The Rise of the European Emperor

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Opening the bag, the French looked at the dark gray "volcanic ash", smelled it, tasted it, but didn't notice anything special. Fortunately, Marin had already upgraded the manure to vermicompost, and the Frenchman didn't taste the sour taste of manure. Otherwise, it will be exposed.

In fact, vermicompost is very similar to soil. Although it is not smelly, it also has an earthy smell. Therefore, Marin mixed some plant ash and real stone powder into it to cover up the smell of earth. Those stone powders are actually the leftovers when the masons in the quarry process the stones. There are stone powders and crushed stones.

Then, Marin organized some labor, crushed with medicine stepped on by feet, repeatedly crushed, and crushed most of the stones. There are also some gravels that were smashed with hydraulic forging hammers.

But the hydraulic forging hammer can only crush large stones, but cannot smash them finely. And the windmill mill is a stone mill, and it is not suitable for crushing stones, which will damage the stone mill. Therefore, Marin simply took out a batch of iron medicine grinders and asked some women who had no work to crush the stones. Just right, give some food subsidies or change.

The spring plowing in Beihai country has ended, because the rye is planted, and there is little need for management, and most people are idle. For this reason, Marin asked the men in the Harz Mountains to chisel stones, and the women to knock stones and crush gravel. These are all beneficial. Of course, Marin also paid for it. Grain, or brass coins will do.

The stone blocks can be processed into ashlar for building and used to build castles or churches. Gravel can be used as stone paving. But this time, Marin asked the women to crush the stones with medicine to deal with the French.

After all, you said it was volcanic ash. Volcano, it must be a rocky mountain. Volcanic ash, there must be some small stones, right? Therefore, Marin did not ask for the stone powder to be completely crushed, but kept some small fine stones to prove that it was "from the mountain".

Sure enough, seeing those doped fine stones, the French did not suspect that it was not volcanic ash. If it was pure vermicompost, the French might suspect it.

Marin didn't know that the French were actually thinking about Iceland now. After all, if you own Iceland, you own Iceland's "volcanic ash". But the premise is that the French must first suppress England. Otherwise, if you send a few ships, you will be intercepted and killed by England, which is meaningless.

But the recent results of the French are not very good, because the English Channel is windy in spring, which is good for sailing ships, but not very friendly for the French Calais. Therefore, more attacks on the coast of England will have to wait until summer.

However, the French did not know that the secret of the Calais ship had been fully disclosed to England by Marin. Today, England's shipyards have begun to build Calais ships, and they also recruit Italian captains to instruct them on how to control the galleys.

For the actions of the English, the Spanish Kingdom of Aragon gave strong support. Although because of the death of Princess Catherine, Spain and England almost turned their faces. But under the huge threat of the possible rise of the French navy, the Spaniards decisively let go of their prejudices and joined forces with the English.

Then, the Kingdom of Aragon, also proficient in galleys, sent a large number of naval officers to England as instructors. Moreover, the construction of galleys by England shipyards also received technical support from the Kingdom of Aragon.

In short, even in the summer, it is difficult for the French to find a bargain. Because the English also have warships and tactics similar to theirs.

...

Not only France and England are preparing for the summer conflict, Austria in the south, Emperor Maximilian I, is also actively preparing for war.

Marin has already sent a batch of export version of the "Jiangnan Leather Factory" armor, that is, leather-bound armor with steel plates inserted. This kind of plate armor does not affect the movement like the plate armor, and the connection method is a flexible connection. It is convenient to wear, and does not affect activities after being put on. Especially cavalry, can do some more difficult movements on horseback. For example, avoiding the collision of the opponent's spear or something.

If you're wearing plate armor, would you try bending over? Feel sorry,

People are immobilized. It's like a splint on the arm joint, and it can't be bent anymore.

Therefore, in the 18th century, after the Europeans came up with simple cuirassiers, they did not wear complete upper body armor, but wore three-quarters of the breastplate, or even two-thirds of the breastplate. The waist is left free so that the cavalry can move around on horseback.

