King of German Mercenaries

Although it has been decided to marry Angela, Marin does not plan to get married immediately because it is too hasty. After all, as the lord of a country, even if it is the lord of a small vassal state, the wedding must be held in a grander manner. At least, you have to have a foreign guest to attend, right?

However, with Marin's current diplomatic situation, he could only invite guests from the Principality of Clifford and the Teutonic Knights at most. Moreover, it takes a long time to come and go to a Teutonic wedding. In addition, it will be March in two months, and we will be busy with spring plowing. Simply put, Marin decided to schedule the wedding in April after the spring ploughing.

In late April, the spring farming was over, and everyone was free to attend the wedding. Moreover, when the flowers are blooming, it is the most beautiful time of spring.

Marin carefully asked for Angela's opinion, and Angela agreed with a blushing face, almost without any hesitation. Angela was very willing to marry Marin, and Marin's tampered private letter with Archbishop Rovere also agreed. So, in the face of Marin's unofficial marriage proposal, he agreed immediately...

"Very good, Angela, I am so lucky to be able to marry you! I will send someone to Portugal to order large diamonds and make large diamond rings..."

In this era of Europe, diamonds were considered a symbol of imperial power for generations. Before the 15th century, generally only royalty and royalty were eligible to wear diamonds. However, after entering the 15th century, many nobles also began to wear diamonds. At least, among those princes and nobles, it became very popular to wear diamonds.

In this era, the Portuguese often went to the west coast of Africa to trade worthless gadgets with African black uncles for gold and diamonds. Therefore, there are still more diamonds on their side. After all, Africa is an important region for diamond production.

It happened that Marin set the wedding at the end of April, and there are still more than 3 months from now. To buy diamonds and ask the master to process them into diamond rings, there is still enough time.

In addition, Marin also sent someone to Lyon, the center of the European silk industry, to order a pure silk white wedding dress. At the same time, a luxury four-wheeled carriage inlaid with gold began to be built...

In this era, Europe also had silk. However, the level of sericulture and silk weaving of Europeans is relatively backward, and they cannot keep up with the East, so they are obsessed with oriental silk. But even so, being able to wear silk clothes produced in Lyon is also one of the pursuits of the nobles.

Usually, the great nobles wear silk robes to show their prominence. Only Marin, who had seen a lot of silk in his previous life and had raised silkworms at home, was not interested in silk.

Therefore, Marin usually wears wool clothes, and does not like to wear robes, but prefers to wear short and convenient clothes worn by the 19th century nobles in lace.

It was precisely because of the beginning of the 18th and 19th centuries that Europeans began to abandon the inconvenient robes and wear short clothes, that the silk trade declined and was replaced by the tea trade and the sugar trade. After all, silk people are usually used to make robes. Of course, the later silk trade was not bad either. Because, after all, men don't wear silk anymore, but women's skirts still need silk. However, later noble men no longer wore silk robes.

For these arrangements of Marin, Angela expressed very happy. After all, women are all a little vanity. They like to be the protagonist of a grand wedding and make others envious...

...

While preparing for the wedding, Marin is about to arrange spring ploughing. From the hands of the original nobles, they used bloody means to grab 70,000 Ugram's arable land, not for decoration...

Although, Marin rewarded a lot of land to his subordinates out of need. However, there are still 60,000 Ugram arable land in his hands. This time, Marin rewarded a lot of money to his subordinates, but he was very stingy with land and didn't reward him much.

At this time in East Frisland, there were only more than 80,000 arable land in Eugram.

Among them, 60,000 are in the hands of Marin, and 10,000 are in the hands of Marin. There are still 10,000 in the hands of the original local nobles who have surrendered to Marin.

Although he had to be tax-free for three years, Marin didn't care. He shamelessly grabbed most of the arable land in East Frisian Country, and he still cares about the tax? As long as the fields are well cultivated, there will be great benefits.

If you want to grow the fields well, you naturally need fertilizers...

So, now, Marin is very worried about the fertilizer problem.

