the meal expenses during the journey. Even if they were fed poor-quality black bread as hard as a slab of brick, the whole family would still spend two Finneys a day.
All in all, sending someone to recruit a family of serfs (5 people) to the West Frisian Islands cost no less than 5 gold coins. If 10,000 people are recruited, tens of thousands of gold coins will be spent.
However, this is just the beginning...
After these serfs were recruited to the island, the first thing they did was not to farm the land, but to build houses for them so that they could settle down. In this era, the cost of building a house is also very high. Whether it is to build a wooden house or a stone house, the cost is very high. Fortunately, Marin knew how to build low-cost adobe houses, saving a lot of expenses. Otherwise, tens of thousands of gold coins would have to be invested just for the wood and stones used to build houses for those immigrants...
As for the house, the cost is not high. However, if the serfs were recruited, they must be counted on to work. The newly arrived serfs had no food. Therefore, during the period from reclamation to autumn harvest, Marin needs to pay out of his own pocket to get food to support them... This raising takes more than half a year... and food is so expensive in Europe right now...
Then, Marin had to equip these serfs with enough iron farm tools; he had to buy livestock for them to use;
Therefore, although Marin made a lot of money from the Venetians, he also made a lot of money from selling salt. However, in the process of emigrating 10,000 people to the West Frisian Islands, most of the gold coins were consumed...
Of course, these investments are worthwhile, and they will be fully recovered in a few years. However, in the early days, the investment was too great, and ordinary nobles could not afford it.
Therefore, Marin is also eager for the return of the Columbus fleet...
However, while looking forward to the return of Columbus, Marin did not lose his head. Because, he still has one very important thing to do...
This matter is just throwing the pot away...
As soon as Marin's head was hot, he made the decision to send people to India for trade. However, thinking about it later, Marin felt that he was still too hasty.
Because the Portuguese have always regarded the route to India as their own taboo, and no one else is allowed to get involved. If Marin were the king of Spain, he might be able to ignore the Portuguese. However, he was just a little baron at the beginning, and even now, he is only the monarch of a small state with more than 3,000 square kilometers of land and more than 80,000 citizens. Compared with Portugal, which has a population of millions and an area of nearly 100,000 square kilometers, Marin is still too weak.
Although, on land, Marin is not afraid of parallel importing countries like Portugal. But at sea, the powerful Portuguese fleet can teach Marin how to behave in minutes...
After the Portuguese returned from da Gama's fleet, they could soon learn about the huge profits of the great voyage. Therefore, in order to eat alone, Marin can be sure that if the Portuguese knew that Marin was the one who made a profit from the great voyage, he would definitely be ruthless and desperately send a fleet to block the sea and sink every ship that Marin dared to enter the Atlantic Ocean. In the face of dozens of times the huge profits, the Portuguese must dare to do so.
Therefore, instead of waiting to be chased and intercepted by the Portuguese at sea in the future, Marin might as well dump the blame on Spain now. Then, let the two teeth tear each other...
Moreover, in the face of dozens of times of super profits, Marin is not worried that Spain will not take the bait...
Lao Ma said that when a businessman faces a 100% profit, he dares to trample on all human laws; when the profit reaches 300%, he dares to commit any crime, even risking being hanged. Danger…
And what percentage is the 60 times profit? That's 6,000%... Faced with such huge profits, even if businessmen never survive after death, they are willing to do it...
As for the kings and nobles, although they speak beautifully, they are very noble on the surface. But in the face of interests, they will also expose their greedy and shameless side.
So, if you tell the king of Spain this 60 times the profit, the king and his wife in Spain will definitely tear up their faces and tear up the "Treaty of Tordesillas" of the "Pope's Meridian"...
Moreover, they are not worried about offending the Holy See. Because the Pope is a Spaniard, and he even wants to help Spain bully Portugal...
Historically, Spain was deceived by Columbus, thinking that India was to the west. Then, within a few years, they occupied Mexico, which is rich in gold and silver. Therefore, Spain is not in the mood to compete with Portugal for the huge profits of India's trade.
However, now because of Marin's secret help, it has "revealed" that the American continent is just a "wild continent", not the India that Columbus claimed. As a result, the Spanish kings suddenly lost most of their interest in America, and only sent people to start planting sugar cane on the island discovered by Columbus. Then, the follow-up exploration, I don't have much thought. Because, looking around, it is not the "full of gold" India they expected...
At this time, Marin only needs to present the information on the Indian route and let Spain take the blame, what is the problem
The nautical charts of this era are very precious, because without advanced instruments, all nautical data are recorded and sorted out by experienced captains themselves. Every nautical chart is no less than the martial arts cheats in martial arts novels. For example, the nautical chart that can sail far to India, the place where spices are produced, is put in Jin Dada’s martial arts novels, it is definitely a super secret book of the level of "Nine Suns Magic"...
Marin's plan was to let Columbus make an appearance in the Spanish port of Cadiz, throw the blame on Spain, and falsely claim that Spain sent him to explore the Indian route.
Of course, before that, Marin needs to communicate with the Spanish court and negotiate terms. Moreover, Columbus announced that Spain supported him to explore India. Although he would turn his face against Portugal, it was very embarrassing for the Spanish royal family. Because, this represents the royal family's "visionary"...
Moreover, the huge profits that can be obtained afterwards are even more crazy. Therefore, Marin does not believe that the Spaniards will not take the bait...
The only thing to consider is that Marin cannot allow all four ships to dock in Spain. Because, the spices of the four ships docked in Cadiz, which might make the Spaniards maliciously black out the goods. Because, these four cargoes are at least worth millions of gold coins...
Therefore, Marin decided to send two ships to the Canary Islands to wait for Columbus' fleet. After meeting with Columbus's fleet, Columbus only took one of the ships, and then took some spices as samples to Cadiz to meet the Spaniards. In this way, it can also prevent the four ships from being hacked by the Spaniards. And Columbus, who was able to appear in front of the public before Da Gama, confirmed his title of "first discovering India"...
This was what Marin had promised Columbus. However, if Columbus returned directly to the Wadden Islands, the Marlins would speak lightly, and they would not be able to take Columbus's title of "discovering India first". Because the Portuguese are bigger and more convincing. At that time, if the Portuguese insisted that Da Gama discovered India first, Marin would not be able to say anything to the Portuguese.
And let the Spaniards take the blame, and Columbus's right to discover India was recognized by the Spanish royal family. Then, Columbus's reputation as the first to discover India can be easily confirmed. Because Da Gama is still on the way back, at least one month behind Columbus. And Spain is a powerful country, and their admission is much more effective than the words of the little Earl Marin. Moreover, in order to obtain the right to intervene in India's trade routes, the Spanish kings will spare no effort to help Columbus earn the title of "discovering India first"...
As for Marin's role in it? It's also very simple. Because, after all, Marin still has the title of "Spanish Wild Earl" on his head. Although this title seems useless at ordinary times, at this time, the Spaniards can say that it was the king and his wife who ordered the "Spanish Wild Count" Marin to send Columbus's fleet to explore the Indian route... In the end, the credit can still fall to On the head of the king and his wife, give them an excuse to intervene in the Indian route. Because, in this era, it is a priority to first discover the colonists of a certain "land of no man". The same is true for trade routes. If the Spaniards "discovered" the Indian route first, even if it is not the Spaniards' sphere of influence, there is no reason not to take a share...