The real 100-year-old wild ginseng is very different from the artificially cultivated ginseng. Artificially cultivated ginseng is shaped like a carrot and like a long strip of ginger, with fewer tentacles and does not look like a human shape. The real ginseng that is more than 100 years old not only has a closer appearance to a human shape, but also has a lot more tentacles. When taking medicine, you only need to pinch a tentacle to prepare a great tonic medicine.

Imperial Physician Chen said that he could renew the Pope's life for more than a year, and it would have been calculated a long time ago - just pinch some ginseng whiskers after a while, and it will last for a long time. Moreover, when Ma Lin was buying herbs in Wuchang before, he also met a Tibetan merchant from western Sichuan and bought a batch of Cordyceps. In addition, I also bought a lot of wolfberries from the northwest, as well as common tonics such as astragalus.

In addition to these tonics brought back from the East, Marin also recommended to Imperial Physician Chen the miraculous natural tonic that revived Pope Pius XII in 1954 at the age of 78 - royal jelly......

In other words, in 1954, the 78-year-old Pope Pius XII was bedridden for several months due to diabetes, asthma and heart disease, and was almost critically ill. In desperation, the Pope's attending physician decided to use the European indigenous method of remedy, the royal jelly treatment method, and gave the Pope a large amount of royal jelly every day. The elderly Pope then gradually improved and recovered three months later, only to die in 1958. In other words, royal jelly gave him another 4 years.

It is precisely because of this legendary version of the experience that royal jelly, including propolis, later became the darling of the health supplement industry. It is said that in the 80s, 10 kilograms of royal jelly could be exchanged for a car in Korea...... Of course, after the 90s, with the collapse of pseudo health products such as Sanzhu Oral Liquid and Chinese Turtle Essence, the health care product market collapsed, and the market of royal jelly was also affected, and the demand was no longer so strong. But then again, most of the domestic bee products are used for export to earn foreign exchange, and most of the honey and royal jelly freeze-dried powder in the domestic market are fake. If you want the real thing, you have to go to the beekeeper's tent and watch the beekeeper collect honey and dig royal jelly. Otherwise, the ghost knows what it is when you buy it in the supermarket......

Marin's instructions to Imperial Physician Chen were to go to Rome and prepare tonic medicines with Chinese medicine while giving the Pope a large amount of royal jelly. I don't want Julius II to live for 4 years like Pius XII, but I still need a year or 2 to live. After this year, Marin has already digested the 8 vassal states, so he doesn't care about the threat of those church vassals......

But at the same time, in order to prevent the sudden death of the pope's father-in-law, Marin secretly sent his men to Rome to secretly ask for a meeting with Leo X, who is still an ordinary cardinal - if Julius II unfortunately died, the Bank of Siena, controlled by Marin, fully supported Leo X's bribery...... And if Leo X is elected, he will need to publicly support Marin......

In this way, even if there is a change of pope, the new pope will help to suppress the princes of the German Church, so that they do not unite with the secular princes to fight themselves.

……

Of course, it would be better if my old father-in-law could live a few more years. After all, his father-in-law was always more reliable than Leo X, an ally of interest. In order to get the full support of his father-in-law, Ma Lin even went to his sister-in-law at the beginning. Now, the father-in-law has a cheap son-in-law and no son, so all the resources must be tilted towards him. In the case of Leo X, the first thing people consider must be the interests of the Medici family, not their own interests. Leo X will only help himself if it does not affect his own interests.

In addition to recuperating Julius II, Imperial Physician Chen and his entourage were also responsible for informing the pope's father-in-law of one thing - hoping that the Holy See would remain neutral in the next Italian war......

According to the information from Paris, the French have made a bloody effort to compete for the Kingdom of Naples, Italy, which has many volcanoes.

According to intelligence, Louis XII was determined to capture the Kingdom of Naples this time. Therefore, he intends to dispatch a full 60,000 troops this time. Among them, the plate knights alone plan to dispatch a huge 20,000 people, which is the largest number of knights dispatched in recent years.

In normal times, the knights that France can mobilize are only twenty or thirty thousand. This time, the mobilization of 20,000 plate armor knights is basically to take out the old bottom and work hard.

