The Rise of the European Emperor

Marin was still worried about the two-faced swordsmanship of the old-school nobles under his command, but after thinking about it from a different angle, Marin laughed.

What is he laughing at? It turned out that Marin suddenly remembered—since the European old-school nobles are used to double-faced swords, and most of them are greedy, does that mean that they can also use this weakness to buy the nobles of the enemy country?

The more Marin thought about it, the more tricky he became, and finally he became happy. After thinking about it, Marin believed that Louis XII bought these grains back, not because he really wanted to save the people, but to prevent the rebellion of refugees in the disaster-stricken areas in the northeast.

Farmers are usually honest and can be deceived, but if they really can't survive, they will rise up. Once the peasants launched an uprising, the government would need to spend huge manpower and material resources to suppress it, and it was expensive.

For example, the Qing Dynasty actually spent 200 million taels of silver in order to suppress the White Lotus Rebellion. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, more than two million taels of silver were spent just to deal with Yang Yinglong's rebellion in Bozhou, southwest China.

Therefore, what Louis XII was afraid of was not that the common people would live poorly, but that after their uprising, the government would spend too much to suppress the uprising.

Moreover, the 30 million pounds of grain he purchased was actually not enough for disaster relief. After all, the total number of victims is one to two million, and even if each person only eats half a pound of grain per day, it is only enough for one or two months. It will take at least half a year for the victims to survive until next year's autumn harvest, which is simply not enough food.

However, with these 30 million pounds of grain, Louis XII only needs to put on a posture of "all-out disaster relief" and give the victims some dilute drinks to quickly calm people's hearts. Even if not everyone can eat it, but seeing the disaster relief, most of them will feel at ease and wait for a miracle to happen...

Of course, Louis XII will definitely not only use such a small amount of food for disaster relief, and will definitely mobilize food from other places. As long as the posture is sufficient and the victims are given hope, the victims can be prevented from launching an uprising.

...

Sure enough, Louis XII was mainly for show. He only bought 30 million pounds of grain from Beihai, but he released news that he bought enough grain for the victims of the disaster...

After the news spread, people in the disaster-stricken areas in northeastern France quickly settled down and waited for rescue at home.

But how could Marin watch Louis XII pass the test like this? After thinking that the nobles of the enemy country could also buy them, Marin thought of a vicious strategy...

...

What plan? It is to take advantage of the disaster in the northeastern part of France, unite with the local bully nobles, take advantage of the fire and rob, and push the victims into the fire pit...

How to do it? This is actually very simple - the most basic operation is to take the opportunity to lend usury!

In this disaster-stricken season, what the common people lack the most is food. Without food, they would starve to death. At this time, if someone is willing to lend them food, even if the interest is high, the common people can't help it. After all, at this time, it is not bad to have something to eat.

However, how could Marin be so kind? The loan method he gave to deceive the French people is the usury with compound interest!

Usury is not uncommon in Europe. Generally speaking, these days, there are usury loans with an annual interest rate of 50%, and even in emergencies, there are emergency loan sharks with double annual interest rates.

In such a calamity year, it is completely normal for unscrupulous nobles to release two or three times the usury. Unlike Marin, the plan he gave was a hidden high-interest usury.

The specific method is to lend grain to the common people at a monthly interest rate of 15%. However, in the loan contract, it is quietly stated that interest rate is interest rate (this point was deliberately concealed and ignored when drafting the contract, or stated in a language that the farmers could not understand), and then a 12-month long-term loan was given , it is indicated that it will be returned after 12 months.

And how do those illiterate French farmers know how powerful they are? According to the calculation of non-profit rolling interest, the monthly interest rate of 15% is only 1.8 times the annual interest rate. This is definitely a conscience loan in a famine year.

However, if the monthly interest rate is 15% according to the calculation of rolling interest, after one year, it will be 5.35 times the interest of the principal!

If this is placed in ancient China,

It can be regarded as a conscience usury. why? It is really not much to give an interest of more than 5 times in a famine year. After all, Huaxia farmers cultivate land with a harvest ratio as high as 1:10.

