Because of the extensive use of fertilizers that promote the growth of crops, crops in East Frisia mature earlier than crops in other countries.
Therefore, after entering September, the crops in East Frisia began to mature one after another and were ready to be harvested. After Marin settled the Spanish affairs, he hurried back by boat, just to supervise the autumn harvest.
And, after the autumn harvest, the Saxon invasion might be coming. According to the news from Kohler, the Saxons have not taken any military action at present, but have been propagating that Marin is not in the right place. It can be seen that the Duke of Saxony is indeed planning to start after the autumn harvest, as Marin inferred.
This is also normal. Marin's main force is all mercenaries, so they can naturally send troops during the autumn harvest. Because those mercenaries are not dragged down by land.
But the composition of the Saxon army is different, they are feudal troops. In the Saxony army, many officers were feudal knights. Whenever the autumn harvest comes, they have to go back to their respective manors to supervise the harvest. Even some poorer knights have to go to the field to participate in the autumn harvest in person. Otherwise, the labor force will be insufficient.
Not only that, many soldiers in the Saxon army also need to go home to participate in the autumn harvest. These people need to go home to participate in the autumn harvest more than those nobles and knights, because they are the main laborers at home.
Although, the Duke of Saxony has a lot of commercial taxes. However, agriculture was also an important source of income for the feudal nobles. Therefore, it is impossible for the Duke of Saxony to attack Marin at the cost of giving up the autumn harvest.
Because, he also knows that Marin is not weak, and it is difficult to win in a short time. Therefore, Albrecht, Duke of Saxony, had already made preparations for a long-term battle. For long-term combat, food is even more indispensable. Therefore, this made the Duke of Saxony even more unable to send troops before the autumn harvest. Only after enough food is obtained in the autumn harvest can there be capital to fight a protracted siege with Marin.
Marin hurried back to East Frisia at the beginning of October. At this time, the autumn harvest in East Frisia and the Wadden Islands had already begun.
The autumn harvest actually started under the auspices of Angela. With the support of the old Hoffman couple and Jeffrey's palace minister, the shy Angela bravely stood up and presided over the beginning ceremony of the autumn harvest on behalf of Marin, announcing the autumn harvest start.
During this time period, all East Frisians who owned land, including Marin's soldiers, were amazed. Of course, this does not include those veteran soldiers who previously owned land in the Wadden Islands.
Everyone is surprised by the bumper harvest of rye this year, because anyone with a discerning eye can see that the ears of rye this year are much larger than in previous years, and many ears of wheat have bent the straw... In previous years, the ears of wheat It's all straight up and not that heavy.
Before the harvest, everyone can predict that this year must be a bumper harvest...
Of course, many nobles in East Frisia knew that there was going to be a big war. Therefore, we are fully psychologically prepared for the early start of the autumn harvest in East Frisia this year. As soon as Angela gave the order, the manors began to rush to harvest the wheat. Because everyone is worried that the troops of the Duke of Saxony will come before the end of the autumn harvest. In that case, the wheat in the field will not be harvested in time, and may even be snatched away by the Saxon army...
Therefore, when Marin returned to East Frisia, the entire Counties of East Frisia were robbing things, busy harvesting rye...
Not seeing him for a few months, Angela naturally misses Marin so much, she rushes over like swallows falling into the forest...
Seeing Angela, Marin suddenly remembered that he seemed to have promised his father-in-law to find Felice and her daughter, so he almost forgot about it. So, he called Kohler and asked him to arrange for people to go to the countryside of Genoa to look for it.
After becoming the countess, Marin found that Angela had matured a lot. Moreover, the little girl who loves to play has started to like reading books. Moreover, what I read is no longer novels, but books about governing the country. Because, Angela has realized that she is the spouse of a king of a country, and she is no longer a carefree little girl. In Europe, nobles can only have one wife, so those wives don't need to think about palace fighting. There is only one mistress in the palace, who will she fight with? Therefore, the noble ladies in Europe either indulged in court balls or something, or assisted their husbands in managing the fief. And East Frisia lacks old-school nobles (in fact, it was lacked by Marin), so naturally there is no such thing as a court ball. Then, Angela's way to pass the time is to read books and find ways to help with government affairs.
However, Angela's efforts did not make Marin happy. Because, in Marin's mind, Wu Zetian, Empress Lu and other representatives of the harem who were involved in politics came to mind. He doesn't like women interfering in politics, and, although Angela is simple, she is the daughter of the old fox Julius II after all, and has the gene of struggle. If he was trained by Angela, when Julius II became Pope, would he still have something to say? With the support of the Pope's father-in-law, Angela may be able to overwhelm herself...
