The real century-old wild ginseng is very different from the artificially cultivated ginseng. The artificially cultivated ginseng has a shape similar to carrots and looks like long strip ginger, with fewer tentacles and no human shape. The real century-old ginseng not only has a shape closer to human shape, but also has a lot more tentacles. When taking medicine, you only need to pinch a tentacle to add a big tonic medicine.
What Dr. Chen said was that he could extend the Pope's life for more than a year, and it would be better - just pick some ginseng beads after a while, and it would last for a long time. Moreover, when Marin was purchasing herbs in Wuchang, he met a Tibetan merchant from western Sichuan and bought a batch of Cordyceps sinensis. In addition, he also bought a lot of wolfberry from the northwest and ordinary tonics such as astragalus.
In addition to these tonics brought back from the East, Marin also recommended to Dr. Chen the magical natural supplement - royal jelly that saved the 78-year-old Pope Pius XII in 1954...
By the way, in 1954, the 78-year-old Pope Pius XII was bedridden for several months due to diabetes, asthma and heart disease. The helpless Pope's attending doctor decided to use European native therapy - royal jelly treatment, and gave the Pope a lot of royal jelly every day. Then, the elderly Pope's health gradually improved and recovered three months later, and did not die until 1958. In other words, royal jelly extended his life for four years.
It is precisely because of this legendary experience that royal jelly and propolis later became the darlings of the health care product industry. It is said that in the 1980s, 10 kilograms of royal jelly could be exchanged for a car in South Korea... Of course, after the 1990s, with the collapse of fake health care products such as Sanzhu Oral Liquid and Chinese Turtle Essence, the health care product market collapsed, and the market for royal jelly was also affected, and the demand was no longer so strong. But then again, most of the domestic bee products are used for export and foreign exchange earnings, and most of the honey and royal jelly freeze-dried powder in the domestic market are fake. If you want real goods, you have to go to the beekeeper's tent and watch the beekeepers beat honey and dig royal jelly with your own eyes. Otherwise, what the hell I bought in the supermarket would know...
Marin's instructions to Dr. Chen were - when he arrived in Rome, he used Chinese medicine to prepare tonics and gave the Pope a lot of royal jelly. He did not ask Julius II to extend his life for four years like Pius XII, but he still had to extend his life for one or two years. After this year, Marin had digested eight vassal states, so he no longer cared about the threats of the church princes...
But at the same time, in order to prevent the sudden death of the Pope's father-in-law, Marin secretly sent his subordinates to Rome and secretly asked to see Leo X, who is still an ordinary cardinal. If Julius II unfortunately dies, the Siena Bank, controlled by Marin, fully supports Leo X's election bribery... If Leo X is elected, he needs to publicly support Marin...
In this way, even if the pope is changed, the new pope will help suppress the German church princes and prevent them from uniting with the secular princes to develop themselves.
...
Of course, it would be even better if my father-in-law could live a few more years. After all, my father-in-law is always more reliable than Leo X, an ally in the interests of Leo X. In order to get the full support of his father-in-law, Marin even had a sister-in-law at the beginning. Now, my father-in-law is just a cheap son-in-law and has no son, so all the resources must be tilted towards him. If Leo X, the first thing people consider is the interests of the Medici family, not his own. Only when it does not affect his own interests can Leo X help him.
When Dr. Chen and his party went south, in addition to recuperating Julius II, they were also responsible for notifying the Pope's father-in-law - they hoped that the Holy See would remain neutral in the next Italian war...
According to the information from Paris, the French spent a lot of money to compete for the Italian Kingdom of Naples, which has many volcanoes.
According to information, Louis XII is determined to win the occupation of the Kingdom of Naples this time. Therefore, he planned to dispatch an army of 60,000 this time. Among them, the plate-armored knights alone planned to dispatch a huge number of 20,000 people, which is the war with the largest number of knights in recent years.
