The Rise of the European Emperor

Before, in order to facilitate the Crimean Khanate to send troops to attack Ryazan, Marin promised to buy 10,000 cattle and 1,000 Eastern European Mongolian horses from the Crimean Khanate every year.

According to the agreement, the Crimeans attacked Ryazan and frightened the army of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in Finland back, and the agreement was fulfilled. On the other hand, Marin did not intend to break the contract. Moreover, the introduction of cheap cattle and horses from the Crimean Khanate is indeed in their own interests.

In autumn, the Crimean Khanate has prepared 10,000 cattle and 1,000 war horses, and the total price is only 90,000 gold coins (7.5 gold coins for a cow and 15 gold coins for a horse).

Marin was also ready to receive it, and sent a team of cavalry and some herdsmen, intending to drive this huge livestock team along the way.

With so many animals, it is obvious that they can only travel by land, and there are not so many ships to carry them. On the land route, though, something went wrong.

Poland and Lithuania, in order to gain the friendship of the powerful Crimean Khanate, naturally would not object to Marin's purchase of cattle and horses from Crimea, nor would they oppose those cattle and horses crossing the border. However, other countries are hard to say...

Originally, the best route to bring 10,000 cattle and 1,000 horses back to East Friesland by land was through Lithuania and Poland, and then into the Electorate of Brandenburg or the Electoral State of Saxony , and then pass through the Principality of Lüneburg, and arrive at the Counties of Oldenburg.

However, the Electoral State of Brandenburg and the Electoral State of Saxony are both Denmark's in-law states. Marin beat Denmark so badly and cut off so much land. How could the two countries let Marin do as he wished?

As a result, the cattle and sheep bought by Marin were directly rejected through the request of the two countries, and there was no room for negotiation.

In desperation, Marin could only choose to bypass the Principality of Pomerania and the Principality of Mecklenburg from the north of the Electoral State of Brandenburg, then pass through the Principality of Holstein under the control of Lübeck and Hamburg, and then pass through the Principality of Holstein under the control of Lübeck and Hamburg. After passing through the Archbishopric of Bremen, we finally arrived at the Earl of Oldenburg.

However, this is also more difficult to do. Naturally, Lübeck and Hamburg will not cause trouble to the ally of Marin, and the Archbishopric of Bremen is also very face-saving. But the Principality of Mecklenburg and the Principality of Pomerania are very disrespectful...

It turned out that as neighbors of the Electorate of Brandenburg, the Duchy of Mecklenburg and the Duchy of Pomerania were greatly influenced by the Electorate of Brandenburg. Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg not only refused the cattle and horses purchased by Marin to cross the border, but also asked the Duchy of Mecklenburg and Pomerania to prohibit Marin's cattle and horses from crossing the border.

The duchies were not guilty of offending their powerful neighbor, Brandenburg, for Marin. As a result, they all rejected Marin's request for cattle and horses to cross the border.

Without any choice,

Marin had to ask Lübeck, the leader of the Hanseatic League, to come forward and ask them to help put pressure on the two countries. Lübeck did come forward to help put pressure on it, and the Duchy of Mecklenburg gave in because it was more dependent on the Hanseatic League. But Pomerania is simply a wild rural country on the Baltic Sea and doesn't care about the threat of Lübeck. So, things froze.

The people of Lübeck suggested that their cargo ships could load cattle and horses in the northern coastal ports of Poland, and then unload them in the Principality of Mecklenburg or the Principality of Schleswig further west, and continue rushing.

But Marin was reluctant to do so, because loading and unloading 10,000 cattle and 1,000 horses would take a huge amount of manpower and material resources. Also, shipping is not cheap. The best option is to drive on land. Because these cattle and horses can live as long as they eat some weeds everywhere.

In desperation, Marin had to send someone to bribe the Duke of Pomerania. The Duke of Pomerania finally told Marin's men that it was pressure from the Electorate of Brandenburg, not money.

So, in the end, Marin thought of a way to send someone to register a chamber of commerce in Lübeck. Then, in the name of the Chamber of Commerce in Lübeck, it was asked to pass with tens of thousands of cattle and thousands of horses. In this way, the cattle and horses passing through the Principality of Pomerania no longer belong to Marin.

Then after arriving in Lübeck, the Chamber of Commerce, which originally belonged to Marin, "sold" the cattle and sheep to Marin. In this way, when these cattle and horses pass through, they are no longer Marin's things. And the request of the Electoral State of Brandenburg is - not to let the horses and horses under Marin's command pass, but they never said that the cattle and horses of Lübeck are not allowed to pass.

In this way, although they knew there was a problem, the Principality of Marin and Pomerania perfectly avoided the difficulties of the Electorate of Brandenburg, allowing the cattle and horses of Crimea to get the opportunity to pass by land. .

But because of such a toss, the 10,000 cattle and 1,000 war horses originally planned to be imported from Crimea in autumn did not arrive until winter.

Tens of thousands of cattle and thousands of horses made a great noise when they passed by. Fortunately, these cattle and horses are livestock that can solve the problem by eating grass. In particular, the 1,000 Eastern European Mongolian horses produced in Crimea can also graze along the way. If it were replaced by European horses, a thousand war horses would require a lot of oats every day, and the cost of raising them would be extremely high.

These tens of thousands of cattle and thousands of horses, driven by a group of herdsmen, passed through Lithuania and Poland, into the Principality of Pomerania, and then through the Principality of Mecklenburg, into Holstein. Principality. Then, continue westward until the native East Frisian region.

Around the new year of 1504, these tens of thousands of cattle and thousands of horses finally successfully arrived outside the city of Aurich...

As soon as they arrived in Aurich, the treatment of these cattle and horses changed dramatically. Those Eastern European Mongolian horses and war horses were immediately arranged into the official horse farm, and they were raised as treasures and fed a lot of oats and some soybeans from the Americas.

As for those cattle, because there is no shortage of cattle in the country, Marin chose 2,000 of them and killed them for meat...

These 10,000 Crimean cattle lost a lot of fat after a long journey, but their muscles did not decrease due to long-term running, but their muscles were strong and chewy.

These two thousand cattle, just after completing the "Long March", before they could breathe a sigh of relief, were unfortunately withdrawn into the slaughterhouse and turned into beef.

As it happens, the weather in January is still very cold, and those thinly sliced ​​beef are used by Marin to eat fat beef hot pot...

However, the fly in the ointment is that there is no chili in the hot pot base soup, and it is not flavorful enough. Therefore, Marin can only use beef bone soup as the base soup and add some other sauces to make a non-spicy fat beef hot pot.

This way of eating Marin suddenly became popular among the East Frisian aristocracy. Because of the high yield of grain, the nobles of East Frisian are now very rich, and they also pay a lot of attention to food and drink. In the past, everyone was used to eating brown bread and rarely eating white bread. However, since making a fortune with Marin, the nobles of East Frisian ate every day the "queen" white bread, which was very expensive in the early Middle Ages and not often eaten by even kings. After hearing that the great "God of Cookery" Marin invented a delicacy called "fat beef hot pot", they immediately followed suit. It just so happened that Marin sent someone to kill 2,000 cows, and there was a lot of beef, which made everyone happy.

Moreover, the Crimea cattle only cost 7.5 gold coins per head. Including the customs duties paid by the countries that pass through along the way, the average cost of each cow is no more than 10 gold coins. In the German region, the price of each cow is about 20 gold coins. In other words, buying cattle from Crimea is half the cost of buying cattle locally, which is very cost-effective.