King of Mercenaries

Within the city of Cologne, Marin once again met Manager Rheydt from before.

“Good day Lord Baron, is there anything that we can help you with today?” Wiggin’s Merchant Association was a member of the Hanseatic League, Cologne was also an extremely important trading center for the Hanseatic League.

That’s why, the people are better updated with current affairs than the County of Mark.

As such, news of Marin being knighted had been relayed here. As the General Manager of Wiggin’s Merchant Association’s, it was only natural that Rheydt knew of Marin’s identity.

However, this young man who had bribed him some time ago had transformed so suddenly, and became a Baron of the empire, as well as his heroic deeds being spread across the Empire’s territory, Rheydt could only express his disbelief.

“I’m here to hire a boat, I’ve heard that Wiggin’s Merchant Association has a lot of idle transport vessels?” Marin went straight to to the point, as Germanic people were unused to exchanging pleasantries.

“That’s right, the economy isn’t doing so great, with wars happening everywhere in Europe, it’s already starting to affect our League’s businesses.”

“The wars are happening over at Italy, what does that have to do with you guys?” Marin was a bit confused.

“Lord Baron, across Europe, Italy isn’t the only one fighting a war. For example, our Hanseatic League also have some conflicts with Denmark. In Britain, because of the ‘War of Roses’, it has started to affect our business. Besides, amongst the high nobility in the North of Deutsche Germany, they have constant friction with each other. Anyways, the flames of war are starting to sprout in Euope…”

Marin was silent, in Germany that was being torn asunder, nobility attacking and annexing each other wasn’t a rare occurrence here. Of course, nobody would offend the Hanseatic League lightly. Because, whoever dared to make war with the Hanseatic League, the Hanseatic League would boycott commercial activities in that noble’s lands. Besides, many members of the nobility were in bad economic shape, and needed to obtain loans from the Hanseatic League.

The region around Deutsche Germany was also considered in turmoil, because Maximillian the First from the House of Habsburg wanted to rise in power, but the nobility of Deutsche Germany were strongly suppressing the rise of the House of Habsburg, even going as far as planning to strip the House of Habsburg of their right to obtain the seat of the emperor, returning to the times of Feudalism.

However, the nobles of Deutsche Germany had their powers separated, and weren’t that united. Maximillian the First who had risen to power with the strength of mercenaries originally had the strength to eliminate these nobles. Unfortunately, the ambitious Maximillian the First was faced with two strong opponents, Hungary and France, which prevented him from splitting his attention. Because of that, Deutsche Germany could remain in relative peace, otherwise, the flames of war would have swept across the land.

“The reason I came this time, is that I hope your Merchant Association could help me transport my serfs with your transport vessels…”

“Lord Baron’s lands lack people?”

“That’s right, though Texel isn’t small, we have too few people, there’s only 800 people there. That’s why I have recruited 500 serf families, and will be bringing them to develop Texel.”

“Lord Baron is quite the visionary, to manage so many people, that’ll require a large amount of funds.” The meaning behind Rheydt’s words was quite subtle, but he was actually doubting Marin’s ability to pay. He was also worried that after the Wiggin’s Merchant Association had finished transporting people for Marin, he would go back on his word of paying, or just delay paying on the debt, until the end of times.

“There’s no need to worry, I’ve made a good fortune while in Italy…”

“Hehe…” Rheydt immediately understood. From his assumption, Marin had probably robbed and stolen a good amount of belongings from Italy. In truth, Marin did not rob the common folk, all he did was rob some wealthy merchants. The main source of his wealth mostly came from the loot and slaves sold to Venetians.

“Alright, let’s sign the contract, the upfront payment would be thirty percent.” Rheydt was a merchant, so he placed the most importance on contracts.

“Mhm, no problem. Oh right, Manager Rheydt, I wanted to ask, does your Hanseatic League do business in salt?”

“Business in salt?” Rheydt was stunned for a moment, but came to his senses immediately.

“We do have a salt business, but not on a large scale. The majority of the salt from our merchant association comes from the salt mines in Lüneburg. However, the salt mines in Lüneburg are held by the Salt Moguls, so we can’t really get a piece of that. Every year, we’re only able to purchase a few thousand quarts of mineral salt from the Lüneburg Salt-mines. Also, those salts are really bitter, and doesn’t really taste well. In conclusion, the trading of salt is within the business of Wiggin’s Merchant Association, but because we don’t have a supplier, we could never get it to speed.”

“Have you never thought about importing seasalt from Britain?”

“Seasalt? That’s actually a good idea. But the Britons have a tight hold on the sales of seasalt, Wiggin’s Merchant Association do not have any contacts within Britain, so we could never manage to get our hands on their salt.”

Rheydt spoke honestly.

“What if I can supply you with a large amount of seasalt?”

“Lord, you have seasalt?” Rheydt asked in surprise. But after thinking for a moment, wasn’t Texel a coastal island? What’s so surprising that they could make seasalt? However, wasn’t the Netherlands severely lacking in fuel? Otherwise, they wouldn’t have imported salt from Britain which was across the coast.

“Not at the moment, but we will have some soon.”

“Based on my knowledge, the Netherlands have a shortage of firewood…”

“What do you think our Hoffman’s manor does?” Marin asked a rhetorical question.

“Selling coal… Oh, I get it know, the reason why you hired a ship was to transport coal over to boil salt!” Rheydt suddenly realized.

“Mhm, as long as you understand. In that case, are you interested in acting as proxy for our Texel’s seasalt business? From what I’ve heard, you’re only in charge of selling coal in Cologne, don’t you want to add a salt-selling business to your portfolio?”

“Uhm… I have to seek permission from my brother-in-law…” Rheydt answered carefully.

“I’ll privately give you three pennies as commission for each quart of salt sold!”

“Deal!” Rheydt immediately stood up. This bastard really was greedy, hearing that he would get a commission, he agreed immediately. After all, the business wasn’t his, but the commission would be.

As the brother-in-law of Wiggin’s Merchant Association’s Boss, he still had quite the influence within the Association. The Boss of the Merchant Association resides in Hamburg, the major businesses were also in Hamburg, as for the businesses in Cologne, Rheydt had the final say.

Very quickly, Marin and Rheydt signed an agreement, Wiggin’s Merchant Association would purchase the seasalt from Texel in bulk at 3 shillings 6 pennies per quart. At this price, it wasn’t considered too high, because the prices of salt was much greater inland Deutsche Germany than by the coast, reaching prices of five-six shillings per quart, sometimes even higher (mainly based on how far the location was from the source of salt).

Then, the duo signed another secret agreement, stating that for every quart of salt, Rheydt would only have to pay Marin 3 shillings and 3 pennies.

As for the extra 3 pennies, they would only naturally enter Rheydt’s pockets…

As for the supplying amount, Marin had yet to confirm. Because that would require actually producing it to know how much they could produce.

However, neither Marin nor Rheydt had to worry about means of sales.

Because the Wiggin’s Merchant Association were in many circles and had many contacts within the Rhine River area, and would have no problem selling their stocks. As for salt, it was an extremely demanded supply during the Middle Ages. Because there were no fridges or refridgeration methods in the Middle Ages. As such, most meat relied on salting and pickling in order to preserve them. On the other hand, the common folk also had a daily high demand for salt. So there was no need to worry over selling the salt. Especially when it was seasalt at a greater quality than Lüneburg’s saltmines…