Chapter 7 Military Construction Using Surplus

With the trade surplus as capital, Peter can also expand the army. Various weapons are also produced through the weapons workshop he opened. You know, with food and guns, you can be calm.

In addition, Peter also improved the transportation. Various bridges and roads were built, and the river was dredged, which made the trade channel of Dobruja more smooth. In addition, Peter abolished the entry and exit taxes of Dobruja and the use fees of roads and bridges. This is also an important reason for the rise of Constanta trade.

Peter still has many tasks to do next. But the most important thing is to expand the army.

Infantry archers are easy to solve, but cavalry is a little difficult. You must know that it is still very expensive to form a cavalry in Europe now, except for those with particularly strong financial strength.

"Let's put it aside for the time being, or expand the infantry first." Peter said to Alexander, the financial director.

In Peter's mind, the army will be expanded next, recruiting some free people from other places for training, and then integrating them into a legion.

"Sir, we can recruit troops from Bulgarian refugees and domestic farmers for training. If we can give them some benefits, they should be happy to be loyal."

"That's exactly what I want!"

Peter agreed with Alexander's opinion. There are still large undeveloped areas in his territory. It can be used as the fiefdom of these soldiers.

Outside the city hall, a large number of merchants and craftsmen were hawking various goods in the market.

"Come and see, the best beeswax and wine are all new goods."

"Come and see mine, jewelry from Hungary and Bohemia, come and have a look."

Although some cities stipulate that merchants cannot hawk, this is only for Western Europe. There is no such restriction in Eastern Europe.

The expansion of the port of Constanta has activated foreign trade. Generally speaking, cities near the sea are richer. Constanta is no exception. In addition to the previous sale of grain, fisheries are also very promising.

Constanta, this should be one of the most prosperous towns in Southeast Europe. Only Athens, Belgrade, Constantinople and Edirne can be compared.

If it were in peacetime or Central Europe, Peter, as a lord, really didn't want to work hard. He just needed to manage the territory well and collect taxes to maintain his life.

Unfortunately, he is now in Eastern Europe, and on the Balkan Peninsula. And he came when the Ottoman Empire was rising, plus there were Poland and Hungary. This doubled the difficulty of his survival.

However, looking at the current situation. He can still live a very comfortable life and build a great cause.

At present, Peter's main source of income is the export of salt and grain and the dividends of the Chamber of Commerce. This gives him the capital to do big things and allows him to continue to build an army.

Don't underestimate these two commodities. In the 14th and 15th centuries, salt was in short supply. Especially in Eastern Europe, because salt was produced in Britain and Western Pomerania, Poland, Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights did not produce salt at all.

In this era, the production of salt in Europe was low, so the price was high. In Britain, because of the large-scale use of coal to boil salt, the salt production was quite high. However, British salt is not only supplied to Eastern Europe, but also to England, Scotland, Ireland, France, the Lowlands, and northern Germany. In short, there are many buyers for British salt, so there is no worry about sales.

Moreover, because the Hanseatic merchants set up a licensing system to suppress competitors, it blocked the possibility of others intervening. Although it is very profitable to transport salt to the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea for sale. However, without a license, the British cannot intervene in the salt trade here.

But Peter is different. He can sell salt to Poland and Lithuania by land. He can also trade north to the Grand Duchy of Moscow through the Dnieper River by sea. And at this time, the entire Northeast Europe had millions of people, so you can imagine how big this consumer market is.

Moreover, although Poland and the Teutonic Knights are mortal enemies, it does not prevent people from doing business on both sides. In addition, salt is a scarce commodity in the Baltic region, so merchants from the two countries often buy salt from Hanseatic merchants in the Teutonic Knights and ship it back to their country to sell.

Poland is in a good situation, because they are close to the German region in the west and can import relatively cheap salt from the German region. But Lithuania is not so lucky and can only rely on the salt sold by the Teutonic Knights. It's not that there are no Polish merchants who can transport salt. However, the cost of land transportation is much higher than sea transportation. The salt of the Teutonic Knights was transported directly to Königsberg by Hanseatic merchants using sea vessels through the Kattegat Strait between Denmark and Sweden, and the transportation cost was relatively low.

