Rise of Rurik

Pepin learned about the Ross merchants from his subordinates. It was said that two big businessmen came, but they were too young.

How young are they? It wasn't until they actually met that Pepin realized that his prediction was still too hasty.

"They are clearly two fat boys! But they are really fat."

Being fat means being rich and having potential in business. His Pepin family has always served the Baudouin family, and both parties have a prosperous relationship. In this way, he personally selects the "dealer" of the goods. If he blindly chooses a greedy liar, the glory and tangible benefits of his family will be That’s it!

The fat boy reassured him, and the booty that the Norman pirates brought from Britain shocked him.

Rose's shop has just built a wall, and the wooden wall is riddled with holes and needs to be reinforced everywhere. Two young businessmen from Ross live here temporarily, and the small dock they built is currently home to more than ten long ships and two large ships. For Pepin, this alone was already a fierce Northern Fleet.

Nowadays, the Normans have large ships that can transport a large number of soldiers in wartime. In peacetime, these are a number of vehicles with huge transport capacity!

So without any inquiry, Pepin just glanced at the Russian docks and was convinced that they were able to buy all the wool from Flanders. As for whether they have money? Pepin reserved his opinion and needed to inquire carefully.

The two foxes hosted a banquet for the uninvited male "big salesman", including ale, salted peas, and the usual grilled fish. The food was open to eat, which surprised Pepin.

Pepin, a middle-aged man, remained serious, unlike the other two fat guys who were too easy-going.

"You have revealed your identity, tell me what you think." The youngest red fox asked first, "I will stay here for a long time. If we can cooperate, we can be good partners in the future."

The other party showed real sincerity and no arrogance. Pepin was very pleased: "The problem is very simple. I heard that you want to make money, and we in Flanders have the goods. We can provide a large amount of high-quality wool, and the earl intends to sell it to you directly. Do you... think there is a future? ?”

"How could such a good thing happen?" Red Fox straightened his chest in surprise and looked at Black Tiger with a smile.

"Yes. We will sell it directly to you. We will negotiate without the participation of others. As for the price... everything is easy to negotiate."

"This is a good thing. So do you have the goods now?" Red Fox asked anxiously.

"It's in stock. It's our wool harvesting season now, which you may already know in Utrecht. Now the Earl will not ask for the lost northern territory, but the wool in the Greater Flanders region is mainly produced in the south. If you are interested in doing local wool trading, you must cooperate with us."

What Pepin was talking about was the fact that the whole of Greater Flanders is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, and the Rhine River divides the north and the south. The river in the north divides many islands called Zeeland, while in the south, the entire plain is most suitable for the development of agriculture and animal husbandry.

A large population is concentrated in the southern part of the country, where the descendants of Bilicka Gauls mix with Frankish and Frisian immigrants. A new mixed race is rapidly forming, the so-called Walloons. The local geographical conditions are even more populous. Whether it is planting or animal husbandry, as long as the rulers are not stupid and the international environment in Western Europe is stable, rapid development will be a reality.

It didn't matter whether Baudouin was stupid or not; financial matters were taken care of by Pepin's family. Pepin had no power, and everything in the family was given by the earl. He can usually use the power of the earl to boss around the farmers, but as a tool, he must find ways to make money for his master.

Pepin simply came up with a plan he had planned before.

"The wool of the Count of Flanders will only be delivered to the Kingdom of Rus, and transactions with other powers will be cut off. Ross will enjoy exclusive benefits. The Count of Flanders does not have enough ability to transport wool to the ports controlled by the Rus, but the Count can recover. Building the port of Antwerp may allow Russian ships to follow the river directly to Ghent. Russian ships can directly enter the ports in the country for direct trade, and the price will be easy to negotiate."

The two foxes were young but not fools. They were familiar with the business experience of their father and brother, and they immediately understood that the benefits provided by this Pepin were huge!

Monopoly, if you want to make a fortune, you must monopolize one area.

Today, financial capital is still a non-existent concept. If a kingdom wants to be prosperous, it needs to develop industrial capital. The country is personally looking for a large buyer of commodities, giving the buyer a "franchise" and announcing an embargo on other countries, which is tantamount to independently binding its own economic lifeline to the buyer.

The smart black fox and red fox already understand what is hidden behind such generous trade terms.

Black Fox led his younger brother to ask with a serious face: "This plan is very beneficial to Ross. Obviously, your conditions are not pure."

Although the great businessman of Ross was young, Pepin was very satisfied to see this aspect. He still deliberately pretended to be ignorant: "Why not pure? Don't you like huge benefits? This is more comfortable than you personally coming to our territory to rob? It's like we are paying tribute."

"Tribute? A joke." These words made Black Fox amused: "You have to pay something to get tribute. This is the rule in the north. Indeed! We will import wool on a large scale because of your cost and output advantages. We import The more you have, the less you can lose. If someone attacks your wool production at this time, it will ultimately affect our interests. You! You are using wool to buy our military protection!"

"What a young wise man!" Pepin lined up a large army: "This is indeed the case. How? Your ships can enter Ghent directly, and the entire county is open to you. In fact, as long as you organize a large army, you can destroy only the remaining Half of the territory of Flanders. As long as the King of Rus is willing, my county can be destroyed in an instant."

