Chapter One Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty Three: The Holy War of Castile, the Feast of the Italian Countries
"Oh! The city-state needs a huge increase in spices? How much more?...What! Yahweh, it's three times as much as before?!...Gee, the income from the jihad on the peninsula is so huge? All the merchants in the Apennine states have really made a fortune.
A huge fortune!…Well, as the most powerful commercial city-state, our Republic of Venice should be able to get the biggest share of the pie and earn at least hundreds of thousands of gold ducats, right?…”
"Haha! Isaac, you are one of the stewards of the city-state guild and a member of the parliament. I won't hide it from you... The profit from this holy war is probably this amount!..."
In the small building at the port, the old knight Lorenzo was drinking red wine while talking to the Jewish businessman Eleazar about the benefits of the Peninsular Jihad. He smiled and proudly stretched out a finger to let Eleazar pour it down.
He took a breath of air and shouted in disbelief.
"One hundred thousand gold ducats? It can't be so little... That's one million gold ducats?! Yahweh! How is this possible? Is this the income of our Venetian family, or does it include the states and the church?...Ah! Yes!
Our family’s income? How could it be, how could it be so much?! Impossible, how could there be such a huge income!!”
"Aha! Isaac, nothing is impossible! The Jihad on the Peninsula has been going on for eleven years. The Castilians maintained a standing army of 60,000 people and even mobilized a hundred thousand legions at one time...the shoes on these people's feet and the clothes on their bodies
The armor, the weapons on the waist, the arrows shot from the hands, the bread in the mouth, the tents in which one sleeps, the gunpowder used when shooting, and even the saw ax used to saw off one's legs when injured, are all Castilians.
If you can't supply it yourself, you have to spend money to buy it from us! These military supplies to maintain the jihad, but we, the Apennine states, traveled thousands of miles across the Mediterranean and shipped them to the east coast of the peninsula in one ship!..."
"I remember a certain commander said that the first priority in war is money, money, more money! Without the loans from our Apennine states, the poor Castilians would not even be able to pay the salaries for recruiting soldiers.
Qi...let alone maintaining an army of 60,000, I'm afraid they can't even afford a standing army of 20,000!"
“To fight a war, you just throw boxes of gold coins into the vast sea!…The Lord witnesses! It is perfectly normal for such a large-scale and long war to cost one million gold ducats… End
When Granada surrendered last year, the Kingdom of Castile owed a total of at least 1 million gold ducats in principal, and an accumulated interest of about 400,000! These 1.4 million gold ducats will be rolled over every year
The profit is 10%... Among them, our Venetian debt accounts for about 40%, which is about 600,000 gold ducats. And an estimated half of the other 60% is behind the church's loans..."
"What's funny is that, except for part of the Castilian loans that were turned into military salaries and stayed on the peninsula... most of the loans flowed into the states of the Apennine Peninsula in the form of purchasing military supplies.
Let the city-states, guilds and workshops throughout the peninsula prosper and be busy day and night! The Castilians only know how to fight, they can't build anything, and they have no time to build it. They can only buy and buy, and they can only buy cheaply.
Various commercial city-states have made the whole of Italy more prosperous!…”
"Haha! In addition to the Kingdom of Castile, which is burdened with huge debts and has an annual interest rate of only 10%, there is also the Kingdom of Aragon, which owes nearly 100,000 gold ducats and an annual interest rate of 15%, and has a loan amount of tens of thousands.
Hundreds, thousands of holy war knights with annual interest rates ranging from 20-30%...and other commercial city-states, those large and small workshops and factories that borrowed money to expand production because of the war boom...all these are put together, because of this peninsula jihad,
The city-state republic holds a debt of one million gold ducats, with an average annual interest rate of at least 15%, which is exactly the annual income of 150,000 gold ducats!…”
When talking about the loans and profits of the Peninsula Holy War, the old knight Lorenzo was familiar with the treasures, and laughed heartily from time to time. The smile on his face and the raised fingers in his hands all witnessed the Republic of Venice at its peak, which controlled the financial hegemony of the entire Catholic world.
The power of wealth!
"O Yahweh! A debt of one million gold ducats will earn a compound interest rate of 15% per year!..."
At this moment, the Jewish businessman Eleazar was dazzled by what he heard. He wished he could turn himself into the secret treasury of the city-state republic and store all the debt documents and gold coins... After a while, he came back to his senses and suddenly thought of
What, he asked with some confusion.
"Lauren, this debt of one million gold ducats... The Kingdom of Aragon has good finances, and King Fernando is very good at running the business, so it can be repaid. After the Holy War, a large number of workshops and factories that were previously borrowed for expansion will inevitably go bankrupt. But
Those fixed land and buildings, and the inventory of materials and goods can all be used to pay off debts and be sold for money. You will definitely not lose money, you will only make more money... There should be no need to worry about these two debts..."
"But how can we recover the huge debts lent by the city-state to the Kingdom of Castile, and the large and small debts lent to those poor knights? I have stayed in Castile for a long time, and those stupid Iberians have no idea
They are not good at business. Even if they occupy the rich manors and orchards of the Moors, they will only use them as pasture for grazing and cannot make any money at all!…”
"Haha! Isaac, you are a born outstanding businessman, proficient in business transactions and operations. But war is the largest and most profitable business in the world, but with your background, you cannot understand or play it... Well,
I personally participated in the Jihad on the Peninsula for two years, but I can tell you about my experiences..."
As he spoke, the old knight Lorenzo stretched out his wine glass, and Eleazar quickly and respectfully filled it up himself. The old knight drank it all in one gulp, obviously drinking too much, and his voice was louder.
"The Lord is a witness! Isaac, don't underestimate the Castilians! They are extremely vicious, and they are the best knives. They can chop out human bones and make oil!..."
"It's less than a year since the Holy War ended! The Castilians have already paid off more than half of the debt of one hundred and hundreds of thousands of gold ducats!...Tsk! Just the attack on the Moorish capital of Granada alone
, the Castilians dug several meters into the ground, went from house to house, broke in and killed people, and plundered all kinds of property worth 200,000 gold ducats!...Then they started looting and captured five people in the Granada area.
, 60,000 young Moorish slaves of both sexes were sold to various Apennine city-states for another hundred thousand gold ducats! Among them were many beautiful Moorish noble female slaves, with their smooth wheat-colored skin, and their wonderful and touching taste...cough! Still...
There are craftsmen from the Moorish royal family with outstanding skills, and they are all collected by the nobles of the city-state... And in Abraham's Red Castle, the treasures and sacred objects accumulated by the Moorish royal family for four hundred years are also priced at 150,000 gold ducats, and they are all sold in a package
It entered the Holy See and flowed into the newly built Vatican Museum of Treasures..."
"Haha! Do the math! In the Granada region where the Moors are the most elite, the Castilians squeezed out 450,000 gold ducats from the conquered Moors! And!
After these low-priced property, slaves and treasures fall into the hands of the republic, city-states and churches, their actual value will probably double or triple! It is simply a huge profit!..."
"In this Peninsula Holy War, apart from the land they conquered, almost everything the Castilians plundered was sold to us! Their so-called 'expansion', in the view of the Parliament, is entirely for the Italian states.
And fight. As long as they can pay off their debts in an orderly manner and not default on their debts... our city-state republic, as well as the Church of Rome, will naturally support them to the end! After all, the Castilians are this violent Viking ship.
On the longship, the captain who really directs their direction is our Italian states and churches..."
"As for those holy war knights, big and small, they all have collateral in the hands of the church, which is enough to repay their capital. As for the interest that cannot be paid, let them use their fighting skills to kill and rob for the Lord.