King of German Mercenaries

Before the spring ploughing had begun, and with the reorganization of officials, Marin ordered Kohler, the freshly-baked acting finance minister, to send someone to find out the land composition of the counties of East Friesland. For example, how much arable land, how many forests, how many grasslands, how many...

In addition to sending people to understand the situation on the spot, Kohler also asked Jeffrey for the old data that the country had counted. After all, the former lord must have done this too.

Of course, Marin understands this data in order to plan and adjust the industrial structure. In the past, East Frisian did this mainly for the convenience of taxation. After all, the rulers of the feudal era were most afraid that their subordinates would conceal the amount of arable land and population. Because of this, it will lead to the loss of the ruler's taxation.

If it was an extremely large country like the Ming Empire, it would be estimated that the workload would be enormous to conduct a census of the country's population and land. However, East Friesland is different. Leaving aside the semi-independent Jever, East Friesland has a total area of ​​only about 3,200 square kilometers, which is only equivalent to a relatively small prefecture-level city in later China, or the size of two or three counties.

It is easy to conduct a census in such a small area. So, after a month of work, with reference to the old data, Kohler handed over the report to Marin...

"What? Kohler, are you mistaken? One-third of the country's land is swampland?" Marin almost lost his footing when he saw the report. 33% of the country's land is swamp, is it amazing?

Before, when playing Europa Universalis, Marin also used East Frisian as the starting point, and also read the introduction above. In the game, it is shown that the area of ​​East Frisian swamps is close to 40%. In this regard, Marin is obviously not convinced. Because, if 40% of a country were swamps, wouldn't it be a water park in Liangshan? "Water Margin" can be staged directly...

However, the actual data tells Marin that although 40% cannot be reached, there are also 33%...

This is also an important reason why most of the arable land in East Frisland is concentrated in the county of Lyle there. In addition to Lyle County, several other counties basically have large swamps in the territory. It is these swamps that divide the central and northern parts of East Frisian into pieces, and it is difficult to connect them into pieces. Therefore, there is very little farmland in the central and northern parts of East Friesland. Even the development efforts are very small.

Before, the reason why Marin was able to use 5,000 Ugrams of land to replace all the land on the northern coast was probably because there were too many swamps there.

In fact, the plots of land separated by swamps in the north-central East Frisian region are actually not small in size. Although some plots are surrounded or blocked by swamps, there are dozens or hundreds of acres of land. Changed to Huaxia farmers, they would have settled down in the depths of the swamp long ago, as long as the government allowed it. After all, dozens or hundreds of acres of land are considered a very small area in China. Only wealthy farmers can have so many fields. Moreover, the fields deep in these swamps have abundant fresh water resources and are easy to irrigate.

But this is in Europe, and those European lords, if they don't have hundreds of acres of flat land, they have no interest in development. Because the yield per unit of land in Europe was low, and the serfs had to keep food for themselves. So, they think, those swamps are of little value for development. Moreover, because of the difficulty of transportation in the depths of the swamp, the horses are prone to sinkholes. Therefore, the lords are reluctant to send people deep into the swamp.

Therefore, those swamps are basically deserted. Only on the edge of the swamp, some lords may keep cattle and sheep. But the breeding is also very extensive, and it is not good at storing winter feed. Therefore, before winter, cattle and sheep are slaughtered on a large scale in many places, and the meat is marinated with salt.

Of course, this is also related to their lack of high-quality pasture. Marin introduced alfalfa in the Wadden Islands. The alfalfa grass is well harvested, and feeding cattle and sheep in winter can ensure that the cattle and sheep will not lose fat. However, with the local weeds,

Because of insufficient nutrition, if it is used to feed livestock in winter, it may lead to large areas of malnutrition, and a number of livestock may die. Therefore, Europeans simply slaughtered a large number of livestock before the winter...

Therefore, in this era, Europeans have no shortage of salted meat and salted fish, and sausage is a very common food. Sailors go on voyages, especially with a lot of cured meat, eat every day, do not supplement vitamins, it is strange that there is no scurvy...

However, because everyone concentrated on slaughtering animals before winter. Therefore, there is a lot of cured meat in the winter market, and the price of meat cannot be sold at all. Even during the intensive slaughtering period, the price of meat will drop sharply. Therefore, the little aristocrats who raised livestock were also very poor and did not have much profit, so they were not as good as those who farmed the land. After all, the nobility who planted the land in the spring and harvested in the autumn, and put the grain in the warehouse, would not spoil for two or three years.

Marin knew that there were many swamps in the territories of the little nobles by the North Sea. Therefore, he can replace the territory from those lords at a low price. However, he couldn't believe that there were so many swamps in Aurich and Emden counties.

