The Rise of the European Emperor

After Marin sorted out the information on the two golden kingdoms, he sent people to Rome to send a letter to his father-in-law Julius II, advising his father-in-law to redefine the Treaty of Tordesillas. ”, the two golden kingdoms were added as negotiating conditions and distributed to Spain and Portugal.

This time, Marin planned to ask his father-in-law to help Spain on the surface, but actually cheated Spain. Of course, to help Spain on the bright side is to pit Portugal in the red fruit. But Portugal is not a soft persimmon, and it still needs an excuse.

So, Marin has already helped Julius II come up with an excuse...

To make an excuse, it is Spain's contribution to the Catholic world. For example, in 1492 Spain destroyed the Kingdom of Granada and drove the Green Cult forces out of the Iberian Peninsula. Strictly speaking, this is a significant credit to Catholicism.

Therefore, the Holy See can use Spain's contribution to the development of Catholicism as an excuse to favor Spain. As for the Portuguese, although the great voyage was very lively, it did not contribute much to the religious cause.

Basically, Portugal is a country that is also a businessman and a pirate. The whole country is engaged in large voyages not to spread Catholicism, but for profit.

Unlike the Spanish kings, the couple are the most devout Catholics. Although it is said that the capture of the Kingdom of Granada is a territorial expansion, not a purely religious act. But it's true that the couple are fervent Catholics. In 1478, Queen Isabella set up the notorious Inquisition to persecute pagans and maintain Catholic orthodoxy.

Therefore, from the perspective of the Holy See, Spain's contribution to Catholicism is greater than that of Portugal, and it is reasonable to favor Spain.

Of course, the Portuguese cannot be said to have contributed nothing to the spread of Catholicism. For example, the Kingdom of Congo in Africa was influenced by Catholic missionaries.

In 1506, the new king of the Congo, Alfonso I, was a Catholic. Since then, the Kingdom of Congo has also designated Catholicism as the state religion.

But unfortunately, Alfonso I will not succeed to the throne until 1506. Now, Alfonso I is just a prince, and his influence on the Kingdom of Congo is still very limited.

Therefore, Portugal cannot currently take the Kingdom of Congo's conversion to Catholicism as its own credit. Because it hasn't come true yet...

Before the Kingdom of Congo converted to Catholicism, the Kingdom of Portugal's religious contribution was indeed not worthy of carrying shoes for Spain. Therefore, it is not too much for the Holy See to favor Spain.

In short, Portugal can only suffer this time.

Of course, Marin released two golden kingdoms as bait, and if he swallowed one of them, it would not be a loss.

However, it is impossible to swallow the golden country in the African interior every ten or twenty years. After all, the climate in Africa is too harsh. Moreover, the two golden kingdoms are not without the power to fight back.

Under the scorching weather and enemy resistance, it is not easy to occupy one of the golden empires. The Mali Empire and Songhai Empire in West Africa, although not too strong, are not muddy either. Although the local indigenous people are not as good as the European army in terms of equipment and combat effectiveness, they have the advantage of being at home and adapt to the hot local climate, so it is not that they have no ability to resist.

For Spain and Portugal, on the hot African continent, it is very difficult to traverse thousands of mountains and rivers and send thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers and horses and a large amount of cargo supplies to the inland.

What's more, if you want to control the gold producing areas in West Africa, you need to destroy the two great empires of Mali Empire and Songhai Empire. If you want to control Great Zimbabwe, you must first destroy the small coastal country established by the Swahili (a mixture of Arabs and blacks) on the coast of Mozambique, and then go deep inland and attack the city of Great Zimbabwe. At the same time, it is also very troublesome to transport troops from the mainland to the coast of Mozambique. After all, they are far apart. The use of ships to transport troops is very restricted.

As long as Spain and Portugal fall into these two big pits, then Marin can secretly expand his power in the Americas. At the same time, by the way, we will open up the route from Panama to Daming.

Although it is said that from Panama to Daming, the distance may be farther than the Cape of Good Hope. However, this route, because it is east-west, can make full use of the monsoon, and the journey is smooth, and it takes less time than the Cape of Good Hope. It's not like taking the Cape of Good Hope route, which always changes the wind direction, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against the wind.

