King of Mercenaries - Chapter 16: Rectifying Environmental Sanitation

It took almost a month for Marin to make the whole family get used to taking a shower. This is the hottest time of July, the year. If everyone does not take a bath, God knows what kind of taste will be emitted.

According to Marin’s estimate, Charles VIII will enter Italy at the end of August, and the news will be transmitted to Vienna. Then, the Empire Council will argue for a while before it will grind and agree to increase taxes, or simply no results. When the first batch of taxes is collected, at least until November. By that time, Maximilian I, who had money, would have the temper to recruit mercenaries again. However, Marin, who has read history, is more optimistic that the emperor can receive taxes from Austria and Burgundy under his control. In other regions, it is too difficult to receive tax revenue. But even if taxes are received in these two places, it is enough for the emperor to expand on a small scale.

So, in the past few months, Marin plans to reorganize Hoffman Estate. Because, once the emperor began recruiting mercenaries, he would definitely go to Vienna to “get a name” and there would be no time to manage the Hoffman Estate. With limited time, Marin took the time and carried out drastic reforms in the manor. The reason for his reform is the advanced knowledge he learned from the very developed Eastern Empire with his non-existent monk teacher, Einstein. Because of the previous success, although still can not be 100% believed, but the Hoffman couple also learned seven or eight points for the great knowledge Marin learned. So, they held the psychological test, let Marlin let go of the reform experiment in the manor.

After promoting the bathing problem, it is natural to have matching washing clothes. So, the next thing Marin promoted was to wash clothes and change clothes frequently. The reason given by Marin is also very strong – taking a bath and changing clothes frequently can prevent the growth of the disease to a large extent. This theory is actually a modern health theory. However, the reason for putting an end to the disease has greatly shocked others. Therefore, the family is extremely supportive. Anyway, for the Hoffman family, they will not be able to wash their clothes, and they will be able to hire a serf woman in a manor. They will not have to spend money to enjoy the meal. Before that, Mrs. Mary was actually changing her clothes. Only the old masters such as Hoffman and Adler did not change clothes very often. Therefore, this program has no resistance to promotion.

Then, Marin asked the whole family to wash their hands before and after meals, so as not to put dirty things in their mouths and take them with them. In this regard, Mrs. Mary, who loves to clean herself, expressed her support. So, this plan was passed. Before bathing and changing clothes and washing hands, in fact, it is personal hygiene. After solving personal hygiene, Marin began to solve environmental health problems. The main problem of environmental sanitation is actually the concentration of manure, the dumping of garbage, and the problem of cleaning in residential areas. In the Middle Ages, apart from the educated aristocrats, most ordinary people have bad habits of defecation. This also makes the smell of feces floating in the cities of medieval Europe. The main road is okay, and local officials will organize people to clean up. And in those small streets and alleys, there are many people who are urinating and defecating. Therefore, as long as you leave the main street and enter the remote areas of the city, you can smell the smell. And these feces everywhere can also breed flies and mosquitoes, which in turn lead to terrible infectious diseases.

In the city, Marin was not in control, but when he was hanging out in the manor the day before yesterday, he accidentally stepped on a big dung and made him sick for a long time. Therefore, it is a big problem that Marin urgently needs to solve in order to concentrate on the toilet and refrain from urinating. When Marin proposed a plan to concentrate on the toilet and ban reliving on the spot, there was no objection from the family. Men don’t care, they are going to the toilet anyway, and Mrs. Mary is more welcome. After all, she is also resentful of the feces that are everywhere. It is very simple to promote this article in the Hoffman family, but when the serfs in Marin called the manor to announce the promotion, they were protested by many serfs:

“Master Marin, what are you doing so little things? Everyone is like this…”

“Yeah, yeah, other manors are like this, and people in the city are all there to solve it…”

…

Marlin is very angry, and it is reasonable to cope with your urination everywhere. So he issued mandatory measures –

“In the future, If I found that someone was urinating in the territory, grabbed doing it once, will be fined a Finney!”

This measure made the serfs sigh. After all, the serfs were reluctant to accept and were used to being oppressed. But a fine Finney, that’s a big deal. At this time in the German region, ordinary helpers, working in the city, only gain two Finney a day. The serfs in the country can only earn one Finney a day. Therefore, a fine Finney is basically to let them work day by day!Although they are very dissatisfied, they can’t resist. After all, this is an era of nobility. The status of the serfs is a little better than the slaves. Basically, they have no right to speak. They can only passively accept the rule.

If it’s the free citizens with higher status, they may be fiercely rebellious (most of the European uprising and revolutions are made by the citizens), but the serfs do not have any enthusiasm to resist. Therefore, this program has also been implemented smoothly.

In order to cooperate with this plan, Marin organized manpower and built several public toilets in the serf village, which were divided into men and women. As for my own, it is not necessary. Although the knight is the lowest level aristocrat, but the living habits are still close to the nobility, the family originally had a toilet, it does not need new repairs.

Later, Marin planned the garbage dump area and arranged for people to clean the main house of Hoffman’s house every day and put the garbage in the dumping area. Then, in the area where the serfs lived, he also set up a garbage dumping area, asking the serfs to pile up the garbage instead of dumping them everywhere. In addition, Marin asked that the manpower of the barn should remove feces every day, and the cow dung and horse manure should be removed every day, and piled up together, and pitted together with human feces.

As for why this is done, it is the problem of Marlin suddenly thinking of gunpowder. Gunpowder requires saltpeter, and saltpeter is the most important component of gunpowder. But there is no saltpeter mine in Europe. In this era, it is either imported from the Middle East or collected from soil nitrate from the feces. However, with the rise of Ottoman Turkey and the blocus of the sea and land trade channel to the East, from this moment, Europeans had to go to the feces to find soil and nitrate to control the saltpeter.Marin heard about the theory and knows the principle of the point, but the specific process is not clear. But this is not a problem.

Now the price of saltpeter is not cheap. According to Marlin, the price of a pound of gunpowder is as high as 10 Finney. And the price of saltpeter reached 11 Finney per pound. And the saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal required for gunpowder, the most expensive is saltpeter. Because Europeans find saltpeter from the fece pit, the number is really limited, so the price is very high.

The Hoffman Estate has more than a hundred people, plus dozens of animals, and the amount of manure per day is very large. Marin dug a number of long-shaped pits in the remote lower vent of the manor, specifically for collecting the soil. The feces produced by so many people, used to produce the soil, is estimated to be a small income.

After solving the health problem and getting the industry to produce saltpeter, Marin reformed the farm tools in the manor. First of all, stone tools have been eliminated. Later, Marin introduced the iron shovel in the east to facilitate farmers to manually excavate loose soil.

Not only that, Marin also vigorously promoted the techniques of seeding and hole planting. Europeans are currently popular for spreading, shallow sowing, and uneven seed distribution. Some places are not scattered, and the seeds are sparsely distributed. In some places, too many seeds are sprinkled, and the seeds are too dense. When the seeds germinate, it is easy to cause multiple plants to be too close to compete to absorb soil nutrients. Then, each plant did not grow well. The artificially controlled tracing and hole broadcasting have solved this problem well. Originally, Marin was planning to introduce the brakes that were invented during the Han Dynasty. However, Marin had never seen a brake. Therefore, for the time being, he can only promote artificial saltpeter and hole seeding. If there is an opportunity to send someone to the East, he must introduce a brake. Because the sowing efficiency of the brakes is much higher than the manual on-demand.