Looking at the March of 1500, the spring plowing work is in full swing again. Before that, those prisoners of war had been supervised in the two or three months before the spring plowing, and opened up a new field of 3,000 Ugrams, which happened to be plowing with the old field.
Because of the participation of 18,000 Saxon serfs and 7,000 Saxon regular infantry prisoners of war, this spring plowing was extremely fast. After all, that was 25,000 strong men.
In the past three months, Marin also ordered several fertilizer processing plants to resume work urgently, and produced a batch of fertilizer blocks. Fortunately, there was enough air-dried manure before, but this time the fertilizer processing was very fast and did not leave much odor. After all, those dung blocks have been air-dried for more than half a year. Then, these fertilizers were also fertilized by the 3,000 serf workers under Marin's command who were responsible for the manufacture and application of fertilizers, and they had never been in the hands of others.
However, because of this war, many people have made meritorious service and been awarded. Therefore, Marin gave out the fief of 10,000 Ugrams very distressedly, which made him very sad. You know, these fiefdoms will not pay taxes in the future.
However, people have made military exploits, and they have to reward them. Moreover, the result of this battle is too brilliant, and it is difficult for Marin to reward less. This time Marin not only sealed off 10,000 Ugrams of land, but also raised the titles of Schwartz and Frundsberg to vice baron. In addition, Stadt, the leader of the fourth phalanx, was also promoted from a hereditary knight to a baron; Steindorf, the commander of the black shirt knights, was also promoted to a baron; De, also became a baron; and Saul, who Marin valued very much, Marin also made a lot of excuses to promote him to a baron...
Seeing that the land of tens of thousands of Ugrams was divided out in just one planting season in his own hands, Marin felt that it was not easy to be a monarch. In fact, Marin was not happy to divide the land. However, East Frisia has just stabilized now, and he can't be separated from his soldiers because of the land distribution. Moreover, Marin already has enough labor to reclaim the swamp. The land of tens of thousands of Ugrams that was entrusted can still be brought back. After all, the new land reclaimed was paid by Marin himself, and it must still belong to him.
For Chun Geng, apart from Marin, the happiest people are those who have tasted the sweetness before. Last year's extraordinarily bumper harvest allowed them to enjoy all the benefits. For example, in Schwartz and Frundsberg, the 1,000 Ugrams of arable land allocated last year had an average yield of 500 pounds of rye per mu, and a total output of 6 million pounds. After Marin helped them sell half of them, he directly earned 50,000 gold coins, which made them all dumbfounded...
You know, an ordinary barony, although the total amount of arable land is more than them, the yield per mu cannot increase, and the total annual income is only ten thousand gold coins, generally no more than twenty thousand. However, with the support of Marin, they created a profit of 50,000 gold coins with only a thousand Ugrams of arable land. What's more, they still have a lot of food in their homes. Of course, those serfs also need a lot of food to feed, and the servants at home also need to give a lot of food. However, it is definitely not half as much. In other words, half of the food stored in the family, in addition to what must be consumed, can still have a lot of surplus. Days like this make them extremely happy.
Now, the Schwartz family has lived a good life of pampering. And Frundsberg also tried to get his father to retire from the army and retire to his fief. Even the brothers of Frundsberg, except for the eldest brother who stayed in his hometown to inherit the knight collar, all the others came to follow him. After all, with an annual income of more than 50,000 gold coins, even some poor earls can't match it. What is it to support a few families
They all earn 50,000 gold coins, and Adler, who has twice as much land as them, naturally earns 100,000 gold coins a year...
However, Adler was rather sad. Although he had obtained a huge profit of 100,000 gold coins, they were all confiscated by his wife Liv. As for himself, he can only receive "pocket money" of one or two gold coins from Liv every day...
Then, Liv herself, like the legendary dragon, hid in the room, covered the bed with gold coins, and rolled on the gold coins...
Even those knights with only 100 Yugram fiefdoms, no one's annual income reached about 5,000 gold coins, which made those soldiers without fiefdoms extremely jealous. Of course, this also inspired their enthusiasm for meritorious service. Now, the morale of Marin's soldiers is extremely high, and they wish to have another big guy like the Duke of Saxony to give them military exploits. As long as they get the fiefdom, the whole family will be prosperous immediately...
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Moreover, last year and autumn, Marin also sent people to the border between Poland and Silesia to buy 10,000 cattle from the owners of a large Polish cattle herd (up to 50,000 heads). The price of each cow is less than 10 gold coins, which is very cheap.
It's just that these cattle were driven back to East Frisia from Silesia, and Marin's men took a lot of thought. Moreover, it is not possible to pass through the territory of the Saxon nobles, so as not to be detained by them.
It was not until the next year that Marin's men pulled the tens of thousands of cows back to East Frisia in batches. Fortunately, spring plowing was not delayed. After putting copper nose rings on those strong cattle, these cattle became farm cattle after a little training...
Moreover, Marin's men also made an appointment with those big Polish businessmen who specialize in cattle sales-to buy another 20,000 cattle in the coming year. And this time, Marin didn't plan to wait until autumn, but sent people to buy cattle directly after spring plowing, even if the price was more expensive.
Because, in addition to the need for arable land in East Frisia, Marin also plans to get some cattle to go to Grenada to reclaim land and grow spices. And the price of Polish cattle is not expensive, it is really beneficial but not expensive. Even if the arable land is not available, it is still possible to get some cattle to kill and eat meat.
With 10,000 oxen and the original thousands of draft horses, plus the newly added manpower, the spring plowing this time was extremely fast. After all, in the past, only a few thousand horses were used to cultivate tens of thousands of Ugrams of land, and each horse had to cultivate hundreds of acres of land on average. Therefore, it takes a long time, and even some are too late.
But this time, Marin used a huge lineup of 10,000 cows and thousands of horses. On average, each animal only needed to plow one-third of the previous amount, which greatly accelerated the speed of spring plowing. Originally, it took more than a month of spring plowing, but it was all done in half a month.
Originally, Marin planned to let all prisoners of war participate in spring plowing. However, Marin later remembered that his Quyuanli and the bull nose ring seemed to be secret technologies. Therefore, Marin only left those Saxony people who had become his serfs to help with spring plowing. As for the 7,000 Saxon infantry who will be sent back in the future, in order not to let them see the Quyuanli and the bull nose ring, Marin directly sent them to the swamp to dig ditches...
While they were digging ditches, Marin also organized carpenters and began building Dutch windmills. After all, even after the ditches were dug, equipment was needed to pump the accumulated water out of the swamp pools and put them into ditches to drain away.
In this era, there are no mechanical water pumps, and manual pumping is too inefficient, and it consumes a lot of physical energy and food. Therefore, it is the most economical choice to pump water with a Dutch windmill that runs day and night. After all, no matter how big a swamp is, it can't hold a windmill pumping water day and night. One windmill is not enough, and Marin can add a few more. Anyway, these windmills can be disassembled and moved. This water pool can be disassembled after the water is pumped, moved to another water pool and re-erected—after the water is pumped, the place can be changed...
When the swamp is transformed, Marin will have more than 100,000 Ugrams of arable land in his hands, which is more than all the arable land of the Counties of East Frisia and Wadden combined...