(This book is a sequel to the book "The King of German Mercenaries" with nearly 120,000 recommended votes. The following content is a brief overview of the previous book for new readers to refer to. If you have any unclear points, please refer to the prequel of this book - "The King of German Mercenaries".)
Marin, a company employee who was "learned" (mainly read a lot of novels and miscellaneous books), was beaten by a brick to cross the river because he stood up for his friends and traveled to the banks of the Rhine River in 1494, and became a young wandering knight, Marin Hoffmann, who had just been driven out of his house and was on the verge of starvation.
With his profound "outdated" knowledge and skills in his previous life, Marin solved the survival problems and overcome the difficulties through hunting.
Later, with the knowledge learned from his previous life in the history of time travel novels, Du Niang and various techniques, Marin used the "Spanish Square" weapon, temporarily pulled up a team of mercenaries, and defected to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I who wanted to participate in the Italian war, and was reused.
As a time traveler, "Foresight" is Marin's greatest advantage. Taking advantage of this advantage, the brave Marin, with only one square formation (1,250 people), ambushed the fleeing King Charles VIII and his 8,000 French knights in the middle of the night, achieving extremely brilliant results.
Through this shocking military achievements, Marin was promoted from a little knight to an imperial baron of the Holy Roman Empire with an independent baron, becoming a member of the hereditary nobles.
In the remote island territory, Malin relied on the rich scientific knowledge he had mastered to find a suitable way to make money - boil salt. Using the coal produced in his own estate in the Ruhr area, Malin set up a large salt-boiling pot on the beach under the baron of his island, and began a huge profit-making career of boiling salt (the salt price was very expensive in that era).
Then, relying on good finances, Marin hired enough troops to defeat the invasion of the Friesian noble republic...
After failing to seize Friesland and being picked by the Duke of Saxony, Marin had to turn his attention to the neighboring country of the Friesland Republic, the East Friesland State.
Moreover, Marin was surprised to find that his cheap mother, Mrs. Mary, was actually the granddaughter of the overthrown Earl of East Friesland.
With this, Marin obtained the legal qualification to covet the rank of Earl of the East Friesland by forging documents of the noble status of his grandfather's family (actually civilian status, and the children born in intermarriage in Europe have no inheritance).
Then, Marin still recruited thousands of troops, raided East Friesland, seized control of the East Friesland state, and proclaimed himself an earl...
However, things were not all smooth sailing. Although Marin occupied East Friesland, he was opposed by neighboring countries. Especially the Duke of Saxony, who was ambitious and also coveted the country of East Friesland.
In desperation, Marin had to recruit tens of thousands of mercenaries to fight to the death with the Saxony invading army...
Outside the town of Lair County, south of the East Frieslander Kingdom, Marin used the "Spanish Square" that was ahead of this era and dug two trenches filled with pickets in front of the formation to block the charge of the Saxony army.
Afterwards, taking advantage of the opportunity that the chief flag of the Duchy of Saxony was broken by the artillery of the warships under Marin, Marin learned from Zhu Xu in the "Battle of Feishui" and directed his subordinates to spread rumors loudly, believing that the enemy commander Duke Saxony was "dead by artillery", dismantling the enemy's fighting spirit and taking the opportunity to annihilate the Saxony army, which was more than twice the number of people than his own.
At this point, Marin consolidated his position and completed a huge change from a wandering knight with nothing to an autonomous Earl of Belarus within a few years.
Of course, as a knowledgeable (miscellaneous) time traveler, Marin was not only busy improving his status. He knew that this era was the beginning of the vigorous "Age of Great Discovery". Marin was very clear about the huge profits of the Great Discovery, so he decisively used his territory's advantage on the North Sea to build ships and train sailors, and participated in the Great Discovery.
By chance, Marin recruited Columbus and used Columbus' "straight" Da Gama's fleet, but "stumbling" to Da Gama halfway, delaying the opponent's itinerary. Then his fleet arrived in India first and obtained huge profits in the spice trade.
In addition, Marin also specially saved Prince An of Spain, who would have died of illness, and changed history. From then on, Charles V, who jointly ruled Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, could not have appeared again. Spain also allowed Marin to participate in the colonial ranks of America because of Marin's contribution to saving his crown prince, so that he had the opportunity to get involved in the Americas...
At the same time, Marin also intervened in the affairs of the Teutonic Knights. In the process of running for the new Grand Head, he supported his allies, defeated the son of the enemy Duke of Saxony, and made his allies become the new Grand Head of the Teutonic Knights. Therefore, Marin also got the opportunity to intervene in the Teutonic trade, increasing trade routes and wealth.
Because he is familiar with the direction of history, after saving the illegitimate daughter of the future god of war, Julius II, Marin decisively pursued and successfully married. You should know that the Pope, who also had an illegitimate son, Alexander VI's three illegitimate sons all became dukes. Marin married the illegitimate daughter of the future pontiff, which was obviously a political speculation.
After sending Columbus to discover the Indian route, Marin did not go to war on India trade by himself because he knew that his maritime power was too weak to compete with the Portuguese. The Portuguese had developed a large maritime career for decades since the era of Prince Enrique, with a strong foundation and a large number of warships.
In desperation, Marin had no choice but to choose to take the chart of the Indian route to Spain and trade with the Spaniards, giving the extremely profitable Indian spice trade to the Spaniards, and in exchange for permission to colonize in the Americas. Because, as the soul of China, Marin knew very well that "every man was guilty of being guilty." In the absence of guaranteeing the safety of the route, Marin decisively gave up the huge profits of the Indian spice trade and instead obtained the American colonization license from Spain, laying the groundwork for the future colonization of Peru, Mexico and other gold and silver production areas.
Then, Marin hired the same great navigator, Americo, to lead a team to explore Grenada (a tropical island without tropical venomous snakes and venomous insects) in the Caribbean Windward Islands, as well as the North American coastal islands Nantucket and Massa Vineyard Island, to prepare for colonization.
The reason why these two places were chosen as the preferred colonies is that although Grenada is a tropical island, it is not easy to spread because there are no venomous snakes and insects, and the disease is not easy to spread. When colonizing there, colonists are not prone to tropical diseases such as malaria. The choice of two small islands along the coast of North America is because the Indians on the mainland are too strong. Perhaps their combat effectiveness is average on the plains, but entering the primeval forests of North America and being good at shooting prey in the jungle will become a nightmare for the colonists. Therefore, Marin planned to make steady progress, first occupy two small islands that lack Indians, build bases and farms on the island, and use this as a springboard to slowly plan for the Indians on the mainland...
Finally, Marin reached an agreement with his father-in-law Archbishop Rovere (the future Pope Julius II) to help him as the Pope, conquering the rich neighbor of the Pope's Republic of Florence in exchange for secular rule of the Bishop Munster, the neighbor of the Eastern Friesland. For this reason, Marin recruited 10,000 new mercenaries and brought them to the territory of the allied Teutonic state to secretly train, in the future to escort Archbishop Rovere into Rome... At this point, Marin, who served as 20,000 mercenaries, became the king of European mercenaries in this era...
Chapter completed!