At the end of the Tang Dynasty, it was a feudal town, but in Western Europe

Headed by Charlie's uncle Bernard, Astolfo and Eric, the ministers in charge of military affairs, stood on Charlie's right, while Alcuin led, Diodorf, Malagiji and other Paladin scholars stood on Charlie's left.

The faces of the courtiers were different, happy or sad, and in the center of the Royal Palace, directly under the brass candlestick, the messenger who returned from Hamburg was narrating loudly.

"... After hearing the news, my colleagues and I went to Bremen. The tragedy in Bremen was shocking. With the help of the traitors, the Vikings destroyed the city gate of Bremen, but fortunately, the priests of Bremen They have the wisdom and teachings of the Father, they set a fire in the doorway, and took this opportunity to continue to build a new line of defense in front of the church to resist the Vikings' attack..."

"...In this way, Bremen, with the help of Elder Fields and Priest Kelvin, guarded our last sanctuary and saved the lives of our Franks, but the price was that all the accumulation of Bremen over the past ten years The farmland, canals, and houses were almost completely destroyed. If we don’t help, I’m afraid there will be another famine in Bremen this year..."

"... Fortunately, His Excellency the Earl of Hamburg appeared in time. He led an army of nearly a thousand to find the Vikings, but he only took back part of the property, and had to go back to rescue Hamburg..."

"...the Vikings divided into two groups, one entered from the Weser River and plundered Bremen, and the other crossed the Elbe River and attacked Hamburg. But the Vikings themselves leaked the news, they did not They were able to successfully plunder Hamburg, so they ambushed on the river bank and attacked the Earl of Hamburg who was crossing the river to rescue him..."

"... thus the Earl of Hamburg won the victory, but their soldiers suffered heavy losses. The Earl of Hamburg was seriously injured and is still in a coma and bedridden so far. Your Highness, I must remind you that the soldiers of the Earl of Hamburg think that their lord Has passed away, it seems that there is a tendency to riot, you must be prepared..."

"Why are things in Saxony always so bad!" Charlie patted the table heavily, "Three days ago, everyone told me that everything was fine. Three days later, I learned that my dear Archbishop Willerhard Died, my pious godson Antoni Roshan was seriously wounded and dying, Bremen was completely lost, Hamburg was at stake! Damn it, things are always so bad in Saxony!"

"Your Highness, Vidukind may be playing tricks on this matter. Last year, the Northumbrians plundered the Kingdom of Northumbria in Britain, and they tasted the sweetness.

King Siegfried of Denmark and Vidukind are cousins, and it is very likely that Siegfried led the way..." Malakiji showed no expression of pain for the loss of his son, but instead took out a piece of papyrus and started talking.

Listening to Malajiji's narration, Charlie closed his eyes and took two deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again, the angry expression seemed to have never appeared before, and his usual calmness appeared on his face: "Let's talk about these It's too late, Widukind will not let go of this opportunity, it seems that he should be in the Lübeck area, I guess he will launch another uprising within five days, but how should we deal with the situation in Bremen and Hamburg?"

The palace fell into silence, and after a while, Alcuin walked out from among the ministers: "His Royal Highness, I suggest that you appoint Elder Fields of Bremen as Bishop of New Bremen. They are facing the Vikings. In the battle, not only proved their loyalty and piety, but also proved their strength, I think this will be a good choice.

As for Hamburg, Priest Kelvin used to be the adjutant of that army, so he should be able to suppress them. We may need to pay some money and land as rewards to settle them down first. The spring plowing has just ended, and our army is still on the way. Forced requisition may lead to another famine in the coming year.

If Vidukind merges with the Saxon rebels in East Falia, it will be another big rebellion comparable to last year, so we need to hold Hamburg, even if we can't stop the Saxon army from going south, at least we can delay it. "

Charlie stroked the emerald on the scepter: "I am going to withdraw some of the priests in Bremen and the local Franks to the Minden area, and I will promote Kelvin as an elder, and temporarily preside over local affairs before Anthony recovers.