Usually, France can mobilize only 20,000 or 30,000 knights. This time, it is basically just to mobilize 20,000 Plate Armor Knights to work hard.
Except for the knights in the coastal areas of northwestern France who were not used to defend against England, the fiefs and titled knights in the central and southern regions were basically dispatched.
As for infantry except for 20,000 Plate Armor Knights, it is not simple. Among them, 7,000 elite Swiss mercenaries rescued from the Netherlands chose to join the French army in order to repay the French army's rescue, and followed the French army south to attack the Kingdom of Naples at the southern end of the Italian Peninsula. The other 33,000 infantry, although not as elite as Swiss mercenaries, was quite good.
Since last winter, Louis XII began to quietly recruit troops across the country and prepare to launch a war next year. But Louis XII was also very clear that the food and supplies of 50,000 or 60,000 troops were not a small amount, and it was not easy to get them all. So he had to prepare slowly.
Although the Kingdom of France is much larger than the Great Principality of the North Sea, in terms of combat readiness, it is not necessarily comparable to the Beihai Kingdom. Why? With just one grain, France's combat readiness is not as good as the Beihai Kingdom.
Because Malin mastered the current fertilizer technology, Beihai Kingdom had a lot of grain reserves. Because he was worried that others would know the secret of high grain yield, Malin had accumulated too much grain in his granary. Once war started, Beihai Kingdom could propose a large amount of grain from the granary built by cement at any time for military rations.
In the huge Kingdom of France, because agriculture is not high in yield, most of the grain grown from so much land is consumed on the market. If you want to prepare the grain of 60,000 troops, you need to draw it from all over the place. Otherwise, it will be difficult to get it all together.
In particular, the 20,000 Plate Armor Knights not only needed to consume a lot of food themselves, but their war horses and transfer pack horses were also astronomical. In order to make up enough military rations, the French Minister of Finance also specially sent people to purchase a large amount of food abroad.
The funds used to purchase grain were actually not paid by the French, but funded by the Venetians...
This has to be mentioned the contribution of the North Sea spy, Baron Lafite. In order to gain Louis XII's trust, the spy John not only presented a lot of Lafite wine to Louis XII, but also suggested that Louis XII send people to Venice to seek financial support for Venice.
Venice is the best financial situation in Europe and has extremely strong financial strength. However, the Venetian army is not strong. Previously, the Venetian merchants' spice trading channels were cut off by Spain and Portugal in the Indian Ocean, and the Venetians had to endure it. After all, they could not bear it, because the Venetian galleys could not go to the Indian Ocean to fight the Spanish.
Therefore, Venice and Spain have actually become enemies because of the Indian spice problem.
Moreover, after Spain occupied the Kingdom of Naples, it had the ability to block the Adriatic Sea from the Otranto Strait at the eastern end of Naples. Once the Spaniards blocked the Adriatic Sea, the Republic of Venice at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea would be over. After all, if you can't get out of the Adriatic Sea, everything for the Venetians would be finished.
Therefore, whether in terms of interests and hatred or national security, the Venetians were unwilling to let the Spaniards continue to occupy the Kingdom of Naples.
As for France, it is a standard landslide country, and the navy is not worth mentioning. If the French occupy the Kingdom of Naples, it will basically have no threat to the maritime security of Venice.
It is precisely based on this that when Louis XII accepted the suggestion of John Lafite to send people to Venice for economic support, the Venetian Parliament agreed to provide hundreds of thousands of gold coins for France as war funds after discussion. After all, the Venetians had to go barefoot. Even if France lost, Venice would not enter the war directly with the Spaniards because they did not directly participate in the war.
In order to avoid suspicion, the hundreds of thousands of gold coins given to France by Venice were provided to France by a Venetian financier in the name of "loan". But both countries knew that this was given and that the French would not pay off their debts...
In this way, after Venice provided a lot of funds, Louis XII relied on this fund to purchase a lot of food and supplies for the need to enter Italy.
Chapter completed!