The Rise of the European Emperor

When the Swedish messenger for help arrived in Lübeck and Hamburg, the official attitude of the two Hanseatic cities seemed ambiguous. After all, they have been bought by Denmark. Moreover, Marin also greeted them.

However, they still gave the Swedish envoy a hint - the key to solving this matter is still Malin...

The problem is obvious. The reason why Denmark dares to attack the newly established Kingdom of Sweden with confidence is that the nobles of the Kingdom of Sweden are brainless and confiscated half of Marin's shares in the highly profitable Fayilun copper mine.

And this directly caused the relationship between the Kingdom of Sweden and Marin to drop to a freezing point. Originally, Marin's North Sea country was Sweden's ally. Even if the military alliance is temporarily lifted, if there is a war, it is possible for Sweden to ask the North Sea for help. After all, everyone has such a good relationship, and Marin still has major interests in Sweden...

However, just because the Swedish nobles coveted the huge benefits of the Fayilun Copper Mine, they made the unwise decision to kick Marin out of the game. It is because of this that the Danes dare to attack Sweden with confidence.

In fact, the Swedes, including Lübeck and Hamburg, did not know that even if the Swedish aristocrats did not take away half of Marin's copper shares, Marin would count them. After all, Sweden is too powerful to benefit Marin.

It's just that if the Swedish aristocrats don't deprive half of the shares of the Marin Falun copper mine, Marin may be in a difficult situation - because he will not find an excuse to turn his face with the Swedes, and there is no excuse for not sending troops to help Sweden...

However, the huge interests of the super-large copper mine in Fayilun made the nobles in Sweden jealous. In addition, they just learned that the German princes joined forces to suppress Marin, so they boldly made preparations to deprive Marin of shares. After all, half of the shares of the Fayilun Copper Mine are very profitable every year. Previously, Marin alone monopolized half of the mine's profits, while more than a dozen Swedish nobles could only share the other half. This made them extremely dissatisfied, and finally made the unwise decision to swallow Marin's shares. And this also gave Marin a good reason not to support them. Moreover, the Swedes also know that they are wrong. So, this time they asked for help, they didn't ask for Marin...

But in fact, Marin has long been ready to act as a mediator to mediate the war. Because, if everyone mediates, Denmark will really defeat the Kingdom of Sweden and destroy Sweden. It is not that Sweden has not been ruled by Denmark before. If the war situation is too unfavorable, Sweden may not surrender to Denmark.

Therefore, at this time, a powerful mediator is needed to mediate the military conflict between the two countries, and to persuade the two countries to redefine their territories and interests... and Marin is obviously more suitable. After all, he can hold the scene very well...

Moreover, Northern Europe does not belong to Germany, and Marin just vowed not to do things in Germany, and sending troops to Northern Europe to do things is not within the scope of his promise. If Marin spoke, the two sides would not dare not to listen. Otherwise, it will anger Marin and send an army of 10,000 to 20,000...

...

Of course, mediation is not white mediation. In fact, Marin had already made a plan - he could help Sweden to mediate, but his half of the shares in the Fayilun Copper Mine had to be taken back. Otherwise, why would you help Sweden to mediate? Allowing Denmark to destroy the Kingdom of Sweden is...

This trick is shameless. It was learned by Marin from Mao Zi, who shamelessly claimed 400,000 square kilometers of land in Northeast China in the name of "mediation and meritorious service" during the Second Opium War. Compared with Maozi, Marin felt that he was a super old man...

At that time, Marin can also learn Maozi, and shamelessly said that he helped to keep the Kingdom of Sweden. So much credit, should you pay back half of my copper mine shares?

...

Officials in Lübeck and Hamburg also hinted at the Swedish envoy, telling them that the key to the solution was Marin. However, the messengers sent to the two cities did not have the right to make their own decisions. So they secretly returned to Sweden,

Ask the king of Sweden and the bigwigs of the House of Lords to make a decision - whether to ask Marin for help...

...

On Marlin's side, he is very busy right now. What are you busy with? Naturally, he was busy taking over the newly acquired land in the Ruhr region. After all, the newly acquired land required a garrison of troops in Marin and re-appointment of officials to manage it. And these, for Marin, are very heavy work. After all, the appointment of officials, the dispatch of garrison troops, and the allocation of a large number of supplies all require Marin to personally review the signature.

Some government affairs, Marin can be delegated to the Prime Minister to handle by himself. However, in the appointment of important officials, the deployment of troops, and the deployment of a large number of materials, Marin will never pretend to be someone else. In particular, the first two affairs belong to the core affairs of state affairs. The appointment of high-level officials and the deployment of the army are not rights that can be delegated casually. Once these rights are lost, it is equivalent to being overhead...

As for the allocation of a large number of materials, Marin's signature is also required because most of the wealth of the Grand Duchy of Beihai is in Marin's personal name, and his signature is naturally required.

In Europe in this era, the distinction between the state lord and the government, public and private, is still not very clear. In Europe in this era, the government's finances were the finances of the kings and princes themselves. Because, in this era, there was no national taxation in Europe, and the fiscal revenue of the kingdoms and vassal states mainly depended on the output and commercial taxation of the kings and vassal estates. Even the prime minister, his salary is borne by the king or princes themselves. And a kingdom or vassal state has only one treasury - the king's treasury... Unlike the contemporary Huaxia, the treasury belonging to the government has been separated from the emperor's inner treasury...

But signing the documents to allocate materials is really tiring. After all, there are so many files...

