Pepin learned about the Ross merchants from his subordinates. It was said that two big merchants had come, but they were too young.
How young were they? It wasn't until they actually met that Pepin realized that his prediction was still too hasty.
"They are clearly two fat boys! But they are really fat."
Being fat means being rich and having potential for business. His Pepin family has been serving the Baudouin family, and both parties have a prosperous relationship. In this way, he personally selects the "dealers" of the goods. If he chooses blindly,
He is a greedy liar, and his family's glory and real interests are over!
The fat boy reassured him, but the booty that the Norman pirates brought from Britain shocked him.
Ross's shop has just built a wall, and the wooden wall is full of holes and needs to be reinforced. Two young businessmen from Ross are staying here temporarily, and the small dock they sent to build currently has more than ten longships parked, as well as
Two large ships. To Pepin, this alone was already a fierce Northern Fleet.
Nowadays, the Normans have large ships that can transport a large number of soldiers in wartime. In peacetime, they are a group of vehicles with huge transport capacity!
So without any inquiry, Pepin just glanced at the Russian docks and was convinced that they were able to buy all the wool in Flanders. As for whether they had the money? Pepin reserved his opinion and needed to inquire carefully.
The two foxes hosted a banquet for the uninvited male "big salesman", including ale, salted peas, and the usual grilled fish. The food was open to eat, which surprised Pepin.
Pepin, a middle-aged man, remained serious, unlike the other two fat guys who were too easy-going.
"You have revealed your identity, tell me what you think." The youngest red fox asked first, "I will stay here for a long time. If we can cooperate, we can be very good partners in the future."
The other party showed real sincerity and no arrogance. Pepin was very pleased: "The problem is very simple. I heard that you want to make money, and we in Flanders have the goods. We can provide a large amount of high-quality wool.
The count intends to sell it directly to you. Do you... think there is a future?"
"How could such a good thing happen?" Red Fox straightened his chest in surprise and looked at Black Tiger with a smile.
"Yes. I will sell it directly to you. We will negotiate it without the participation of others. As for the price... everything is easy to negotiate."
"This is a good thing. So do you have the goods now?" Red Fox asked anxiously.
"There is stock. Now is our wool harvesting season, which you may already know in Utrecht. Your lordship will not ask for the lost northern territory now, but the wool in the Greater Flanders region is mainly produced in the south.
If you are interested in doing local wool trading, you must cooperate with us."
What Pepin was talking about was the fact that the whole of Greater Flanders is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, and the Rhine River divides the north and the south. The river in the north divides many islands called Zeeland, while in the south, the entire plain is most suitable for the development of agriculture and animal husbandry.
There is a large population concentrated in the southern part of the country, where the descendants of Bilicka Gauls mix with Frankish and Frisian immigrants. A new mixed ethnic group is rapidly forming, the so-called Walloons. The local geography makes the population larger.
, whether it is planting or animal husbandry, as long as the rulers are not stupid, the international environment in Western Europe will be stable and rapid development will be a reality.
It doesn't matter whether Baudouin is stupid or not. All economic issues are taken care of by Pepin's family. Pepin has no power, and everything in the family was given by the count. He can usually use the power of the count to boss the peasants, but as a tool,
He must find a way to get money for his master.
Pepin simply came up with a plan he had planned before.
"The wool of the Count of Flanders will only be delivered to the Kingdom of Ross, and transactions with other powers will be cut off. Ross will enjoy exclusive benefits. The Count of Flanders does not have enough ability to transport wool to the ports controlled by the Ross, but the Count can recover.
Building the port of Antwerp may allow Russian ships to follow the river directly to Ghent. Russian ships can directly enter the ports in the country for direct trade, and the price will be easy to negotiate."
The two foxes were young but not fools. They were familiar with the business experience of their father and brother, and they immediately understood that the benefits provided by this Pepin were huge!
Monopoly, if you want to make a fortune, you must monopolize one area.