Uncle Bernard, take three thousand Solidars, one thousand furs, and honey wine for cattle and sheep to Hamburg to reward the army. Don't let them know that the Saxon rebels are coming again. You must hold them steady.

Astolfo, take Lyudmila and go to King Eupolit, tell them the news, and keep them on their toes.

Eric, you go and prepare, we may have to use the National Defense Reserve Army, and those vassals should also be notified. "

"Your Majesty." Several people bowed and saluted at the same time.

Diodorf couldn't help asking: "Your Highness, do you really need to pay so much attention this time?"

Alcuin glanced at him, and said indifferently: "Since the Weldon massacre, the chiefs of the Saxon tribes have been enraged. They joined forces with each other, and those tribes who remained neutral also fell to the side of Widukind. Now Saxony is a wooden barrel full of ale. Once it is split, it will erupt like a flood."

"Okay, okay, I get it, there's no need to say any more." Charlie glared at the stubborn Alcuin, his brows were not very happy.

As if to divert the topic away, Charlie suddenly asked the messenger, "Where's Paul? I heard he was also called by God?"

"According to the priests in Bremen, he was asked to follow in the footsteps of the Vikings and lead the way for the Earl of Hamburg to regain some of his property. However, according to the investigation on the spot, Sir Paul should be eager for merit and was too close. Killed by Vikings near the woods."

"Any witnesses? Or leftover items?"

"Yes." The messenger nodded, "We found a few local Saxon farmers. They said that at night, they heard the sound of killing, and then saw a group of Vikings slaughtering Paul and the others. Among the Viking prisoners of war, indeed You can also find the corresponding description."

"Hey, what a nice kid, he's only under 20 years old." Charlie had a sad look on his face, "Sorry, Malajiji, we couldn't protect your kid."

"This is the will of the heavenly father, Your Highness." Malarjiji still had no expression on his face, "He died for the king and the heavenly father, and the Earl of Hamburg has already avenged him, so there is nothing to regret."

"Your Highness." Alcuin stood up again, "Then what should you do with your godson Anthony?"

"He drove away the Vikings and was seriously injured. He should be rewarded. Moreover, he was the front line to stop the rebellion of the Danes and Saxons. I decided to grant him the status of the Earl of the Border and take Hamburg as his land of grace to pass on from generation to generation."

Chapter 75 Salary is directly proportional to combat effectiveness

In the early summer of June of the fourth year of the founding of China, the residents of Hamburg had packed up their houses and farmland and started their usual life.

They had already learned that the Lord Lord defeated the Vikings again. Although the Lord Lord himself was injured, in any case, the Lord Lord did expel those Vikings and got a lot of spoils.

It can be seen from the large amount of swords and property cattle and sheep transported by dragon-headed warships on the Elbe River.

According to rumors circulating in the market, many trophies, swords and armor that Feng Sen obtained from the Vikings are going to be sold at a low price. Many surrounding warriors and minor nobles have come here, and even some free people who have spare money are also ready to buy. The last set of chain armor is very useful whether it is for self-defense or going on the battlefield in the future.

However, the core area of ​​Hamburg did not suffer much damage, and the surrounding rural areas were not necessarily affected. When the Vikings attacked Hamburg, they plundered a circle around them, and after their attack on Hamburg failed, they plundered a circle around them again.

At least a dozen villages were destroyed, and the elders and chiefs in those villages died in a miserable state, but the population of each village dropped.

But those villages with hundreds of households are different. Not only did they get compensation in the battle against the Vikings, those who were beaten as slaves and released were also divided up by the hundreds of households, which strengthened their own strength.

Moreover, Feng Sen returned all the property looted from their villages. For other villages, they should be ignored and put in the bag directly. All the cattle, sheep, and property were taken away by the fleeing Vikings. Lie!

In addition, those auxiliary soldiers who followed Baihu to the battlefield were also rewarded with cloth and swords, and could get most of the stolen property and population. However, those tribes without Baihu in the village suffered a lot In trouble, Feng Sen wouldn't even look at them.

So in order to save their own lives, many Saxon chiefs began to send their children to Hamburg to exist as Feng Sen's pro-army.

