Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 396: Economics and Military Affairs
After marveling at Jerusalem's creative ideas, Delfino took out a few telescopes and let Korner use them.

Today, Corner is the biggest creditor of their Delfino family.

Moreover, Corna, who acquired the debt, clearly showed his goodwill and prevented the Delfino family's debt from being forcibly redeemed at the financial trading venue in Venice, that is, the Rialto Bridge.

This kind of timely assistance naturally brought the two families closer together.

Old man Delfino was also happy to use the gift of the telescope to make Korner more confident about Jerusalem.

Although telescopes are controlled items in this era, they are not sold directly on the market.

However, the glass production and polishing of the Kingdom of Jerusalem already included technology provided by the Venetians.

As a bridge between Venice and Jerusalem, Delfino, with his status, could naturally get a few telescopes for his own collection.

Korner took the telescope from Delfino and went to the third floor of the mansion with great interest.

Through the telescope, he could stand on this high ground and directly observe the port not far away and the distant horizon.

He then noticed several things, the first of which was that the telescopes themselves seemed to be very different.

With two of the telescopes, the images seen were upright, while with one of the other telescopes the images were actually upside down.

The inconsistency between the two puzzled Korner.

The liberal arts education he received, namely the three studies and four arts, did not include an explanation for this situation.

The so-called liberal arts education, or the three studies and four arts, a total of seven subjects, was part of medieval education and constituted the relatively "low-end" part.

Wealthy aristocratic families or royal families would hire special professors to give lectures in this area.

During the Old Jerusalem period, there was such an aristocratic school in Jerusalem, where the Leper King and his sisters received education.

The Italian region is more developed, and it gave birth to the University of Bologna, which is recognized as the oldest university.

It can be traced back to 1088, and its official status was established by Frederick the Barber in 1158.

The three subjects refer to grammar, logic and rhetoric, which are considered relatively basic subjects to get students started.

The four arts refer to arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

In addition, there are disciplines such as medicine, law, and theology.

Medicine, law, and theology are three disciplines that are considered relatively "high-end" and often require people to complete a liberal arts education and obtain a degree before they can study them.

After Korner asked his doubts, the inexplicable sense of superiority on Delfino's face became even stronger.

"How long has it been since you last read any scientific books?"

"Apart from the works of ancient Greek sages, Arabs have also made considerable contributions."

"Of course, in the universities of Jerusalem, this kind of thing has been explained very clearly. If you want to know more, I have a few special journals here. You can take a look."

The ancient Greek sages that Delfino mentioned were Euclid, Ptolemy and others, who laid the foundation of optics, and the Arabs referred to Ibn al-Haytham, who wrote The Book of Optics from 1011 to 1021 and proposed the modern theory of visual introjection.

As for the universities in Jerusalem, they are the University of Antioch, the University of Tyre, the University of Jerusalem, and Al-Hadi University.

Although these universities are not very large, they are indeed at the forefront of the times, and take academic exchanges, promoting scientific development, and understanding the world as their mission.

The way they conduct academic exchanges is to share through the journal platform.

For people outside universities, thanks to Gérisse's advocacy, buying journals that publish scientific results has become a hobby for many dignitaries to show off their culture.

This does not mean that the rich and powerful really love natural sciences.

But a person who does not understand basic natural sciences will find it difficult to have common topics with Gellis, and will not be able to integrate into the kingdom's high-level circles.

At the same time, a person who invests in natural sciences is more likely to attract Garys' attention.

Under such circumstances, the nobles' customs naturally became different.

Regardless of their original intentions, they ultimately learned a lot of real knowledge.

It doesn’t matter whether this knowledge is useful or not, but it feels good to use it to show off and demonstrate your superiority over those who don’t understand it.

Korner rolled his eyes in annoyance, and then after listening to Mr. Delfino's description, he understood the principle of perspective.

There is a difference between these two telescopes in the combination of lenses.

The image is presented by a convex lens objective lens + a concave lens eyepiece.

What is presented in reverse is a convex lens objective lens + a convex lens eyepiece.

The former has a narrow field of view, limited magnification, blurred edges of the image quality, and a small field of view, while the latter has a larger field of view and higher magnification, and ensures clearer imaging.

Taking the results of Korner's own experiments as an example, the telescope can observe the ships at the dock and some people coming and going from the third floor of Delfino's mansion.

A telescope that is turned upside down is sufficient to clearly see the situation at the horizon.

Then a scene that seemed familiar, but not very certain in the past, appeared in Korner's vision.

When a ship came from the horizon, he clearly saw that the mast appeared first, then gradually rose, and finally the complete hull appeared.

After sharing this observation with Delfino, Delfino said: "This just proves that our earth is indeed a sphere. We Venetians have had this feeling before, but it is clearer with the telescope."

"If the earth is really a sphere, then can anyone really survive on the other side of the sphere? Or is that hell?"

"No, that's not hell. According to Gellis, that's Peach Blossom Rock."

The two continued to talk about this issue for a few more sentences, but Delfino was quite excited at the beginning.

After chatting for a while, his face became a little sad.

Korner was puzzled and asked what was going on.

Then he heard the old man say: "I am worried about the future of Venice!"

"what?"

What is there to worry about?
Isn’t Venice on a roll these days, winning again and again?

"Look, the earth beneath our feet is a ball, and the other side of the ball is Peach Blossom Rock, which is India."

