The Rise of the European Emperor

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Marin still attaches great importance to the Senegal Fur Company. Because the rhinoceros hide provided there will become the necessary armor for the Marin army to cross the mountains. After all, wearing heavy iron armor, don't even think about climbing mountains and mountains.

For this reason, after dispatching the first batch of two ships, the second batch of three ships arrived soon after. The first two ships were mainly to build the port, dig ponds with locks, and deal with the shipworm problem. The second batch of ships is directly related to the purchase of leather.

These three ships brought a group of craftsmen who processed fur, as well as some materials for tanning leather, such as Glauber's salt, alum and salt.

The freshly peeled leather is very thick. This kind of raw hide has animal hair attached to the outside, and a lot of fat is stuck inside. The hair on the outside is fine, but if the fat inside is not treated in time, it will easily become a culture medium for microorganisms, causing the leather to rot, and the good leather will be rotten and riddled with holes, turning it into waste leather.

Therefore, the leather must be dealt with as soon as it is picked, especially in a tropical region like Senegal. If it is processed and eaten, the intradermal fat will start to rot.

But the locals lack the technology to handle fur, related materials, and even common tools like knives. Therefore, Malinte sent a team of leather craftsmen to guide the locals to handle the leather and prevent the leather from breaking.

In addition, the ship also brought a high-carbon steel short knife for separating thick hides, which is specially used to cut through the thick hides of animals such as rhinos and elephants. After all, the local aborigines did not have these tools, so naturally they could not provide a large amount of leather to the former Portuguese.

What's more, the ship brought 100 Mushkot muskets, which are specially used for hunting rhinos, and are also equipped with special steel ball bullets.

However, Marin did not give these matchlock guns to the local black uncles. After all, matchlock guns are relatively inaccurate. Europeans use them by themselves, and it is still difficult to hit the target. Isn't it a waste to let Uncle Hei use them? You know, it's the 21st century, and those black uncles can't shoot accurately with modern firearms, let alone the even less accurate matchlock guns?

Therefore, Marin himself sent 100 hunters with good archery skills for them to use. As for those black uncles, Marin felt that it would be better for them to start with swords, bows and arrows. Moreover, Marin also ordered a group of eunuchs who can ride horses and archery from the Crimean Khanate, intending to teach these black uncles the basics. As for the musket, forget it, the opponent has no basis, and it is a waste of bullets.

...

In addition to these tools, Marin also brought a lot of goods. After all, to buy local aboriginals, you have to come up with something attractive. For example, glass beads made by Venetian craftsmen, various pottery bottles and jars, and white felt cloth, etc. These are very popular goods among the locals.

And of course, salt and sugar. In later generations, Senegal was an important area for salt production. Because the local climate is dry and hot, it is an excellent area for drying salt.

However, in this era, the drying salt technology does not seem to have appeared yet. It was not until around 1522 that the Haifeng Salt Field in Wudi County, Shandong Province developed the technology of drying salt from "easy frying to drying". It was not until the end of the Ming Dynasty that Xu Guangqi, a famous scientist in the Ming Dynasty, widely promoted the sun-dried salt method.

Therefore, although there are excellent conditions for drying salt, the indigenous people in Senegal are currently short of salt. Even if it is to cook salt, the local area lacks firewood for cooking salt. Because the local area is dominated by grasslands, there is no firewood to cut down.

For tropical regions, if there is no salt, meat is difficult to preserve, and it will rot in half a day at most. Therefore, in the Mali Empire, salt is a very important material, which can be exchanged for gold (gold sand).

However, Senegal is the northwest frontier of the Mali Empire, and there is no golden sand produced by the Gulf of Guinea. Therefore, the locals are also very short of salt. The Portuguese are not rich in table salt, not to mention, the price of table salt in Europe is high, and it is not very profitable to sell it to Africa.

It's better to sell glass beads that look good but are not practical.

But Marin is different. He needs to quickly open the door to Senegal, and needs local people to help him hunt rhinos and obtain rhino hides. Therefore, he did not hesitate to bring a large amount of salt in exchange for the support of the local tribe.

Sure enough, when the representative of Marin took out bags of salt packed in oiled paper bags under the leadership of the translator, the eyes of the local chief were straight...

