Chapter 1981: Low cost of military training

You should know that the salaries of an army are definitely a huge expense. For example, the soldiers of the North Sea State have a daily salary of 3 Finney, and the annual salary is 1095 Finney, which is equivalent to 18.25 gold coins. For a 10,000 army, not counting the high salary of an officer, 10,000 soldiers spend more than 182,500 gold coins a year.

If you are stationing 10,000 troops overseas, the annual salary expenditure is estimated to be more than 200,000 gold coins. But if a large number of servants composed of black slaves are used, it will be different.

The black slaves have no one else, and even if they are fed, they still want salaries? What a joke? The cost of raising 10,000 mercenaries and raising 10,000 black slave servants is very different. Only the annual salary expenditure can save a lot of money.

As for the grain ... Marin felt that the black slave soldiers stationed in the Americas would just eat potatoes produced by the local Indians, and they would not need to transport grain from the local area. The gadget is high-yield, hungry, and nutritious enough, and is a good military food. Haven't you seen? The soldiers of the early Prussian kingdom, who had fought by eating potatoes at the beginning, were even more fierce.

By that time, those black servants, as long as they drove the local Indians to plant potatoes in large quantities near the barracks, would be able to meet the army's military food needs.

In this way, Marin can spend a small cost to maintain a large army of tens of thousands of people and control Mexico and Peru. And, don't worry about these black servants and Indians standing together. After all, they are of different races and do not understand the language, so it is difficult to collude. Then, Marin's **** of the Americas became more stable ...

As for the problem of poor fighting ability of black people, it is not a problem. Just as King Chaka reformed his tactics and strengthened the combat effectiveness of the Zulu army, as long as the weaponry and tactics of those black slave soldiers were improved, the combat effectiveness could be greatly improved. Not to mention being able to fight against the European army, at least there is no problem in suppressing Indian natives.

Out of cost considerations, Marin did not intend to equip the black servant army with iron swords, but was prepared to learn Chaka Zulu and equip the black servant army with metal spear-headed short spears. Then, equipped with a shield.

The shield used by the Zulu army of Chaka is a very light Zulu cowhide shield. This kind of shield can resist the throwing of the javelin made by the black African stone spearheads. However, the protection against bows and arrows of metal arrows is relatively weak, and it cannot stop the British bullets.

But Marin felt that using cowhide as a shield appeared to be a bit expensive. Moreover, cattle are precious animal power and cannot be slaughtered at will. Therefore, he intends to equip the black servant army with a wicker shield ...

The so-called wicker shield is actually a shape of a shield woven from wicker, which is just a flat willow basket. Because the wicker is cheap, the cost of the shield is also low, at least lower than the cowhide shield.

As for the question of whether there will be wicker in the Americas, it ’s not a big deal. Willow trees are tenacious and have no intention of planting willow trees, making them very easy to plant. By that time, the Marinites had planted willows all over the Americas, and the materials for the wicker shields were sufficient and cheap.

The wicker shield, although unable to block the firearm, is able to withstand swords and ordinary bows and arrows (except heavy crossbow arrows), which is enough to suppress the resistance of the Indian indigenous. Moreover, it is not as heavy as a wooden shield and easy to carry. When it's okay, it can be carried on the back like a willow basket, which is not heavy.

The use of short spears with little metal, coupled with low-cost wicker shield, this equipment is also very shabby. However, the more shabby Indian indigenous used for the same lack of good weapons is enough. It is also very easy to use a short spear with a spearhead to pierce the rebels. If you want to suppress the people, you can choose not to use the spear head, but to use the spear body as a stick to wrestle the unsatisfied people ... If you upgrade to an armed rebellion, you will no longer use the spear body to fight, but instead use the spear to kill ...

Marin's plan is to station 1,000 German soldiers and 5,000 servants in the Aztec Empire in Mexico, as is the home of the Inca Empire in Peru. In this way, he needs a total of 2,000 German mercenaries and 10,000 black servants.

Usually, those German mercenaries only need to be stationed in the capital or in a key place like the Potosi Silver Mine. The black servant army, under the command of the white officers, dispersed all over the place to maintain law and order. At the same time, supervise the labor production of Indian indigenous people. For example, supervise them to mine or something.

Although Marin would not let the 8 million Indians die at the Potosi Silver Mine like the original Spaniards in history, it would not prevent the Virgin from leaving such a large silver mine to develop it. Therefore, the levy of Indian indigenous mining is inevitable.

However, Marin will try to improve the living standards of the miners. In addition, miners will be given masks and dust-proof eyes to protect their health as much as possible. At the same time, he will set up a mine hospital to treat those sick miners. Rather than throwing sick miners away like the Spanish colonists, they died of starvation.

Marin estimated that by then, the Potosi silver mine was estimated to require hundreds of thousands of miners. By that time, perhaps the black servants and military supervisors alone would have tens of thousands of people. Otherwise, you can't help it.

In other words, at the time, in addition to the 2,000 local soldiers and 10,000 black servants needed to control the local area, the Potosi Silver Mine and some other silver mines will need another 10,000 black servants. In total, Malin needs more than 20,000 slaves.

If you buy it from the Portuguese, the cost is as high as 800,000 Gouldon gold coins based on 40 gold coins a black slave, which is a sky-high price!

But if you buy slaves directly from the Songhai Empire ~ www.wuxiaspot.com ~ it will be cheaper to die! In Timbuktu in the Songhai Empire, the price of local slaves is more expensive than Senegal, but it is also very cheap.

In a "land of borders" like Senegal, a pound of sucrose or 2 pounds of salt can be exchanged for a black slave. In Timbuktu, a sack (about 112 pounds) of salt for 10 strong prisoners of war slaves, that is, 11 pounds of salt for a black slave. The price is more than 5 times more expensive than Senegal, but it is also very cheap.

You know, 11 pounds of salt in the North Sea country is worth 22 finneys, which is equivalent to 0.367 gold coins. Compared with the price of 40 gold coins and one slave in the Portuguese, it is more than 100 times cheaper ...

The black slaves in Senegal are cheaper, but Senegal is only a "land of borders" in West Africa at this time, with a small population. Although black slaves are cheaper, the number is too small. At that low price, Eschwein exchanged only a few hundred slaves from the local area. No way, when the population is so small. Moreover, prisoners of war only appear after tribal conflicts. Moreover, the prisoners of war were killed with a lot of reckless medicine, leaving only the honest and obedient part. In this way, Eschwein can be exchanged for hundreds of slaves, which is pretty good. Only the trading center of the Songhai Empire like Timbuktu can be exchanged for thousands of slaves at once. Want to change to 20,000 black slaves to train as a servant army, can only go to Timbuktu. Moreover, the total cost of 20,000 slaves is more than 7,000 gold coins, which is very cheap ...