Feng Sen also waved his hand, and named these pro-military soldiers the Sanqi Battalion. The younger ones went to Hamburg Primary School to study, and the older ones were trained in the day and night.

Feng Sen, who was wrapped in bandages, took a pen and recorded the arrangement of the scattered riding camp on the pages of the book, and then outlined the next reward plan in the account book.

There will be more rewards this time. In the previous Danish wars, due to the fact that there were not many troops sent, and the money and rewards given were not much, many low-level soldiers were not satisfied. It can be seen from the noise in the army this time, so this robbery To plunder Bremen, you have to make up for the reward you owed last time, which is too much.

The first is the field.

Opening the field is still a work that needs to be continued, so there is no need to worry too much. It is still the same old way, and those new Vikings will also start labor reform, so their first stop is to open the field.

Feng Sen did not plan to distribute these new fields to the soldiers as usual. Their [-]-acre field was too difficult to develop with the current resources of soldiers of the Jingnan Army. In this era, the land investment recovery cycle is too long.

The soldiers of the Jingnan Army also knew the advantages and disadvantages, so they didn't think much of Huang Tian.

Therefore, the real source of income for the Jingnan Army was Feng Sen's rewards and the sale of spoils.

Rather than putting the land in their hands and abandoning it, it is better to let the military manage the farm directly, that is, Feng Sen sends a special person to run the farm, and the soldiers of the Jingnan Army draw their salaries from the military-managed farm as their basic salary.

This farm is shared by all the soldiers of the Jingnan Army, and a percentage is drawn every year.

Such an intensive farm utilizes land and manpower to the greatest extent, and develops intensively, which is much better than working alone. As for the population who cultivate this land, Feng Sen plans to introduce a group of migrant tenant farmers from Bremen.

Beginning in 779, natural and man-made disasters occurred frequently in the Frankish Kingdom, famine broke out everywhere, and a large number of free farmers went bankrupt. This is why there are many bandits around Bremen, and Alcuin insists on gathering the army after the end of spring plowing. It is also due to this factor .

Bremen has just been attacked by pirates, and a large number of farmers have lost their land and homes. It is the time when they are most powerless. With Feng Sen's brand of Zhenhui, it is not difficult to recruit a group of tenant farmers.

Military-managed farms belong to public land, and Feng Sen will also grant private land to them. However, before these Jingnan soldiers are able to develop them, Feng Sen will try to restrict the granting of private land as much as possible. Instead, he will grant workshops or farms to them in the form of shares. Soldier.

The rewards to the soldiers of the Jingnan Army were also a very troublesome part this time. First, Feng Sen took out more than 1 Deniers as a cash reward, which was probably a Solidar gold coin distributed to each soldier of the Tang Army.

Don't underestimate this Solidar gold coin. In Western Europe, where there is a shortage of gold, if this kind of gold coin is of good quality, it can even be exchanged for twenty Deniers. The purchasing power of Deniers is quite good.

But this is just a small tip, it can be regarded as a little cash for the soldiers, because the price here is low, and Feng Sen arranges the food, sleep and even the mother-in-law well, and there is basically nothing to spend money on. It can stimulate the economy.

In addition, Feng Sen still has a large amount of fur and amber that cannot be sold for the time being. The value is about [-] deniers, which is the bulk.

Of course, this amount of money is definitely not enough. In addition to the farm shares, there are other rewards, such as firewood for fire, cloth for clothing, cattle and sheep, tools and even slaves.

The teeth soldiers of the Jingnan Army are pure young soldiers, and they usually don't do much work except for training. These things are all gifted by Feng Sen.

No way, let’s mortgage the rewards. There will be no wars during this period. When the cattle and sheep reproduce a little more, they can use the livestock and pigs in the pasture as meat rewards to offset the debt, sell the spoils in batches, and give them a little every month. There are too many opinions.

But in this way, there will be problems in the development of the workshop. If you want to develop industry and commerce, you must inject funds. No, you have to take it easy.

