King of German Mercenaries

In the village of Gelsenkirchen, after Adler won the championship, the old Hoffmans officially came forward and began to discuss marriage matters with the Hamler Knights.

When the Hamler Knights learned that the champion was from the Hoffman family, they were very happy, but also a little disappointed. Because, the Hamler Knights hope that the winner is the second child of the Hoffman family, Marin. Because, Marin is a hereditary baron lord, and Adler is only a knight apprentice. However, after seeing the real Marin, Knight Hamler also knew that if he really let the thin Marin participate in the competition, he didn't know whether he would pass the first round of competition...

As for Miss Hamler, there are not so many snobbish ideas. Although she is a daughter, Miss Hamler advocates force even more. Therefore, Adler, who is obviously stronger, is more in line with Miss Hamler's appetite. No, after the ceremony, Miss Hamler took the initiative to go to chat with Adler. Originally, because of Adler's embarrassment on stage, Old Hoffman planned to beat Adler hard. But because Miss Hamler came over, Adler was spared a fat beating.

Both families are knight families, and they don't like to be sloppy when it comes to doing things. And both Adler and Liv are getting old. So, the two families simply agreed - in order not to affect the spring ploughing, they simply held the wedding on March 1...

And now it's January 16, with less than a month and a half left. Therefore, the wedding preparations are still in a hurry. And because there was no big deal during this time, Marin simply stayed at home and helped prepare for the wedding.

Originally, a knight apprentice did not need too much pomp to get married. He invited a few knight friends and relatives to hold a ceremony in the church in the local town, and then returned to the manor to hold a banquet, and then summoned the serfs in the manor and the coal mines. It is okay for the workers to come and eat and drink together.

However, as the soul of a Chinese, loving face has become a habit of Marin. It just so happened that after his second son was promoted to a baron, the old Hoffman, who always loved face, also felt that he couldn't make do with it...

So, the father and son decided to give Adler a big deal. Even the priest in the small church in the town, Marin felt that the grade was too low.

To this end, Marin gave 100 gold coins to the nearby big city Dortmund and hired an assistant bishop to officiate the wedding. Having a powerful assistant bishop preside over an apprentice knight's wedding would definitely make the Hoffman family look good.

In addition to the preparations for the wedding, Marin was also pleasantly surprised to discover that Gelsenkirchen is also a huge coal mine...

Not only that, but the coal mine in Gelsenkirchen is the kind of coal Marin will need in the future - bituminous coal...

Anthracite from Hoffman Estates is a high-quality coal that is only suitable for fuel. The use of bituminous coal is much more important. Because bituminous coal is the most important raw material for making coke in the iron and steel industry!

At present, European iron smelting mainly uses charcoal as a reducing agent. However, Europe is highly developed and most of its forests have been deforested. Moreover, refining wood into charcoal requires a lot of fuel and labor costs, and wood itself is more expensive than coal. Therefore, the price of charcoal is high. And coke, although coking is also required, the cost is much lower than that of charcoal.

Marin will definitely want to engage in the iron and steel industry in the future. In that case, coke is essential. Therefore, the source of bituminous coal is very important.

Although Marin could not specifically measure the quality of the bituminous coal in Gelsenkirchen, from the appearance of the bituminous coal, it seems that the quality is very good. At least, there are very few impurities in it, pure black and pure black. When burning, the bituminous coal in Gelsenkirchen is more soot than the anthracite in the Hoffmann estate. Moreover, the coal here has high cohesiveness and is a bituminous coal that is very suitable for coking.

Because the coal mine in Gelsenkirchen is the coking coal needed by the iron and steel industry, Marin stopped in Gelsenkirchen with great interest to investigate the development and utilization of local coal mines. At the same time, also began to observe the local transportation conditions.

In this era,

The "Rhine-Herne Canal" connecting Gelsenkirchen to the Rhine has not yet been constructed. Therefore, it is more troublesome to transport the bituminous coal from Gelsenkirchen.

However, Gelsenkirchen is not far from the Ruhr River in the south, only ten or twenty kilometers. Therefore, the transportation cost here may be much worse than that of Hoffman Manor, but it is not bad. As long as the coal is transported to the Ruhr for loading, it will be OK.

