The Rise of the European Emperor

As time came to the end of July, on the eve of the opening of the Knights Tournament, more wandering knights came to Emden Port, reaching as many as 1,500.

The reason why there was a sudden increase of several hundred people was because the German wandering knights from the Teutonic Knights and Livonian Knights came back.

In the past, because there were not many opportunities in Germany, many wandering knights went to the Teutonic Knights and Livonian Knights to find opportunities. After all, these two countries are countries dominated by knights. For example, the Teutonic Knights have more than 800 official Teutonic knights, who have the right to vote. The Livonian Knights are similar, with hundreds of official knights.

Only in these two knight order countries, there are hundreds of knights co-existing under the seal. As for the general uncle country, a country with dozens of knights is considered a big country. In some small counties, there are even only three or five knights. Because these small counties themselves are too small, and they can't take out the knight's fiefdom. After all, not every country has thousands of square kilometers of land. Some small countries, such as the country of Rietberg, are only more than 200 square kilometers, and only two or three towns in size. How many knights can they entrust? This is not the worst. Some uncles are not even as large as a town in later generations, and there are even small uncles with only one small city, also called Chengbo. A country with a land area of ​​2,000 square kilometers is definitely considered a powerful country in the country.

Moreover, after so many years, every knight family is giving birth to sons, resulting in too many wandering knights, and the opportunities in Germany are greatly reduced.

As a last resort, many wandering knights went directly to the Teutonic Knights and Livonian Knights to find opportunities. After all, there are hundreds of official knights in both countries. Moreover, knights are not hereditary. As long as the veteran knights of the Teutonic Knights or the Livonian Knights die of illness or accident, the opportunity for these wandering knights will come... and there are thousands of hundreds of knights in the two knights. Accidental or old age. Therefore, there are relatively more opportunities there. Therefore, many wandering knights simply went directly to these two knight order countries to look for opportunities.

Of course, although there are many wandering knights going to the two knight order countries, they are still not as many as the local ones. After all, the German region is the largest export base of knights in Europe. Moreover, not every knight likes to travel to Eastern Europe.

More than 1,500 wandering knights, together with their attendants, totaled more than 7,000. Fortunately, Marin set up a huge camp at the level of a 10,000-strong army, which is enough. What's more, the soldiers of the Second Legion watched intently, but not many dared to do anything wrong. You know, the feeling of being aimed at by 2,500 muskets is absolutely uncomfortable. If you are not careful, you will be beaten into a sieve.

The food supply for 7,000 people also brought a lot of pressure. You know, the more than 1,500 knights all ate box lunches with three vegetables and one meat. Moreover, it is provided for free, which is not a small expense.

Fortunately, this time is July,

There are many vegetables listed. If it was winter, Marin might not be able to provide vegetables, so he could only feed the knights bacon. After all, winter vegetables are much more expensive than bacon.

Every day, Marin not only supplies these people with bread, vegetables, and some meat dishes, but also provides drinks for these seven thousand people.

Yes, each of these seven thousand people has to drink. Even for the knight's attendant, in addition to a piece of Kohler bread for each meal, he also serves a glass of beer.

Someone may ask, why not give them plain water? After all, no matter how bad beer is, it is brewed from grain.

Here I will talk about the eating habits of medieval Europe. Ancient Europeans not only cooked fruits and vegetables, but also drank alcohol. Because, under normal circumstances, they do not drink plain water.

The reason for this is that the ancient Europeans were prone to stomach pains and illnesses after drinking unboiled water. And the tragic medical skills in ancient Europe, you may go to see God if you have diarrhea. Coupled with the great fear brought about by the Black Death, Europeans did not dare to drink unboiled water later.

As for why not drink boiled water? In ancient times, there were no thermos bottles, and boiling water would easily cool down. Europeans were ignorant and ignorant of science at the time, thinking that boiled cold water was the same as unboiled water, and drinking it would make them sick.

In life, people find that those who drink alcohol will not have stomach pains. Therefore, in order to save their lives, Europeans no longer drink raw water, but drink beer and wine as a way to get water.

Generally speaking, nobles and priests generally drink wine to quench their thirst. And wine is also graded. For example, the wine drunk by nobles and priests is generally brewed from the pulp of good-quality, large-grained grapes. Those deformed grapes and grapes that fell on the ground and other inferior grapes, as well as some inferior wines made from leftovers, are for the relatively qualified people among ordinary people, that is, middle-class people. Ordinary civilians can only drink beer.

Even beer is graded. The lower nobles, such as knights, and merchants, would drink the best premium beer with hops added. The poor, on the other hand, can only drink rancid and inferior beer.

Of course, there are also those who are too poor to drink rancid wine. How do they rehydrate? Directly use rye granules (mainly because mills need money to grind flour, and they can’t grind flour, so the whole granules are used directly), wild vegetables, bark, leaves and other things are mixed together to cook porridge and drink. There is enough water in the porridge. Although the ancient Europeans did not know that boiled water was healthy, they also knew that drinking porridge would not prevent them from getting sick.

In contrast, in China, because of the development of tea culture, people like to make tea when entertaining guests. Therefore, it touches to develop a good habit of drinking boiled water. Even if there is no tea at home, I still like to boil water to entertain guests. Therefore, ancient Chinese people did not need to drink rancid beer as a beverage like Europeans. Those who had money drank tea, and those who had no money drank boiled water or cool boiled water.

...

The more than 1,500 wandering knights that Marin entertained were all from low-level noble families, and they were all Germans. Naturally, they were more accustomed to drinking good-quality beer. Therefore, what Marin provided to the more than 1,500 wandering knights was a large glass of dark beer brewed with hops for every meal. And their entourage drank ordinary beer brewed without adding hops. But after all, Marin didn't have the nerve to give those entourages to drink rancid and low-quality beer, and what he gave was unspoiled beer, so the cost was not small.

In fact, drinking cold water has been popularized in Beihai country. However, this approach is not recognized by the outside world. And these wandering knights are guests from afar. In order not to make them feel neglected, Marin can only provide a large glass of beer per ton in accordance with the common habits of Germany. Moreover, draft beer with a better taste but not easy to preserve was provided to those wandering knights. And for those attendants to drink, it is ordinary cooked beer dark beer with a poor taste and without hops. After all, cooked beer keeps longer and is more suitable for entertaining ordinary people.

...

Marin shook his head, feeling speechless about the nonsense habit of Europeans drinking wine as water in this era. However, he could not convince others to accept his point of view. Because he can't explain it well. Do you want to popularize science with everyone? Talk about science? Isn't this a slap in the face of the Holy See...