King of Mercenaries - Chapter 70: Supporting Fishery Development

At the end of April, 1496, the farming activity on Texel was basically stopped, as Spring Ploughing was basically over, there was only sparse land being developed. Even though land was being developed, it wasn’t planting season yet. As such, development of new land wasn’t such a priority task.

After establishing salt-boiling and reforming agriculture, Marin intended to visit the two ports, ‘t Horntje and Oudeschild for surveying, to see how goes the development of the fisheries.

Marin was someone who places emphasis on fisheries, but that’s not to say that he places much importance on fishery productions. Instead, Marin valued the young fishermen who would grow from the fisheries’ activities — as these people were the best sailors-to-be.

…

As a sailor, not only do they have to know how to manipulate the sails, they must also adapt to long term life on the sea. Aboard a ship out to sea, the sailors normally wouldn’t be on land for several months at a time. If they were just normal people who were used to life on land, they wouldn’t have been able to take it. Only those fishermen who go out to sea to catch fish every day would be able to adapt to life on the sea, and not get sick that easily during long trips.

From the looks of it, the Age of Marine Discovery had already started, if Marin said he wasn’t interested in sharing a slice of that cake, that would be a definite lie. Spain and Portugal have yet to become a superpower, of he joins the fray, he could also become one of the rising talents.

One must know, conquering a new continent and spearheading the Indian Straits weren’t difficult tasks. When the Spaniards conquered Mexico’s Aztec Empire, they only used less than 1000 men. Meanwhile, when Pizarro conquered Peru, they only used 180 men…

Maybe Marin doesn’t have the same luck as Pizarro meeting an incompetent Incan Emperor, but mobilizing up to a thousand people was a piece of cake for Marin. Besides, Marin had done his research, the reason why Cortés and Pizarro was able to succeed, guns and knights played a large part in it.

Plated knights were swept into the trash can by European guns. But in front of bumpkins like the Native Americans of America, they were still extremely useful.

The Incans have never seen horses before, so they did not know what were knights. While the Aztecs dug their own grave, and had myths about “White Deities”. On top of the knights and guns traumatizing the Native Americans. That’s why, conquering those uncivilized Native Americans was an easy and jolly task.

The main thing was, the people of the current time period did not know how deep the roots of the Native Americans went. Cortés attacking the Aztec Empire was purely out of greed and aggression, which had unexpectedly succeeded. While Pizarro was a gambler who risked his life, yet winning the gamble in the end…

Marin did not need to gamble, he knew the weaknesses of the Native Americans. When the time comes, all he needed to do was send out a group of knights, overpowering the Native Americans would be an easy task.

One must know, Pizarro had overwhelmed the several thousand troops of the Incan Emperor with several dozen plated cavalry.

Obviously, the Incans were terrified by the cavalry, and wasn’t truly not being a match…

That’s why, Marin was not short on information, and he knew that many opportunities laid in front of his eyes. But first, he needed a ship, and trained, loyal sailors.

Although Marin could hire sailors from other countries, but he did not intend to do so. Because, hiring foreign sailors would increase the risk of leaking secrets. If the other major powers heard that he managed to conquer a wealthy country by just sending out several hundred men, wouldn’t they start sending their armies out and steal his business?

That’s why, in the early days of colonization, it’s best to use sailors and soldiers that were trustworthy. At a later stage, when he was strong enough and did not need to fear other countries coveting him, then hiring foreign sailors would be no problem.

As for trustworthy sailors, were there anybody more reliable than the fishermen who were living under his rule? Their families were making ends meet under his rule, so who dared to betray him easily?

If they dared, their families would be hanged…

With a heart concerned over the source of sailors, Marin led his underlings to “intimately ask” the fishermen of the two fishing villages at ‘t Horntje and Oudeschild…

The two fishing villages were quite small, each village housed a hundred and some people. With both villages combined, there were only about 200. While the young fishermen with potential did not exceed 30 people…

What made Marin excited was, the majority of these fishermen were Frisians. There are a lot of Frisians living on the coast of Holland, with the majority of them being in the fishing business. In both villages, more than half of the fishermen were Frisians. Frisians all spoke Frisian, which Marin also knew. That’s why, communicating with the fishermen was much easier than communicating with the native townspeople and farmers of the island. Marin couldn’t understand the language the Dutch were speaking on the island, so he had to constantly bring a priest with him as a translator.

All priests knew how to speak German and Latin, otherwise, even if Marin wanted to speak with the local Dutch people, it would’ve not been possible.

