King of Mercenaries - Chapter 78: Establishing Saltpeter Men

Since they were going to use firearms in great quantities, there was another item — gunpowder, which they also needed to prepare. Because, in every battle, the gunners would use up a large amount of gunpowder.

Based on the traditional tercio’s formation, the ratio of spearmen to gunners were 3:1. Which also means in a phalanx of 1200 men, gunners would represent one quarter of that, which was 300 men.

Based on the information he had read in his past life, Marin knew that in each battle, each gunner would use up an average of 1 pound of lead balls, and less than 1 pound of gunpowder. With the British’s data based on the British flintlock Brown Bess, one pound of lead could be made into 15 shots of buck and balls, which was about 30grams per. As for the gunpowder, they used 3/4 of an ounce, which was about 21 grams.

Which also means that in each battle, the musketeers would at most fire 15 shots, and then it would enter the bayonet phase… Of course, this was based on the tactics of the British Red Coats, in this day and age, bayonets have yet to be discovered. When the enemies approach, the musketeers would usually use their one-handed sabres or shortspears to battle their enemies.

However, the Spanish musket was different than the Brown Bess flintlock. The bullets for the muskets weighed as much as 50 grams, and the propellant used reached 35 grams. That’s why it uses up more explosives.

The greater the usage, the more gunpowder they needed to consume. And sadly, there aren’t any saltpeter mines in Europe, while India and the Middle East which produces large quantities of saltpeter ore had their trading routes blocked by Turkey.

That’s why the Europeans could only seek saltpeter from cesspits. Not only was it found in small amounts, even its gathering was difficult.

From the looks of it, Europe has yet to completely march into the age of firearms, so their requirement for explosives wasn’t that high. By the time Europe enters the age of death sentence by firing squads, their consumption of explosives would be extremely frightening. If it wasn’t because the British had opened up saltpeter trade with India, who knows whether or not the British would have so much gunpowder to fuel their cannonfire.

In order to gather enough saltpeter for use in war, the King of England, Charles I, that dumbass who was decapitated, had specifically sent out saltpeter men, and within the borders of England, bareg into the homes of the commonfolk, to dig up all the saltpeter within the toilets and stables, to extract nitrite. In order to obtain sufficient amounts of nitrite, Charles I had also ordered — all toilets and stables within the country are barred from paving the floor with slabs or wooden planks, to prevent them from affecting the collection of saltpeter

…

What Charles I did may seem crazy, but it was actually borne out of helplessness. If there was enough saltpeter ore, did he have to do that? By the time England managed to establish a strong foothold in India, and was able to obtain a steady source of cheap Indian saltpeter ore in large amounts, did England remove saltpeter men.

Marin on the other hand, was just starting to form the Tercio, but he already needed a large amount of saltpeter ore in order to mix gunpowder. Meanwhile, saltpeter ore in the entirety of Europe, was not only expensive, but extremely scarce. Because there wasn’t a high demand for it, so nobody had been producing it. Hoffman’s Manor had once done research into nitrite, but after his coalmine was up and running, the gathering of nitrite was more or less useless. Old Hoffman immediately redirected his workers in charge of gathering saltpeter to help those in the coalmines…

In order to reduce the cost of gunpowder, Marin had decided to establish saltpeter men on Texel.

At the same time, in order to obtain saltpeter, Marin emulated Charles I and ordered that — all toilets and stables within the island are barred from paving the floor with slabs or wooden planks, to prevent them from affecting the collection of saltpeter…

Marin made a rough estimate, there was originally 800 people living on the island, then about 400 (Marin and the soldiers) came, including the families of the soldiers, which reached 1500 people; then because of the salt-boiling business, they recruited 3000 more people; next the recruited 600 and more Frisian fishermen…

Which also means that the island was populated by a whopping 6000 people, including 1000 and more horses and cows, there was a total of 7000 organisms producing excrements everyday.

Which also means that the production of saltpeter was quite considerable…

Of course, things wouldn’t go that smoothly. Saltpeter men was an extremely dirty job, absolutely nobody with noblebirth or cultured background would like to take the job.

So, Marin was forced to pick people from the commoners, and paid them at a high wage. After training, roughly 20 saltpeter men started patrolling the island everyday. The toilets of every house must be unconditionally opened for the saltpeter men…

At the same time, Marin had also poached two artisans who knew how to extract nitrite from inland, and making them in charge of extracting nitrite from the saltpeter which were gathered by the saltpeter men. Afterwards, mixing them together with plant matter and ash, to further process into potassium nitrate which could be used for the production of gunpowder…

Every day, each saltpeter man would be pushing wheelbarrows and knock on the doors of houses one after the other, and with the command flag given by Marin in hand, ordering the citizens to bring them to their bathrooms for the feces.

As to this order from their Lord Baron, all of the citizens of the island find it extraordinarily weird. However, Nobles knew how to party so they couldn’t do anything about it.

After all, the only noble on this island was just Marin. As for the knight, Schwartz, he was just an attache of Marin’s. That’s why, on Texel island, Marin’s word was law and nobody would object.

Marin had once read a webnovel, so he knew that after feces and urine come into contact with the soil, it would need roughly two dozen days for it to become saltpeter. As for the 6000 citizens on the island, only the toilets of the native 800 and so were very old, so there was a very thick layer of saltpeter. As for the new arrivals, although the saltpeter was being produced from their feces, but it wasn’t at sufficient amounts, but it was still in progress. After all, there was so many people.

What made Marin angry was, a lot of the fishermen living by the sea actually tossed their feces into the ocean, that was basically such a serious waste, and such a crime, as well as contaminating the ocean…

As such, Marin ordered for a public toilet to be constructed downwind of the fishing villages. All of the fishermen families must not dump their feces into the ocean with legitimate reason.

Of course, same goes when they go fishing into the ocean.

And just like that, Marin had completed his entire supply chain of saltpeter on the island just like that. The saltpeter of the island, at the start of their service, had stripped all the saltpeter from the toilets of the original 800 natives. Afterwards, Marin ordered them to mobilize once a month to gather all the saltpeter. This is because the generation period for saltpeter takes about 20 or so days.

Of course, Marin’s words didn’t mean everything on the island. For example, there were several churches on the island, which had slabs in their toilets. Against the church, Marin didn’t dare send people to demolish their toilet slabs. Because Marin was not capable of offending the Church just yet.

However, Marin had also thought about another way. For example, he could dig up a pit from a place away from the church. Then, he can send people into the church, using wheelbarrows to wheel the feces from the church toilets away and into the pits, and wait for the saltpeter to form…

News of Marin establishing saltpeter men on Texel island was quickly spread out by the merchants doing trade there. And that news was mostly used as jokes during meals. But there were shrewd merchants who came over to  Texel and requested to purchase the saltpeter. But Marin knew that in the future wars, he might not even have enough saltpeter for himself, so how would he sell them?