Marin's fertilizer is naturally mixed with manure, plant ash, fish scraps, and some potash. However, Marin was reluctant to disclose this technology to others.

After all, if others also know the secret of fertilizer, Marin will not be able to form a technological monopoly, and the income will be greatly reduced.

Before, he was on the Wadden Islands, isolated from the mainland, and the possibility of leaking secrets was extremely small. Moreover, the serfs could not leave the land at will. Therefore, Marin can justifiably promote the application of manure and plant ash on the archipelago.

But now that East Frisian is on the mainland, if manure is vigorously promoted, it is equivalent to telling others. Especially in the county of Lyle, the Bishopric of Münster is on the south, and the Archbishopric of Utrecht and West Frisian is connected to the west. It is impossible to promote the use of manure and then go undetected.

So Marin decided to do it another way...

For example, the feces were collected, processed into dry and hard solids, ground into powder, and then distributed to serfs for use. After the feces are dried and air-dried, they are different from the original appearance. At least, the smell has become very light.

The feces are very smelly at first, but with prolonged exposure to the sun and air-drying, the smell will become less and less. By the time the air-dried dung block is in front of you, you can't be sure if it's a dung block. Because, in people's common sense, feces should be very smelly...

In his previous life, Marin was from a rural area, and naturally he had seen adults process feces into feces. Often, farmers first sort out a large piece of open space, mix dung, grass ash, and even some hay and river mud, and put it on the open space to expose and air dry.

Plant ash is a weak natural potassium fertilizer. As for river mud, because fish often poop on river mud, it is actually rich in nutrients and contains a certain amount of phosphorus. As for hay, it goes without saying that its composition is not much different from grass ash. After all, grass ash is what hay burns...

Once these are mixed together, the color changes. Because of the addition of river mud and plant ash, the dark yellow color of the feces has become a little darker. After the final air-drying, most of the odor has dissipated, and most people cannot confirm that it is feces. In addition to the odor becoming very light, the color has also been blackened by grass ash and river mud, making it unrecognizable...

Moreover, manure cannot be applied directly to the field, because it will burn the seedlings. Before, on Texel Island, Marin used a pool to make manure, which was also a method, but that was to take into account the extraction of nitrate. In fact, that method did not turn the feces into dry lumps as well. Of course, the manure from Texel can also be processed into dry blocks with equally good results.

It's just that Marin was too lazy to do it at the time. After all, when he was on the island, he was full of expansion and expansion...

Now that East Friesland has been won, Marin starts thinking about focusing on farming. After all, he already has 60,000 Ugram farmland in his hands. With the 10,000 Eugrams on the Wadden Islands, he is now a super-landlord with 70,000 Eugrams. Converted into mu, there are 840,000 mu and 8,400 hectares. Although it is not as good as the 20,000 hectares of Zhu Changxun, the famous rich and famous prince, he is still a super landowner. After all, in the Ming Dynasty, like Zhu Changxun, there were very few even princes who owned 20,000 hectares of land. Many ministers have been awarded land, and they have been given hundreds of thousands of acres at a time, which is considered a great grace.

The 10,000 mu of fertile land owned by big landlords like Liu Wencai is really nothing in front of the 840,000 mu of Marin...

In fact, Marin had actually seen the processing of fecal blocks once in his previous life. Moreover, when he was very young, he saw Uncle Tai make it. Uncle Tai is an old-fashioned farmer who naturally likes to use natural fertilizers. It's just that the uncle died early, so Marin wasn't too impressed. It's just that this time I thought of keeping it secret, and I accidentally remembered the process of seeing my great uncle who was still alive when I was a few years old processing dung.

After the death of the great uncle, there were basically no farmers in the village who were willing to process dung. Because, at that time, the use of chemical fertilizers had been promoted. Fertilizers are more effective than manure blocks, and processed manure blocks are smelly. Therefore, the peasants younger than the uncle Tai are reluctant to use clean fertilizers, and the effect is even better.

