open sea

Chapter 1306
"How much salt do you think you are worth as a nobleman?"

Faced with such a question that he never thought he would answer, Earl Charles sat in the prison cell he built himself in Plymouth and thought about it for two hours.

All the captured nobles were thrown into prison, but the captured wounded and surrendered soldiers were treated better. They are building a prisoner-of-war camp outside the city under the supervision of the Ming army. Seriously injured and untreated minor injuries Soldiers can also be healed within the city.

What troubled him was not the question about salt, but what caused Earl Charles to fall into deep self-doubt... What made him fall into the prison he built by himself in the big town of his fiefdom and think about how much salt he was worth? .

The Earl is about to go back to the key point. He has realized that when the plague comes, he should not take his family and beautiful ladies out of the city to have fun, and he should strictly guard against these unruly people in the city.

Or if there is a problem in the city, they immediately go to London to seek refuge, maybe the situation will be much better.

In the end, until the end, the Earl didn't understand why his troops broke up. He and the cavalry were still fighting, but those troops failed to come to support them, and instead fled in all directions. Those soldiers failed him.

The quarrel outside the prison interrupted the earl's thoughts. He first heard the sound of people in armor walking, and then a young man said something in a very fast and irritable voice, but the stone walls of the prison made him all but a pair of fat, black Nothing could be seen beyond the exposed toe of the boots.

Soon, he saw an Irish red beard wearing only an armed suit with an ax stuck in his waist. Behind him was the owner of the pair of fat black boots. It was a young man with not fair skin, and his expression could not be seen clearly as he swayed against the torch.

It only makes people feel strong and very tall. He is wearing a dark blue short robe with a stand-up collar that is not common among Ming people. The short robe is covered with an exquisitely crafted breastplate. The shoulders and arms have folds from wearing armor for a long time.

A wide belt was tied around his waist, a waist knife was hanging, and loose cotton trousers were inserted into black leather boots. His leather boots were cut with a sharp weapon, and the layers of iron armor inside the boots could be seen.

The Irishman who was walking in front sighed through the wooden bars of the cell, raised his hand and patted the wooden bars, and said: "The general is very angry, saying that you haven't figured out how much salt you are worth after half an hour, you don't have time, do the math." Bad people will be killed."

Earl Charles: I'm not fucking good at math and I'm going to kill me?To be reasonable, who has heard of such a reason since ancient times!
"I am the Earl of Plymouth, one of the most honorable men in England. Even if I am captured, I should be treated as worthy of my status, and I should not be put in prison."

After a couple of complaints, the earl gave in, and said: "All the land you can see around here is my fief, how do I know how much salt I can buy with my money, and how much salt do you want? My wealth can Buy all the salt that Chestershire produces this year."

Although England is surrounded by the sea, salt cannot be produced by relying on the sea in this world. The climate here is humid and rainy, and drying salt is a matter of face. In fact, until 400 years later, drying salt is still a matter of face. India Excessive rainfall can drive up international salt prices.

England's main salt producing area is Cheshire, which is adjacent to Wales, and the city of Liverpool is booming because of salt mines.

The Irish translator didn’t seem to like Earl Charles’s self-proclaimed dignity, so he added some material to Ying Ming’s translation, and soon he got a response from Ying Ming, who relayed to the Earl: “Fuck you, My general is the descendant of Yao, Shun and Yu, and the surname should come from the Ji family, which has been passed down for thousands of years, who knows where your shitty Cheshire is!"

"Don't mention your fief, Puli County has been ruled by me, and now the general is asking you how much ransom you can pay."

Charles was overwhelmed by the scolding and scolding by the Irish translator, which was not fluent according to their language habits. He blinked before he recovered, and his heart was full of tears: If you don’t let me mention the fief, what will I give you? Pay the ransom?
No way, the Earl is not very lucky. If an hour ago, even if the Irish translator added some material to his words, Ying Ming would not have spoken so aggressively. Now the commander Ying is thinking about the three battalion soldiers in the official document to the military government. In general, I'm really not in the mood to waste time listening to prisoners right now.

"Dear General, Puli County is your trophy. In addition, I will give you one-third of all my fief income each year. We have reached a contract that lasts for seven years. During this period, you will give me freedom, even if the Queen Reaching a peace agreement with you, this contract between you and me is still valid."

To be honest, Yingming didn't look down on the so-called fief income of a small lord on the island. Alan Wang Zhu Xiaoen was as poor as Charles before he defected to Daming.

The earl thought he was putting forward a very tempting condition, but he heard a cold snort from the young general outside the prison, and then his Irish entourage translated: "How much income can you make a year, pay back one-third, seven years, plus How much can you have together? Salt, how much salt can you buy."

Where did the bumpkin come from, he looked down on people!
Reluctant to be so ignorant, Earl Charles took out a silver coin from his crotch pocket and said, "This is a shilling. It's worth twelve pence. It can buy the best goose. You can also buy fifty catties of salt in Cheshire."

"Twenty shillings for a pound, tell your master that my annual income is twelve thousand to fourteen thousand pounds." Charles said this to the Irish interpreter: "As long as two small I can give him four thousand pounds a year as a ransom."

Earl Charles longed to see the shock in Ying Ming's eyes, but he didn't. In fact, Ying Ming was calculating the price in his mind.

Both goose and salt are good equivalents. Goose is very expensive. The year he left Tianjin, Beiyang prepared a big meal for the small flags before he went to sea. Of course, this year is not called a big meal, but a big meal, The small granaries all have standard dishes, and the difference between training A-class granaries to eat big granaries is that they have goose; B-class granaries don’t have goose, so they use two fish instead; C-class granaries only have one fish.

The price of a goose is eight cents of silver, which is ten catties of beef.

As for salt, it’s even better. The price of salt used in Beiyang is the same as that in Jingying.

Ying Ming calculated in his head, one tael of silver can buy two hundred catties of salt, four shillings can buy two hundred catties of salt, one pound can buy a thousand catties of salt, worth five taels of silver, then it will be four thousand pounds per year... Not a small amount.

The earl's annual income is 6 taels of silver?
What would Ying Ming say in the face of the 2 taels of silver a year that is readily available?
He shook his head, left a sentence for the Irish translator, and left the underground prison without looking back.

In the astonishment of Earl Charles, he heard the interpreter say to him: "The general said, your proposal is not suitable, and then live in prison."

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)