Marin was originally worried about the two-faced and three-faced nobleman under his command, but after thinking about it from a different angle, Marin laughed.

What was he laughing at? It turned out that Marin suddenly remembered that since the old European aristocrats were used to being two-faced and mostly greedy, does that mean that they could also use this weakness to buy the nobles of the enemy country?

The more Marin thought about it, the more he became more and more troublesome, and finally became happy. Through thinking, Marin believed that Louis XII bought these foods and went back not to really save the people, but to prevent refugee rebellion in the disaster area in the northeast.

Although the farmers are honest and can be bullied, they will rise up when they really cannot survive. Once the farmers launch an uprising, the government will need to spend a lot of manpower and material resources to suppress it, and it will cost a lot of money.

For example, in order to suppress the White Lotus Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty actually spent 200 million taels of silver. However, during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, it spent more than 2 million taels of silver to deal with the rebellion of Yang Yinglong in Bozhou, southwest.

Therefore, what Louis XII was afraid of was not that the people were living a bad life, but that after their uprising, the government would spend too much on suppressing the uprising.

Moreover, the 30 million pounds of grain he bought were actually not enough for disaster relief. After all, the total number of victims was one or two million, and even if each person only had half a pound of grain per day, it would only be enough for one or two months. However, the victims would have to last until the autumn harvest next year, at least half a year, and this little food was not enough.

However, with these 30 million pounds of food, Louis XII only needs to act like "full efforts to provide disaster relief" and give the victims some dilute drinks to make people feel at a fast pace. Even if not everyone can eat it, most people will calm down when they see disaster relief, waiting for a miracle to happen...

Of course, Louis XII will definitely not only use such a little food to provide disaster relief, but will definitely mobilize food from other places. As long as you do your best and give hope to those victims, you can avoid the uprising from the victims.

...

Sure enough, Louis XII mainly made a move. He only bought 30 million pounds of grain from the Beihai Kingdom, but he released news that he had bought enough food for the victims...

After the news spread, the people in the disaster area in northeastern France quickly settled down and waited for rescue at home.

But how could Marin watch Louis XII pass so much? After thinking that the enemy's nobles could also buy them, Marin thought of a vicious plan...

...

What strategy is? It is to take advantage of the disaster in northeastern France, join forces with local bullies and nobles to take advantage of the situation to rob the victims and push the victims into the fire pit...

How to operate it? This is actually very simple - the most basic operation is to take the opportunity to lend money loans!

In this disaster-affected season, what the people lack most is food. If they don’t have food, they will starve to death. At this time, if someone is willing to lend them food, even if the interest rate is high, the people will have no choice. After all, it would be good to have enough food at this time.

However, how could Marin have any kind intentions? He gave a loan method to cheat the French people was usury with a profit!

Ultimate is not rare in Europe. Generally speaking, these days, there are usury with an annual interest rate of 50%, and even in urgent situations, there are emergency usury with twice the annual interest rate.

In such a disaster year, it is normal for unscrupulous nobles to release two or three times the usury loan shark. However, Marin was different. The plan he gave was a hidden usury loan shark.

The specific method is to lend food to the people, and calculate it at a monthly interest rate of 15%. However, in the loan contract, it is quietly stated that it is profit-making (this point is deliberately concealed and ignored when formulating the contract, or is described in language that farmers cannot understand), and then, give a 12-month long-term loan, indicating that it is repaid after 12 months.

But how could those illiterate French farmers know that they are powerful? According to the non-profit algorithm, the monthly interest rate of 15% is only 1.8 times the annual interest rate. This is definitely a loan of conscience in a famine year.

However, if you follow the profit-making algorithm, the monthly interest rate is 15%, and in a year, it will be 5.35 times the principal!

If this were placed in ancient China, it could be considered a conscientious usury. Why? It is not much interest to give more than 5 times the amount in the famine year. After all, the harvest ratio of Chinese farmers to farm is as high as 1 to 10.

However, in this era, life was killed!

Nowadays, European farmers' farming and harvesting interest rates between 1 to 3 and 1 to 5 are generally between 5 and 5, which is definitely beyond the limit that farmers bear. What's more, these farmers have to pay rent!

It is precisely because European farmers' harvest ratios in this era that the general interest rate for usury will not exceed 3 times. If it exceeds 3 times, there is basically no possibility of affording it.

But Marin's purpose is to make the victims unable to afford them!

Originally, Marin planned to send someone to use grain to lend money. However, considering that he has no foundation in France, he has no thugs even if he wants to collect debts...

Therefore, if you want to persecute French farmers, you can only join forces with the local bullies and nobles to set up a trap to cheat the local farmers.

As for farmers, they are basically illiterate these days, so of course they are a pitfall. At the 12th power of 15, even the aristocrats who are literate in this era may not be able to easily calculate it, let alone uneducated farmers? If they were replaced by merchants with good mathematics, Marin would not use this method.

This method was actually very normal in ancient China. Ultimate loans with a few times interest can be considered conscience, and there are more than ten times interest. And the one with a dozen times interest is the legendary usury loan. This kind of loan is similar to what Marin wants to do, taking advantage of the lack of culture and using seemingly low monthly interest to attract loans. However, there will be profits every month, and over time, farmers will not be able to pay back...

The reason why those landlords engaged in this kind of usury was mainly to merge land. When the self-cultivated farmers borrowed profits and couldn't afford to pay back the usury, they had to use their own land to pay off their debts. The landlords who lend money also achieved the purpose of annexing the land, and the land in their families became more and more... And the ancient gentry class played a very good trick...

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content later! The Qingmiao method of the Northern Song Dynasty, which proposed to use official loans to try to replace the usury loans of those landlords. Although the annual interest rate of official loans is as high as 40%, compared with the interest rate of landlords that is several times, it is simply an angel...

However, Wang Anshi's move also touched the interests of the landlords, and was frantically counterattacked by the landlord class, which led to the failure of the reform...

...

These days, the European rustic nobles still use a simple and direct loan method such as two or three times the annual interest rate. Only the smart Jewish businessmen will know how to use profit-making usury. The main reason is that those rustic nobles have low cultural level. If they let them play profit-making, they probably can't calculate it themselves.

But this time Marin plans to send a group of spies proficient in calculation and French to take the initiative to serve the greedy and vulgar French nobles and help them cheat local farmers. Especially for those self-cultivated farmers, they deliberately lure them into loans and make them unable to pay them back in the end. Then, the details of land annexation...

Once the land is lost, the French self-cultivated farmers will lose their survival security. At that time, Marin can still recruit people...

...

In addition to the vicious means of profit and profit, Marin also provides another vicious means - to tamper with the seeds borrowed to farmers...

The specific method is to mix some steamed wheat into the seeds and lend it to farmers. In this way, when the spring plows, these unlucky farmers plant this problematic seed, and the germination rate is naturally very low. When the autumn harvest is reached, they will definitely not be able to pay back the loan sharks, so they can only sell land, or even children and women...

This evil method was seen in Marin's previous life. However, in that novel, all the seeds were steamed, making the farmers' harvests.

However, Marin believed that steaming all the seeds is too obvious. The nobles also need to save face. If they do so obviously and absolutely, they will be criticized. And it is more concealed to replace some of the seeds with steamed "dead" seeds. Seeing the seeds germinate, farmers will not be suspicious, but will only think it is a natural disaster. But at that time, there is not enough food to pay off their debts, and they will still be in trouble...

...
Chapter completed!