King of German Mercenaries

Early the next morning, Kohler was in the vicinity, conscripting many of the inhabitants and ordering them to help clean the castle. In the middle ages of agrarian societies, in winter, most people had nothing to do. Especially the peasants who cultivate the land have nothing to do in winter.

Marin sent Kohler to several nearby villages and recruited 200 farmers to help clear the castle, and at the same time, clear and clean the streets. As for remuneration, there is none. Because, in medieval Europe, it was an obligation to help the lord to work during the slack.

Kohler, this bastard, bullied the serf, showing no mercy, showing the true nature of a vicious slave. Embarrassed, Marin offered farmers a free lunch after Kohler dismissed his proposal to pay wages.

The ghost knows what the serfs think, Marin just provided them with a free lunch, and they cheered and were very grateful to Marin.

It turned out that in the eyes of European serfs in the Middle Ages, labor was worthless. And food is precious. In a serf family with a family of three, if the man's eating problem is solved by Marin, their family is equivalent to one less mouth to eat that day, and it is the mouth that can eat the most. The food saved can fully feed the wife and children. This is the serfs of the Middle Ages, the simple and heart-wrenching logic...

Marin never imagined that there are such tragic people in the world. Just serving a lunch will make them happy. When his heart softened, he asked Kohler to provide the working serfs with a piece of brown bread at noon every day, and also allowed them to bring back half a piece of bread when they went home at night. This decision made the serfs cheer again, and they only felt that they had met the best lord in the world. Marin is very speechless - other lords, how bad is it?

While the serfs worked, Marin had to do something else. First, he sent Kohler to Amsterdam to come back with a new shipment of furniture, among other supplies.

Because, many wooden furniture in the castle are corroded and need to be replaced. Schwartz, on the other hand, was sent to three villages and asked them to pass a message to the owners of their respective estates, saying that they would buy their land.

In fact, as a self-governing lord, Marin has land rights on the island. If it is the land of the common people, the lord even has the right to directly deprive it. But the masters of the three Zhuangzi were all nobles who lived on land, and it was not easy to use force. However, it is possible to forcibly redeem it at a relatively low price. If you can give money, it's a lot of fun. Because, although the three masters of Zhuangzi were nobles, they were only knights (on the same level as knights), and they were not considered hereditary nobles. Ma Lincoln gave the floor price, and it was already considered a face. You must know that the villages on the island are not the official fiefs of the three families, but were purchased later. It is not an official fief, and the local lord has the right to forcibly redeem it.

The owners of the three villages all lived near Den Helder. They are on land, and there are manors. For Zhuangzi on Texel Island, they also felt that it was a bit tasteless, and it was a pity to abandon it.

Now, the new lord Marin is willing to buy it, and they are considered to be a burden. The farms on the island, because of their remote location, no one wants to manage them. Therefore, the management of the three Zhuangzi is very chaotic, and the output is not high. Even, because the sky is high and the emperor is far away, the island's stewards have also experienced corruption, resulting in a relatively low output for the owner on the manor.

Marin sent Schwartz to negotiate with them, and Schwartz, in order to put pressure on the other party's representatives, brought 400 fully armed brothers to the front line, scaring the three representatives to refuse. Then, Schwartz used 15,000 gold coins to buy all the farmland and pastures belonging to the three families on the island, including the organizational relationship of the serfs. This price is definitely the bottom price. But Marin didn't reason with them and used power to oppress people, and they couldn't do anything about it. After all, this island is now Marin's territory.

In this way, the entire Texel Island, except for the 200 Ugrams of land owned by the church, cannot be moved, other cultivated land, pastures and wasteland,

All belong to Marlin.

As for the fishermen in the two fishing ports, their taxes, except for the church tithes, do not need to go to Den Helder to pay their taxes, they just hand them over to Marin. In fact, the so-called tax they handed in was dried salted fish, and they could also pay some fresh fish, depending on Marin's requirements...

Kohler came back soon, with hundreds of pieces of furniture. At the same time, a group of masons and building materials was brought back.

First, the walls of the castle, Marin had the masons painted with lime. In this way, the snow-white walls look bright. Marin then had them rebuild sewers and toilets and start building septic tanks. In this way, there will never be a bad smell in the castle.

Then, on the grass north of the castle, Marin built a row of stables to house 1,030 horses and a few cattle pulling carts.

In the end, Marin mobilized the civilians to build a batch of adobe houses with mud for his 400 soldiers...

This adobe house is still in Malin's previous home, where the lonely old man Zhou lived at the entrance of the village. At the beginning, when Uncle Zhou's adobe house was renovated, Marin went to help and saw how everyone built the adobe house.

