In fact, Marin's heart was full of evil thoughts at this time, and he planned to expel those Bremen Hanseatic merchants without giving a penny. In this way, there will be at least a million gold coins left. However, after thinking about it, he still endured it.

If he only feels at ease to be a prince in a corner of peace, it is naturally understandable to do so. Marin, however, wanted half of Germany and learn the Prussian line of later generations. Therefore, he should not be too ugly when he eats the like. Otherwise, if he sets a bad example, no one will believe him in the future.

In addition, at this time, Marin also needs the political support and economic cooperation of the Hanseatic League, and cannot easily turn his face with others. What city is Bremen? That's the third in the Hanseatic League! It's good that the eldest Lübeck and the second Burger can agree to Marlin moving it. If you do too much, you will lose the Hanseatic League as an ally in the future. And in Germany, it's hard to mix without allies.

Moreover, if these Bremen merchants had gone to Hamburg and Lübeck, because of their deep pockets, they would have to blend into the high-level of the two cities in the future. Now it is cool to forcibly drive them away, and in the future, when they blend into the high-level of Lübeck and Hamburg, they will definitely have to wear their own shoes. Therefore, Marin forcibly suppressed his evil thoughts and chose to solve it peacefully. Only a peaceful settlement of the matter would guarantee good relations with the Hanseatic League. At the same time, it also set an example for conquering other regions and cities in the future - Brother is a reasonable person......

However, if he really paid millions of gold coins for real money, Marin was not reconciled. After all, that's millions of gold coins. Even if Marin has strong financial resources, it hurts to take it out.

As for paying for food or something, Marin also thought about it. However, unfortunately, because of this year's war, the grain harvest in Beihai has failed in a large area. Oldenburg, in particular, was personally ordered by Marin to burn the wheat fields, and the losses were extremely heavy. In addition, Marin now needs a large amount of grain for brewing wine every year, so even if there is a lot of grain in the warehouse, Marin is not very happy to pay for it. You know, in these troubled times, food is sometimes stronger than gold coins.

Therefore, Marin hesitated......

In the evening, Marin held a grand welcome ceremony, mainly to welcome the two speakers of Lübeck and Hamburg. At the beginning of the dinner, the beautiful Mao Mei waiter brought bread and salt, which represented the highest welcome etiquette.

Giving bread and salt was actually a Slavic ritual, and the Mao girls also brought this custom with them after being introduced by Marin. Marin thought it was interesting and chose the repertoire for the welcome party. Otherwise, according to the habit of the Germans, it is estimated that there will be a plate of sausages, or two elbows.

The German habit is more practical, but it seems a bit discordant. After all, sausages, not to mention pig intestines, are mostly smashed. In this era, guests from other countries may not be adaptable. If you bring two elbows, you might frighten the guests. Therefore, Marin introduced the Slavic etiquette of "bread and salt". After all, bread and salt look much cleaner and more elegant. And, the key thing is that the hairy girl holding the bread and salt is very eye-catching......

The two speakers were no strangers to this Slavic etiquette, because both cities had close trade relations with the Baltic Slavs, and naturally knew this etiquette. So, naturally, they took a small piece of bread, dipped it in salt, and ate it.

Then Heinrich, the Grand Speaker of Lübeck, praised:

"Well, yes, it's better than the salt in Lüneburg!"

Heinrich himself was a big salt merchant in Lübeck, and his family's business was mainly to transport Lüneburg's salt to the Baltic Sea region through the Sterknitz Canal. The business was highly profitable, so Heinrich's family was also a wealthy family in Lübeck and held the seat of the Lübeck parliament for a long time.

Heinrich's words were unintentional, but in Marin's ears, they were like thunder—yes, salt from Lüneburg!

Marin suddenly became excited......

During this time, he was so busy that he almost forgot about the disposal of the salt mines in Lüneburg.

The handling of the Lüneburg salt mines was the same as the handling of the Hanseatic merchants in Bremen, the original salt merchants, and needed to be treated differently. For example, salt merchants from Lübeck and Hamburg, their share cannot be moved. And the share that originally belonged to the Welf family, where the Duke of Lüneburg belonged, Marin naturally swallowed it in his stomach.

However, because of the short-sightedness of the former Duke of Lüneburg, the share of the salt mines owned by the Welf family was only one-third. The remaining two-thirds of the share was either sold by the former Duke of Lüneburg or divided among the other nobles in the principality.

Fortunately, Marin violently cleaned up the Welf family this time, and incidentally annexed the original nobles in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. After all, in this war, these former nobles in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg must have participated in the war. Since he participated in the war, he would definitely be considered a loser. The loser, it is natural to be robbed of the salt mine shares.

In this way, Marin also got together nearly half of the shares of the Lüneburg salt mine. The Lüneburg salt mine produces more than 10,000 tons of salt per year, and at a wholesale price of 4 shillings (12.7 kilograms) per quart, it is worth 315 shillings, or 63 gold coins. In this way, the annual output value of the salt mine shares in Marin's hands is as high as 315,000 gold coins.

However, Marin's ambitions clearly don't stop there. As a ruler, he was not content to occupy only half of the salt mines. In the future, Marin intends to wait for the situation to stabilize, kick out most of the mine owners, and monopolize most of the interests himself. After all, in this day and age, salt was a hard currency that could sit side by side with gold coins and grain. With such a strategic resource, how can Marin allow others to get involved?

Of course, there are also some mine owners who come from a big background, and Marin is not easy to move people. Therefore, Marin's ultimate goal is to take 8% of the shares in the Lüneburg salt mine. In this way, but the salt mine can bring him an output value of 500,000 gold coins every year. As for the profit, it should be able to reach 400,000 gold coins.

Moreover, it seems that the salt deposits of Lüneburg have not yet been fully explored. Marin had read about European history before, and it was written that the Lüneburg salt mine produced more than 20,000 tons a year at its peak in the 16th century. In other words, Marlin could have doubled the salt yield.

But Marin didn't really plan to increase production that much, because he was just going to use the Lüneburg salt mine as a cover......

His salt base on the island of Cape Breton was no less productive than the Lüneburg salt mines. Moreover, the quality is better. It's just that, because it is difficult to explain the source, now Marlin can only control salt production. Although it has managed to sell some of the Eastern European markets, it has never dared to enter the German salt market on a large scale, for fear of arousing suspicion.

But with the Lüneburg salt mine, which was a cover, Marin could pretend to expand the scale of salt production. But in reality, it was just an expansion of the scale of boiling salt on Cape Breton Island. Then, in the name of Lüneburg salt, salt was dumped into the German states.

……

Of course, that's all for later. At the moment, the first thing Marin had to solve was the problem of buying the property of a Hanseatic merchant in Bremen. If you don't want to pay your bills with cash or grain, it's also a good idea to pay with salt......

So, Marin said to Hector and other Bremen delegates:

"I agree to spend money on your property in Bremen, however, I'm going to pay for it with salt!"

……

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