However, in the era of Marin, it is unrealistic to obtain chemical fertilizers, and the synthesis of ammonia requires a very strong industrial base, and the equipment requirements are very high. So, Marin can only continue to rely on manure.

What is stronger than the direct application of manure to the ground is the processed manure block. What's more, Marin will also add a lot of fish-killing scraps, fish bones, and some potassium salts when processing the dung blocks. This kind of fertilizer is basically equivalent to a weak compound fertilizer.

Moreover, the fertilizer blocks that are made out, others can't see what it is...

After all, the longer the fecal block is, the less smelly it will be. In addition, the color has been changed, and the material has been added. If ordinary people can see it, it will be really amazing.

You know, the Mongolians on the grasslands, because there are no trees to cut. Therefore, they make a fire to cook without firewood or coal, but with dry sheep dung.

Sheep manure can be burned, and the odor is relatively mild. On the grasslands, the climate is dry and windy, and it is easier to expose and air-dry sheep dung eggs. The air-dried sheep dung has a very small odor, and it is very good to use as fuel. Similarly, the dung of cows that graze like sheep can also be used as fuel to burn. And if it stinks, no one wants their kitchen to be full of stinky smells...

Therefore, the dried feces have no odor. The longer it dries, the less smelly...

However, Marin is relatively short of time now, and has no time to dry the feces for a few months. Because spring ploughing is coming, he has at most a month to dry the excrement.

Therefore, he immediately ordered a large number of serfs to be dispatched to collect feces uniformly in the whole East Frisian country for the processing of fecal blocks.

In order to facilitate the collection, Marin divided the land of about 3,200 square kilometers in the country (not counting the Wadden Islands, where there is no need to process dung blocks because of the convenience of confidentiality), and divided it into 60 divisions. Go door-to-door to collect feces, wearing a face covering, using carts and buckets.

As for the reasons for collecting feces, the first is naturally to be clean and hygienic and to facilitate people's lives. This is especially important for city dwellers. Because there are many people in the city, and if no one collects the feces, it stinks to death. Whether it was Emden or Aurich, when Marin walked into the alleys of the residential area, he could always smell a faint stench. This is still winter, and the taste is not great. If it is replaced by summer, it will be intoxicating...

Marin proposed a unified collection of feces, and it was free, which really helped the citizens a lot. Everyone wholeheartedly supports this move.

Another reason is also very high-sounding - Earl Marin will use feces to extract saltpeter for national security...

This reason is also very tenable, because with the gradual popularization of artillery and muskets, the demand for saltpeter is indeed increasing. Earl of Marin collects a lot of saltpeter, and it is indeed reasonable. The people saw that dozens of cast-iron cannons were erected at the city heads of Aurich and Emden. These guns are so large in caliber (12 lbs), it's amazing how much saltpeter they cost...  

In fact, Marin originally planned to collect the saltpeter before processing the dung blocks. However, the time is very short, and the spring ploughing will be soon. Therefore, this time, Marin gave up the nitrate extraction and used it directly for fertilizer processing...

As for the processing of manure blocks, Marin has set up 6 processing points across the country, all of which are very hidden places. For the feces of the 60 feces collection points across the country, a hidden processing plant is set up every 10 points. The workers in the processing plant are all serfs under the control of Marin, and there is not a single foreign employee. In this way, the secret of dung processing is difficult to leak out.

At the same time, Marin also asked the serfs who collected the dung to take into account the collection of plant ashes. But the grass ash marin is for money, the reason is that it is used to extract alkali, to make soap or something. Of course, how much is grass ash worth? A large carload of grass and tree ash, give a small silver coin to Finney, even if it is sent...

The plant ash is transported to the processing plant, where it is made into a very powerful compound fertilizer block, together with the fish scraps that Marin brought from the Wadden Islands, and the potash shipped from the bitter salt mine that Marin arranged to buy from Kohler. . This powerful compound fertilizer block can not only be used as a base fertilizer, but also can be used for topdressing in the middle. Ash is very powerful...