After another calculation, we have food, clothing and spiritual entertainment, so why don't we stay here all the time?Those soldiers are still living in a large compound with five people. The house was quite spacious at first, but with the soldiers' concubines and even children and slaves, it gradually became a bit crowded.

Then we have to build another workshop, but now we open a field workshop to cultivate and cut trees, how can we draw out the population?Buy it from a slave trader?It would be better to give the money directly to the soldiers.

So you have to get another batch of slaves for free?Feng Sen rubbed his chin and thought about it. Mad, if you can't let him go to the Vileti or Wende people to capture him alive, it happens that many slaves can offset part of the reward.

Hey, that’s not right, so after fighting a war, you have to give rewards, and then fight again to get rewards, isn’t this an endless cycle?No no no.

Feng Sen shook his head. He neatly wrote down a long list of rewards on a piece of paper. After doing some final calculations, he still had to take out dozens of acres of private land to offset some of the rewards, and then distributed them on a monthly basis. After the autumn harvest in September, the situation would be much better.

Putting down the brush, Feng Sen lay on his back on Arvo's knee, buried his face in the softness.

It's fun for this tooth soldier to fight, but it's true that it costs money.

Chapter 76 The dark acorns are piled up into mountains, and the brothers and sisters of Frank sing

The lights flickered in the warm room.

Not long after lying in Arvo's arms, before she started to move, Feng Sen sat up with amazing perseverance, and continued to pick up the writing brush on the table under her dissatisfied eyes.

With this wave of capital injection, Feng Sen's market can be active again.

The first wave of injection of this fund was aimed at the current industry and commerce. In this wave of counterattacks against the Vikings, apart from the spoils of Bremen, the biggest harvest was the nearly fifty dragon-head warships.

These long ships were not only a means of transportation for the Vikings when they went out to plunder, but also a means of transportation for the Vikings when they did business.

Since the 8th century, thousands of Vikings have driven these dragon-headed longships to carry out trade with Byzantium and even Abbas on the Dnieper and Volga rivers.

These ships with superior performance can not only travel in the river, but also sail in the sea.

Overseas trade was also an integral part of Viking trade, and the Vikings even went as far as Iberia and North Africa.

And Feng Sen is aiming at this part of the overseas market, to be precise, the British market. Don't underestimate the British market. Although Britain is a small island only one-third the size of Borneo, it is a natural wool producing area.

In the later trade between the Hanseatic League and Britain, the main products of the Hanseatic side were beeswax and wine, while the main products of Britain were wool. In its heyday, the total transaction amount could even reach [-] pounds.

What is the most classic clothing fabric in medieval Western Europe?It is wool, or woolen cloth, whose status is quite similar to silk cloth in the Central Plains, higher than linen but lower than silk.

No matter where it is, clothing is always a must, and there is no need to worry about sales. The most important thing is that this thing, like silk cloth, also has some currency attributes, which can fill the shortage of metal currency in Feng Sen's territory.

In addition to wool, Feng Sen also has another thing that needs to be imported and traded, that is salt, which was called platinum in the Middle Ages, especially the price of fine salt is extremely high.

Feng Sen needs the salt mines in Cheshire. The climate in northern Europe is so humid that it is almost impossible to dry the salt.

Of course, Feng Sen didn't buy salt to eat it all, but mainly to refine it into refined salt and sell it.

Under the flickering light, Feng Sen was leaning over the desk, his brush shaking slightly on the white paper.

July [-]th!Feng Sen solemnly wrote down the date.

Feng Sen's plan is to send the first fleet to Britain for trading before autumn. This is not only to open up trade routes, but more importantly, he needs to sell the stolen goods.

Since the Arabs invaded, the West was deprived of the sea for a time, and the ships of the Saracens (desert herdsmen, the collective name for the ethnic groups in the Middle East at that time) galloped on the Mediterranean Sea, guarding the trade routes between the East and the West.

This caused the economic level of the Frankish Kingdom to regress to the level of almost primitive agricultural production dominated by individual consumption, and long-distance trade almost completely disappeared.