Except for the knights in the coastal areas of northwestern France, who were not used because of the need to guard against England, the knights of the miners and knights of titles in the central and southern regions were basically dispatched.

As for the infantry in addition to the 20,000 plate knights, it was not simple. Among them, 7,000 of the 17,000 Swiss mercenaries rescued from the Netherlands chose to join the French army in order to repay the kindness of the French army for rescue, and went south with the French army to attack the Kingdom of Naples at the southern tip of the Italian peninsula. And the other 33,000 infantry, although not as elite as the Swiss mercenaries, is not bad.

Since last winter, Louis XII has been quietly recruiting troops and horses from all over the country in preparation for war the coming year. But Louis XII also knew very well that the food and grass of the army of 50,000 or 60,000 was not a small amount, and it was not easy to gather them. So, he could only prepare slowly.

Although the Kingdom of France is much larger than the Grand Duchy of the North Sea, in terms of the level of combat readiness, it may not be comparable to the North Sea Kingdom. Why? In terms of food alone, France's level of combat readiness was inferior to that of the North Sea States.

Because of his mastery of the current fertilizer technology, Marin has made the Beihai country have a lot of grain reserves. Because he was worried that others would know the secret of high grain yields, Marin had accumulated too much grain in the granary before. In the event of a war, the Beihai State could at any time withdraw a large amount of grain from the granary made of cement for military rations.

In the huge Kingdom of France, because agriculture was not highly productive, most of the grain grown on so much land was taken to the market and consumed. If you want to prepare food for an army of 60,000, you need to draw it from all over the country. Otherwise, it's hard to get it together.

In particular, the 20,000 plate knights not only need to consume a lot of food themselves, but also their war horses and pack horses that are transferred, and the food consumed is also an astronomical amount. Even, in order to scrape together enough military rations, the French finance minister specially sent people to purchase a large amount of grain abroad.

And this money for the purchase of grain was not actually financed by the French, but by the Venetians......

This has to talk about the North Sea State spy John. Baron Lafite was credited with this, and in order to gain Louis XII's trust, John the Spy not only offered Louis XII a lot of Lafite wine, but also suggested that Louis XII send someone to Venice for financial support.

Venice is one of the best financially positioned countries in Europe, with extremely strong financial strength. However, the strength of the Venetian army was not good. Previously, the Venetian merchants' spice trade channel was cut off by Spain and Portugal in the Indian Ocean, and the Venetians had to endure it. After all, there is nothing you can do if you can't bear them. Because, the Venetian galleys could not go to the Indian Ocean to fight the Spaniards.

Therefore, Venice and Spain have long been at odds because of the issue of Indian spices.

Moreover, having occupied the Kingdom of Naples, Spain had the ability to blockade the Adriatic Sea from the Strait of Otranto at the eastern end of Naples. Once the Spaniards blockaded the Adriatic, the Republic of Venice at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea would be finished. After all, if you can't get out of the Adriatic, everything is over for the Venetians.

Therefore, both in terms of interests and national security, the Venetians did not want the Spaniards to continue to occupy the Kingdom of Naples.

As for France, it is a standard landlubber country, and the navy is not worth mentioning. If the French occupied the Kingdom of Naples, there would be little threat to Venice's maritime security.

It was on this basis that when Louis XII accepted the name of John. After Rafi suggested sending someone to Venice to ask for financial support, the Venetian parliament agreed to provide hundreds of thousands of gold coins to France as war funds. After all, it had to be shirtless for the Venetians. Even if France loses, Venice will not go directly to war with the Spaniards because it did not directly enter the war.

Even, in order to avoid suspicion, the hundreds of thousands of gold coins that Venice gave to France were provided to France by a certain Venetian financier in the name of "loans". But both countries know that this is what is sent, and the French will not be allowed to pay their debts......

In this way, after Venice provided a large amount of funds, Louis XII relied on this funds to buy a lot of grain, grass and baggage for the needs of the invasion of Italy.

Germany has just extinguished the war here, and France is about to rekindle the war again......