Chapter 243: The Shambani Incident

In addition to the history of wars such as the Crusades, the history of the Middle Ages in Europe also included the history of science and technology and the history of economics, which occupied less space in later textbooks. This content, like the content of Chinese textbooks, is not mainstream, naturally due to the lack of information and the lack of scholars in this field.

In fact, much is known about post-Renaissance European history, but very little about the Middle Ages before it. Thanks to the efforts of the intelligence department of the Chinese Empire, the traversal has mastered the most comprehensive intelligence and historical information of this era, although Europe is a chess game in hand, but there are still unexpected situations.

In the summer, less than two months after the Papal States disappeared into history, a riot broke out in the Champagne region of France, which caused great damage, and the most important loss was the Count of Shambani, who presided over the opening of the Shambani market. A fire and smashing and looting destroyed the commercial city built by the Count of Shambani with a loan, and Liu Neng (Liu Xin's eldest son), the president of the Imperial Import and Export Group, who owns 20% of the shares and most of the construction loan creditor's rights, jumped into a rage.

According to the report sent by the intelligence services in the shortest possible time, the reason for the riot turned out to be that the merchants of the Shambany Bazaar had been repeatedly taxed and petitioned the Earl for tax relief, but it was not known whether the Count of Shambani, who had eaten the brain fragments, actually ordered the expulsion of the representatives of the small and medium-sized merchants who suppressed the petition, and imposed a fine of up to 20 gold florins for each merchant.

Extremely dissatisfied, many merchants directly hired unemployed lowland mercenaries, and more than 800 people protested and marched at the residence of the Count of Shambani. The results alarmed King Louis VI of France, who was hunting in the nearby forest. More than 2,000 nobles and knights who followed the king directly to suppress the riot, hanged the three instigators, and imposed a fine of 200 gold coins per household on the more than 500 merchants involved in the riot.

The riots should have stopped. In order not to go bankrupt, the mercenaries also took the risk of robbing the gold shop and currency exchange office opened by the Count of Shambani (the original bank without deposit and loan business) in order to get the final payment, and in order to destroy the evidence and take revenge on the Count of Shambani, most of the commercial city was burned down.

Secret reports indicate that the real mastermind of the revolt was Louis VI, who was trying to unify France. Speaking of the richest people in France. For a long time it was not a king, but the Count of Shambani, who few later generations knew. How did this wealthy middle-class aristocrat get more wealth than the king? The reason is simple, it has monopolized the Shambani Bazaar for hundreds of years.

Europe has a long coastline though. There were many excellent seaports, but in ancient times, when seafaring and shipbuilding technology and port logistics facilities were not developed, cross-regional trade on non-Mediterranean coasts still relied on land transportation, just like the land Silk Road. This land trade network also has nodes and fixed routes. The numerous avenues left over from the Roman Empire served as arteries until the 20th century. These fixed trade routes are no different from those of Roman times.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Western Roman Empire was destroyed, the trade in the Western Mediterranean was interrupted for a time, and Western Europe, especially the trade hub of Sicily and Northern Italy, continued to fight until the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and Sicily occupied by the Arabs were recaptured by the Europeans, and Europe gave birth to three commercial city-states (Venice, Genoa, and Pisa) competing in the Mediterranean in a relatively peaceful environment. In its original history, Venice had the last laugh and became the hegemon of the Mediterranean, monopolizing trade with the Near East after the Crusades.

And this era that has been changed beyond recognition. Venice has become a pure transshipment port, with all goods being transported in and out by Jewish merchants from the kingdom of Solomon. Its throughput is similar to that of the emerging port of Marseille. The only pillar industries are seafood and warehousing and logistics, and there is no trace of glass, art, high-end woolen and financial industries in later generations. Without the primitive capital obtained from the looting of the Eastern Romans, Venice would not have been able to develop decent industry and services. Not to mention becoming a well-known regional economic center and a maritime hegemon.

As for Genoa, which remained neutral and actively defected to Genoa, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and an ally of the future Italian king Consilio. It became an important port that did not decline after the rise of Marseille, and developed the famous woolen textile and deep processing industry of agricultural products such as olive oil and wine, and only after obtaining the technology and capital introduced by the Chinese Empire, it established a shipbuilding industry with a production capacity of more than 90% of Italy.

As for the land of Consilio, Pisa developed even faster, not only quickly becoming the center of finance and trade after Jerusalem, but also had the largest and most advanced fine velvet textile industry and ceramics industry in Europe. The output value is the highest among the cities of Europa.

Northern Italy is the geographical center of Europa and the choke point. Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, like the Adam's apple, the little tongue, and the root of the tongue, were the three most important distribution centers and trading points in the northern Mediterranean, whether it was silk, porcelain, spices, precious stones, and other luxury goods from the Orient, or gold, leather, ivory, medicinal herbs, and slaves from Africa, they had to be transported overland in these three ports before they could be transported to northern Europe, central Europe, and other parts of Europe at high latitudes.

Many unknown cities in later generations were extremely important places of contention in the Middle Ages, and the splendid urban agglomeration of northern Italy was built on the advantages of this unique space and transportation resources. The Great St. Bernard, Sprugen, Brennaro and Pleken passes were the trade network routes connecting the cities of northern Italy with Western, Central and even Eastern Europe.

