Chapter 2: Depart, the American colony!
At the end of March, because 20,000 new cows were bought from Poland, and there were many cows and horses in the country, the animal power in East Friesland was extremely surplus, and the use of quyuan plows, so spring cultivation ended. At this time, the spring cultivation in other European countries was only half done.
Spring is the season for sowing seeds. At the same time, spring is also the most difficult season in famine areas. Although the seeds are sown to the ground, it will take several months to grow into food. If the vegetables are on the market in May and June, the famine can be alleviated. The early spring season is the most difficult, and the food price at this time is also the most expensive.
In the interior of southern Germany, because of famine, many young people can't stand being hungry. After Schwartz left, Kohler took over and set up offices to recruit victims in disaster areas such as Hesse and Baden.
The situation is better than expected, and many farmers are willing to emigrate. When selecting immigrants, Kohler naturally favors young men and women who are already married. In this way, after they emigrated, Marin did not have to worry about their marriage. You know, the early American immigrants, because of the serious lack of women, later led to the birth of the gay, and even started with the cow ... Marin knows this black history, so try to require pairs of immigrants ...
However, for the young men and women who were married, the local serf owner would not let them go easily. Because the people who can afford to marry are either the eldest son of the family or the experts in the work, and they are very appreciated by the owners of the estate. Therefore, the manor owners will not let them leave.
Is the non-eldest son of those serf families, because beyond the "population plan" of the manor, they are often not seen by the manor. Moreover, after leaving these people, the serf owner still has to pay for their food, where can they afford?
For those manors with more young men, those extra serfs are definitely a burden. Therefore, often the serf owners tended to drive these people out of the manor and let them make their own living, so as to reduce their burden. For this reason, the serf-owners gave up their ownership and made them freemen.
But it is not necessarily a good thing to become such a free man. Leaving the manor is equivalent to losing the guarantee, and even the black loaf bread mixed with a lot of soil can not be eaten. Therefore, many of these free people have chosen to be thieves and robbers and become a social hazard. Of course, with good luck, he left his hometown and found a job, but such people are only a few. Many honest young people who were released from serf-children as freemen will even starve to death ... And with the rise of the mercenary industry in Germany, many young people who cannot eat have found that-maybe being a soldier is a good choice ...... Although it is not a good day to be a mercenary, before the death of the war, you can at least have enough food every day. Moreover, not only can you eat enough food, you can also eat meat from time to time, but also have money to buy alcohol and drink, do not live too happy ...
So, in the German region, especially in some very poor or disaster-affected areas, mercenaries have become a very popular profession. Otherwise, German mercenaries will not rise up until the beginning of the 19th century.
However, not every noble has the money to hire so many mercenaries. The market price of a mercenary is 3 Finney's daily salary. Over the course of a year, the salary alone is 18.25 gold coins. Usually, employers also provide some food to feed these mercenaries. In general, the cost of hiring a mercenary a year is at least 25 gold coins. If you feed 10,000 troops, the annual cost will be no less than 250,000 gold coins. Of course, if you have enough food, it is another matter. For example, Marin now has uneatable food in his hands, which naturally saves a lot of money.
250,000 gold coins a year, many dukes and counts who have closed the country, the tax for a year may not be so much. Therefore, the princes who can afford 10,000 standing troops are simply rare.
However, the princes are not without countermeasures. Some cunning princes, when the war breaks out, will pay some deposits first, and recruit mercenaries first. Then, they will promise to allow these mercenaries to robbery freely once they attack the opponent's territory. In this way, he saved most of the commission. Mercenaries, if they are lucky, may gain more wealth than commissions through robbery in hostile countries. Many of the cuts on the clothes of early mercenaries were not fashionable at all, but temporary pockets used by mercenaries to hide treasures on their bodies.
However, relying on robbery to make a profit requires luck. If you win, naturally grab it. But he lost, not to mention the robbery, even the small life may not be guaranteed.
Therefore, young people who want to be mercenaries are not fools. For those generals who are good at winning wars, they naturally rush to the top. Just as Schwarz recruited on behalf of Marin, it was said that Marin, who was "invincible", wanted to recruit, and everyone naturally signed up. You let the Duke of Saxony who had just lost the battle to try ... Uh, almost forgot, the Duke of Saxony is dead, and now the Duke of Saxony is George, who is less capable ...
Since it is difficult to obtain a couple of immigrant couples, Kohler had to accept young bachelors who were too poor to marry a wife and planned to immigrate them to the Americas.
These starved young bachelors are not fussy. They go wherever they say, as long as they have enough bread tubes ...
Just like that, in April, Kohler had transported 2,000 young bachelor youths in a carriage to Emden Port ...
