When the Swedish messengers for help arrived in Lübeck and Hamburg, the official attitude of the two Hanseatic cities was ambiguous. After all, they have already been bought by Denmark. Moreover, Marin also greeted them.

However, they still hinted to the Swedish envoy - the key to the settlement of this matter is still with Marin......

The problem is obvious, the reason why Denmark dared to attack the newly formed Swedish kingdom with confidence and boldness was because the nobles of the Swedish kingdom were brainless and confiscated half of Marin's shares in the highly profitable Faylon copper mines.

And this directly led to the relationship between the Kingdom of Sweden and Marin falling to a freezing point. Originally, Marin's North Sea Kingdom was an ally of Sweden. Even if the military alliance is temporarily dissolved, if there is a war, Sweden can ask the North Sea countries for help. After all, we have such a good relationship, and Marin still has a major interest in Sweden......

However, because the Swedish aristocracy coveted the huge profits of the Fayilun copper mine, they made the unwise decision to kick Marin out of the game. It was precisely because of this that the Danes dared to attack Sweden with confidence and boldness.

In fact, the Swedes, including the Lübeck and the Hamburgers, did not know that even if the Swedish nobles had not deprived Marin of half of his shares in the copper mines, Marin would have calculated them. After all, Sweden is too strong and does not do Marin any good.

However, if the Swedish aristocracy did not deprive Marin of half of his shares in the copper mines, Marin would probably be in a difficult situation, because he would not find an excuse to turn against the Swedes, and there would be no excuse for not sending troops to aid Sweden......

But the huge benefits of the super copper mine of Fayilun have made the nobles in Sweden red-eyed. In addition, they learned that the German princes had joined forces to suppress Marin, so they were bold enough to make preparations to deprive Marlin of his shares. After all, half of the shares of the Fayilun Copper Mine have a high annual income. Previously, Marin alone held half of the profits from the mine, while more than a dozen Swedish nobles could only divide the other half. This made them extremely unhappy, and finally made the unwise decision to swallow Marin's shares. And this also gave Marin a good reason not to support them. Moreover, the Swedes know that they are at fault. Therefore, this time they asked for help, but they did not ask for Marin......

But in fact, Marin has long been ready to act as a mediator and mediate this war. Because, if everyone mediates, Denmark will really defeat the Kingdom of Sweden and destroy Sweden. Sweden had not been ruled by Denmark before, and if the war situation was too unfavorable, Sweden might not surrender to Denmark.

Therefore, a weighty mediator is needed at this time to mediate the military conflict between the two countries and persuade the two countries to redraw their territories and interests...... And Marin, obviously, is more suitable. After all, he is very good at holding the field......

Moreover, Northern Europe does not belong to Germany, and Marin only swore not to make trouble in Germany, and sending troops to Northern Europe to make trouble is not within the scope of the commitment. If Marin spoke, the two sides would not dare not listen. Otherwise, he angered Marin and sent an army of 10,000 or 20,000 out......

……

Of course, mediation is not for nothing. In fact, Marin had already made a plan - it was okay to help Sweden mediate, but he had to get back half of his shares in the Fayilun copper mine. Otherwise, why should you help Sweden mediate? Allowing Denmark to destroy the Kingdom of Sweden is ......

This trick was very shameless, and it was learned by Ma Lin and Mao Zi, who shamelessly demanded 400,000 square kilometers of land in northeast China in the name of "meritorious mediation" in the Second Opium War. Compared to Maozi, Marin feels that he is simply a super good person......

When the time comes, Marin can also learn from Maozi and shamelessly say that he helped keep the Kingdom of Sweden. With such a big credit, should you pay me back half of the copper mine shares?

……

Lübeck and the officials in Hamburg also hinted to the Swedish envoys, telling them that the key to solving the problem was Marin. However, the envoys sent to the two cities did not have the right to make their own decisions. Therefore, they secretly returned to Sweden and asked the Swedish king and the bigwigs of the House of Lords to make a decision - whether to ask Marin for help......

……

Marin, on the other hand, is also very busy right now. What's busy? Naturally, they were busy taking over the newly acquired land in the Ruhr region. After all, Marin needed to send a garrison to these newly acquired lands, and he needed to reappoint officials to administer them. And all of this is a lot of work for Marin. After all, the appointment of officials, the dispatch of garrisons, and the allocation of large quantities of materials all require Marin to personally review and sign.

Some government affairs can be delegated to the prime minister to handle on his own. However, the appointment of important officials, the deployment of troops, and the allocation of large quantities of supplies, Marin will never pretend to others. In particular, the first two affairs belong to the core of national affairs. The appointment of high-level officials and the deployment of the military are not rights that can be delegated at will. Once these rights are lost, they are elevated......

As for the allocation of a large number of materials, Ma Lin's personal signature is also needed, because most of the wealth of the Grand Duchy of Beihai is in Ma Lin's personal name, so he naturally needs his signature.

In Europe in this era, there was still a clear distinction between the state lord and the government, public and private. In Europe at this time, the finances of the government were the finances of the kings and princes. Because, in this era, there was no universal taxation in Europe, and the financial revenues of the kingdoms and princely states mainly depended on the output and commercial taxes of the estates of the kings and princes. Even the prime minister's salary is borne by the king or the princes. And a kingdom or vassal state has only one treasury - the king's treasury...... Unlike the contemporaneous Huaxia, the treasury belonging to the government has been separated from the emperor's inner treasury......

But it's really tiring to sign the documents for the allocation of supplies. After all, there are too many documents......

