Before the Industrial Revolution began, the autumn harvest was so important that it was almost the lifeblood of a country's economy. A mistaken autumn harvest can lead to famine and political instability. Therefore, for the autumn harvest, Marin sent most of the soldiers to participate in the autumn harvest. Only tens of thousands of prisoners of war in South Münster did not participate in the autumn harvest. Because, digging a canal connecting the Rhine is not less important than the autumn harvest.

In this era of backward transportation methods, roads and rivers are also important ways to expand power. In China in the 19th century, the British used warships to reach into the Yangtze River basin through the Yangtze River, an important waterway. The Russians, on the other hand, through the world-famous Trans-Siberian Railway, stretched their hands from distant Europe to the northeast.

It's just that the Trans-Siberian Railway was opened too late, in 1916, and Tsarist Russia was finished in 1917. But the railway also brought convenience to the later Soviet Union. So, in 1905, Tsarist Maozi suffered a crushing defeat in the northeast, while the Soviet Union won the Battle of Nomenhan. It is not that the Soviet army was strong in combat, in fact, the Soviet casualties exceeded that of the Japanese army. It's just that because of the Trans-Siberian Railway, there are many Soviets, and they don't care about casualties. Therefore, the devil decisively chose to admit it. Moreover, in later generations, Stalin supported the establishment of Outer Mongolia and was unwilling to return it to China because Outer Mongolia was close to the Trans-Siberian Railway. As long as the Trans-Siberian Railway is cut off, the Soviet Union will completely lose control of the Far East. What is outside the Khingan Mountains, it has nothing to do with the Soviet Union. This is also the reason why later generations, the polar bear king Putin the Great, still attached importance to Outer Mongolia, and especially shed crocodile tears in Outer Mongolia......

If Huaxia really wants to seize the Outer Khing'an Mountains, it must first obtain Outer Mongolia, and the Trans-Siberian Railway can be cut off at any time...... Of course, that is unlikely, the future is already the era of nuclear weapons, and if you want to grab so much territory from Maozi, you have to eat nuclear bombs. Such an assumption is under the premise of conventional warfare. If the factor of nuclear weapons is put aside, as long as China seizes Outer Mongolia and cuts off the Trans-Siberian Railway, Maozi will lose control of the Far East......

Far from it, the above paragraph only shows the importance of transportation. If Marin wants to reach into the Ruhr area, he must open up the communication line with the Ruhr area. And water transportation is currently the most suitable.

Although the Rhine is an important river in Germany, it has a fatal drawback - the mouth of the sea is in the Netherlands......

As soon as the Dutch blocked the access to the sea, inland shipping would collapse. Therefore, in later generations, the Germans built a lot of canals, what Sino-German canal, Dortmund-Ames canal...... Of course, the Kiel Canal is indispensable...... This pile of canals, which connected the northern German plains to the sea, facilitated the transportation of important industrial strategic resources such as coal and iron ore. Moreover, even in later generations, the cost of canal transportation is still lower than that of rail transportation, and it is the preferred mode of transportation for bulk and cheap goods.

The Münster canal that Marin is building today is actually a simplified version of the Dortmund-Ames Canal. Mainly, the distance is shortened and the river channel is a little narrower. However, the role is almost the same: to connect the Rhine and the Ames rivers to the North Sea. The main function of the Sino-German Canal is to connect the Ames, Weser and Elbe rivers horizontally to form a three-dimensional waterway transportation network.

It can be said that as long as the Münster Canal is dug up, Marin will be able to reach the banks of the Rhine and make Emden an outlet for Rhine merchant ships. As a result, it will be difficult for Emden's economy not to take off.

It is precisely for this reason that at such an important time as the autumn harvest, Marin did not stop digging the Münster Canal, at most so that the construction army did not affect the autumn harvest in the South Münster region.

Because he was busy with the autumn harvest, the merit rewards of Marin's soldiers did not have time to be counted and distributed. It will not be until the end of the autumn harvest that the question of the statistics of the exploits and the final reward will be resumed.

Because of the autumn harvest, armed conflicts in various countries were suspended. Why? Although the armies of various countries are mainly mercenaries, they are not necessarily required to participate in the autumn harvest. However, the people who serve those mercenaries must participate in the autumn harvest. Otherwise, there will be a shortage of labor. The autumn harvest was delayed, and it was a big blow to any country. Only a commercial country like Venice would not pay much attention to the autumn harvest. Because, the citizens of the country are basically merchants, or sailors who serve merchants or something, and there are very few people who farm.