It happened that the work of transporting 9,000 mercenaries to Teutonic countries was also over. As a result, ten newly purchased Kirk sailboats were also emptied. In addition to the two 250-class armed merchant ships dedicated to Amerigo, Marin now has a total of 12 free ships available for immigration transportation.
According to the scale that a ship can carry a hundred people, these 12 ships can carry more than 1,000 people at a time. However, Marin considered that since he was an immigrant, he must not only transport people. For example, food should be transported more. After all, the colony is newly developed and there is no food supply. Before the grain grows in the next season, immigrants need to eat spare food to survive.
Marin has no worries about immigrants to the two islands of North America and Cape Breton Island. Because the fishery resources in these two places are very rich. Needless to say, the two islands in North America, Nantucket (Amerigo Island) was originally an important whaling base for future generations. Since it is a whaling base, there must be many whales nearby. Where there are many whales, the fishery resources must be abundant, otherwise the whales with great appetite cannot be raised. Whether it is fishing or whaling, Marin now lacks such talent.
Therefore, as long as they are immigrants, they must send the 30 Frisian fishermen who have mastered whaling skills to Nantucket. These fishermen only need to kill a few large whales, which is enough for the fishermen to eat the whale meat for a long time, and they can fully support the maturity of the next season.
As for Cape Breton Island, don't worry, sending some fishermen to accompany you can solve the problem. After all, Cape Breton Island is very close to Newfoundland. And where is Newfoundland? It was one of the four famous fishing grounds in later generations. In this era, there are not as many large-scale trawlers fishing here and there. There are so many fish in the sea. As long as a few fishing boats are dispatched casually, the people on Cape Breton Island will eat fish and sustain ...
Therefore, no matter whether it is a twin island in North America or Cape Breton Island, as long as it is sent to fishermen and fishing boats, immigrants there will not worry about eating and drinking.
Only Grenada is more troublesome. It is not that Grenada has no fish and is not suitable for fishing, but because there are more warlike and cruel Caribbeans in the Caribbean.
In the Caribbean, the Caribbean people drove huge canoes and were good at using spears and javelins. If the fishermen go fishing in the sea, if they are spotted by the Caribbean canoes, it is easy to be rounded up. With the urinary nature of the Caribbean, none of the male fishermen caught by them could survive.
Therefore, fishing in the Caribbean Sea is very dangerous. And the fishermen have no fighting power, and fishing at sea risks their lives. Unlike the North American waters, the Bimei Indians rely on hunting in the forest on land, it is enough to solve the problem of food and clothing, without having to go to the sea to discuss life. The Caribbean has the largest number of islands. Caribbeans canoe on the sea and the lack of armed fishermen go to sea. It is very dangerous ...
Moreover, even on land, Grenada also needs certain defense capabilities. Because, before the Caribbean have attacked Grenada. This immigration is not easy, not only to reclaim wasteland, but also to guard against the attack of the Caribbean ...
For this reason, among these 2,000 people, Marin selected 300 brave people and specially established the Grenada Colonial Guard to protect Grenada from violation. In order to train these 300 people, Marin specially sent 10 experienced team captains to accompany them to Grenada to serve as officers of this unit.
Not only that, Marin specially allocated a ship of cement and bricks to the Grenada colony for use. After all, they need to resist the attack of the Caribbean, and they need to build a fortress to ensure safety. However, it would take too long to gather stones locally and polish them into stones, which is not as fast as cement bricks.
In addition to the need to carry construction materials such as cement and bricks, Marin also allowed immigrant ships to load a lot of food and other living materials. Of course, this is not enough ...
Because reclaiming wasteland in a colony requires cattle farming and a lot of agricultural tools. The farm tools are easy to handle, so let the blacksmith shop build a batch of ships. But farming cattle is very troublesome.
Not to mention, the farming cattle that Marin bought from Poland are all yellow cattle used on the land, and they are all "dry ducks". When Marin sent people to ship those oxen, they found that most of them had seasickness ...
Marin couldn't help crying, so he had to try to ship every cow, and then he selected 100 yellow cattle without seasickness. But these oxen are not honest, and they are very dangerous when they are ramming on the ship. To be safe, Marin had to order the blacksmith to build 100 huge cages and put them on the deck to control the bullish behavior of the cattle. At the same time, because it is an iron cage, after that, cattle people can also use a broom to clean the cow dung through the cage every day, and pour it into the sea, so as not to smell the smell of the ship and cause illness.
Thinking about the disease, Marin selected a few students who were okay from Mongolian doctor Battle's disciples, followed the fleet to the colony, and treated the colonial people.
At the same time, Marin also specially selected three of the 20 priests who were good at Huyou who were taught by Taylors in the local area. They went to Grenada, North America, and Cape Breton Island to build churches to help local people. Preaching sermons and brainwashing by the way, lest the colony be free from the idea of independence ...