Especially in the age of firearms, if you sit upright on horseback, you are very likely to be shot. But if you charge on horseback and wear a helmet on your head, your safety will be greatly improved.

Of course, that was the situation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Right now, the biggest significance of this kind of board leather wrapping armor is that it is cheap... and the second biggest significance is that you don't need to be waited on by someone to mount the horse...

Ordinary plate armor knights can walk well after wearing a full set of plate armor. Can be mounted... the plate armor pants will greatly affect the flexibility of mounting. It is easy to fail if you go on the horse alone.

Therefore, in case of war, plate armor knights must bring attendants. Even if he has no attendants, such as heavy cavalry, the officer will arrange light cavalry to serve the heavy cavalry and help them mount their horses.

Before, when Marin was a wandering knight, he didn't wear plate armor pants. Although it was because he didn't have them, it was also convenient for him to get on and off his horse. But even if you don't wear plate armor trousers, getting on and off the horse is actually not very convenient. Because, the breast plate armor of the whole body, the waist cannot be twisted casually to exert force, which greatly affects the efficiency of getting on the horse.

Therefore, Maozi from Eastern Europe and native chickens from West Asia are unwilling to learn and adopt even if they come into contact with plate armor from Western Europe. Because, this is too inconvenient. In the face of guns and artillery, the oriental armor and chain mail are the same as the plate armor of Western Europe, and they cannot resist. Therefore, they are too lazy to learn. As for muskets, the Ottomans learned a lot. Musketeers from the Balkans were also the absolute heroes of Ottoman Turkey's defeat of the Persian Safavid Empire and the Egyptian Mamluk Dynasty.

...

There are 3,000 sets of the board leather bandage armor that Marin gave to the emperor this time, plus the matching horse armor, and each set only costs 25 gold coins. It is simply jumping the price of the building and soaring the price of blood!

In fact, the emperor himself did it. He ordered people to imitate it with 500 sets of board leather bandages sent by Marin before. There is nothing to do with purses and nails, everyone is at the same level, and the cost difference is not too much.

However, when it was Jia's turn, the emperor was a little dumbfounded. why? The nail plate produced in Austria is not only not as strong as the high-carbon steel plate in the North Sea country, but also costs a lot.

It should be pointed out that the high-carbon steel in Beihai is first smelted pig iron in an iron-making blast furnace. Then, put the pig iron into the crucible furnace, and use the crucible steelmaking method to smelt high-carbon steel. Because it is located in the Ruhr area, Marin can't run out of coal, and the cost is very low.

But Austria is more miserable, there are no coal mines here, only charcoal can be used. Charcoal is processed from wood, and the cost is much higher than coal. Moreover, the furnace temperature is also difficult to reach the furnace temperature of coal combustion.

Therefore, ironmaking furnaces are not widely used in Austria now. Many blacksmith shops are still producing iron ingots with block iron smelting technology. However, block iron has many impurities and poor quality, requiring blacksmiths to repeatedly heat and beat it on charcoal fires.

The process of beating is also a process of refining. The impurities in the iron are gradually squeezed out, and at the same time, the charcoal fire also has carbon elements infiltrated into the surface of the wrought iron, realizing partial carburization.

However, this process is too long. Moreover, due to the difference in the skills of the forging masters, the quality is very unstable. However, the quality of Master's products is stable, and the quality is not much worse than Beihai's high-carbon steel. However, the wages are also expensive!

Therefore, the emperor was surprised to find that according to the processing cost in Austria, this set of 25 gold coin plate leather bandages was a loss-making business.

In this regard, Marin's explanation is that a large number of experienced blacksmiths were recruited from Italy at the beginning, with good craftsmanship, and many high-level apprentices were also trained. In addition, Beihai has a lot of coal, which is cheaper than using charcoal...

But even so, the emperor was very moved. He wrote back to Marin and said - Ai Qing is really a loyal minister!