Today, financial capital is still a non-existent concept. If a kingdom wants to be prosperous, it needs to develop industrial capital. The country is personally looking for a large buyer of commodities, giving the buyer a "franchise", and announcing an embargo on other countries, which is tantamount to
It is to independently bind its own economic lifeline to the buyer.
The smart black fox and red fox have understood what is hidden behind such generous trade terms.
Black Fox asked his younger brother with a serious face: "This plan is very beneficial to Ross. Obviously, your conditions are not pure."
Although the big Ross businessman was young, Pepin was very satisfied to see this aspect. He still deliberately pretended to be ignorant: "Why not be pure? Don't you like huge benefits? This is better than coming to our territory to rob us in person?"
It's like we're paying tribute."
"Tribute? A joke." These words made Black Fox amused: "You have to pay something to get tribute. This is the rule in the north. Indeed! We will import wool on a large scale because of your cost and output advantages. We import
The more you have, the less you can lose. If someone attacks your wool production at this time, it will ultimately affect our interests. You! You are using wool to buy our military protection!"
"What a young wise man!" Pepin lined up a large group: "This is indeed the case. How? Your ships can enter Ghent directly, and the entire county is open to you. In fact, as long as you organize a large army, you can destroy only the remaining
Half of the territory of Flanders. As long as the King of Rus is willing, my county can be destroyed in an instant."
Pepin's last words were very serious, and he seemed to want to bite off his remaining teeth. He said this with personal anger, because part of his family's property is in Antwerp, but unfortunately the old city has been demolished by the Russians.
Clean, his losses were huge.
This guy spoke with anger, indicating that he was afraid, and what he was afraid of was losing his current wealth. The two foxes looked at each other and made this judgment. Then they looked at each other again, and it was the red fox's turn to speak: "If the king is interested, your uncle
It will be destroyed. You claim to be just the earl's steward, and it seems that the earl is indeed kind to you, and you are willing to do things for him."
"Yes. This is my country too. I'm afraid that Flanders will collapse. Listen, the area south of the Inn River is the best wool producing area. You want to develop peacefully and stably in Frankland without robbery?
Cai must cooperate with us."
"Are you teaching us how to do things?"
"It's just business. Young man, you will definitely not have trouble with wealth." After saying that, Pepin smiled meaningfully.
Seeing him smile, the two foxes understood everything. After looking at each other, the whole room burst into laughter.
There was no need for the two sides to talk in detail. As for Red Fox, he even felt that Ross's shop was built in the wrong place. However, the construction of the stronghold in Rotterstad was the king's order, and the land was personally explored by the king. Even its name was the king's.
name.
But the king did not prohibit the construction of "Shop No. 2".
The secret talks had very constructive results:
After the city of Antwerp was rebuilt, Ross owned the "Second Shop" which was actually a military stronghold in the city. He oversaw the commercial activities of the Flanders County, which was mainly wool monopoly trade, and placed a small number of armed personnel. If necessary, he used mercenaries.
Way to assist Count Baudouin.
The country cut off its wool trade with other forces, except for other material trade.
The Rus had to act as interlocutors to prevent the Danish Normans from attacking the settlements in the county.
The country has unilaterally decided to adjust the tariff principles of the "Northern Alliance" and cancel all taxes on official Russian merchant ships.
It's like a dog lying on its back and opening its belly to its owner to show obedience! The red fox can't wait to settle down in the shop and organize a ship to go directly to the port of Antwerp to take the goods away.
Now the red fox is holding the heavy "Ross Shop" in his hand to activate himself. It was given by the king and owned by his own family. He came with a huge sum of money, but he immediately made purchases in Western Europe. The "business machine" was made possible by this money.
Huge amounts of additional capital can quickly get things started.
When Pepin learned that the young red fox had more than one hundred pounds of silver in his hands, he was so excited that he wished he could quickly invite the wealthy kid to Ghent and arrange for him to have dinner with the count, so he decided to give this year's gift to the young red fox.