However, in this era of Europe, people are dying!

These days, European farmers cultivate land, and the harvest ratio is generally between 1:3 and 1:5. The interest rate of 5.35 times is definitely beyond the limit that farmers can bear. What's more, these farmers have to pay rent!

It is precisely because the harvest ratio of European farmers in this era is too low, so the general usury interest rate will not exceed 3 times. If it exceeds 3 times, there is basically no possibility of paying it back.

But Marin's purpose is to make those victims pay off!

Originally, Marin planned to send someone to use food to usury. However, considering that I have no foundation in France, I have no thugs to collect debts...

Therefore, if you want to persecute the French peasants, you can only join hands with the local bully nobles to set up a trap for the local peasants.

Farmers, these days are basically illiterate, of course it's a trap. 1.15 to the 12th power, even a literate aristocrat in this era may not be able to easily calculate it, let alone an uneducated peasant? If it were a businessman with good mathematics, Marin would not use this method.

And this kind of method was actually very normal in ancient China. Usury loans with several times the interest rate can be regarded as conscientious, and there are more than ten times the interest rate. And the ten times the interest is the legendary interest rate usury. This kind of loan is similar to what Marin wants to do, taking advantage of farmers' uneducated weaknesses and attracting loans with seemingly low monthly interest rates. However, there will be compound interest every month, and after a long time, farmers will not be able to pay back...

The reason why those landlords engage in such usury is mainly to annex land. When self-cultivating farmers borrowed high-interest usury loans and could not repay them, they had to use their own land to pay off the debt. The landlords who lend money also use this to achieve the purpose of annexing the land, and the land in the family is getting more and more... And the ancient gentry class played this trick very well...

Wang Anshi's reform in the Northern Song Dynasty, among which the Young Miao Law proposed the use of official loans in an attempt to replace the usury of those landlords. Although the annual interest on government loans is as high as 40%, compared with the interest that landlords often pay several times, they are simply angels...

However, Wang Anshi's move also touched the interests of the big landlords, met with a frenzied counterattack by the landlord class, and led to the failure of the reform...

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These days, the land turtle aristocrats in Europe still use the simple and direct loan method of two or three times the annual interest rate. Only shrewd Jewish businessmen will know how to use usury at compound interest. The main reason is that the cultural level of those land turtle nobles is not high. Let them play compound interest, I guess they can't figure it out by themselves.

But this time Marin intends to send a group of spies who are proficient in calculation and French to offer door-to-door service to help those greedy and vulgar French land turtle nobles and help them pit local farmers. Especially for those self-cultivating farmers, deliberately luring them to take out loans, and making them unable to repay in the end. Then, there are the details of the land merger...

Once the land was lost, those French yeoman farmers lost their guarantee of survival. At that time, Marin can still recruit people...

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In addition to the vicious method of rolling interest, Marin also provided another vicious method-hands and feet on the seeds loaned to farmers...

The specific method is to mix part of the steamed wheat into the seeds and loan them to farmers. In this way, during spring plowing, these unlucky farmers planted the problematic seeds, and the germination rate was naturally very low. When the autumn harvest comes, I will definitely not be able to repay the usury, so I can only sell the land, or even sell my sons and daughters...

This kind of evil method was seen in a novel that Marin did not know in his previous life. However, in that novel, all the seeds were steamed, so that the farmers could not harvest.

However, Marin believes that steaming all the seeds is too obvious. Aristocrats also want face. If they are so obvious and terrific, they will be criticized by others. It is more concealed to replace some of the seeds with steamed "dead" seeds. Seeing the seeds germinate, the farmers will not be suspicious, they will only think that it is a natural disaster or something. But when the time comes when there is not enough food to pay off their debts, they will still be unlucky...

...

All in all, whether it is revolving interest usury or steaming some seeds, they are all means to entrap the victims of the disaster in France. Even though Louis XII's current disaster relief has allowed most of the victims to tide over the difficulties, those French farmers will still be unlucky and have to go bankrupt and become refugees when the hazards of usury and steamed seeds break out in the autumn harvest next year. At that time, it was also a good time for Marin to recruit...

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