After having the coal mine, Malin was somewhat interested in the reform of the manor agriculture. He became the son of a coal boss, but he still wanted to farm with a lot of farming? Even if he farmed, he would not be able to make waves even if he had such a little farming land at home.

Moreover, Adler said that although as his eldest son, the fields may not be as good as his younger brothers and sisters, he is willing to share the benefits of the coal mine with his younger brothers and sisters, especially Marin, who excavated the coal mine.

Adler is not a stingy person and is not stingy with money. It is a family tradition that the manor does not give to his younger brothers. However, this coal mine is not inherited from the ancestral world. Although it is underground in the manor, if Marlin had not done a "geological investigation" on whim, the coal mine would not have been unearthed for a day.

Of course, Adler also said that when he was alive, the income from the coal mine could naturally be distributed to his younger brothers and sisters, but he did not guarantee that his descendants would do the same. Because this coal mine belongs to the Hoffman family. As the next patriarch, Adler can agree to share the benefits of the coal mine to his younger brothers and sisters when he was alive. But Adler's son may not be so generous after becoming the new patriarch.

But even so, Marin and his younger brothers and sisters can get a lot of benefits. Even if the coal mine produces 100 charterons a day, the Hoffman family can earn at least 100 shillings, which is 7.5 marks. In 365 days a year, the Hoffman family can earn at least 2,700 marks.

In fact, a skilled miner can dig 15 Charteron coal every day (Newcastle data from Britain). Even if you are not skilled, it is okay to dig 78 Charteron coal a day.

Then, recruiting 20 miners and digging 200 Chaltrons a day is fine. And the income of the Hoffman family will also double. Of course, this premise is that the Hoffman family's coal must be sold...

However, the coals of the Hoffman family are all first-class coal and are the most suitable anthracite for fuel. Therefore, their sales are at least better than ordinary coal.

Adler and Hoffman discussed and were willing to give 30% of the coal mine income to their younger brothers and sisters. Among them, Marin got 10% of the remaining 20% ​​and the two younger brothers and sisters were divided together.

Of course, this vision is beautiful. However, for a long time, coal mines may not be profitable. Because the early investment in mining coal mines is huge. For example, recruiting miners, building dormitories for miners, and building a mine truck track to the dock. Then, the dock also needs to be built to facilitate the docking of coal ships... Not only that, we have to go to the city to find merchants who are willing to distribute the Hoffman family coal...

In order to master how to run a coal mine, Malin specially visited other coal mines in Ruhr District. Then, he obtained some data through some means.

Data shows that in general coal mines, miners can dig about 10 Chaltron coal every day. Of course, there are not only coal miners in the coal mine, but also workers responsible for lifting coal from deep wells on pulleys, and workers transporting coal to warehouses where coal is piled up outside the mine with hand-pulled mine trucks.

Generally speaking, the daily wage of coal miners in Ruhr is 3 Finneys per day, while the daily wage of those responsible for lifting coal and pulling coal to the warehouse is 2 Finneys per day. On average, the average wage cost per Charteron coal from leaving the outside to being transported to the warehouse is about 3 Finneys to 4 Finneys.

But that's not all, because the cost of transporting coal from horse-drawn carriages is too high and the transportation volume is small. Therefore, generally coal transportation is carried out to the docks on the Ruhr River or Lipper River. The distance from the coal mine to the dock depends on how far the distance between each coal mine is from the dock. If there are very far distances, it costs 4 Finneys to transport one Chaltron coal from the coal mine to the dock. If the cost is low, one or two Finneys are also required.

Of course, there are also very favorable conditions, such as the coal mine in Hoffman Manor, which is only 2 kilometers away from the Ruhr River, and the transportation cost is very low.

However, this is much more than cost. Because, for coal mining, the official also needs to draw taxes. The Holy Roman Empire is different from other countries. Other countries have to pay taxes to the royal family when mining. While the Hoffman Manor is in the territory of Markber, every time a Charteron coal is sold, Count Mark needs to pay 2 Finney taxes to Earl of Mark.

In addition, after coal is transported from Markbour, if you pass through a vassal state and encounter a checkpoint, you will basically have to pay a Finney customs duty. If you pass through multiple vassal states, you will have to pay a lot of money just by taxation.

Therefore, using a ship to transport coal is not only low in transportation costs, but also means avoiding land checkpoints. After all, on the surface of the river, as long as you do not dock, few princes will send ships to chase you to collect taxes. Only when the ship stops at any dock will tax officials. After all, this was in the Middle Ages, tax officials were afraid of water and did not dare to go to the river to "take a bath".

When you arrive at the destination city, you must pay import tax and city tax. Therefore, when you arrive at the Charteron coal, those merchant ships usually only give the coal owner 2 shillings per Chaltron. But even so, the profit of the mine owner is at least 1 shilling per Chaltron. And the ship owners only need to stop a few fewer ports, and after the ship arrives at the end, even if they sell 4 shillings per Chaltron, they will have a profit of more than one shilling.

However, there must be a prerequisite for this - that is, you have to sell coal first. You should know that there was no industry in the Middle Ages, and at most iron smelting, copper smelting and other products specifically needed coal. Because these productions all require high temperatures created by coal. Others, such as cooking and boiling water, just use local firewood. Therefore, the market for coal in the Middle Ages was very small and belongs to the buyer's market.