Wool delivery is done directly.
…
It is impossible for Black Fox to stay in Rotterstad and Utrecht for a long time. He supervises the construction of shops here not only out of brotherly love, but also because Rotterstad is the core node of the Rus Kingdom's commercial layout in Western Europe.
No matter how much trouble the Black Fox causes inland, the profits it extracts must be shipped out in Rotterstad. If the port here is not done well, it will be catastrophic trouble.
Now, due to the new agreement with the County of Flanders, Rotterstad has even greater significance.
The two brothers had to get together and have a good chat.
"It seems the Danes haven't made much money in Britain, and they're selling pots and pans."
"I haven't seen Ragnar. Their main force is still on the island. I'm afraid the good things have been hidden."
"What good things can they get? The best thing is to grab gold and silver coins."
"Ah, my hands are itchy when it comes to this. If I have enough people, I will try to do it."
"Forget it! It's very profitable to do wool business with the guys in the south. The premise is that you have to successfully transport the wool to Cologne and the local people have to accept it peacefully."
"This is not a problem. They may be worried about our sneak attack, so we must reassure them. I think as long as we get a few priests from Utrecht on board, and let them and the Cologne people guarantee that we are just businessmen, everything will be easy to talk about."
The two brothers have already discussed and understood the business route through each other's words.
In the past, the special geographical environment of Greater Flanders made it more suitable for the development of animal husbandry and salt production. Even northwest Europe has relatively cold winters, and wool textiles are better than linen products in keeping out the cold. As long as conditions permit,
The locals would get some woolen products to keep out the cold. Ragnar's original nickname came from "the blood-stained woolen pants after winning the duel", although he hated this nickname.
Of course, Greater Flanders is not the only place that produces wool, but it can provide the highest quality wool in the region. The output is very considerable, enough to feed Cologne's textile industry and support a city of 10,000 residents.
Therefore, the "extravagant style of Cologne Diocese" criticized by a group of priests in the Diocese of Utrecht and the Great Northern Diocese, Cologne does have the capital for extravagance.
Today, there are only primitive textile machines in Western Europe. The cotton thread produced by rolling wool is much thicker than linen thread. The efficiency of purely hand-woven spinning is naturally higher than the latter, and the ability to withstand the cold is still dominated by wool. It does not even need to be spun, it is constantly rolled and
After ironing to make felt, you can directly carry out tailoring operations and mass-produce special hoods, gloves, and felt shoes.
These light industrial products can make a lot more money than pure agriculture. Relying on the processing industry, the citizens of Cologne can create more wealth, and the church as the ruler can also collect more wealth. The tithe tax is a serious exploitation of farmers.
Because the material output of farmers is low, the surplus assets left after paying taxes and production costs are also low. People who make textiles are in a much better situation, provided that they can really get a steady stream of wool raw materials.
The area near Cologne can provide part of the wool to the main city, but it cannot meet the needs of various handicraft workshops at all.
The shortcut to make up for the gap is to import from Flanders, where there must be a large amount of surplus wool that needs to be sold.
In the past, various traveling merchants took over logistics activities, forming a trade line from Ghent → Antwerp and Brussels → Maastricht → Aachen → Cologne. In this way, the trade line would make use of the natural inland waterways of Western Europe and arrive in Malta.
After Stricht, it was changed to carriage transportation, and after passing through Aachen, it went directly to Cologne.
Some shrewd businessmen know very well that they can save a lot of freight by taking the water route from the beginning and transporting the wool in sacks directly to Cologne. However, all they own are sampan-level boats, and first of all, the transport capacity is not enough.
, Secondly, because you have to walk a sea route, and then go up the Rhine River, the poor navigability of the boat makes the merchants unable to bear the risk, and the wool absorbs water. Once the boat capsizes, it does not matter whether the personnel will be safe, the most critical thing is the wool.
