King of German Mercenaries

Southwestern Indian peninsula, Karicut. Columbus' fleet has been in Calicut for more than a month. Logically, Columbus should have ended the voyage and returned home.

However, Columbus waited a while to wait for the Lilac ships from the Indonesian Spice Islands. Moreover, even if he waited for more than a month, he did not wait for Da Gama's fleet.

In fact, after leaving Malindi, Da Gama went all the way north and arrived in Mogadishu in the Somali region before spending money to find out the location of India.

Da Gama then ordered the fleet to sail northeast...

More than a month after Columbus arrived in Calicut, Da Gama's fleet arrived at Surat on the west coast of India...

Surat is also an important commercial port in western India. It is closer to the Arab region, and the business is also prosperous. However, the price of spices is slightly different.

Of course, pepper prices, Surat and Calicut are about the same. Because India is where pepper comes from. But cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg cost more than Calicut.

Cinnamon comes from Sri Lanka, while cloves and nutmeg come from the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Shipping from overseas still costs a lot of shipping, so the price can't be lower.

In Surat and Calicut, peppers cost 1.5 pfennig a pound. However, the prices for cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg are different.

In Calicut, because it is close to the south and closer to Sri Lanka, the price of cinnamon is also 1.5 pfennig a pound. And cloves and nutmeg, when the Arabian sailing merchants went to the Spice Islands and asked the local natives to buy them, the purchase price was very cheap. So, even shipping to Calicut, India, it's 1.5 pfennig a pound. But in Surat, the price is higher. For example, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg cost about 1.7 pfennig a pound.

Of course, even the price difference makes Da Gama ecstatic. Because, in Europe, a pound of spices, whether pepper, cinnamon, cloves, or nutmeg, costs more than 10 shillings a pound. Even if the purchase price of 2 pfennig 1 pound was spent and shipped back to Europe, it was still profitable.

Columbus' fleet in Calicut wasn't just sourcing spices. Under Marin's instructions, Draka also went around looking for soybeans...

However, this thing is not difficult to find. At the roadside stall, Draka quickly discovered the legendary soybean... He took out the picture given by Marin and compared it, Draka determined that this was what he needed. So he immediately bought 10 sacks of soybeans for only 5 gold coins. In Europe, even the cheapest rye costs 1.6 gold coins a sack. Needless to say, wheat requires 8 gold coins for a sack. On the Indian side, a sack of soybeans costs only 0.5 gold coins, which is much cheaper than the price of European rye.

After purchasing soybeans, Draka began to sell stained glass products worth 10,000 gold coins, a Venetian specialty on board. However, this thing can't be said to sell well, and it can't be said that it can't be sold, and the sales are somewhat tepid. In fact, on the Indian side, stained glass products are not particularly rare. Because Venetian merchants also sold a lot of stained glass products to India through Arab merchants. Therefore, it is not that Indians have not seen stained glass products. Therefore, they have no desire to snatch up these stained glass items.

That's why Draka has been selling glass in Calicut for just over a month. Except waiting for the uh spice boats in the Spice Islands, it's because the stained glass products are slow to sell.

However, when the spice ships from the Spice Islands arrived in Calicut, they became more interested in the stained glass works of Draka. Because these stained glass products may not be too rare for Indians, but the indigenous people on the Spice Islands like it...

So, the Arab owner of the spice ship ate the ordinary stained glass products that Draka sold and exchanged them for spices...

Stained glass items worth 10,000 gold coins,

All were quickly replaced with spices. These spices, weighing 400,000 pounds, or 181 tons. Columbus vacated the cargo space of two and a half ships to load the spices.

Then, Draka took out the 17,000 gold coins that Marin had prepared for him...

Originally, Marin gave Draka 20,000 gold coins. However, according to Marin's instructions, Draka bribed the local chiefs and princes with gold coins in Malindi and Calicut, spending 3,000 gold coins. Of course, it's not in vain either. No, Chief Malindi became a good friend and even sent a navigator to help act as a leading party. And Prince Calicart also showed great kindness and sent people to help, preventing them from being trapped by the locals.

For example, when Da Gama came to India for the first time in the original history, he was actually cheated by Calicut’s businessmen for a lot of money. Because the gift they gave to Prince Calicut was too shabby, and the local prince didn't pay much attention to him. When I went to buy spices, I sold others 1.5 pfennig a pound of spices, but I was surprised to sell 2 pfennis a pound to Da Gama. Of course, even so, Da Gama's fleet was extremely profitable. Because, European and Indian spice prices are too different.

Draka calculated, and now put on has been loaded with 181 tons of spices. However, the total cargo capacity of the four ships is only 260 tons. In other words, the fleet now has less than 80 tons of cargo capacity.

Draka thought about it and decided to buy something else. For example, local gems that sell very well. In addition, he also purchased a large amount of copper...

In Europe, the ratio of silver to copper at this time is about 1 to 15. In India, the price ratio of silver and copper is 1 to 100.

Draka remembered that Marin had said that he needed to build more cannons. So he began to buy copper ingots so that Marin could use them to make cannons. To this end, Draka spent 10,000 gold coins to buy 35 tons of copper. Then, I also bought a few tons of rare items like gems.

Then, Draka remembered that it seemed that Marin was coming to India to purchase saltpeter. So he went to find saltpeter again...

Saltpeter is really cheap in India, at just 2.72 pfennigs per pound. A ton of saltpeter costs 150 gold coins. At this time, the price of saltpeter in Europe is as low as 10 pfennig a pound. The taller ones can be as high as 15 pfennigs a pound. The most important thing is that the production of saltpeter in Europe is very small. You want to buy in bulk and simply can't.

Because the saltpeter in Europe is basically found in thatched pits, and the output is very small. In India, saltpeter is abundant and the price is cheap. No wonder the British East India Company made a fortune when it got involved in the saltpeter trade in India.

Draka bought 30 tons of saltpeter in one go, packed it tightly in a leather bag with water, and placed it in the bilge of the last ship to prevent water and fire... Then, the ship was full of cargo...

After purchasing another batch of grain and using the heating mud sealing method to reserve a batch of fresh water, Columbus officially returned with the fleet...

As for the return route, of course, it is the return route. Now, even without Majid, Columbus is confident that he will be able to return to the original route with the help of the logbook. Because, he is an excellent old driver in the sailing world...

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