If Polish merchants took the salt imported from the eastern part of Germany and delivered it to Lithuania through the whole of Poland, the cost would be too high. Because, in addition to the high cost and small volume of land transportation, the numerous tax checkpoints on the land are also an important reason for the high cost of land transportation.

Wallachia has a geographical advantage. Relying on the Danube and Moldova, the salt produced can be transported to the north by water and land.

It can be said that as long as you have salt, you have endless wealth.

Peter came to the infantry training ground, where Constantine was training new soldiers.

"Left, why are you going right?"

"Hold your weapon steady, haven't you eaten?"

"I'm talking to you, hold it steady."

Looking at Constantine loudly scolding these recruits, Peter had more confidence in facing the Ottomans in the future.

In order to better train the army, Peter spent a lot of time compiling a training outline. As a time traveler, the famous Spanish phalanx must be known. Others, such as the Morris phalanx, the Gustav line formation, and Napoleon's artillery tactics, are all slightly understood.

If possible, Peter would like to use Napoleon's tactics. But that is unrealistic. You know, European artillery is still in the bronze cannon era. Equipping a small bronze cannon is very expensive. Because the current price ratio of silver to copper in Europe is about 1 to 15, and the price of copper is too high. Forget about small lords like Peter, the cost is too high.

Moreover, let alone Napoleon's artillery tactics, he has no conditions to even Gustav's line formation. Because Gustav's line formation used a large number of musketeers, and they were flintlock musketeers. At this time, let alone flintlocks, even matchlocks have not been invented. So don't even think about forming a musket phalanx, just form a spear phalanx first!

The spear phalanx requires a lot of discipline and courage. Peter is not worried about courage. It's just that he is a little overwhelmed by discipline.

Because there are almost no literate people among these people, and they don't know what left and right mean. So Peter painted two kinds of paint on their hands. Look at one side when saying left, and look at the other side when saying right.

Peter also personally trained 12 squad leaders and cavalry teams. In addition to training personal combat skills and battle formation coordination, he mainly taught several commanders some wartime marching, camping, defense against enemy attack facilities and buildings, day and night sentries, emergency command transmission and evacuation order of the war zone, as well as identifying the enemy situation and analyzing the battle situation.

Seeing that they were all training enthusiastically, Peter also rode on his horse to train with the cavalry.

At this moment, he seemed to be possessed by Alexander the Great. He rode on a black warhorse, holding a broadsword in his right hand, staring at a row of straw men fifty steps away. He gently clamped the horse's belly and started slowly. He slowly raised the broadsword in his right hand, then lightly kicked the horse's belly with his spurs. The warhorse under his crotch immediately galloped. The distance of fifty steps was reached in the blink of an eye. Peter's body on the horse's back tilted slightly to the right. The broadsword in his hand rose and fell with his right hand. The "heads" of the straw men were cut off one by one. Then he galloped more than twenty steps before stopping the warhorse. Looking back, he saw that a total of four straw men were "beheaded".

"Your Excellency is too powerful!" a cavalryman exclaimed.

"This is nothing. There is no one in Dobruja who doesn't admire your Excellency." Another mature cavalryman said to him.

Although he was only eleven years old, Peter did not fall behind in various military training. Here, without those electronic products, he could improve his physical strength and skills.

He learned all the soldier courses such as riding, archery, and weightlifting. He imagined himself as the savior of Rome. Lead an army to defeat those traitors and become the master of Constantinople.

No matter who you are, you will think so, after all, there are many elite Romans.

As for the powerful Ottoman cavalry. Peter also thought for a long time and finally decided to use crossbows to restrain them.

Compared with bows, because there is no need to aim at the same time when pulling the string, the physical and technical requirements of the user are relatively low. Although the loading time is much longer than the bow, it generally has a longer range, stronger lethality, and a higher hit rate than the bow. In ancient times, it was a powerful long-range killing weapon.

There are also many types of crossbows, in addition to the portable and flexible waist crossbow. The bed crossbow with a longer range and greater power has also become Peter's manufacturing list.