Chapter 1262: The Holy War of Castile, the Feast of the Italian States
"Oh! The city-state needs more spices? How much?... What! Yahweh, it's three times as much as before?!... Tsk tsk, the profits from the Peninsula Holy War are so rich? The merchants of the Apennine states have really made a fortune!... Well, as the most powerful commercial city-state, our Republic of Venice should be able to get the biggest piece of the pie, at least earning 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 profits from this holy war are probably this number!..."
In the small building at the port, the old knight Lorenzo was drinking red wine while talking to the Jewish merchant Eleazar about the profits from the Peninsula Holy War. He smiled and proudly stretched out a finger, causing Eleazar to gasp and shout 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 Venice alone, or is it the income of all states and churches?... Ah! Is this the income of our alone? 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 Peninsular Holy War lasted for eleven years, and the Castilians maintained a standing army of 60,000, and even mobilized 100,000 legions at one point... The shoes on these people's feet, the armor on their bodies, the weapons on their waists, the arrows they shot in their hands, the bread they ate in their mouths, the tents they slept in, the gunpowder they used when shooting, and even the saw axes they used to saw off their legs when they were injured, are all things that the Castilians cannot supply themselves, and they have to spend money. They bought it from us! These military supplies to sustain the holy war were shipped to the east coast of the peninsula by our Apennine states across the Mediterranean Sea! …”
“I remember a commander said that the first priority of war is money, money, and more money! Without the loans from our Apennine states, the poor Castilians couldn't even pay the salaries of the recruits... Let alone maintaining an army of 60,000, I'm afraid they can't even support 20,000 standing troops!”
“War is just throwing boxes of gold coins into the vast ocean! … God is a witness! It is normal to spend one million gold ducats on such a large-scale and long war... As of last year when Granada surrendered, the Kingdom of Castile owed a total of , at least 1 million gold ducats in principal, and about 400,000 accumulated interest! This 1.4 million gold ducats will have an annual interest of 10%... Among them, our Venetian debt accounts for about 40%, about 600,000 gold ducats. And half of the other 60% is estimated to be loaned by the church..."
"What's funny is that these Castilian loans, in addition to a part of them being turned into military salaries and left on the peninsula... most of the loans flowed into the states of the Apennine Peninsula in the form of purchasing military supplies and goods, making the city-state guilds and workshops of the entire peninsula prosperous day and night! The Castilians only know how to fight, they can't build anything, and they don't have time to build anything. They can only buy, buy, and buy, and can only make it cheaper for various businesses City-states make 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 thousands of holy war knights who borrow tens or hundreds of dollars and have an annual interest rate of 20-30%... In other commercial city-states, those workshops and factories of all sizes that borrowed money to expand production due to the war boom... All together, because of this peninsula holy war, 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! …”
Talking about the lending and income of the peninsula holy war, the old knight Lorenzo knew everything and laughed heartily from time to time. The smile on his face and the fingers raised in his hands all witnessed the wealth and power of the Republic of Venice at its peak, which controlled the financial hegemony of the entire Catholic world!
"Yahweh! The debt of one million gold ducats, with a compound interest of 15% per year!..."
At this moment, the Jewish merchant Eleazar was dazzled by what he heard, and he wished that he could turn himself into the secret vault of the city-state republic to store all the debt documents and gold coins...After a while, he came back to his senses, suddenly thought of something, and asked with some doubts.
"Loren, this debt of one million gold ducats...The Aragon Kingdom has a good finance, and King Fernando is very good at management, so it can be repaid. After the holy war, a large number of workshops and factories that were previously expanded with loans will inevitably go bankrupt. But those fixed land and houses, and the inventory of materials and goods can all be sold to pay off debts, so there will definitely be no loss, and they will only make more...There should be no need to worry about these two debts..."
"But how can the huge debts lent by the city-state to the Kingdom of Castile and the large and small debts lent to those poor knights be recovered? I have been in Castile for a long time, and those The stupid Iberians are not good at business. Even if they occupied the rich manors and orchards of the Moors, they would only use them as pastures for grazing and could not squeeze out any money! …”
“Haha! Isaac, you are a natural and outstanding businessman, proficient in business transactions and operations. But war, the world's largest and most profitable business, is something you don't understand or can't do with your background... Well, I personally participated in the Peninsula Holy War for two years before, so I can tell you about my experience...”
As he said this, the old knight Lorenzo held out his wine glass, and Eleazar hurriedly and respectfully filled it for him personally. The old knight drank it all in one gulp, obviously he drank too much, and his voice was much louder.
"God is your witness! Isaac, don't underestimate the Castilians! They are extremely cruel and are the best knives. They can chop oil out of human bones!..."
"It's been less than a year since the end of the holy war! The Castilians have already paid off more than half of the debt of more than one million gold ducats!... Tsk tsk! Just to capture the Moorish capital of Granada, the Castilians dug several meters underground, broke into houses and killed people, and looted 200,000 gold ducats of various properties!... Then, they looted freely in the Granada area, They captured 50,000 to 60,000 young and strong Moorish slaves and sold them to the Apennine city-states, earning another 100,000 gold ducats! Among them were beautiful Moorish noble slaves with smooth wheat-colored skin and wonderful taste... cough! There were also Moorish royal craftsmen with outstanding craftsmanship, all of which were taken in by the nobles of the city-states... and in the Red Castle of Abraham, the Moorish royal family's treasures and sacred objects accumulated for four hundred years were also sold to the Roman Catholic Church for 150,000 gold ducats, and flowed into the newly built Vatican Treasury..."
"Haha! Do the math! Just in In Granada, the most quintessential region of the Moors, the Castilians squeezed out 450,000 gold ducats from the conquered Moors! And after these low-priced debt repayments, slaves and treasures fell into the hands of the Republic, the city-states and the church, their actual value was probably doubled or tripled! It was a huge profit! …”
“In this peninsula holy war, the Castilians sold almost everything they plundered to us, except for the conquered land! Their so-called ‘expansion’, in the eyes of the parliament, was entirely for the various Italian states. As long as they can pay their debts properly and not default on their debts... our city-state republic and the Roman church will naturally support them to the end! After all, the captain who really directs the direction of the Castilian Viking longship is our Italian states and churches..."
"As for those big and small holy war knights, they all have collateral in the hands of the church, which is enough to make up for the cost. As for the interest that cannot be paid, let them use their fighting skills, kill and rob for the Lord, and pay it with their own lives! ..."