You know, in Timbuktu, merchants from North Africa can exchange salt bricks dug out of the Sahara Desert for gold sand. The locals don't have sand, so the Portuguese naturally disdain to give them salt. So, locally, salt is very precious.

When Eschwein proposed to go ashore to hunt rhinos, several local chiefs knelt decisively in front of bags of white Marshmallow salt.

The local chief offered to let the musketeers sent by the company land to hunt the rhino as long as the Senegal Fur Company provided each tribe with two bags of refined salt every month. Moreover, they will also send warriors in the clan as guides to accompany them to find rhinos.

Each tribe only needs two bags of salt every month, which made Eschwein very stunned. You know, one bag of this is only one pound of table salt. There are only five chiefs from the Cape Verde Peninsula who came to contact the Senegal Fur Company. In other words, only need to pay 10 pounds of salt per month, and the Senegal Fur Company can hunt and kill rhinos on the Cape Verde Peninsula at will...

Although the Cape Verde peninsula is not large, it has an area of ​​five to six hundred square kilometers. Most of the peninsula is grassland and there are many wild animals. As for rhinos and elephants, there seem to be many.

For Senegalese fur companies, the Cape Verde peninsula may be a little small. However, since they bought several local chiefs with salt, the Senegal Fur Company has obtained the right to go on land and hunt rhinos freely, which is the most important thing.

In the future, the Senegal Fur Company can start from the Cape Verde Peninsula and go to the interior of Senegal to hunt more rhinos. Otherwise, the rhinos on the Cape Verde Peninsula alone are far from enough to be used as armor for tens of thousands of troops.

...

Eschwein returned to the base on Gorey Island very satisfied, but he didn't know that after he left, several chiefs on the Cape Verde Peninsula were talking about him there. Of course, not a good word.

The Dakar Department is the most powerful tribe on the Cape Verde Peninsula, and later, this place was also named after this tribe. Mag'har, the chief of Dakar, looked greedily at the two bags of refined salt in his hand. He was the chief of the largest tribe of this generation and the most knowledgeable one. When he was young, he traveled all over the world, visiting big cities like Timbuktu. At that time, he saw in Timbuktu that an Arab businessman from North Africa used a brick of salt and walked away with a bag of gold dust. And he, who has dealt with the Portuguese, knows how precious sands are. It's a pity that there are no sands in the area, so the Portuguese have no interest in it. Of course, he didn't know. Fortunately, there is no Jinsha in the area. Otherwise, the Portuguese would never mind sending troops to occupy here.

At this time, a chief named Suva said with a smile:

"You say, is this white man not very smart? Just to hunt rhinos, he actually gave us precious salt for nothing!" After finishing speaking, he proudly raised the two generations of refined salt in his hand.

After hearing this, Mag'har laughed loudly and said:

"What the hell, he is willing to give it away for nothing, so can we still refuse it? I tasted it, and this salt tastes much better than the salt bricks I saw in Timbuktu. You know, those salt bricks in the Timbuktu market The salt bricks replaced by gold taste a bit bitter, far inferior to the quality of this salt.”

Can it not be bitter? The salt on the Timbuktu market is mainly produced in several salt mines in the Sahara Desert and is standard mineral salt. Mineral salt has many impurities, and it is normal to taste bitter. Some are even poisonous. Of course, the salt produced by the salt mines that supply Timbuktu is not poisonous, otherwise it would not sell well in the Timbuktu market. However, a bit of bitterness is unavoidable. After all, that's mineral salt. Although there are fine products in mineral salt, most of them are of average quality.

But even these average-quality mineral salt bricks, as the chiefs of the remote areas of the Mali Empire, they usually can't enjoy them. Because they lack the gold dust in exchange for salt bricks. Therefore, the non-bitter refined salt that Eschwein sent them is so precious in their eyes.

Moreover, for several local chiefs, the local rhinos are actually a big hazard. Because, where the rhinos pass by, the local aborigines also have to avoid it by three points. Otherwise, you will be hurt by the rhino accidentally. Since these outsiders are willing to help hunt rhinos and send precious salt, why not do it? They wish they could meet such a Kaizi every day...

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