In fact, the two counties do have a lot of swamps. It's just that Marin took the road from Emden County to Aurich County before. The avenue itself chose a route with fewer swamps, and it has also been developed along the way, so Marin naturally did not see many swamps. But in fact, there are also a lot of swamps in these two counties...

Marin didn't believe it, so he took a large group of people and rode out of the city to see the swamp...

Sure enough, when Marin's horse team left the road between Aurich and Emden, it didn't take long to see swampy pools from east to west...

Looking at so many swamps, Marin muttered to himself:

"With so much land, if the swamp water is drained, wouldn't it turn into fertile land? Then didn't I make it?"

"Master, this, I'm afraid it will be difficult..." Kohler interjected, interrupting Marin's YY.

"Why? What's so difficult about this? Dig an irrigation canal and pump the water from the swamp pool into the irrigation canal. Soon the swamp will dry out? Then, you can reclaim fertile land..."

"Master, it is not difficult to dig an irrigation canal, and it is not difficult to divert water. What is difficult is how to drain the water in the swamp pool..."

If you want to develop swampy land, you must not only dig irrigation canals to divert water, but you must drain all the water from those pools. Otherwise, there would be too much water in those lands, and they would still be swampy, which could not be reclaimed into fields.

"Is it difficult to pump water? Isn't it just getting a pump..." Marin suddenly stopped talking. He suddenly remembered that it was the Middle Ages, not the modern age, and he could just get a diesel pump to pump water violently. It is very, very troublesome, expensive and difficult to drain the water in the swamp pool...

Malin got off his horse silently, walked to the edge of a swamp pool, squatted down, grabbed a handful of dirt, looked at it, but was attracted...

It turned out that the mud on the edge of the swamp pool was gray-black. He knew this kind of soil...because, in later generations, this kind of soil has a name, it's called peat...

Peat soil, also known as peat or peat. Its material is mainly composed of incompletely decomposed plant residues and completely humified humus and minerals. It generally spawns in swampy areas, where it develops in the presence of water and lack of air. Because it is rich in organic matter, it is considered to be a very high-quality natural fertile soil and can also be used as a natural fertilizer.

In the previous life, Marin didn't know what peat soil was at first. However, after he worked, the landlord of the rental house he rented was a flower lover and liked to plant flowers and plants on the roof.

When Marin doesn't go to work on weekends, he sometimes goes to the rooftop to bask in the sun. If he meets the old lady who is taking care of the flowerpot, he can chat.

The old lady of the landlady is a slob, and she likes to chat for a long time when she catches Marin. In addition to the shortcoming of the parents, it is to instill the knowledge of flower cultivation in Marin.

The old lady is a demolition household with a lot of houses and can collect a lot of monthly rent. Therefore, she is very leisurely and carefree, and she is very willing to spend money...

For example, ordinary people grow flowers, just find some soil cultivation. But the old lady pays attention to grades, and she specially bought peat soil that is said to be imported as flower pot soil, which is very extravagant. Moreover, the old lady often showed off with Marin, and showed Marin the imported peat soil and even the plastic bags filled with English written on the peat soil.

So, Marin learned about the peat soil, and was dragged by the old lady to feel the imported peat soil. It is said that the peat soil bought by the old lady was imported from Ireland...

Moreover, Marin also knew that the peat soil can be squeezed tightly for a minute when it is dry, and if it can be loosened, it is high-quality peat soil. These were all forced to teach Marin by the old lady in her previous life...

Seeing the mud on the edge of the swamp that was obviously peat, Marin squeezed the dry peat he grabbed in his hand... After about a minute, Marin let go, and the peat slowly dispersed. Although it is not top-notch, Marin knows that this is also considered to be a high-grade peat soil...

And Marin looked at it, these swamp areas that have existed for thousands of years, this kind of peat soil seems to be very much, everywhere...

Well, it seems, these swamps are not without merit. If the water is drained, the fertile peat soil here will surely be transformed into a first-class fertile land!

Moreover, peat soil is not only fertile planting soil, but also can be used as fuel for burning. In Scotland, it is said that peat is used as a fuel to roast malted barley in the manufacture of Scotch whisky.

Although the calorific value of peat is not high, it is much lower than coal. However, its calorific value is comparable to or even exceeds that of firewood. So, peat is also an excellent fuel...

Of course, mining this fuel is not easy and requires going deep into swampy areas…

After all, these swamps are not without merit. It is these peat soils that are valuable both as loam and as fuel.

Even Marin intends to add some peat soil when making manure block fertilizer...