Marin was still worried about the two-faced swords of his old-school nobles, but after thinking about it from a different angle, Marin laughed.

What is he laughing at? It turned out that Marin suddenly remembered - since the old-school aristocrats in Europe are used to being two-faced and greedy, does that mean that they can also take advantage of this weakness to buy the nobles of the enemy country?

The more Marin thought about it, the more interesting he became, and finally he became happy. After thinking about it, Marin believed that Louis XII bought the grain not to save the people, but to prevent the rebellion of refugees in the disaster areas of the northeast.

Although the peasants are usually honest and can be bullied, but when they really reach the point where they can't survive, they will also rise up. Once the peasants revolted, the government would have to spend huge manpower and material resources to suppress it, and it would cost a lot of money.

For example, in order to suppress the White Lotus Sect uprising, the Qing Dynasty actually spent 200 million taels of silver. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, it only cost more than two million taels of silver to deal with the rebellion of Yang Yinglong in Banzhou in the southwest.

Therefore, Louis XII was not afraid of the poor life of the common people, but of the excessive cost of the government to suppress the uprising after their uprising.

Moreover, the 30 million pounds of grain he bought were not enough for disaster relief. After all, the total number of victims is one or two million, and even if each person only eats half a pound of food a day, it is only enough to eat for a month or two. And the victims will have to survive until next autumn's harvest, at least half a year, and this amount of food is simply not enough.

However, with these 30 million pounds of food, Louis XII only needs to put on a posture of "all-out disaster relief" and give the victims some thin drink, and he can quickly calm people's hearts. Even if not everyone can eat it, most of them will settle down and wait for a miracle to happen......

Of course, Louis XII would not have used only this amount of food for disaster relief, and would have mobilized food from other places. As long as the gesture is done sufficiently and the victims are given hope, they can avoid an uprising.

……

Sure enough, Louis XII was mainly for show. He only bought 30 million pounds of grain from Beihai Country, but he released the news that he had enough food to buy for the disaster 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 the test so blindly? Thinking that the nobles of the enemy country could be bribed themselves, Marin thought of a vicious plan......

……

What is the strategy? It was to take advantage of the disaster in the northeast of France, unite with the local bullies and nobles, take advantage of the fire to loot, and push the victims into the fire pit......

How does it work? This is actually very simple - the most basic operation is to take the opportunity to lend usury!

In this season of disaster, the most important thing for the common people is food. If there is nothing to eat, they will starve to death. At this time, if someone is willing to lend them grain, even if the interest rate is very high, the common people will not be able to do it. After all, at this time, it's good to have something to eat.

However, how could Marin have any good intentions? The way he gave a loan to the French people was usury!

Usury is not uncommon in Europe. Generally speaking, in these years, there are usury with an annual interest rate of 50%, and even in times of emergency, there are emergency loan sharks with an annual interest rate of twice the annual interest rate.

In a disaster year like this, it is completely normal for unscrupulous nobles to give out two or three times as much usury. Marin, on the other hand, gave a plan of concealed usury.

The specific method is to lend grain to the people, according to the monthly interest rate of 15%. However, in the loan contract, it is quietly stated that it is a rolling interest (this is deliberately concealed and ignored when drawing up the contract, or it is narrated in a language that the peasants do not understand), and then a 12-month long-term loan is given, indicating that it will be repaid after 12 months.

And where did those illiterate French peasants know how powerful? According to the algorithm of non-interest rolling, the monthly interest rate of 15% is only 1.8 times the annual interest, which is definitely a conscience loan in a famine year.

However, if you follow the calculation of rolling interest, the monthly interest rate is 15%, and in a year, it is 5.35 times the interest of the principal!

If this is left in ancient China, it can be regarded as a conscience usury. Why? It's not much to give more than 5 times the interest in a famine year. After all, Chinese farmers farm the land, and the harvest ratio is as high as 1 to 10.

However, in Europe in this era, human lives are going to be lost!