And in the payment of money and grain, Marin was embarrassed to find out that it seems that the national treasury has no funds...

Because of the change of land, Marin paid a large amount of coins to the Principality of Clifford. This directly led to the fact that there was no cash currency in Marin's treasury, and only a large amount of grain was left in the cement warehouse.

Now, Prime Minister Geoffrey said sadly - there is not much cash out of the treasury now. If you want to maintain the normal development of the domestic economy, you must have enough coins as a means of circulation and payment... Marin can already make up the terrible scene of the serious lack of currency in the Beihai market...

Just when Marin had a headache and lacked currency to stimulate the development of the market economy, Cuba suddenly sent a lot of nickel nuggets...

After a long period of research, Haider's younger brother, Welz, the governor of Cuba's Moa, finally led his artisans to master the mature method of nickel metal smelting. At the same time, while obtaining nickel metal, a large amount of sulfuric acid can also be obtained. Because, the composition of laterite nickel ore in Moa, Cuba is nickel sulfide. In the process of nickel metal being extracted, a large amount of sulfur dioxide or sulfur trioxide will be produced, producing sulfuric acid and sulfurous acid...

Of course, it's not the sulfuric acid that Marlin is interested in right now, but the nickel...

After the nickel block is remelted, it can be mixed with copper liquid to produce white copper with a silver appearance. The appearance of white copper is very similar to that of silver, and it is also not easy to oxidize. The only problem is probably that the white copper is too hard compared to the real silver...

But Marin still intends to use cupronickel to make coins...why? Because white copper is hard, while sterling silver is very soft. However, in today's Europe, silver coins are generally adulterated, and silver coins have long lost the soft physical properties of silver.

Generally speaking, because sterling silver is very soft. Therefore, when minting silver coins, the mint will deliberately add some copper to the silver to enhance the hardness of the silver coins. For example, the famous Spanish silver dollar, the silver content is basically 90%, which is 90%. The remaining 10% is copper.

This is because, with the addition of copper, the hardness of silver is greatly increased. In fact, the classic Spanish American silver dollar is a mixed metal containing 90% silver and 10% copper.

However, that refers to the Spanish silver dollar after the discovery of a large number of silver mines in the Americas. In this time and space, because of the crossing of Marin, Spain has basically abandoned the colonial development of the Americas. Therefore, there is no American silver dollar with a silver content of 90%.

Now, all of Europe is short of gold and silver. Therefore, European silver coins do not contain much silver now. In many countries like France and Italy, the silver content of silver coins has generally fallen below 25%, that is, less than a quarter.

In this way, the silver coins of France and Italy are actually "copper coins" containing most of copper and a small part of silver, and their hardness is also very high.

With the nickel metal block, Marin can make nickel cupronickel completely. Then, out of nickel-nickel alloy, fake silver coins—silver coins that don’t contain…

The physical properties of nickel-white copper are very close to those of the so-called "silver coins", which are mostly copper and a small part of silver - they are all shiny and corrosion-resistant, and it is very difficult to distinguish...

As it happens, Marin is now due to a lack of domestic currency. So he decided to let the mint use a screw press to imitate "French silver coins" with very low silver content in large quantities.

Then, using these "French silver coins", go to the European market for gold coins. Then, exchange gold coins for real silver coins back... In this way, the problem of currency shortage in Beihai Kingdom is immediately solved...

Moreover, by privately minting "French silver coins" in large quantities, Marin is equivalent to secretly obtaining a large amount of "seigniorage" (coinage profits) that should have belonged to the French official. While making a fortune, it also hit the French finances...

In fact, nickel metal is now rarer than silver. If Marlin were to sell nickel, it might be worth as much as silver.

However, the mining costs of the two are completely different. Generally, the silver content of silver mines is very low. For example, the largest silver mine in the future, the Cannington Silver Mine, contains only 200 grams of silver per ton. That is to say, the silver content of the ore is only 0.02%. The Cuban nickel mines generally contain nickel, which is about 2%.

In other words, the metal content of Cuban nickel mines is one hundred times that of ordinary silver mines. In this way, when mining and smelting, the cost is also a hundred times different.

After all, smelting 2 kg of silver requires mining and processing 10 tons of silver ore. And smelting 2 kilograms of nickel metal requires only 0.1 ton of nickel ore to mine and process... This cost and efficiency are too different...

Moreover, the inferior "French silver coins" or "Italian silver coins" made of nickel-white copper are almost the same as the genuine ones, and it is very difficult to distinguish them.

Because, there has been no white copper in Europe. Until the Qing Dynasty, that is, in the 18th century, Europe still imported a large number of white copper produced in China and called it "Chinese silver". It was not until the 19th century that the Germans figured out the composition of nickel cupronickel, and began to produce cupronickel, which replaced the cupronickel produced in China and occupied the European market (see cupronickel Baidu Encyclopedia).

That is to say, Marin used nickel-nickel-nickel alloy to produce silver coins, which in this era, Europeans could not tell the difference, let alone the composition. Even if it is known that it is not silver, it will be regarded as a treasure because white copper is rare in Europe.

However, the cost of mining and smelting silver and nickel is completely different, and the difference can be as much as a hundred times. Therefore, Marin used nickel and white copper to cast fake silver coins, which is a hundred times more theoretical. Such high profits come faster than stealing money...

The only worry is that the fake "French silver coins" pressed by the screw press may be more delicate than the genuine French silver coins. After all, the genuine French silver coins are still beaten by hand. How can the quality be compared with the machine-made coins?