In the process of money and grain allocation, Marin was embarrassed to find that it seemed that the treasury had no funds......

Because of the change of territory, Marin paid a large amount of money to the Duchy of Cleaver. As a direct result, there was no cash in Marin's treasury, and only a large amount of grain was left in the cement warehouse.

Now, Prime Minister Jeffrey said sadly - now the treasury has run out of cash. If you want to maintain the normal development of the domestic economy, you must have enough money as a means of circulation and payment...... Marin can already make up the terrible scenario of the severe lack of currency in the market of the North Sea Country......

Just when Marin was struggling with the lack of currency to stimulate the development of the market economy, Cuba suddenly sent a lot of nickel nuggets......

After a long period of research, Haidel's younger brother, Wilts, the governor of Moa, Cuba, finally led his craftsmen to master the mature nickel metal smelting method. At the same time, while obtaining nickel metal, sulfuric acid can also be obtained in large quantities. Because, the composition of laterite nickel ore in Moa, Cuba is nickel sulfide. In the process of nickel metal being refined, large amounts of sulfur dioxide or sulfur trioxide are produced, resulting in sulfuric acid and sulfurous acid......

Of course, Marlin is now interested not in sulfuric acid, but in nickel blocks......

After the nickel block is remelted, it can be mixed with molten copper to create cupronickel with the appearance of silver. Cupronickel is similar in appearance to silver, and is also less prone to oxidation. The only problem is probably that the white copper is a little too hard compared to real silver......

But Marin still intended to use white copper to mint coins...... Why? Because white copper is hard, while sterling silver is very soft. However, in today's Europe, silver coins are generally adulterated, resulting in silver coins have long lost the soft physical properties of silver.

In general, because sterling silver is soft. Therefore, when minting silver coins, the mint will deliberately add some copper to the silver to enhance the hardness of the silver coin. For example, the famous Spanish silver dollar, the silver content is basically 9 percent, that is, 90%. The remaining 10% is copper.

This is because, when copper is added, the hardness of silver increases considerably. In fact, the classic Spanish American dollar is a mixed metal with 90% silver and 10% copper.

However, that refers to the Spanish silver dollar after the discovery of a large number of silver deposits in the Americas. In this time and space, because of Marin's crossing, Spain has basically given up the colonial development of the Americas. Therefore, there is no American silver dollar with a silver content of 9%.

Now, there is a shortage of gold and silver throughout Europe. Therefore, the silver coins of Europe are not high in silver now. In many countries, such as France and Italy, the silver content of silver coins has generally fallen below 25%, that is, less than a quarter.

In this way, the French and Italian silver coins are actually "copper coins" that contain most of the copper and a small amount of silver, and they are also very hard.

With the nickel metal block, Marlin can completely make nickel cupronickel. Then, nickel and white copper are used to mint fake silver coins – silver coins that do not contain silver......

The physical properties of nickel cupronickel are very similar to those of so-called "silver coins", which are mostly copper and a small part silver—they are all shiny and corrosion-resistant, making them very difficult to distinguish......

It just so happens that Marin is now due to the lack of currency in the country. So, he decided to have the mint use a spiral press to copy the "French silver coins" with very low silver content in large quantities.

Then, these "French silver coins" were used to exchange gold coins in the European market. Then, exchange the gold coins for real silver coins...... In this way, the problem of currency shortage in the North Sea country was solved immediately......

Moreover, by privately minting a large number of "French silver coins", Marin was equivalent to secretly obtaining a large amount of "seigniorage" (seigniorage profits) that should have belonged to the French government. While enriching itself, it also hit the French finances......

In fact, nickel is now rarer than silver. If Marin had sold nickel, it might have cost as much as silver.

However, the mining costs of the two are completely different. In general, the silver content of silver ore is very low. For example, the Cunnington silver mine, the largest silver mine in later generations, has an ore content of only 200 grams per tonne of silver. In other words, the silver content of the ore is only 0.02%. The Cuban nickel ore generally contains about 2 percent.

In other words, the metal content of Cuban nickel ore is 100 times that of ordinary silver ore. In this way, when mining and smelting, the cost is also a hundred times different.

After all, to smelt 2 kilograms of silver, 10 tons of silver ore need to be mined and processed. To smelt 2 kg of nickel metal, only 0.1 tons of nickel ore need to be mined and processed...... The difference between cost and efficiency is too great......

Moreover, the inferior "French silver coins" or "Italian silver coins" made of nickel white copper are almost the same as the original ones, and it is very difficult to distinguish them.

Because, there has always been no cupronickel in Europe. Until the Qing Dynasty, that is, in the 18th century, Europe still imported a large number of white copper produced in China, and called it "Chinese silver". It was not until the 19th century that the Germans figured out the composition of nickel cupronickel and began to produce cupronickel, replacing the cupronickel produced in China and occupying the European market (see Capronickel Baidu Encyclopedia).

In other words, Marin used nickel and cupronickel to produce silver coins, which in this era Europeans could not distinguish, let alone understand the composition. Even if you know it's not silver, you will keep it as a treasure because of the rarity of cupronickel in Europe.

However, the cost of mining and smelting silver and nickel is completely different, and the difference can be up to a hundred times. Therefore, Marin used nickel white copper to mint fake silver coins, and the theory is also a hundred times. With such a high profit, it is faster than grabbing money......

The only concern is that the fake "French silver coin" pressed by the spiral press may be more elaborate than the genuine French silver coin. After all, genuine French silver coins are still hammered by hand, where can the quality compare with the vintage coins?