If coal is so easy to sell, I guess many people in the Ruhr area would make a fortune by selling coal, just like the coal bosses in Shanxi in later generations. Unfortunately, this era was in the Middle Ages...

Marin, baptized by the market economy tide in later generations, knew the importance of sales. So he took the Hoffmans without saying a word, and asked them to bring enough money to Cologne, the largest city on the Rhine River.

Logically speaking, the two largest commercial cities in the German region are Hamburg and Bremen, which would be better to sell in these two places. However, Marin knew that there were no inland waterways in Bochum in this era to Hamburg and Bremen. Only after the opening of the Sino-German Canal in later generations could the waterways in Bochum and Bremen be opened. At present, if you want to transport coal to these two places, you must first transport it out of the Rhine Estuary, and then transport it around the sea to these two places. However, in this era, the risk of sea transportation was too great. Therefore, considering safety and transportation costs, Marin thought it would be fine to find a big city to sell coal nearby.

In the Rhine River Basin, Cologne is the most well-deserved city. Even Vienna, the capital of the empire, is not as prosperous as Cologne. At the same time, Cologne is also the residence of Archbishop Cologne, one of the seven electoral emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.

Many commercial activities on the banks of the Rhine are centered around Cologne. Here, merchants gather, and many nearby vassal states will send commercial representatives to Colognene to be responsible for commodity procurement. Therefore, coal is easier to sell here.

After Marin and Hoffman came to Cologne City, they found a hotel to stay. Then, Marin spent money to get some information from the hotel owner, the local man, and some news about the business people he wanted to know.

After screening, Malin selected three more famous coal distribution managers. The reason why he chose a coal manager rather than a coal merchant himself was a truth that Malin realized when he worked in later generations - if he wanted to sell products to the other boss, he had to make the boss feel that he had made a lot of profit. But if he really wanted to do this, his own concessions would be huge and he was at a disadvantage.

But managers are different. They just work for their boss, but they also have great power. However, they are just working, not the boss themselves. Therefore, it is actually very simple to want him to purchase your goods - that is, you can bring him enough benefits personally...

Therefore, managers with purchasing authority are very popular. In later generations, many business personnel responsible for selling products will bribe these managers with purchasing authority. Of course, bribery cannot handle everything. There is also a prerequisite, that is, your goods are not too big, and they are not much different from other people's goods.

Marin, who knew this well, met with the three managers he selected and launched a bribery trick...

But what made him depressed was that the first two managers said that their coal suppliers were personally decided by the boss and they had no right to change them. So Marin had to give up. Fortunately, the third manager had a strong say - he was the boss's brother-in-law...

After paying a huge bribe of 50 marks, the coal dealer agent named Wright agreed to purchase goods from the Hoffman family's coal mine after the contract with the previous dealer expired two months later, and they sent a ship to load coal. Of course, the coal quality of the Hoffman family is also excellent. Although Wright was jealous of the bribe, he also accepted the bribe after checking the samples brought by Marin and proved that the Hoffman coal mine was first-class, and then he accepted the bribe with confidence and signed a contract with Old Hoffman. Moreover, the price given by Old Hoffman was also low - only 2 shillings per Chaltron. In fact, the price of first-class coal in Ruhr area is generally 2 shillings per Chaltron. Therefore, Wright chose Hoffman coal mine without any loss.

After solving the sales problem, Marin and Hoffman rushed back to the manor. Next, the excavation of the coal mine and coal transportation links were the links.

Under Marin's dispatch, Adler was sent to the Ruhr River to supervise the construction of the coal transport terminal. Old Hoffman was responsible for repairing the road from the coal mine to the river, and directing the serfs to repeatedly crush the road with stone sculpts "invented" by Marin. Mrs. Mary was responsible for supervising the carpenters to build a batch of Chinese wheelbarrows for the shipment of coal.

Because, Marin estimated that if a 2-kilometer-long mine car track was built, the investment cost would be too high, and the Hoffman family would not be able to provide the money for the time being. So he simply decided to use a wheelbarrow and a ox cart to transport coal first.

The ox cart is ready-made, but there is a problem with the ox cart. Once the road is muddy on rainy days, the ox cart cannot run, affecting the shipping of coal. The wheelbarrow is actually intended to be used on rainy days and when the road is not dry. Because the unicycle is a vehicle on all terrain and can walk on the grass. Moreover, Chinese unicycles can carry five or six hundred kilograms of goods, which is very convenient and practical.

As for Marin himself, he took Kahn and Kohler out to the old coal mines and purchased two sets of support equipment for pulley lifting coal trucks for mine lifting.

After buying the equipment, Marin did not leave immediately, but quietly sent people to contact some of the powerful and skilled miners from the old coal mines, and used the "high price" of 4 Finneys a day to poach five experienced miners who were free civilians.

The Hoffman coal mine is a newly opened coal mine. If all new people are used, the output may not be guaranteed. Once the output cannot keep up, the old Hoffman is equivalent to breach of contract, but he has to pay for Wright. Therefore, Marin dug five skilled and powerful miners. Then, the old Hoffman recruited more than a dozen strong serfs who had never dug coal from outside the manor and learned to mine with the five old miners. With a master, I believe that these more than a dozen young men will be quicker to dig coal. Of course, some of them are also responsible for loading and transporting coal to the dock.

In this way, by early September, the coal mines of the Hoffman family officially began to operate. At this time, the news that King Charles VIII of France led 37,000 French troops to Italy finally reached the German region.
Chapter completed!