When Marin participated in the trial voyage of the Hoffman 1 warship in the North Sea, the autumn harvest in East Frisia was in full swing.
This year's autumn harvest is not much different from last year's. Although it is said that Marin organized more than 10,000 laborers from Saxony to dig ditches and drain the swamps to open up good fields. However, it takes a long time to turn the swamp into farmland. Therefore, during spring plowing, Marin only increased the cultivated land by 3,000 Yugram. By October, those laborers had actually reclaimed 20,000 Ugrams of arable land, but the work was not completed until autumn, and crops could not be planted in time, and they would have to wait until next year's spring plowing. Therefore, only the 3,000 Ugrams of new arable land will be harvested together.
The difference from last year was that during the autumn harvest last year, Marin still had 60,000 Ugrams of arable land in his hands, and the nobles and soldiers had 25,000 Ugrams in their hands. But after the Battle of Lyle County last year, Marin confiscated another 10,000 Ugrams, leaving him with only 50,000 Ugrams of arable land.
A total of 168 million pounds of rye were produced from the land cultivated by nobles and soldiers. Among them, they took half of it, that is, 84 million pounds, and sold it to the Marin organization.
Marin continued to sell these rye to England. However, due to the large volume, the price of rye in England fell by 0.1p per pound.
Marin learned from the Jewish businessmen hired by his men that in this era, the most expensive food price was actually Spain. Under normal circumstances, the price of rye in Germany is 1 pence per pound; England is 1.5 pence/pound per pound; France is 1.2 pence per pound; and in Spain during the same period, it is 2 pence per pound.
The reason for this is that although Spain is large, most of it is a plateau. Only 11% of the country's land is located in the plains below 200 meters above sea level. It is only in these plain areas that there are agricultural activities. Moreover, not all of the 11% of the plains were reclaimed into farmland.
Therefore, the land of Spain looks large, but the area of arable land is not much. Coupled with the large population, food prices are relatively expensive. It is a very cost-effective business to transport grain to Spain for sale.
Coincidentally, two new Class 250 armed merchant ships have also been completed. Marin simply let the two ships carry 660,000 pounds (about 300 tons) of rye to the south to test the waters in Spain. After all, selling at a higher price is also very beneficial to Marin. After all, when the nobles and soldiers in the country sold rye to Marin, they only wanted a wholesale price of 0.8 Finney per pound. When Marin sold rye to the UK, he received 1.2 pfennig per pound. Even if the price drops to 1.1 pfennig per pound due to the large volume, Marin is still very profitable. If it is sold to Spain, where the price is higher, the price of rye per pound is at least 1.5 pfennig per pound. That way, the profits are bigger...
As for the more rye produced in Marin's own land, he did not sell it. Because, this year, the count of East Frisia has increased by tens of thousands of people, and Marin will use this rye to support these new populations.
In October, the accounts between Marin and the Principality of Saxony were settled. The Duke of Saxony paid 1 million Gulden gold coins, and sent the 18,000 Saxon young and strong family members belonging to Marin, a total of more than 40,000 people.
In other words, Marin's East Frisian counties suddenly increased by almost 60,000 people, reaching a huge population of more than 140,000 people...
Fortunately, Marin had the foresight to sell both last year's grain and this year's grain in his territory, which was enough for the consumption of so many people. And, it seems, plenty, too.
After all, last year and this year's food reserves added up to more than 500 million pounds, an average of more than 3,000 pounds per person. As a matter of fact, 500 pounds of rye per person per year is not bad. In fact, because the bread is mixed with wild vegetables, wood chips, soil and other sundries, it is not bad if more than 300 pounds of 500 pounds of bread are rye ingredients. Therefore, food is very sufficient.
However, Marin does not dare to ship too much now. Because, in this way, the secret of the high grain production in East Frisia cannot be hidden.
This is a deadly secret, enough to drive any great lord with many lands crazy. Therefore, Marin would rather make less money than let people see the clues.
Therefore, Marin arranged to sell the food of his men to the UK, and it was sold in the name of the North Sea Chamber of Commerce and other Dutch chambers of commerce, making it unclear what the bottom of East Frisia was.
