As the time entered the late autumn, the musket craftsmen and armor craftsmen that Marin was looking forward to were also recruited from Spain and southern Germany respectively.
In order to recruit these craftsmen, Marin can be considered exhausted. Because Marin's men are extremely short of talents. Moreover, none of his staff knew Spanish.
For this reason, in desperation, Marin could only seek help from Jewish businessmen who traveled all over Europe. But the sad reminder is that Jewish businessmen can still get along well in other countries, but it is a tragedy in Spain. Because, as early as 1492, Spain (including the Kingdom of Aragon and the Kingdom of Castile) persecuted the Jews under the auspices of the two husband and wife kings. Most of the Jews in Spain, except for a few who converted to Catholicism, were deported, and their property was confiscated and robbed.
Therefore, Jewish businessmen with great powers could not go to Spain, which is anti-Semitic, to help Marin hire craftsmen who made musket guns. But fortunately, a Jewish businessman came up with a way - let him come forward and invite a familiar Italian businessman to go to Spain for activities and hire gun craftsmen on his behalf.
In this way, after paying a double commission, Marin struggled to obtain 20 Spanish craftsmen who were good at making musket guns.
The recruitment of armor craftsmen is much smoother, because armor craftsmen basically come from southern Germany. Marin casually hired a few eloquent businessmen, and asked them to hire 30 armor craftsmen from Augsburg, Nuremberg and other regions.
In fact, Marin does not lack armor. In his hand, he still has 1,000 sets of plate armor captured from France. However, the full body plate armor is too bulky and is only suitable for heavy armored knights.
However, what Marin wants to do is the Spanish phalanx, mainly infantry. Therefore, even if the breastplate of the full-body plate armor is removed and worn, it is a bit bulky. Plus, bulky yet light. The main reason is that the waist of the full body armor is restricted by the plate armor itself, so it is inconvenient to turn around and move around.
The reason why Marin recruited these armor craftsmen was to make steel helmets and breastplate armor. In addition, a chain mail belt must be made.
As an infantry soldier, the breastplate worn is naturally three-quarters of the two iron plates at the front and back. However, this kind of breastplate has no defense against the waist. If the enemy spearman pokes towards the waist, it will be miserable. Therefore, Marin thought about it, and equipped the soldiers with a chain armor belt that did not affect their activities, which had a certain degree of protection and did not affect their activities.
After the craftsmen arrived, Marin quickly imported a large number of iron ingots and iron chains (used to make chain armor belts) from the UK, and made them respectively the Mushikt gun and the infantry three-piece set—steel helmet, three-quarter chest Armor and chain armor belt. Of course, the construction of spears and sapper shovels has not been left behind.
After working overtime for a long time, by the end of November, the craftsmen had created 200 musket guns and a large number of infantry three-piece suits.
With the equipment, the matter of recruiting the phalanx infantry was immediately put on the agenda...
Marin remembered that the earliest German mercenaries seemed to come from Alsace, Württemberg, Baden and the Austrian Tyrol region. The peasants of Alsace and the mountain people of Württemberg were the main force of the early German mercenaries (Landsknechts).
Alsace is located on the border between Shinra and France, and the land is fertile. However, there are many people and few places. Therefore, there is a lot of surplus labor here. For example, the redundant serfs driven out by the manor owner...
As for the Württemberg area, it goes without saying that most of the whole territory is mountainous, and there are many mountain people, who are also relatively aggressive. This is somewhat similar to the Swiss region. Swiss mercenaries are basically composed of Swiss mountain people.
The mountain people living in the mountains have good physical fitness because they often walk on mountain roads. In addition, relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, I often go to the mountains to hunt or something, and maybe I have to fight with the beasts. Moreover, because the mountains are barren, they often need to suffer from hunger, so they have good willpower. Therefore, their ability to survive and fight is often better than that of farmers in plain areas. For example, the brave Danyang soldiers in the Three Kingdoms period came from the mountainous Danyang County (now Xuancheng, Anhui, not the modern Danyang that sells glasses).
And Kahn and Kohler are from the edge of the Black Forest in the Principality of Württemberg.
Marin considered that the Tyrol region of Austria is the private land of the Habsburg family, and the people here are often more loyal to the Habsburg family. Therefore, Marin first ruled out recruiting soldiers in the Tyrol region.
Then, Marin's choices are the Alsace region and the Baden-Württemberg region. After thinking twice, Marin decided to recruit half of the people in each of the above two areas.
Among them, the one who went to Baden-Württemberg to recruit troops was naturally Kohler. Kahn accompanied a team of soldiers to protect Kohler and was responsible for bringing the recruits back to Texel.
It was Schwartz who went to Alsace to recruit soldiers. He will be responsible for recruiting bankrupt farmers and serfs in the Alsace region. The peasants in the Alsace region may not be as powerful as the brave Wurttemberg mountain people, but they are obedient and disciplined.
However, these serf-born soldiers were obedient, but lacked courage. Therefore, Marin needs generally brave Württemberg mountain people to drive these Alsace farmers. The courage of the mountain people will stimulate the Alsace peasants to become braver. And the discipline of Alsace farmers will infect those mountain people who are too free. It can be said that the two can influence each other. What Marin has to do is to mix the two, let them influence each other, and control them to develop in a good direction.
As for the "father of German mercenaries" Frundsberg, Marin did not arrange for him to go out to participate in the recruitment. In Germany, recruiting troops is a very important ability. If a person can recruit a large number of mercenaries in a short period of time, then this person will definitely be noticed. Because this is an era when mercenaries are popular. Whoever has more mercenaries has more status.
Obviously, the brothers Schwartz and Kahn are Marin's cronies. The cultivation of recruiting ability naturally gives priority to them. And Frundsberg is the thug that Marin intends to give to the emperor, not Marin's confidant. Therefore, the ability to recruit soldiers, an important ability in the mercenary era, Marin does not want to cultivate it yet.
Moreover, because Marin poached a lot of Frisian people and recruited many Frisian fishermen, Marin was also worried that the Frisian noble republic would come to trouble him. Therefore, Marin also needs Frundsberg, with 300 men left behind, stationed in Denburg to guard against possible attacks from the Friesian Noble Republic.
At the same time, Marin promised Frundsberg that Frundsberg would be the leader of the first phalanx on Texel. This made the young Frundsberg very excited and very grateful to Marin. As for the "little matter" of not letting him recruit soldiers, Frundsberg immediately let go of it.
Before the Schwartz and Kahn brothers set out to recruit soldiers, Malinte told them-never recruit the unemployed people in those cities. Because, many of these homeless people in the city are from gangster backgrounds, they are vicious, they bully the weak and fear the hard. It's okay to let them fight with the wind, but when encountering a tough battle, it is easy to take the lead and escape.
And those serfs and mountain people, although they have little knowledge, are more simple and obedient. They are simple in heart, and they don't have the little Jiujiu of city people in their hearts, so they are the easiest to fool. These people, as long as they are trained and fooled, are definitely a powerful military force...