Pepin's last words were so serious that he seemed to bite out his remaining teeth. He said this with personal anger, because part of his family's property was in Antwerp, but unfortunately the old city had been completely demolished by the Russians, and he had suffered a great loss.

This guy speaks with anger, which shows that he is afraid, and what he is afraid of is losing his current wealth. The two foxes looked at each other and made this judgment, then looked at each other again, and it was the red fox's turn to speak: "If the king intends, your uncle's country will be destroyed. You claim to be just the earl's steward. It seems that the earl is indeed kind. For you, you are willing to do things for me.”

"Yes. This is also my country. I'm afraid that Flanders will collapse. Listen, the area south of the Inn River is the best wool producing area. You want to develop peacefully and stably in Frankland without robbery. Cai must cooperate with us."

"You? Are you teaching us how to do things?"

"It's just business. Young man, you will definitely not have trouble with wealth." After saying that, Pepin smiled meaningfully.

Seeing him smile, the two foxes understood everything. After looking at each other, the whole room burst into laughter.

There was no need for the two parties to discuss it in detail. As for Red Fox, he even felt that Ross's shop was built in the wrong place. However, the construction of the stronghold in Rotterstad was the king's order, the land was personally explored by the king, and even its name was named by the king.

But the king did not prohibit the construction of "Shop No. 2".

The secret talks had very constructive results:

The city of Antwerp was rebuilt, and Ross owned the "Second Shop", which was actually a military stronghold in the city. He oversaw the commercial activities of the Flanders County, which was mainly wool monopoly trade, and placed a small number of armed personnel. If necessary, he used mercenaries. way to assist Count Baudouin.

The country cut off its wool trade with other forces, except for other material trade.

The Rus had to act as interlocutors to prevent the Danish Normans from raiding the settlements in the county.

The country has unilaterally decided to adjust the tariff principles of the "Northern Alliance" and cancel all taxes on official Russian merchant ships.

It's like a dog lying on its back and showing its belly to its master in obedience! Red Fox couldn't wait to organize a ship to go directly to the port of Antwerp to take away the goods after the shop was settled.

Now the red fox is holding the heavy "Ross Shop" in his hand to activate himself. It was given by the king and owned by his own family. He came with a huge sum of money, but he immediately made purchases in the Western European world. The "business machine" benefited from this Huge amounts of extra capital can get things started quickly.

When Pepin learned that the young red fox had more than a hundred pounds of silver in his hands, he was so excited that he wished he could quickly invite the rich kid to Ghent and arrange for him to have dinner with the count. Wool delivery is done directly.

…

It is impossible for Black Fox to stay in Rotterstad and Utrecht for a long time. He supervises the construction of shops here not only out of brotherly love, but also because Rotterstad is the core node of the Rus Kingdom's commercial layout in Western Europe. No matter how much trouble the black fox causes inland, the profits extracted must be shipped out in Rotterstad. If the port here is not done well, it will be catastrophic trouble.

Now, the new agreement with the County of Flanders makes Rotterstad even more significant.

The two brothers had to get together and have a good chat.

"It seems like the Danes haven't made much money in Britain either. They're selling pots and pans."

"I haven't seen Ragnar. Their main force is still on the island. I'm afraid the good things have been hidden."

"What good things can they get? The best thing is to grab gold and silver coins."

"Ah, my hands are itchy when it comes to this. If I have enough people, I will try to do it."

"Forget it! It's very profitable to do wool business with the guys in the south. The premise is that you have to successfully transport the wool to Cologne, and the locals have to accept it peacefully."

"This is not a problem. They may be worried about our sneak attack, so we must reassure them. I think that as long as we get a few priests from Utrecht on board, and let them and the Cologne people guarantee that we are just businessmen, everything will be easy."

The two brothers have already discussed and understood the business route with each other's words.

In the past, the special geographical environment of Greater Flanders made it more suitable for the development of animal husbandry and salt production. Even in northwest Europe, the winter is relatively cold, and wool textiles are better than linen products in keeping out the cold. As long as conditions permit, local people will get some wool products to keep out the cold. Ragnar's original nickname came from "the blood-stained woolen trousers after winning the duel", although he hated this nickname.

Of course, Greater Flanders is not the only place that produces wool, but it can provide the highest quality wool in the region. The output is very considerable, enough to feed Cologne's textile industry and support the city's 10,000 residents.

Therefore, the "extravagant style of Cologne Diocese" criticized by a group of priests in the Diocese of Utrecht and the Great Northern Diocese, Cologne does have the capital for extravagance.

Today, there are only primitive textile machines in Western Europe. The cotton thread produced by rolling wool is much thicker than linen thread. The efficiency of purely hand-woven textiles is naturally higher than the latter, and the ability to withstand the cold is still dominated by wool. It doesn't even need to be woven. It is continuously rolled and ironed to make felt. It can be directly used for tailoring operations and can be used to mass-produce special hoods, gloves, and felt shoes.

