The Rise of the European Emperor

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"Deduction? Deduction of what?" Elector Frederick III of Saxony was a little puzzled.

"Deduce how you can destroy me! Didn't you threaten to destroy the Beihai country? Well, now, let's make a public deduction to see if we can destroy the Beihai country!" Marin replied confidently.

The princes looked at each other, but they all became angry-this guy is so arrogant!

Anthony, Duke of Lorraine said angrily:

"Marin, don't think that because of the strength of the Beihai State, you are defiant! Although your Beihai State is strong, if our princes unite and can gather an army of more than 100,000 to 200,000 troops, are you afraid that you will not be able to defeat your Beihai State?"

Marin sneered and said:

"I know that if you put all your resources into it, you might be able to gather an army of two hundred thousand. But, everyone, do you have enough money and food to support an army of two hundred thousand?"

After a pause, Marin continued:

"At that time, the North Sea Kingdom doesn't need to fight head-on with you. It just needs to stick to the fortress and delay the time. With your financial strength, if you delay for two or three months, many of you will go bankrupt!"

The faces of the princes suddenly changed, because Marin spoke to their hearts. It's no problem to gather an army of more than 200,000 people. If there are not enough people, you can pretend to be farmers as conscripts to make up the number. However, the problem of money and food is difficult to solve.

There are more than 200,000 young and strong, including civilian husbands, at least 500,000. During the war, an army of 500,000 people consumed at least 500,000 or 600,000 pounds of grain every day. If it is delayed for three months, it will be 40 to 50 million pounds. And the price of rye per pound is 1 pfennig, so 50 million pounds is 50 million pfennigs, which is worth more than 830,000 gold coins.

This is only the consumption of food, in addition, there is also a salary to be paid. With an army of more than 200,000, at least 100,000 must be mercenaries. For 100,000 mercenaries, according to the employment amount of 3 pfennigs per person per day, it would cost 300,000 pfennigs per day, or 27 million pfennigs in three months.

But the real situation is not calculated like this, the actual consumption is much higher than this. Because it is impossible for an officer's salary to be 3 Finneys a day, which is much higher than this. For example, the daily salary of an ordinary knight is 1 shilling and 8 pfennigs, which is 20 pfennigs per day. The commission of general junior military officers is the same as this, but the daily salary of higher-level military officers is much higher.

For example, in Napoleon's French army, the price was less than one franc. Recruits are even worse. The daily salary of a French captain is as high as 8 francs, more than eight times that of ordinary soldiers. The daily salary of the commander of the army group and the chief of military supplies is as high as 100 francs, which is more than a hundred times that of ordinary soldiers. The marshal's daily salary is 111 francs, which is more than 110 times the daily salary of ordinary soldiers.

Therefore, the salary expenditure required by an army of more than 200,000 troops is far more than 300,000 Finneys per day, and should exceed 400,000 Finneys.

In addition, the food consumption of war horses in the army is also an extremely terrifying figure. Generally, the daily food consumption of a horse is more than five times that of a human. For example, in the French military drills, it is just over 10 pounds.

According to this standard, with 10,000 war horses, the daily food consumption would be equivalent to the consumption of 100,000 troops...

However, the core military strength of each vassal state is precisely those plate armored knights. It is estimated that there are more than 200,000 noble children in Germany who are suitable for plate armor and heavy cavalry. Of course, there are tens of thousands of people who belong to the emperor's camp. The anti-Habsburg alliance can mobilize at most a hundred thousand.

But the general power of knights is really unusable. A knight will bring 5 attendants when he goes out to fight. Moreover, knights have spare horses and consume a lot of food every day. As for the knight attendants, at least two or three battle attendants also rode horses, and their horse feed was also provided by the party sending troops.

If 100,000 plate armored knights are dispatched, at least 400,000 horses will be fed every day just to feed the horses. And the food consumption of horses is more than five times that of ordinary people no matter how they save. So, this is going to be scary!

In the face of extremely huge expenses, the poor German princes, at most tens of thousands of plate armored heavy cavalry, and a large number of auxiliary light cavalry,

and conscripts.

No matter how economical you are, if you build an army according to the scale of 200,000 troops, when the time comes to fight, once you fall into a protracted war, the finances of the princes will definitely collapse!

...

