The Rise of the European Emperor

As a traveler, if Marin didn't fight for hegemony, it would be a shame for the traveler. And to fight for hegemony, a huge cavalry team is indispensable.

However, although European horses are good, they are too squeamish. They need to be fed with concentrated feed at every turn, and the cost of feeding them is very high. For example, Marin's war horse Karl, this guy needs to eat 10 pfennig worth of feed every day, which is equivalent to 5 days' wages for ordinary people. For some poor families, the whole family spends no more than 2 pfennig a day. Therefore, this product is equivalent to eating the expenses of the whole family of ordinary people for 5 days every day.

If you want to support 10,000 heavy cavalry, the money spent on feed every day is as high as 100,000 pfennig, worth 1,667 gold coins.

Of course, 10 fennies a day is the norm for Marin. After all, Marin is a rich man. But no matter how economical it is, the average knight can spend 5 pfennier per day on the horse. After all, European oats are expensive, and European horses are tall and eat a lot…

Therefore, in Europe, there are very few countries with tens of thousands of heavy cavalry. As far as Marin knows, there is only one in France. But the army of knights in France was not supported by the salaries provided by the court, but by the fiefs.

There are about 10,000 knights in France, and about 10,000 people have fiefs. On average, each knight with a fief has an area of ​​​​up to 1,500 acres. Those French knights, who fought with the king, actually supported themselves from their own pockets. However, the 1,500-acre fief was enough for them to support themselves and their war horses. The other thousands of plate armor knights depended on the French central finance to support them. They belonged to the nature of mercenaries and cost a lot. That is, a powerful country like France may not be able to afford it if it is replaced by other countries.

It is difficult for other European countries to afford such a large-scale heavy armored knight. Venice can afford it, but it is a sea country, knights are useless at all, and there is no knight with high martial arts.

And the boss of Marin, Maximilian I, in his standing army, most of them are infantry, heavy armored knights, only 1,500 people... Even if the whole country is mobilized, those knights from Austria and Burgundy manor are recruited, the total number Not more than 5,000 people...Unless all the knights of the German kingdoms must be summoned to overwhelm France in total...

...

Therefore, although he always wanted to build a huge cavalry team, Marin was always worried that he could not afford to raise so many war horses. After all, if you are equipped with 10,000 heavy cavalry, the horse's feed consumption alone will cost 500,000 to 600,000 gold coins every year, which is very terrifying.

As a result, Marin currently only has 1,000 war horses from the 1,000 wandering knights recruited by the Teutonic side, and 800 war horses from 800 black knights. The other horses are draught horses that eat more grass than feed.

Moreover, because Marin opened up an oat field of 5,000 Ugrams in East Friesland and planted oats by himself, the cost of raising horses has dropped by more than half. Otherwise, the 1,800 war horses alone would cost hundreds of thousands of gold coins every year.

Fortunately, Marin grows oats by himself, and the yield is high, which can save most of the cost. But even so, feeding the 1,800 warhorses and thousands of draught horses cost Marin a lot.

Therefore, when he remembered that the Eastern European Mongolian horse was the Don Hippo of later generations, he was very pleasantly surprised. Because these Don hippos are similar to Mongolian horses, they usually only need to eat grass. Only when going out, because the physical energy consumption of manned running is too high, it is necessary to add some feed.

Moreover, these Eastern European Mongolian horses are much taller than Mongolian horses, and their shoulder height can reach more than 1.5 meters. The Mongolian horse, on the other hand, has a shoulder height of only 120-135 cm, which is too short.

He is short and has short legs. Even if he has the advantage of good endurance, when charging, because of the short legs, the charging speed cannot catch up with other horses. Therefore, in later generations, in horse racing, Mongolian horses can only participate in endurance races. What is more than sprinting, no one chooses Mongolian horses.

However, on the battlefield, the sprint speed is very important.

Therefore, Mongolian horses with short legs perform far less well in charging than in long-distance rushing.

The Eastern European Mongolian horse (Don Hippo), although also descended from Mongolian horses, retains many of the advantages of Mongolian horses. However, because the average shoulder height can reach 1.5 meters, compared with Mongolian horses, all of them are "Long-legged Oppa", and the speed of running and sprinting is naturally faster. Although the endurance is not as good as the Mongolian horse, the advantage in sprint speed is enough to offset the disadvantage in endurance.

It just so happened that Marin knew that in the future, the plate knights would be eliminated by the musket, and the light cavalry would be the main force of the future cavalry. Later light cavalrymen preferred to use medium-sized horses, such as Arabian horses, which were about the same height as Don horses, rather than the high-headed horses that are currently popular in Europe. Because European heavy horses have the disadvantage of poor endurance. These heavy horses may be powerful and sprint fast. But after rushing for a while, it wilts and needs a long rest. Also, they eat more and are more expensive to feed. Therefore, later modern European cavalry basically crossed local horse breeds with medium-sized Arabian horses, and cultivated medium-sized horses with shorter stature but good endurance and speed, which were used as military horses.

