The Rise of the European Emperor

The French do not know that the reason why Marin has the confidence to go to France to open a large-scale cooperage factory is that, in addition to the plan to consume the French oak resources, Marin has enough confidence to open a cooperage in France!

why? Because the Beihai Mint can mint fake French deniers small silver coins on a large scale! The silver-free "French Denier Small Silver Coins" cast by Marin with nickel, copper, lead and other metals are mixed, and the cost is very low.

Thanks to the laterite nickel mines in Cuba, Marin has access to nickel metal ingots that are much cheaper to mine and smelt than copper. The use of nickel and copper, as well as the lead used to balance the density, is not high in value, and the overall cost is lower than the pure use of copper.

That is to say, the nickel-nickel-white copper "French deniers small silver coin" minted by Marin may not even cost one-tenth of the French self-minted silver deniers, or even lower.

However, the "Silver Coins" minted by Marin from the Beihai Mint can almost reach the point where the fakes can be confused with the real ones, so that the French can't identify the real and the fake at all. Even, because it is machine-minted, the quality is much better than the manual coinage of the French official mint. This is also the reason why Marin deliberately used inferior molds. If the water was not deliberately released, the coins would be very beautiful, and the genuine French deniers silver coins would be hanged.

That is to say, if Marin wants to spend money to build a cooperage in France and purchase wood, the cost is extremely low, and he only needs to ask the North Sea Mint to mint more fake French deniers small silver coins.

So far, Marin has ordered the minting of tens of millions of fake "French deniers silver coins" made of nickel-white copper, with a total value of millions of gold coins. The casting cost is less than one-tenth of that in France.

That is to say, Marin can earn more than 90% of the huge profits by casting this kind of inferior currency that is recognized by the French market! If it weren't for the fact that the production capacity could not keep up, and the supply of nickel ingots was limited, Marin would have wanted to mint more and more "denier silver coins" of nickel and white copper. At the very least, the small goal set at the beginning must be completed - to mint 100 million French fake silver coins!

Think about it, suppose the average daily wage in Germany is 2 pfennig, which is equivalent to 100 yuan in the future. The French Denier small silver coin is estimated to be discounted in half because of its low silver content, but it also has a value of about 25 yuan. And minting 100 million fake "Deniers silver coins" is equivalent to minting currency worth almost two billion!

Taking this money to purchase wood in France to make oak barrels is not only low cost, but can also be sold to make money. It not only hits the shipbuilding potential of France, but also makes a lot of profits. It’s just killing two birds with one stone!

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As for establishing a cooperage in the Netherlands and harvesting local oak resources, there is not much profit. Because, without the huge profits of minting counterfeit coins, the profit of the cooperage is very limited.

However, because furniture factories have been established in Amsterdam and other places, Marin's spies have long since inquired about it - there are not many oak resources in the Netherlands!

Unlike France, which has a vast land and abundant resources, the Netherlands is inherently small and densely populated. Therefore, in the Netherlands, like the Central Plains of China, a lot of trees have been cut down. Although it is not as exaggerated as it is difficult to find trees in the Central Plains, the area of ​​domestic forests is far from comparable to France.

Therefore, Marin does not need to invest too much to fully consume the local oak resources and attack the shipbuilding potential of the Netherlands...

Moreover, Marin clearly remembers that the oak and pine used for shipbuilding in the Netherlands originally were not domestic,

Rather, it is mainly harvested from forests in southern Norway and southern Sweden.

Originally, the Netherlands did not have a decent shipping industry, and there were few merchant ships. At first, the Netherlands mainly relied on the wool textile industry in Flanders. Later, in the middle and late 16th century, there were many reasons for the development of the Dutch maritime industry.

For example, England's suppression of the Dutch wool textile industry! Because the United Kingdom strictly restricted the export of British wool to Flanders, the wool textile industry in the Netherlands was forced to decline, and local capital had to transfer investment. The highly profitable maritime trade has become an important choice for the Dutch.

Of course, this cannot be without the support of external conditions...

First, around 1500, the Portuguese chose Antwerp in the Netherlands as the wholesale center of the North Sea region of Indian spices, which greatly stimulated the economic development of Antwerp. At the same time, it also promotes the development of the local shipping industry. After all, the shipping of spices is also a good business!

Not only that, the Hanseatic League, which originally dominated the maritime trade in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, committed suicide by itself, and fought many wars with the Danes for hegemony, bringing itself down.

At the same time, Britain also turned against the Hanseatic League, deprived Hanseatic merchants of their privileges, and competed with them...

In this way, in the military conflict with Denmark and the trade conflict with England, the Hanseatic League, the former hegemon of the North Sea, gradually declined in the 16th century. Of course, Denmark, which fought against the Hanseatic League, did not gain any benefits, and the result of the two confrontations was simultaneous decline. And this happened to be cheaper than the Netherlands, which was just beginning to develop maritime trade.

In other words, the important trade routes of the North Sea and Baltic Sea regions that the Dutch later controlled were simply taken from the declining Hanseatic League.

Of course, there is also the transfer of herring resources from the Baltic Sea region to the North Sea region near the Netherlands in the 16th century. In short, there are many reasons for the rise of the Dutch maritime industry, which are full of contingency.

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That said, it wasn't the Dutch who wanted to dominate the oceans in the first place. But because the Dutch's former opponents killed themselves one after another, and finally cheapened the Dutch.

In terms of their own shipbuilding potential, the Dutch are not qualified for oak resources alone!

Not to mention oak, other wood resources are also scarce. As a result of the scarcity of wood, not only shipbuilding is limited, but even cooking salt is limited.

Just like the situation when Marin first came across, the Netherlands is obviously close to the sea, but because there is not enough firewood to develop the salt-cooking industry, it can only choose to import salt from England, which is across the sea. Alternatively, import Lüneburg's mineral salt from the German region.

Due to the lack of firewood as fuel, the Dutch even have a tradition of eating raw herring. Even in the 21st century, the Dutch have a savage way of eating a whole herring after deboning it and "stuffing" it into the stomach, which is much more vigorous than the Japanese eating sashimi.

And this is also related to the lack of local firewood fuel in the Netherlands. Can eat cooked, who wants to eat raw? Or swallow it whole...

No way, the price of firewood is higher in the lowland areas, and the fishermen at the seaside are very poor and cannot afford much firewood. Therefore, sometimes when I am hungry, I scrape off the internal organs with the Dutch fish-splitting knife that was blown to the sky by later generations, and after removing the head and bones, I swallow the whole fish raw, which is very vigorous.

Therefore, Marin wants to limit the development of the shipbuilding industry in the Netherlands, which is actually much less difficult than in France. Because there are really not many local forest resources!

Also, note that the Dutch imported lumber from Denmark-controlled Norway and southern Sweden to build their ships. It's not that hard, Marin just needs to take down any shipyards that pop up in the Netherlands in time. In addition, it is necessary to suppress those local ship owners. In particular, those Dutch merchant ships must not be allowed to open the Norwegian and Swedish routes, lest they have a source of timber for shipbuilding...  

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