This is by no means a joke. You must know that in the whole of Europe, apart from Marin, who is good at bombing city gates and burning city gates with gasoline barrels, other countries seriously lack the means to break the city. Therefore, to conquer a fortress often requires siege for several months or even more than a year. If you encounter a very strong city, it is possible to besiege it for several years.

However, whether it is Marin or Frederick III and other princes, it is very clear that the princes simply do not have the money and food needed to besiege the cities of the North Sea State for a long time...

"We can snatch the money and food from the North Sea country for our own use!" Duke Anthony's eyes lit up and he deduced.

Marin shook his head with a smile and said:

"Your Excellency Anthony, you may be disappointed. The granaries of the North Sea Kingdom are basically built by the big river, and the Münster Canal leads directly to Aurich. Moreover, every granary is stationed by loyal troops. If the army of the princes really breaks into the The Beihai Kingdom is over. Those loyal troops guarding the granary either transported the grain away by river or set it on fire! Therefore, there is no problem of seizing grain from us to feed the army. Maybe you can seize some scattered grain , but will definitely not seize the big granary."

"Burn? Are you crazy? The locals don't want to eat food?" Duke Anthony didn't understand.

Marin sneered:

"Hmph, don't burn it, are you still waiting to be snatched by your army? I know very well that mercenaries crossing the border, grabbing food is just a basic operation. Even if I leave the food in the granary, your army will never divide it. The food is given to the local people. Therefore, as long as the enemy falls, the local people will inevitably starve to death. Instead of this, it is better to ignore it when the enemy invades and just burn the stock directly!"

"It's a big deal, everyone will starve to death together! The ones I starved to death are just some ordinary farmers, and I can recruit them later. And the ones you starved to death are a large number of soldiers. Let's see who gets the best deal!"

"This move is called 'hardening the wall and clearing the field' in the military. It will not leave any food for the invading army!"

...

"What a vicious 'hardening the wall and clearing the wild'!" The princes suddenly felt their scalps go numb. With an army of two hundred thousand, if there is a shortage of food, let alone killing the enemy, there may be direct internal strife.

Then, everyone continued to deduce. Duke Anthony suggested that - not only can we gather an army of more than 100,000 to 200,000 troops, but the French side can also gather an army of more than 100,000 troops! If the two join forces, it will be no problem to break through the North Sea Kingdom.

After Marin glanced at Duke Anthony meaningfully, he asked:

"My lord, are you a great lord of Germany, or a servant of the French? Your position is very wrong. First of all, you are a great lord of Germany, and your main fief is in Germany, not France! When considering the problem, Please put the interests of Germany first, not the interests of France!"

Marin is quite disgusted with this man, he is obviously a German, but he only considers France. In history, after the death of Maximilian I, when he ran for the emperor, this guy launched Francois I to compete with Charles V! Who is Francois I? That is the king of France! If he becomes emperor, then France will have an excuse to annex Germany. At that time, the whole of Germany will be finished. Fortunately, Frederick III, the Elector of Saxony, was relatively sober and was not blinded by the conflict with the Habsburg family. He took the lead in choosing Charles V of the Habsburg family and rejected the French king, so that the German region was not destroyed. The French found an excuse to annex.

To use one word to describe the Duke, that is—deceitful...

Of course, this has something to do with his upbringing. The duke had an excellent relationship with the late French King Louis XII. Even, he and his brother Claude lived in the French court of Louis XII for eight years until they returned to China in 1508 to inherit the Duke of Lorraine.

Even, in the original history, this guy joined the French army twice and entered Italy, once with Louis XII and once with Francois I.

Of course, because of Marin's relationship in this time and space, the time when Louis XII marched into Italy changed, and Anthony did not participate. Otherwise, Marin could point at his nose and curse directly.

In addition to being raised at the French court, Duke Anthony was also the Duke of Bar in France. But the duke of France actually has no real power. After all, the French kingship is centralized, and the duke has little real power. But this Duke Anthony, who is so stubborn, loves France and doesn't love Germany.

Moreover, he had an excellent personal relationship with Francois I, which is why he elected Francois I as emperor in 1519. But no matter how good your personal relationship is, you can’t ignore Shinra’s interests and let a Frenchman be the emperor of Shinra! So, this guy is a traitor of Shinra!