It must have sunk into the sea and disappeared.
The inland rivers are all small rivers with a small width. There are no winds and waves for shipping and you can dock at any time to avoid all kinds of troubles. Maastricht is also a very good ferry town. The local church controls it and does not belong to any military lord. The priests only need to
They lived by collecting commercial taxes and tolls, which was the basis of their lives, so they also started to work as ship leasing and carriage leasing clerks. Of course, priests could not directly engage in business, but also had cooperating professionals to engage in these businesses.
This inland transportation line integrating water and land routes has existed since Roman times. It has retained its vitality after wars, so that it can support Cologne's business atmosphere and Aachen's development prospects.
Merchants were extremely sensitive to commercial security. Traveling merchants walking this "Wool Road" had already known about the large-scale war in the north in 840, and then found out what happened to the Diocese of Cologne and the County of Flanders after this war.
The territory of Flanders shrank, the Norman forces invaded in large numbers, the County of the Netherlands was established, the Bishopric of Cologne swallowed up the County of Westphalia, a brand-new Principality of Saxony was born, and Prince Ludwig of East Francia
Give up.
This group of forces who fought bloody battles finally became a whole. What seemed like a major reshuffle of forces was actually a major integration. Smart merchants realized that these groups had their own demands, but they all opposed the Kingdom of China.
penetration of power.
This can be a fatal blow to traveling merchants. The purchaser and the seller are an alliance in many aspects, but the trade route passes through the core area of the Middle Kingdom that they collectively oppose. Now, Aachen has become a prominent point in the macro perspective.
Even though King Lothair had great ambitions to unify the Franks, a huge plier appeared in the northwest of him. Once they unite, they can "behead" Aachen in the protrusion. Obviously this is also part of the civil war.
Lothair thought that this would be the situation of the Battle of Canning, so he arranged more troops to garrison in the north.
The garrison guarding the road was an artificial interruption of the trade line. The trade line had been interrupted as early as the spring of 841, even without the Count of Flanders taking action.
The financial resources of traveling merchants have been interrupted, and the news has spread throughout the city of Cologne.
Archbishop Hadbold, who had just returned, wanted to make up for the losses by raising taxes. Soon he learned from the merchants that the trade line was cut off by King Lothair. In fact, even without the trade line, life would not be difficult.
, that is, the wealthy life of the church is coming to an end.
The living standards of the people in the entire city of Cologne are higher than those in other areas. They can't stand the life of eating bran and vegetables, and they still have to fight for it if possible. The archbishop just recently sent people to Aachen to negotiate, hoping that the local garrison would respond to the merchant network.
To put it mildly, the results of the negotiations have not been reported back yet.
What if the messenger is rejected?
Archbishop Hardbold has always publicly supported Ludwig of the Eastern Kingdom, and his support became even stronger after the war.
A group of cardinals and archbishops gathered together for a conference. Paradoxically, the conference was not about how to be pious and religious, but about pure business practices.
They discussed and came up with a very pragmatic result. It is said that the Russians built a stronghold at the mouth of the Rhine River and will build a stronghold upstream. The Russians have large ships that can go directly to the wool-producing area of Greater Flanders. Why not negotiate with them and ask the Russians to
What about people becoming transporters?
In the face of absolute interests, faith had to stand aside. They even helped the Russians to argue that every Russian who could trade on the Rhine River had already converted, and it was not blasphemy to cooperate with them.
As a result, things became very simple, because no one would have trouble with the interests.
Ross's shop is still under construction, the bilateral trade between Ross and the County of Flanders has only been negotiated and has not yet been implemented, and Ross has not negotiated with Cologne.
However, all three parties have their own strong demands. A brand new wool trade line with logistics controlled by the Russians can only be larger in scale. How it is built depends only on the right hand of Red Fox.
Red Fox has the ability to be the initiator of this lucrative sea trade route, and he has realized that only he can do it.
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