Using his fluent Frisian which he learnt from Madam Mary (which was quite similar the English, of course, this was Middle-Ages English, and not moedrn English), Marin started an intimate discussion with the fishermen…

“Ben (random Frisian fisherman), do you find fishing to be hard?” Marin kindly patted the shoulder of a young bald-headed fisherman who resembled Arjen Robben.

Ben, who was only 20 years old, but had a bald head spoke embarrassedly:

“Yes my Lord, fishing is very hard, but we can’t not fish, we’ll starve…”

“Then how much fish do you harvest each time?”

“After each trip to sea, we return and sort them, maybe few hundred pounds of fish…”

“Sort?”

“We keep edible fish, and throw away the inedible ones… not all fish can be eaten, some have poison…”

Marin nodded his head, like pufferfish, an example of something that was poisonous.

“There are also other fishes, maybe no poison, but taste really bad, nobody would buy those…”

“Oh… right, then why do you only get a few hundred pounds after your ships go out to sea? Based on my understanding, one cast of your fish, excluding the inedible ones that were sorted out, should have at least one-two hundred pounds? Do you only cast your nets twice or thrice a day?”

“Hehe, my Lord, it’s not that we can’t fish more, nor is it because we don’t want to fish. Instead…”

“Instead what? Tell me…”

“We don’t have enough salt!” Young Ben touched his balding head, he sighed…

“Salt?” Speaking of salt, Marin started laughing. However, he suddenly remembered something, all of the salt that was produced by the salt boiling facility, he had basically sold everything to Wiggin’s Merchant Association, and kept a portion for his own use and for the military.

From the looks of it, he had forgotten to save some for the inhabitants of the island… thinking that, Marin laughed awkwardly…

“Yes, salt! Lord Baron, salt is so expensive, one quart of salt costs us 5-6 shillings. All of us fishermen are dirt poor, how much salt could we buy? Even if we caught a lot of fish, it would be useless. Because without enough salt to preserve them, the excess fish would rot and become foul…”

“Selling salted fish should be profitable right? Why not use the money you made to buy more salt?” due to the fasting of the Catholic Church, Europeans were forbidden from eating meat most of the time.

That’s why salted fish were important food sources during fasting periods.

“Lord Baron, the profit of salted fish is really nothing. The prices of salted fish might be high, but that’s only because the price of salt is high, which makes it expensive to salt fish. Adding the costs of transporting salted fish, that’s why, selling salted fish wouldn’t even earn much money. But if the prices of salt could go down by a shilling or two, it is still possible for us to make some profit.”

“Which also means, if the salt prices are lowered to 4 shillings, your profit margins would increase a lot?”

“Yes, if the prices of salt go down to 4 shillings, all the fishermen would live better days!”

“How about this, I’ve just established a salt-boiling facility, I’ll have them increase production, then we’ll sell seasalt at a price of 4 shillings per quart to you in the future, then you should be able to live much better lives, yes?”

“Of course, thank you my lord! However, the benefits won’t be seen so easily in a short time. Because we don’t have much money to buy salt.” Bald-headed Ben spoke honestly.

“That’s fine, I shall lend the salt to you, after you’ve sold your salted fish, you can return the appropriate amount of money!”

“Thank you my lord!” Ben quickly bent forward to give his thanks.

“Don’t thank me too early, oh right, are there any problems regarding fishing boats?”

“Yes, my lord, most poor fishermen couldn’t afford fishing boats. Even if we could, like our family, we could only use small boats, and fish in the shallow seas without strong winds like the Wadden Sea. If we had a larger boat, we could go fishing in the Northern Sea’s Great Fishing Grounds. In that place, each time a large boat goes there, they would return with an entire hold of fish…”

“An entire hold?” Marin was also looking forward to that…

“Yes, there are much more fish in the Northern Fishing Grounds, much much more than the Wadden Sea, but the winds are much stronger, so we need a large boat…”

“Alright, I can set up some funds, and lend it to you. You can band up with other families to buy a medium-sized fishing boat, and go fishing in the seas! What’s so good about few hundred pounds of fish? Since you’re going fishing, each time you go to sea, you should return with a full hold!”

“That is too gracious of you, thank you my lord!” Ben and the other Frisian fishermen started giving their thanks.

“You’re welcome!” Marin answered with humility, what he was thinking was — selling you guys salt for 4 shillings per quarter, that won’t be a losing deal for me, and the profit margin was quite large. Besides, without supporting the development of the fishermen, where would he find his sailor reserves?