...

After mailing the letter, Marin went to work.

Prime Minister Geoffrey came to Marin's office and asked Marin what to do with the boatload of paper. After all, that boat of paper was a huge amount.

Because of the low cost, the craftsmen of the shipyard pursue thick and thick. Therefore, the paper is made thicker. An ordinary 1 square meter piece of large white paper weighs 60 grams, and a knife (100 sheets) weighs 6 kilograms.

This time, the amount of paper sent from Cape Breton Island was a bit too much. The large white paper alone cost 10,000 dollars. In addition, there are 1,000 whale oil paper.

The weight of whale oil paper is even larger, and each piece of high-quality whale oil paper weighs 7.5 kilograms for one knife and one square meter. In other words, the total weight of 10,000 knives of thick white paper and 1,000 knives of whale oil paper reached 67.5 tons.

Jeffrey was a little worried and didn't know how to use the paper, so he asked Marin to make a decision.

Marin thought about it and decided to buy a movable type printing press (invented by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1450) to print a hundred Bibles. Then, print a batch of textbooks for noble schools.

As for the artisan school for the common people, Marin does not plan to print textbooks for them for the time being. Because that's too dazzling. You know, in Europe at this time, paper is still very expensive and belongs to luxury. It would be too conspicuous to get a textbook for each of the children in the civilian school. Therefore, Marin decided to print a textbook for each class for ordinary children. For the rest, let's use the sand table to write for the time being, which is the most economical...

In addition, according to a report Geoffrey mentioned earlier, Marin decided - in the counties of East Friesland and Oldenburg, as well as in the Principality of Schleswig, to introduce paper invoices.

The so-called invoice is the receipt of payment. As for why Marin promotes paper invoices, it is because, according to a previous report by Jeffrey, some unscrupulous tax collectors, taking advantage of the existing features of tax collection without vouchers, have repeatedly taxed and extorted some businessmen. blackmail.

The crux of the matter is that unless it is a big businessman, with a large volume of goods and a large amount of tax, the tax collector will issue an invoice made of parchment. And those small businessmen, who were originally small businesses and paid low taxes, naturally did not need expensive parchment vouchers.

Therefore, some black-hearted tax collectors take advantage of the fact that small businessmen pay taxes and do not need to issue invoices, denying those poor small businessmen that they have paid taxes and levying taxes repeatedly.

However, those small businessmen still have no evidence that they have paid taxes. Because they don't have the invoice proof in their hands...

Therefore, many small traders can only be extorted by some unscrupulous tax collectors. And the overpaid taxes naturally fell into the pockets of those unscrupulous tax collectors.

This situation is very unfavorable for the development of domestic business. It's just that Marin couldn't do anything before. Those small businessmen said that they had paid the tax, but they couldn't come up with the vouchers. If you have a lawsuit, you will lose.

And if they were to issue parchment paper or vouchers made of expensive paper to those small traders, the cost would be too high. Therefore, this problem has been difficult to solve.

But now it's different, Cape Breton Island's paper mills can mass-produce cheap paper. At this time, the time is ripe to quit paper invoices.

Because of the low cost of paper, Marin was able to issue a large number of invoice books to each tax officer, allowing them to issue invoices after each tax collection. Although there is no carbon paper, Marin can ask the tax officer to issue two copies, one for keeping on file and one for the merchant as a receipt. In this way, it is very convenient to check the finances, so as not to be taken advantage of by some greedy tax collectors. Moreover, ordinary merchants also avoided being bullied by tax collectors, which was beneficial to the prosperity of the market.

At the same time, the use of cheap paper invoices to replace the parchment paper vouchers used in small quantities can also save a lot of costs.

However, the invoice paper obviously does not need 60 grams per square meter of standard writing paper, only 45 grams per square meter of C-class paper (A-class paper is 75 grams per square meter; B-class paper is 60 grams per square meter; C-class paper is 45 grams per square meter per square meter) is sufficient.

Marin decided to notify the Cape Breton Island Paper Mill to produce more C and other paper next time and send it over. Then, cut and bind it into an invoice book, and promote it to the tax officials in various towns to strengthen tax management, so that the The country, the market order, let the economy develop healthily...