The Rise of the European Emperor

The peasant uprising that broke out in Württemberg was related to the arbitrary increase of new taxes by Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg. This guy lives extravagantly and extravagantly. From 1498 to the beginning of 1514, this guy had only succeeded to the throne for 15 years, and he owed a huge debt of 1 million Gulden gold coins.

In order to repay foreign debts, Duke Ulrich had to "invent" new taxes himself to exploit the peasants of Württemberg. He invented new "wine taxes," "meat taxes," and "bread taxes." In other words, people in Württemberg have to pay taxes for eating and drinking. Then, he also came up with something called "capital tax", stipulating that for every commodity worth one Gulden, he must pay him a capital tax of 1 Finney...

These exorbitant taxes immediately angered the peasants of Württemberg, so, under the leadership of the secret organization "Poor Conrad", the peasants decided to launch an uprising.

About 8,000 farmers, armed with sickles, shovels and other crude tools, surrounded the city of Stuttgart under the leadership of the knifesmith Caspar, demanding the abolition of the newly added exorbitant taxes.

Duke Ulrich saw that the peasants were powerful, so he pretended to be soft, and let his officials coax the peasants into saying that they were willing to abolish the new tax. But secretly, he was summoning the nobles and knights in the principality to prepare for the suppression.

Kaspar didn't believe Duke Ulrich's words at all, but the peasants he brought were relatively simple and believed Ulrich's nonsense. Having received the promise of repealing the new tax, the peasants happily put down their sickles and hoes and went back to farming.

In desperation, Kaspar had no choice but to temporarily hibernate with the core leadership of the rebel army. At the same time, closely monitor the actions of Duke Ulrich...

After the news was sent back to Aurich, Marin immediately remembered it—it seems that in the writings of the two masters of Marne in later generations, many peasant wars that broke out in Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries were mentioned.

According to the two big men of Marne - Württemberg in this era has one of the largest populations among the vassal states, with six to seven hundred thousand people. Of course, this does not count the North Sea country of Marin, a traverser.

Moreover, Württemberg has such a large population, but its land area is only tens of thousands of square kilometers. Moreover, most of them are mountains and black forests. Unlike the North Sea country, although the population is only more than twice that of the Duchy of Württemberg, its land area is as high as 100,000 square kilometers.

Therefore, the farmers in the Principality of Württemberg are very hard-pressed. Because there is not much arable land in the territory, the land that each serf can cultivate is not much, which is far behind the serfs in the North Sea country, but they have to bear the main part of Duke Ulrich's high taxes. In desperation, under the leadership of the "Poor Conrad" organization, they prepared to launch an uprising...

...

But the peasant rebels in Germany were very naive. They did not start the uprising for the purpose of fighting for the country like the Chinese peasant rebels, but for the purpose of arming the lords and trying to force the lords to abolish unreasonable taxes...

Such a naive approach must be taught to be a human being. Unlike the peasant rebels in China, from the beginning of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, they knew that "princes, generals and generals have kindness". One just wants to petition, while the other has a clear goal of fighting for the world. The impact of the two, you don't need to think about the result...

Therefore, because of being too naive, the German Peasant War broke out many times, and was suppressed every time. Because, they don't know how to take the opportunity to kill the nobles when they have an advantage, and eliminate the opponent's vitality, but wait stupidly until the nobles gather enough power to suppress them...

...

The reason why peasant uprisings occurred frequently from the 15th to the 16th century has a lot to do with the increase in the population of Germany...

Since the end of the Black Death in the 14th century, in the 15th century, although the Black Death still broke out from time to time, the scale was relatively small, and there were few large-scale outbreaks that swept across Europe.

Against this background, the population of the German region began to grow steadily. But the problem is - the population has increased, but the land has not increased. Coupled with the impressively low output of European agriculture, it simply cannot feed too many people.

Of course, if Ulrich collected less tax, everyone could barely get by. But this guy owed 1 million Gulden gold coins after being a duke for 15 years, and had to tax heavily to squeeze the people to make up for the shortfall. After that, everyone naturally couldn't live on...

...

The peasant uprising on the Württemberg side temporarily subsided, but Marin knew that the war would definitely resume. However, the news from Breischgau lifted Marin's spirits-the lord over there actually contacted the recruiters of the North Sea State in Strasbourg, the Alsace region on the edge of Breisgau Messenger, do you want those captured uprising peasants...

The Breisgau area is similar to the Württemberg area, and now there are more people and less land. Under the oppression of the lords, the serfs also had a difficult life.

After several local lords captured thousands of peasant uniforms, they executed hundreds of people who took the lead. But the remaining 5,000 peasants were captured, which made them very embarrassed.

Keep these people, it's a hidden danger. Moreover, the land is not enough for so many farmers. However, it would be a pity to kill him, and it would ruin his reputation.

So, after discussing with several lords, they suddenly remembered that Marin had been recruiting immigrants. And the Swabian League where Breischau belongs is a rare group among the German princes that is friendly to Marin. After all, everyone belongs to the emperor's side. Therefore, they plan to send someone to ask Marin whether they would like to buy these populations for a fee...

After all, if these originally useless population can be exchanged for money and food from Marin, it will be absolutely cost-effective. And if these people stay in their hands, they still need to spend food every day to support them.

"Sell prisoners of war?" After listening to Kohler's report, Marin's eyes widened. Then he took a breath and asked:

"How many peasant prisoners of war do they have? What's the asking price?"

Kohler flipped through the information and replied:

"They have about 5,000 peasant prisoners of war in their hands. Including the families of these peasants, it is estimated that there are more than 20,000. But those lords probably will not sell all 5,000 peasants. It seems that they have selected 2,000 more honest and obedient peasants. There are 3,000 farmers who are more "thorny" and the lords plan to sell them to you. As for the asking price, it seems to be 30 gold coins for a family. However, children over 5 years old are not included. Those children are very popular in the market. Counting money...Only for children under 5 years old, because they are not sure whether they can survive childhood, they will be given as gifts..."

"3,000 farmers... Including the family members, there are more than 10,000 people, right? Well, tell them, we bought it! However, I request that more than half of the funds be replaced by grain... In addition, as much as possible, buy the children of those farmers, Especially those 10-year-old children. These children will grow into puppies in a few years..."

"Okay, I'll arrange it now!"

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