So to a certain extent, Frank, which basically adheres to barter, can be said to be a closed economy, at least for the current Frank.

Frank's economy is like a pool of stagnant water. Even a stone in Feng Sen's goods is enough to cause noticeable ripples. Therefore, it is basically impossible for the spoils he plundered from Bremen to be sold domestically, and can only be sold overseas.

The two goals Feng Sen gave for this were Britain in the west and the old friends the Slavs. Those furs and amber were also in short supply in Byzantium.

And once Feng Sen has opened up the business routes on both sides, with the advantage of Hamburg's harbor, there is no need to develop any handicraft industry. Relying on buying and selling is enough for Feng Sen to lie on the gold coins and count the money.

Of course, the premise is to guard against those damn Vikings.

Therefore, the Jutland peninsula and even the Scandinavian peninsula are places that must be visited in the future.

Feng Sen waved his sore wrist and continued writing on the paper.

The commercial side is planned, but the handicraft industry still needs to be planned.

In terms of handicraft industry, Feng Sen plans to build another brewing workshop, just in time for those workshop apprentices who are proficient in soy sauce and vinegar to transfer to wine making.

According to his judgment, the weather is good this year, and Hamburg should have a bumper harvest in autumn after reorganizing its agricultural technology.

However, due to the growth of the population (slaves), these grains can only fill everyone's stomachs. Although there is not much surplus grain for wine making, it is possible to make wine with fruit and acorns.

At this time, the German region is full of endless forests, and there are too many acorn trees in it. Every year, black acorns are piled up into mountains, and the pigs are driven in to feed them, and the pigs can't finish them.

This acorn is a good thing. The starch content can even reach 60%, which is more than the cashew nuts and walnuts we usually eat, and is comparable to chestnuts. However, this stuff can only be eaten by pigs, because it contains a lot of single Ning acid, people who eat too much will die because they can't poop.

Every time Feng Sen looked at those acorns, Feng Sen felt the pain of a good harvest. Watching these acorns rot was really not the proper attitude of a farming Saiyan.

After some thought, Feng Sen finally decided that this year, in addition to using the surplus grain to make a small amount of wine, acorn wine and pine nut wine will also be put into production. Try brewing. Anyway, it’s a small-scale experiment. It doesn’t feel bad if it fails. .

In addition to the newly established brewing industry, Feng Sen is also planning to put the fermented soy sauce and soy sauce crafts in the private sector. Just like the military-managed farms, Feng Sen contributes the initial funds and technology, and the chiefs of hundreds of households contribute to the field, and then the money is divided according to the shares.

Because fermented soy sauce and soy sauce are industries that require large-scale production to produce economic benefits, small workshops like Feng Sen cannot produce enough fermented soy sauce and soy sauce, so it is better to let them go to the chiefs.

Feng Sen plans to hand over these insignificant industries to the local people. Only when they have money in their hands can the entire economy revitalize.

In the future, when the business in the territory really needs to develop and improve, Feng Sen doesn't need to say it, and the chiefs and hundreds of households will probably find it by themselves.

So far, the development of the handicraft industry has been relatively smooth, but there have been major problems in ceramic technology.

Feng Sen was still planning to make ceramics at the beginning, but after thinking about it after several investigations, he found that there is basically no possibility of success in the short term.

Basically, those kaolin can only be found in Bavaria. Both the labor cost and the travel expenses are not affordable by Feng Sen now.

Without kaolin and refractory bricks, blast furnace ironmaking cannot be done for the time being, but without blast furnace ironmaking, there is still ordinary furnace ironmaking.

Feng Sen has already handed over to the people from Ruhr, but for various reasons, Theodoric still failed to get Feng Sen the exclusive management rights, but he got most of the open-pit coal fields for Feng Sen .

Feng Sen didn't want to cause extra problems, so he just did it.

He didn't have any extra people on hand, so the Autan family sent their own housekeeper as an agent to help Feng Sen manage Ruhr's estate, but Feng Sen also had to pay a small amount of remuneration.

But in terms of Feng Sen's current financial resources, those rewards are nothing more than sprinkling water.