However, because of the information provided by his Jewish businessmen, Marin discovered that the food demand in Spain was much greater than that in the United Kingdom, and it relied on imports all year round. In previous years, Spain had to transport a large amount of grain back home from the "Golden Basin" of colonial Sicily every year, and imported a large amount of grain from neighboring France.
After Marin learned the news, he planned to open up the Spanish grain trade route. Not only do they want to make money for themselves, but they also want to rob the interests of the French.
Of course, after planning to compete with the French for the Spanish grain market, Marin sent people to order a lot of Kirk sailboats, intending to use old ships to transport grain, and no longer use 250-class merchant ships to transport grain.
At the same time, Marin intends to let those Kirk sailing ships play the flags of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark and other maritime powers to confuse the French and prevent the French from knowing that they are poaching their corners...
After sending someone out to inquire further, Marin also discovered a shocking news-the Italian region is also short of food now...
It turns out that although the Italian region is an important food producing area. However, since 1494, the outbreak of the Italian War has caused wars and chaos in Italy. A large number of people fled, resulting in a large number of barren fields.
Coupled with the re-invasion of the French army in the past two years, agricultural production in many parts of Italy has almost come to a standstill.
Therefore, this year in Italy, food prices are even higher than in Spain. In order to obtain enough food, the Italians imported food from Austria and other German regions on a large scale. This was not enough. The Venetian merchant ships also went to Egypt and Poland and Lithuania on the northern shore of the Black Sea to import a large amount of grain.
Even so, due to the massive shortage of food and the continuation of the war, many people starved to death in Italy this year...
Although Marin vigorously blocked the news, people abroad did not know that the East Frisian County had a bumper harvest, but the people in the East Frisian County still couldn't hide it. Among them, Marin's father-in-law, Archbishop Rovere, found that the East Frisian County had an unusually good harvest...
Archbishop Rovere traveled on land from his remote island residence with two entourages during the autumn harvest. After observation, it was found that the farmlands in East Frisia have abnormally high grain production. At least, the barrels and baskets used to store grain (Europeans in the Middle Ages were more accustomed to using wooden barrels and wooden baskets, and the famous wheat special unit of measurement, the quart, is a unit of volume) are used more than in Italy. This shows that the grain yield of East Frisia surpasses that of Italy.
This aroused the extreme shock of Archbishop Rovere. You must know that the Italian region has always been the most developed place in European agriculture, and its per unit yield has always been higher than other places in Europe.
And, even in Italy, the regions with high yields are only those with more volcanic soils. In ordinary areas, the yield per unit area is not much higher than other areas.
However, according to Archbishop Rovere's observations, the yield of rye in East Frisia may be higher than that in Italy's richest volcanic ash soil area...
This aroused his great interest, so Archbishop Rovere took the initiative to find Marin, the son-in-law...
When Marin learned that Archbishop Rovere knew the secret of the high grain production in East Frisia, for a moment, his eyes were fierce, and he almost wanted to kill the father-in-law. But he quickly realized that this is a fucking father-in-law, and he was expecting him to be the Pope to protect him...
Archbishop Rovere was also shocked, and from the fierce light that burst out in Marin's eyes, he knew that his son-in-law was not a good stubble. Therefore, he also stopped thinking about finding out the secret of high grain yield from his son-in-law.
In the end, Marin once again gave Lao Zhangren 100,000 gold coins for activities, so that Lao Zhangren could buy more manpower in the Pope's country to prepare for his return to Rome.
But as soon as he turned his head, Marin sent someone to arrest the two followers who traveled with the old man during the autumn harvest, permanently restricting their freedom. Because Marin believed that the old man would not reveal the secrets of East Frisia, but he couldn't trust the two attendants who also knew the secrets...
Although Archbishop Rovere was very dissatisfied, there was nothing he could do. Who told him to depend on others now? Fortunately, only the two entourages who were not important people knew the secret of the high grain yield in East Frisia. Get up on land. Otherwise, Marin might lose all the people around him...