The construction of the adobe house is very simple. It is to use the soil that is available everywhere, put thatch, straw, etc. as muscles and bones in it, and stir it up, which is similar to the feeling of reinforced concrete. And those thatch are the bones in it.

Then, everyone stood up with two wooden boards, sandwiched on both sides, filled it with mud mixed with thatch, and compacted it. When the soil in the plywood is almost dry, remove the plywood. In this way, a thick mud wall is built. After the construction was completed, a fire was raised to dry the walls. Moreover, this kind of soil mixed with thatch as the bones and the mud wall is quite strong. At least, the wind and rain are absolutely fine.

Moreover, the adobe house lived in, in the era of no air conditioning, it was quite warm in winter and cool in summer...

The soldiers initially disliked this kind of mud house, but after Marin let them live in it for a few days, they fell in love with this kind of low-cost, fast-build house.

In fact, Marin is also unable to use this trick. It's December and it's winter. It's quite cold to live in a tent, but to build a popular stone house in Europe and build a house for 400 people, how many stones will it take?

Moreover, Texel Island does not produce stones, so I have to buy it off the island and ship it back... What a hassle? Also, time is tight...

Therefore, Marin simply asked the serfs to help and built the legendary adobe house together, with low cost, fast construction and good comfort...

Then, according to the habit of the Orientals, Marin built a Chinese-style stove in the house and erected a simple chimney...

But what makes Marin speechless is that chimneys don't seem to be popular in Europe at the moment. At least, it wasn't very popular in the homes of ordinary people in the Middle Ages...

It is said that chimneys were introduced to Europe from the East by Jewish merchants, Egyptians and Syrians around 800 AD. Although, hundreds of years have passed, chimneys are still not fully popular in Europe.

Because the biggest function of the chimney is to exhaust smoke. Only very particular noble and wealthy families pay attention to smoking. As for the poor households, they can still make a fire without a chimney. The big problem is that they will be choked by the smoke... Many poor households directly set up semi-open kitchens in order to prevent the smoke from choking. In this way, when the fire is toasted, the smoke spreads directly out...

Marin organized everyone to build 400 adobe houses with three bedrooms and one kitchen, without spending a lot of money. Even the bed was built directly with mud, and then hardened and dried with a fire.

Moreover, each bed is actually a kang. In the outer room, there is a stove, you can put fuel in it. Fireplaces are currently popular in Europe (in fact, they are also popular in wealthy families, and chimneys are mainly equipped for fireplaces), but there is a problem with fireplaces, which burn fire inside the house. If it is burning wood, it is fine, but if it is burning coal, it is easy to cause gas poisoning.

The oriental kang introduced by Marin is an artifact for overwintering. The people of Nagazi in the northeast can resist the low temperature of dozens of degrees below zero by relying on the kang. And put coal and other fuels in the outer room with the windows open, so you don't have to worry about gas poisoning in the kang room. However, in the Netherlands, the minimum temperature is only a few degrees below zero, which is still because of the Little Ice Age. It is a waste of time to use a kang.

The only problem is that there are few trees on the island and there is a lack of wood. This also led to the lack of firewood on the island. Therefore, the inhabitants of the island generally burn hay for cooking and heating. At the same time, I will also go back to Den Helder to buy some firewood. Of course, those who go to the land to buy firewood are usually rich forces like the church. After all, churches have fireplaces. And priests, you can't burn hay in the fireplace, can you? There are many grades, but it is more formal to burn wood...

Should I get some coal from my family's coal mine for fuel? Marin thought, holding his chin.

The coal reserves of Hoffman Manor are not small, and the coal is of good quality. However, in the Middle Ages, coal was used very narrowly. This also led to the poor sales of coal. And Manor Coal's biggest and only customer was the one that Marin got at home before.

However, the Wiggins Chamber of Commerce's purchases from the Hoffman mine are also limited. On average, the Wiggins Chamber of Commerce only buys 100 Chartrons of coal from the Hoffman mine a day. And a charteron coal, the profit is only a little more than 1 shilling. On average, Hoffmann Manor earns about 2,800 marks a year from coal mines.

Marin bought coal from his own coal mine, which not only solved his own fuel shortage problem, but also helped his family. But the question is how to get the coal from the Hoffman estate to Texel...

Marin himself had no boats and no sailors. And to transport coal from Hoffman Estates to Texel Island, it is obviously the wisest to go by water. Because the cost of water transportation is low, there are few tax cards passed (this is a very important reason), and the volume of goods is large.

Load the coal, and the coal carriers can travel west along the Ruhr into the Rhine. It then travels across the Rhine to the estuary, then travels north along the west coast of the Netherlands to the island of Texel.

This whole set requires not only boats and skilled sailors, but also navigators who are familiar with routes and know how to avoid tax cards. Marin didn't have any of these... So, Marin decided to find someone to work with...

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