So, Marin decided to find something else to attract Angela's attention. And Angela is only 17 years old, just the age of a girl who loves to play. Therefore, Marin decided to "invent" mahjong and other things to give Angela a small amount of money. He would rather Angela be obsessed with gambling than let her become a female politician. After all, even if Angela is addicted to gambling, no one in East Frisia would dare to win a lot of money from Angela, and would not give her a chance to prodigal. Because, who dares to win more money from Angela, Marin will definitely trouble him in private... Even, those ladies who are busy trying to please Angela may deliberately shoot...
After returning, Marin hurriedly dealt with a lot of backlog of documents, signatures that should be signed, stamps that should be stamped...
Then, with his guards, he rode to various places to inspect the autumn harvest work, and made some speeches that were not painful or itchy, showing that he attached great importance to the autumn harvest.
Gradually the yield of rye came out as the fields and acres were harvested. Because of sufficient fertilizer, basically, the yield of rye in the homes of the East Frisian nobles is not less than 400 pounds per mu, and these are still those wheat fields with poor land and poor management. More have reached the level of 500 pounds per mu.
Many nobles were very excited. This kind of output is basically three times higher than the previous yield of more than 100 pounds per mu. It can no longer be described as a bumper harvest, but can only be described as abnormal...
However, Marin sent his men to privately tell the nobles not to talk nonsense. Because, as long as they tell it out, the secrets of fertilizers may cause coveted by other countries. Once the secret of the fertilizer is leaked, and other people's yield per mu is so high, the price of food may plummet, affecting everyone's interests...
When Marin said this, the nobles understood. Indeed, if only East Frisia has a bumper grain harvest and other places remain the same, then grain prices will not be affected. After all, East Frisia is just a small country.
However, if other big countries know this secret and use a lot of fertilizers, with an yield of 500 pounds per mu, then the price of rye is estimated to fall to one-third of the original price. Then, their harvest will lose its meaning. Therefore, in order to protect their own interests, these nobles naturally would not talk nonsense. As for those serfs, they couldn't leave the territory, so how could they have a chance to go out and talk nonsense? Moreover, the population of East Frisia is not large, and those redundant boys from serf families were basically recruited by Marin to work, and there was no possibility of population exodus. Marin himself thinks that the population is not enough. How can others be allowed to come to East Frisia to recruit excess population
For the sale of grain, Malin specially organized a chamber of commerce to uniformly purchase and export the grain of the nobles. In fact, in order to prepare for post-war recruitment, Marin basically does not export food. Because, immigrants themselves need to consume a lot of food.
Moreover, as long as he bought all the grain of those nobles, he would not sell it to the surrounding areas casually. In this way, neighboring countries will not find out about the bumper grain harvest in East Frisia, which will help keep it secret. Even if the grain can really be exported someday, Marin will not choose to sell it locally, but will choose to ship the grain to the UK or Spain for sale. Because the food prices in these two places are higher than those in mainland Germany.
A large amount of grain was transported into the city of Aurich. Marin even plans to expand the area of Aurich City several times. However, now he has no time to build a new city. Therefore, when building the granary, Marin built a new city directly on the edge of the old city. The new city is surrounded by walls, and the inside is full of granaries. In order to speed up the progress, Marin even directly built a lot of adobe houses with a relatively short construction time and relatively low cost in the new city, which were temporarily used to store food.
There are more than 80,000 Ugrams of arable land in East Frisia, and the total output of rye has reached 500 million pounds. Most of them come from estates owned by Marin. As for the food of those nobles, they kept half of their own food, and the other half chose to sell it to Marin's chamber of commerce. However, Marin was taken aback when he calculated, and found that it would cost more than 600,000 gold coins to purchase about 60 million pounds of their grain...
Therefore, Marin decisively chose to make an IOU, paying 10% of the purchase price first, and cashing in the remaining 90% after the grain was sold. Everyone understands this. After all, there is too much food, and it is really difficult for Marin to take out more than 600,000 gold coins at once. Because although Marin makes a lot of money, he also spends a lot. Therefore, there is not much cash in hand. Moreover, Columbus's spice ship also returned home, as everyone knows. However, it takes time for spices to be sold. However, everyone is not worried that those spices will not be sold. With so many spices as a guarantee, no one is worried that Marin will not be able to repay the payment. Even, many small nobles are willing to use spices to offset the price of grain.
Then, Marin began to ask Kohler to send the previously established "North Sea Chamber of Commerce" to the UK to contact him. He planned to dump all the 60 million pounds of rye to the UK. After all, the price of rye in England is half of that in Germany. After Marin sold the purchased rye to the UK, he could not only pay off the remaining payment, but also make a lot of money...