After preparing everything, 12 ships, carrying 800 immigrants, 100 cattle, and a large amount of food and living supplies, were divided into two routes and went to Grenada, North America, and Cape Breton Island.
Although there are three colonies, the two islands in North America and Cape Breton Island are all the same. The two islands are also relatively close, and the ships going to take the North Atlantic route, that is, the road when Amerigo returned.
And Grenada, it is a single route, the route that Columbus explored before. That is, first go south along the Canary cold current, arrive in the Canary Islands for some resupply, then continue south, then follow the equator compensation current and east wind, all the way west to the windward islands.
Moreover, in the Canary Islands, Marin had already sent people there to buy a lot of sugar cane seedlings, and bought a group of Moorish slaves who were originally controlled by the Spanish to work in sugar cane gardens.
These Moorish slaves who know how to grow sugar cane, after arriving in Grenada, will reclaim the wasteland with the help of immigrants and plant those sugar cane seedlings. Then, Marin can wait for Grenadine to become a sugar producing place ...
In addition, Marin also asked immigrants from Grenada and immigrants from the two islands in North America to bring a bag of soybeans and try to plant them in the past. These soybeans were purchased by Columbus and Draka before in India. Grenada has a hot climate, and similar to India, there is no problem in growing soybeans. However, the two islands of North America, Marin, dare not guarantee it. After all, this is an Indian soybean variety that is suitable for tropical climates, not necessarily North American climates. But if it is successfully planted in the two islands of North America, it is a great surprise.
After all, North America is vast and close to Europe. If the soybean is produced in North America, it will be convenient to ship back to Europe. If the soybean is produced in Grenada, the transportation time is too long ...
Know that soybeans are the standard warhorse feed for modern cavalry. In modern cavalry, basically every horse has a ruffle around its neck, which contains one or twenty pounds of fried soybeans. Whenever the horse is tired from running, the cavalry will grab a handful of fried soybeans to make up for the horse ...
Marin is determined to build a huge cavalry force, and naturally he must pay attention to the cultivation of war horse feed. It is a pity that the latitude in Europe is high and the temperature in summer is also low. In addition, in the "little ice age", it is not suitable for soybean cultivation (Southern Europe is suitable). Even in later generations, the United Kingdom and Germany did not grow soybeans, and basically imported from the United States.
The latitudes of the two islands in North America are about the same as that of Beijing and Tianjin. They are about suitable for soybean cultivation, but I hope that the soybeans of Indian varieties should be more resistant to cold ... In addition, there are many oak trees on the island, which is very suitable for shipbuilding ...
And Cape Breton Island, it seems that it is also suitable for the cultivation of cold-resistant crops such as rye. For soybeans, Marin is not sure. In fact, although Cape Breton Island is close to Harbin (the **** area is alphabetized), because of the seaside, the summer temperature is not as high as Harbin ~ www.wuxiaspot.com ~ If it is later generations, it may be suitable for soybean cultivation, but, Because it is in the "Little Ice Age", the temperature is one to two degrees lower than normal. Therefore, Marin estimates that Cape Breton Island may not be suitable for soybean cultivation at this time.
However, Cape Breton Island also has its advantages. First of all, it has coal and forest resources, which are very suitable for the development of papermaking. Secondly, its area is large enough, with a total area of 10,000 square kilometers. You know, the total number of North American islands is only 500 square kilometers.
With such a large land area, Marin can fully raise sheep and horses on Cape Breton Island. As long as the trees are cut down and a variety of alfalfa grasses are planted on the ground, large grass fields suitable for grazing will appear.
Although the temperature in Cape Breton Island is not high in summer, the temperature in winter is not low because of the influence of the North Atlantic warm current. It will never be like tens of degrees below zero in the northeast of the same latitude. But here there is a lot of wood, and the cost of building a barn is also low.
The area of East Friesland is too small, and there is not much room for horse breeding. Therefore, Marin needs a horse breeding ground to raise enough horses for him to supply cavalry needs. However, it is dangerous to raise horses on North American land. If the Indians get the horses, it is easy to cause the horrible er Indian cavalry to appear in advance. Therefore, it is a good choice to raise horses on an island separated from the mainland. After all, the horses originally acquired by the Indians were lost by the Spaniards. On Cape Breton Island, the horses are lost again, still on the island, they will not swim to the mainland on their own ...
Wait until the three American colonies developed, when Grenada provided sucrose and spices; Cape Breton Island provided paper and war horses; North American twin islands provided soybeans and warships, and served as a springboard for invading the North American continent ...
In the face of a bright future, Marin has unlimited expectations ...