In fact, Eastern European Mongolian horses are themselves mixed with the fine blood of Arabian horses and even sweaty horses. Therefore, it is very suitable as a mount for light cavalry. Later, the Cossacks rode on Eastern European Mongolian horses (Don Horses) and helped the tsar to conquer the world's largest land area.

Standing on the main hall of the Crimean Khan Palace, after quick thinking, Marin decided to buy Eastern European Mongolian horses from the Crimean Khanate for a long time to use as military horses for light cavalry. Even heavy cavalry can be paired with two Eastern European Mongolian horses for transfer. As for the local draught horses that also need to eat feed, Marin decided to eliminate them and deal with them to neighboring countries...

In this way, most of the horses in the Marin army will be converted to Eastern European Mongolian horses, which will save a lot of feeding costs, which can also be considered a huge saving.

So Marin bowed again and asked Mungojirehan:

"Khan, I heard that there are many war horses in your country? I wonder if the Khan has any idea of ​​selling it?"

"Are you going to buy our horse?" Mungojirehan was surprised when he arrived. However, he was also a little happy.

In fact, it is not that the Crimeans did not sell war horses to Europeans. It is a pity that the popular plate armour knights in Europe need strong and tall horses, not medium-sized horses such as Mongolian horses in Eastern Europe. Therefore, the Crimeans failed to sell, and had to honestly become human traffickers...

And if someone is willing to buy the war horses of the Crimeans, then the Crimean Khanate is equivalent to an additional fortune...

You know, the Crimean Khanate is a nomadic country at all, and there are large groups of horses on the grasslands. Pick out the horses that are suitable for war horses, not too many. Marin wanted to buy it, and Mongogiri Khan could find tens of thousands of horses to sell in minutes.

"Yes, Khan, I envy your invincible cavalry archers, and plan to form a similar army."

"Don't you Europa prefer heavy armored knights riding tall horses? Why, why do you like our Mongolian tactics?"

"Genghis Khan's army defeated the European knights back then, so I think the Mongolian cavalry's tactics are more advanced..." Ma Lin flattered calmly.

"Then this price?" Mungojirehan looked at Marin expectantly.

"How about 10 gold coins each?" Marin directly bargained hard.

You know, in Western Europe, the price of a warhorse is as high as 100 gold coins. Marin offered 10 gold coins to Eastern European Mongolian horses, which was indeed very low. However, no one is buying the Crimean war horses at the moment, and Marin is also aware of this and haggled the price.

"No, it's too low. As far as I know, those big horses in Europe are worth dozens of gold coins!" Mongogiri Khan also knew something about neighboring Lithuania and other countries. Lithuania has developed animal husbandry, and the price of horses here is also cheaper than in Western Europe, only a few dozen gold coins.

"But Dahan, European horses are tall horses, can they carry knights in heavy plate armor?" Marin naturally picked on his shortcomings in order to lower the price.

"If it's an ordinary workhorse, you can give 10 gold coins, but for a war horse, you have to ask for 20 gold coins..." Mungo Gerehan was obviously dissatisfied with the price of Marin Kai, and felt that it was too low.

"Khan, all your horses are kept free-range on the grasslands and grow up on weeds, so there is no cost at all. If you sell one, you will earn one for nothing. Why use high prices to scare off buyers..."

Meng Gejirehan thought about it, really, Mongolian horses in Eastern Europe are all free-range herdsmen on the eastern European prairie, and they grew up eating weeds. There is really no cost... Well, labor costs, in this era, do not mention it...

However, Mungojirehan is also not happy to be driven down by such a low price. So he said:

"However, the price of the expensive service is too low..."

Marin wanted to continue to lower the price, but he considered that the biggest purpose of this mission to the Crimean Khanate was to exchange troops from the Crimean Khanate, not to buy horses. So Marin made concessions to avoid upsetting Mungojirehan:

"Well, if the Great Khan is willing, I am willing to represent our Beihai Chamber of Commerce to first purchase 1,000 warhorses from the Great Khan at the price of 15 gold coins for a war horse and 8 gold coins for a pack horse... If it is your country's war horses If we adapt to the local climate in our country, we will buy a large number of war horses from your country every year, at the same price..."

Mungojirehan thought for a while, and found that selling horses was more profitable than selling slaves. Moreover, Marin was the first high roller willing to buy a large number of horses from the Crimean Khanate. Therefore, he did not raise the price any more, so as not to scare away the high-roller Marin. So he waved his hand:

"Okay, that's it!"