In these years, European farmers planted their land, and the harvest ratio was generally between 1:3 and 1:5. The interest rate of 5.35 times is definitely more than the limit that farmers can bear. What's more, these peasants still have to pay rent!

It is precisely because the harvest ratio of European farmers in this era is so low that the interest rate of usury will not exceed 3 times. If it is more than 3 times, there is basically no possibility of paying it back.

But Marin's purpose is to make those victims unable to afford it!

Originally, Marin planned to send people to use grain to lend usury. However, considering that he has no roots in France, he has no way to collect debts......

Therefore, if you want to persecute the French peasants, you can only join forces with the local bullies and aristocrats and set up a trap for the local peasants.

Farmers, they are basically illiterate these years, of course they are pitted. 1.15 to the 12th power, even literate aristocrats may not be able to easily calculate it in this era, let alone uneducated peasants? If he were a businessman who is good at mathematics, Marlin would not have used this method.

And this kind of method, in ancient China, was actually very normal. Usury with several times the interest can be regarded as a conscience, and there are more than ten times it. And the more than ten times the interest is the legendary usury. This kind of loan is similar to what Marin wants, taking advantage of the weakness of the peasants' lack of education and using seemingly low monthly interest rates to attract loans. However, every month will be profitable, and after a long time, the farmers will not be able to pay it back......

And the reason why those landlords engaged in this kind of usury was mainly for the purpose of annexing land. When the yeoman farmer borrowed the usury at the interest rate and could not afford to pay it back, he had to use his own land to pay off the debt. The landlord who lent money also took advantage of this to achieve the purpose of annexing land, and his family had more and more land...... And the ancient gentry class, this trick was played very slippery......

Wang Anshi of the Northern Song Dynasty changed the law, and the Qingmiao Law proposed to use official loans in an attempt to replace the usury of those landlords. Although the annual interest rate of the official loan is as high as 40%, it is simply an angel compared to the interest rate of the landlords, which is often several times the interest......

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

……

In these days, the turtle aristocracy in Europe still used the simple and direct loan method of two or three times the annual interest rate, and only the shrewd Jewish merchants would know how to use usury with rolling interest. Mainly, the cultural level of those turtle nobles is not high. Let them play with profits, I guess they can't even count themselves.

But this time, Marin plans to send a group of spies who are proficient in calculation and French to take the initiative to serve the door to help those greedy and vulgar French turtle nobles and help them pit the local peasants. Especially for those yeoman farmers, deliberately luring them into taking out loans and making them end up unable to pay them back. Then, there are the details of the land annexation......

Once the land was lost, the French yeoman farmers lost the security of their survival. When the time comes, Marin can still recruit the population......

……

And in addition to the vicious method of profit, Marin also provided another vicious method - manipulation of the seeds lent to farmers......

The way to do this is to mix some of the steamed wheat into the seeds and lend it to the farmers. In this way, during spring ploughing, these unlucky farmers plant this problematic seed, and the germination rate is naturally very low. When the autumn harvest came, they would not be able to afford to repay the loan sharks, so they could only sell their land, and even sell their sons and daughters......

This kind of evil means is something that Marin didn't know where he saw it in his previous life. However, in that case, all the seeds were steamed, so that the farmers could not harvest them.

However, Marin thinks that it is too obvious that the seeds are fully steamed. Aristocrats also want to save face, and if they do so obviously and absolutely, they will be blamed. Replacing some of the seeds with steamed "dead" seeds is more hidden. Seeing the seeds germinate, the farmers will not be suspicious, they will only think that it is a natural disaster or something. But when the time comes, there will not be enough food to pay off the debt, and they will still be unlucky......

……

All in all, whether it is rolling usury or steaming some of the seeds, it is a means to entrap the victims of the disaster in France. Even though Louis XII was now providing relief to most of the victims, when the harvest next autumn broke out, the French peasants would still be unlucky and would have to go bankrupt and become refugees. At that time, it was also a good time for Marin to recruit......