After Marin's inspection, Gelsenkirchen went to the south of the Ruhr River, but there was a stone-paved road, but it was only a little more than 10 kilometers long, and it could not reach the Ruhr River. The stone road is about seven or eight kilometers away from the Ruhr River. As long as Marin paid for the road to be repaired, it would be very convenient for a coal-loading carriage to travel between Gelsenkirchen and the Ruhr. Moreover, the knights led by several knights along the way are either friends with the Hoffman family or friends of the Hamler family, and they are not worried that someone will interfere.

What makes Marin happy is that in this era, bituminous coal is considered to be inferior coal by the world because it emits a lot of black smoke when it is burned. Therefore, although Gelsenkirchen has abundant coal mines, the Hamler family has little interest in developing coal mines. And in the market, the price of bituminous coal is also much lower than the cleaner anthracite. If the price of anthracite is 4 shillings per chartron, bituminous coal can only be sold for 3 shillings per chartron...

Hamler Knight is actually very happy that Marin sees the "bad quality" coal on his own territory. Although the Hamler Knights Territory in Gelsenkirchen is larger than the original Hoffmann Manor, there is not much arable land, only less than 300 Ugrams.

Although there are coal mines with huge reserves, they are "low-quality coal" that emits a lot of smoke. In this era, the sales of anthracite coal are very poor, let alone "inferior coal" such as bituminous coal. If a businessman is willing to ask for bituminous coal, the Hamler family would have already organized manpower to mine coal mines... Therefore, the Hamler family very much hopes to get Marin's coal order.

However, Marin has not yet developed the steel industry. More importantly - Marin currently has no source of iron ore. So, he bought bituminous coal and it was useless.

So Marin had to perfunctory, promising to give Gelsenkirchen a stable order as long as the road from Gelsenkirchen to the Ruhr and the pier on the Ruhr were repaired. However, Marin reckoned that when the road was repaired and the pier was built, this year would have to pass. At that time, according to the situation, determine whether to place an order and how much to place...

...

And when Marin stayed in Gelsenkirchen to inspect the coal mine, Adler, shameless in the name of "protecting his younger brother", stayed at the Hamler Manor and took the opportunity to meet Miss Hamler. Dating.

Fortunately, people in this era are more conservative, and Adler is not a pervert. Therefore, the lovers did not do anything immoral, nor did they do anything in the wild.

But according to Sauer's observation report, what made Marin collapse is that this strange fiancée also behaved strangely...

When other people date, they spend their time talking about ideals and some elegant things in literature. But this fierce fiancée likes to learn from each other...

Of course, the competition between the two was not the kind of splattering sparks, but a competition of routines like "affectionate sword" and "eyebrows sword".

Adler clearly surpassed Miss Hamler in martial arts by a lot, but he just liked to be entangled in a fight with Miss Hamler's children. When he hit the spot, Adler knocked out the wooden sword in Liv Hamler's hand, and then hugged...

However, there is no then...

As for why? That's because Adler had no premarital education and didn't know what to do...

Once again, Marin peeped through the binoculars. After Adler hugged Liv Hamler, he looked at Liv Hamler's face stupidly, and there was no other action... just staring at it...

Marin almost fell down laughing, but didn't even plan to remind Adler. Because, it will be a formal wedding soon, and there is no hurry. Moreover, the canon of this era stipulates that it is forbidden to do anything before marriage. If you instigate Adler's words and spread it out accidentally, it may embarrass the entire family.

The old Hoffman and his wife were urgently preparing for the wedding at the Hoffman Manor. Although Marin didn't go back to help himself, he sent someone to inform Kohler and Schwartz to go back to the manor to help with the preparations. Even Kohler brought back a batch of gold coins to subsidize the wedding expenses.

Marin is not a stingy person, and he also attaches great importance to Adler's marriage. So, he asked Kohler to bring back a large sum of money in case he needed it. At the same time, Schwartz also brought a team of about 50 people back to maintain order and use it to build momentum. These 50 people are newly hired mercenaries who are skilled in riding. Although it is not a knight or apprentice knight, it is just right to use it as a light cavalry.

Because, Marin's Spanish phalanx lacked mobility and needed light cavalry as an important supplement. For example, these light cavalry can be used for reconnaissance, to protect the flanks, and to chase down retreating enemies...

Of course, that's for later. Now, the biggest role of this team of cavalry is to use it to boost the momentum of the wedding and create an atmosphere...

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