"Doesn't this mean that we can get Indian goods from the east as well as from the west? We Venetians have made a lot of money from Eastern trade in the past. If Western trade rises in the future, will it still be our turn to make money?" Korner felt that the old man's thinking was too unconventional, but when he thought about it carefully, it was really possible.

In particular, many commodities in Eastern trade rely on land transportation, which is a natural disadvantage.

If it were really possible to travel to India or Taohuashi by ship from the west, and if the trade competition surpassed Venice...

Doesn't that mean that Korner's investment in Eastern trade has been easily wasted?
When Korner thought of the consequences, he became a little restless.

"But don't worry. I tell you, the kingdom has already made a plan. If we Venetians can sail directly to the East..."

With the help of these scientific theories, Delfino constructed a relatively correct model of the world in Korner's mind.

Then, he took him to open a simple map of the Eurasian and African continents and sold him the plan of a canal leading to the Red Sea.

Considering future ocean voyages, ships will be relatively large.

Therefore, the workload of dredging or excavating this canal will be quite exaggerated.

The kingdom would probably have difficulty relying solely on its own strength, even after conquering Egypt.

Therefore, the kingdom intends to establish a special canal company to build, maintain and operate the canal.

Since it is a company, someone needs to inject capital into it.

Apart from the kingdom's national treasury, only some qualified companies or families are eligible to inject capital into it.

The Delfino family undoubtedly has the qualifications, but his family cannot afford to take on too much, so they want to drag others into the water.

Korner became the "sucker" in the eyes of old man Delfino.

Of course, it takes two to fight. Korner was already ambitious about the Eastern trade. After hearing about this opportunity, he knew that his previous investment in the Delfino family was successful.

What remains is nothing more than some discussions on details and how to continue to bring people into the water to ensure that the canal has sufficient funds and enough manpower to carry out dredging or excavation.

It's just a pie in the sky, but the realization of all this will have to wait until the end of the war.

However, there is a reason for the existence of pie in the sky.

Only when the pie looks good enough will people invest in it.

The pie in the sky can only be fulfilled if there is sufficient investment. Of course, it is also possible that the purpose of drawing the pie in the sky is to cheat money.

But investors at the level of Delfino and Korna are still very confident about this.

After all, even the newspapers reported the first victory.

……

"What do you think, Puldock?"

George paced back and forth in the office with a battle report that was more detailed than any on the market.

"How can you watch it? Of course you watch it while sitting. Do you think you can watch it while lying down?" Purdock was dismissive of George's question.

George and Puldock were both knights who followed Isabella and were the first to witness the resurrection of Gellis, so they were called apostles.

Both of them hold high positions of power in Jerusalem's military system.

Now, after receiving the battle report from Antiochus, they were quite shocked, then happy, and then a little sad.

In fact, even people at Delfino's level have many things that they are not clear about or subconsciously ignore.

For example, just as there are five Four Heavenly Kings, strictly speaking there are five universities in the kingdom.

Unlike the other four comprehensive universities, the fifth university, the Palestinian Military Academy, is an institution established solely for war and military affairs.

Responsible for officer training and deepening of military tactical theories.

Even Gellis himself serves as the vice-president of this institution.

Therefore, in addition to calling Gellis a prophet and duce, many people also call him principal.

Unlike Delfino and others, who are concerned about the economic benefits brought by the war.

This first battle of the Antiochus army also confirmed the correctness of Gellis' military theory.

This made many people in the military system who were unwilling to obey the orders realize that times are changing.

Before the establishment of the Palestine Military Academy, there was no institution in the world that was dedicated to guiding the military with theory, combining it with practical verification, and also responsible for the training of officers.

The creation of such an organization is undoubtedly groundbreaking and is undoubtedly a reform of the original Jerusalem military system.

In the eyes of many people, this is even a disguised form of cleansing.

After all, quite a number of people were forced to leave the military system because they were unable to complete their studies in military academies, and were replaced by newcomers who emerged in the past decade.

After mocking George, Puldock continued normally: "First of all, we have to admit that the old-style army has no fighting power at all. Therefore, those who expect to be granted fiefs and become lords to provide troops for the country can be directly swept into the garbage dump. We should even intensify the efforts to continue to clean them up!"

"Then, our idea that the General Staff can handle everything does have some problems..."

At the end, Purdock's voice became a little quieter.

There are mainly three voices in the army of Jerusalem today.

The first is to go back to the old Jerusalem period and divide the newly conquered lands as a reward to the military nobility.

The second is the staff system established by Gellis, which creates a model army through unified conscription training and logistics supply, making it easier for the commander to mobilize at the campaign level and requiring all tactical actions to serve the campaign.

The third one was actually proposed by Gérisse, which means that although the General Staff is very important, it is extremely dangerous and ignores objective reality to believe that all the plans of the General Staff will inevitably lead to military success through execution. Therefore, it is equally important, or even more critical, to emphasize the subjective initiative of grassroots units and the piety of faith.

There is nothing much to say about the first type. The feudal old guard has indeed been purged for a long time, but due to the reasons of the times, it cannot be completely cleansed, and thus they are the targets of hostility by the latter two voices.

The second is the idea of ​​military high-ranking officials such as George and Purdock. As the most powerful people in the military system, they naturally want to strengthen the prestige of the system itself and establish absolute command authority over grassroots troops.

The third is the countermeasure proposed by Gérice after he noticed the second tendency. More precisely, it is an attempt by Gérice to fight against the bureaucratization of the military.

Even though this bureaucracy was established by Garys.

(End of this chapter)