The same goes for Lübeck and Hamburg, which are Hanseatic cities. However, after obtaining the Duchy of Holstein in the last war, they only had a large amount of farmland under their rule.

But what left Marin speechless was that although Lübeck and Hamburg divided the Duchy of Holstein, both cities focused their attention on several cities in the Duchy of Holstein. They have made great efforts to develop the few cities that have been assigned to each of them into prosperous commercial cities. But for the vast countryside, the two Hanseatic cities, they actually turned a blind eye. Anyway, the rural estates could not collect taxes, and the two Hanseatic cities of Lübeck and Hamburg simply let the rural manor owners engage in parliamentary autonomy and not come to the idea of attacking the city......

……

This autumn, not only is the mainland engaged in the autumn harvest, but Marin's colonies in the Americas are actually also engaged in the autumn harvest. Moreover, due to the low latitude, the autumn harvest in the Americas is earlier than in the mainland Europe. Grenada, in particular, is in the tropics, so it actually has an early autumn harvest. No, because Grenada is a tropical island, there is no concept of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and there is no concept of autumn harvest. When the time comes, people will harvest, regardless of spring, summer, autumn and winter......

In fact, as early as spring, Grenada sent a shipload of ginger and cane sugar, as well as a shipload of rice. It's just that at that time, Marin had already led the troops to the battle, and he didn't receive this "filial piety".

And just as the autumn harvest was taking place, Grenada harvested another crop of ginger and sugar cane, and got a boatload of ginger and cane sugar to send back.

This time, Marin happened to receive this "filial piety", and he was naturally very happy. You know, this year, because the Indian route has just opened, and the scale of sugar cultivation in Portugal and Spain is still small. Therefore, the price of ginger and sucrose is very high.

Moreover, ginger is actually considered a spice in this year, and the price is close to pepper. In the European market, ginger did not have the high price of 10 shillings per pound like pepper, but it was also 8 or 9 shillings per pound (2 shillings per pound in the early Middle Ages, but the price rose with rising prices and the rise of Turkey). And after Portugal opened the Indian route, it began to fall back). Even in the time of Elizabeth I, many years after the opening of the Indian route, ginger was still expensive, and ginger-flavored cakes were still the high-end food of the court at that time......

Originally, Marin was very uninterested in a boatload full of ginger and cane sugar. Especially the sucrose, because there is no Huaxia yellow mud method, it is black, blacker than brown sugar. So, Marin has no interest in those brown sugars (so to speak, it seems that there were brown sugars in history). However, I can't stop the child from loving food. Little Caesar ignored Marlin's warnings, frequently stole brown sugar to eat, and licked his sticky fingers after eating......

Marin was furious and dragged little Caesar over and beat him up. He's until, eating sugar is bad for a child's teeth. There is so much brown sugar at home, if this kid is allowed to steal candy and eat it, it will definitely be bad for his teeth.

Moreover, as a big aristocratic family, there is obviously honey at home, and this bear child has to steal the kind of brown sugar that is not up to grade, which is simply giving up white steamed buns to eat grass bran......

However, to Marin's surprise, it was not only little Caesar who liked to eat brown sugar, but also the aristocratic children of other families. Even, those women like to eat brown sugar. It seems that brown sugar is a high-grade thing......

Marin finally came to his senses - he was used to seeing white sugar in later generations, and he didn't look down on this kind of brown sugar, but in this era, European turtles liked this kind of brown sugar with low purity, and regarded it as a treasure......

The price of sucrose in the market now also exceeds 3 shillings per pound. It wasn't until later that Spain cultivated sugar cane on a large scale in the Americas, and the price of sugar in England seemed to be 1 shilling 6 pence a pound. The wholesale price of goods taken by English merchants and Spaniards was 1 shilling per pound......

In other words, this boatload of ginger and brown sugar is particularly high-end......

Before, Marin was worried that he would not have money to reward his soldiers. It's okay to reward them with war horses, but rewarding them with second-hand weapons and armor seems a bit unauthentic......

So, Marin decided to learn the methods of the New Year's festival in later generations, and packaged the ginger and brown sugar in oil-paper bags produced on Cape Breton Island as a reward, and combined them with those second-hand weapons and armor, and gave them to the soldiers as rewards......