These light industrial products can make a lot more money than pure agriculture. Relying on the processing industry, the citizens of Cologne can create more wealth, and the church as the ruler can also collect more wealth. The tithe tax is a serious exploitation of farmers because their material output is low and the surplus assets left after paying taxes and production costs are also low. People who make textiles are in a much better situation, provided they can really get a steady stream of wool raw materials.

The area near Cologne can provide part of the wool to the main city, but it cannot meet the needs of various handicraft workshops at all.

The shortcut to making up for the shortfall was to import from Flanders, where there must have been a large surplus of wool waiting to be sold.

In the past, various traveling merchants took over logistics activities, forming a trade line from Ghent → Antwerp and Brussels → Maastricht → Aachen → Cologne. Such a trade line would make use of the natural inland rivers of Western Europe. After arriving at Maastricht, it would be transported by horse-drawn carriage, and after passing through Aachen, it would go straight to Cologne.

Some shrewd businessmen knew very well that taking the water route from the beginning and transporting wool in sacks by ship directly to Cologne would save a lot of freight. However, all they owned were sampan-class boats. First of all, the capacity was not good enough. Secondly, since they had to travel a long distance by sea and then go upstream on the Rhine River, the poor seaworthiness of the boats made it unaffordable for merchants. It is risky, and wool absorbs water. Once the ship capsizes, regardless of whether the personnel are safe, the most critical wool will surely sink into the sea and disappear.

Inland rivers are all small rivers with a small width. There are no winds and waves for shipping and you can dock at any time to avoid all kinds of troubles. Maastricht is also a very good ferry town. The local church controls it and does not belong to any military lord. The priests only need to live by collecting commercial taxes and tolls. This is the basis of their lives, so they also started The guy who rents boats and carriages. Of course, priests cannot directly engage in business, but there are also cooperating professionals who engage in these businesses.

This inland transportation line integrating water and land routes has existed since Roman times. It has maintained its vitality after wars, so that it can support Cologne's business atmosphere and Aachen's development prospects.

Merchants were extremely sensitive to commercial security. Traveling merchants walking this "Wool Road" had already known about the large-scale war in the north in 840, and then found out what happened to the Diocese of Cologne and the County of Flanders after the war.

The territory of Flanders shrank, the Normans invaded in large numbers, the County of the Netherlands was established, the Bishopric of Cologne swallowed up the County of Westphalia, a brand-new Principality of Saxony was born, and Prince Ludwig of East Francia Give up.

This group of forces who fought bloody battles finally became a whole. What seemed like a major reshuffle of forces was actually a major integration. Smart merchants realized that these groups had their own demands, but they all opposed the Kingdom of China. penetration of power.

This can be a fatal blow to traveling merchants. The buyer and seller are an alliance in many aspects, but the trade route passes through the core area of ​​the Middle Kingdom, which they collectively oppose. Nowadays, Aachen has become a salient in the macro view. Even though King Lothair has the ambition to unify the Franks, a huge plier appears in the northwest of him. Once they unite, they can remove Aachen in the salient." Behead”. Apparently this was also part of the civil war.

Lothair thought that this would be the situation at the Battle of Canning, so he arranged more garrisons in the north for this purpose.

The garrison guarding the road was an artificial interruption of the trade line. As early as the spring of 841, the trade line had been interrupted, even without the Count of Flanders taking action.

The financial resources of traveling merchants have been interrupted, and the news has spread in Cologne.

Archbishop Hadbold, who had just returned, wanted to make up for the losses by raising taxes, and soon learned from the merchants about the tragedy that the trade line was cut off by King Lothair. In fact, even if life is not unbearable without the trade line, the wealthy life of the church will come to an end.

The living standard of the people in the entire city of Cologne is higher than that in other areas. They cannot bear to live a life of eating bran and swallow vegetables, and they still have to fight for it if possible. The archbishop had only recently sent people to negotiate with Aachen, hoping that the local garrison would be more lenient to the merchants. As for the results of the negotiations, the results of the negotiations have not been reported back yet.

What if the messenger is rejected?

Archbishop Hardbold has always openly supported Ludwig of the Eastern Kingdom, and his support became even stronger after the war.

A group of cardinals and archbishops gathered together for a conference. Paradoxically, the conference was not about how to be pious and religious, but about pure business practices.

They discussed and came up with a very pragmatic result. It is said that the Russians built a stronghold at the mouth of the Rhine River and would build a stronghold upstream. The Russians have large ships that can reach the wool-producing region of Great Flanders. Why not negotiate with them and ask the Russians to be transporters?

In the face of absolute interests, faith has to step aside. They even defended the Russians - every one of the Russians who could trade on the Rhine River had been converted, and it was not blasphemy to cooperate with them.

As a result, things became very simple, because no one would have trouble with the interests.

Ross's shop is still under construction. The bilateral trade between Ross and Flanders has only been negotiated but has not yet been implemented. Ross has not negotiated with Cologne.

However, all three parties have their own strong demands. A brand new wool trade line with logistics controlled by the Russians can only be larger in scale. How it is built depends only on the right hand of Red Fox.

Red Fox has the ability to be the initiator of this lucrative sea trade route, and he has realized that only he can do it.

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Chapter 1092 The New Wool Road is free to read.