Before the Crusades were completely ended by the Arabs and Turks, the primitive and backward industries of Europe could not compete with their oriental counterparts from afar, coupled with the limited purchasing power and small capacity of the market, the Chinese Empire had always exported large quantities of fertilizers, seeds, agricultural equipment, and various consumer goods (salt and sugar) that could not be produced in Europe in exchange for wool, meat, grain, timber, nuts, furs, and various ores.

Of the four commercial arteries connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the North Sea-Baltic Sea in a north-south direction, the most important is the westernmost route of Marseille-Lyon-Dijon-Reims-Calais. As for the east, all three routes had to pass through the Roman Empire (Germany), where there were many princes. Not only do you have to travel through the rugged Alpine mountains, but you also have to endure the exorbitant taxes of the many lords' fiefdoms that the geese plucked. In contrast, the westernmost route only passes through the territories of five larger feudal lords. Not to mention that there are many fewer levels, the terrain is still flat in Western Europe. Before the reunification of Germany, the position of this trade route was irreplaceable, and even if Germany was reunified, the advantages of this trade route would not decline much.

Until the modern era, France was Europe's largest exporter of cereals and the largest producer of grain, benefiting from the flatness and fertility of the plains and arable land of Western Europe. France was able to feed a population far larger than that of England, Germany, and Italy, so its market and spending power were fattened by merchants everywhere and nationwide.

The Count of Shambani is also an important gem in the cross-border area, which is a transit point between Northern Italy and the North Sea region. Merchants from both regions trade woolen blanks and various commodities in large quantities in this bazaar. The prosperity of Shambani was supposed to be more than 100 years after the two regions slowly developed handicrafts of all sizes, but the insertion of the Crossing led to an early prosperity here, and the merchants of both places avoided the territory of the greedy Louis VI and came to trade in this almost duty-free trading paradise.

The Count of Shambani was just an ordinary nobleman. I have not experienced the baptism of free trade theory. But I have also been to Jerusalem, a holy place that has been designed, edified, transformed, and assimilated by the people. Knowing the importance of free trade and attracting foreign investment, and knowing that the benefits of small but quick sales are also applicable to taxation and the development of the territorial economy.

Upon his return from the Holy Land, the Count of Shambani immediately announced that all taxes in his domain would be halved, and that all taxes and fees, except income tax and VAT, would be reduced or even abolished. For example, the flour grinding tax, marriage tax, inheritance tax, and bridge tax have all been abolished, and the toll tax and customs duty have been reduced to the point where they can no longer be reduced (if they fall below 2%, it will provoke public anger).

This kind of price war and snatching the flow of customers naturally had an obvious effect, and it immediately attracted countless merchants from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other regions, and the Shambany Bazaar, whose popularity surpassed that of the flea market in later generations, appeared hundreds of years in advance.

Within a year or two, Champani, a wine-only region, had become the wealthiest commercial center in France. In terms of output value, the output value per unit area has surpassed that of Pisa. It is only a few points behind Fiorentina in first place.

The initiator of this riot was King Louis VI, who was the last to get the greatest benefit, he actually put the Count of Shambany under house arrest, and single-handedly planned all the actions in the course of the riots, from the beginning of the repeated taxation to the final suppression of the riots, with his shadow and direct instructions at every step.

After the public knew about this, a celebratory banquet was held, and Europe finally produced a bold and scheming hero, who dared to tear his face in this way, and put the Count of Shambani, who was supported by the Chinese Empire, under house arrest for the sake of unification and wealth, and directed and staged a farce intended to transfer the commercial center to Paris.

Although this primitive conspiracy is ridiculous in the eyes of the traversal, it does give a good indication of his determination and leadership. Li Ji directly asked the ambassador in Paris to warn Louis VI and asked him to release the Count of Shambany and pay part of the damage. The person in charge of the direct killing is not the diplomat, it is the coalition of all the surrounding feudal lords who have signed a free trade alliance agreement.

Although the riots did not put an end to the initial Shambani Bazaar, it greatly undermined the prestige and attractiveness of the Shambany Bazaar. Many frightened and lost merchants left the bazaar and never returned, turning to new business opportunities in cities such as Lyon and Marseille in the south. Some of the merchants who suffered heavy losses were compensated by Louis, the nominal suzerainty of Shambani, and began to slowly move closer to Paris.

This event was not only a crucial turning point in the unification of France, but also the prelude to the commercialization of Europe as a whole, after which a large number of feudal lords learned about the enormous profits of merchants and the huge taxes brought by free trade. The Earl of Shambani, who suffered a heavy loss, lost 20,000 florin gold in the statistics of the time. Not only the loss of real estate, but also the indirect losses caused by the decline in tax revenue and spin-off industries caused by the decline in passenger traffic are even more difficult to count, and the small and medium-sized businessmen who have suffered heavy losses have to be compensated for the same amount in order to retain people's hearts and minds. In the era when all the feudal lords in France had an annual income equivalent to coins (at this time Europe was still dominated by taxes in kind) was less than 100,000 gold coins, this huge amount of money enough to build a city shocked Europe.

The first to jump out about this incident was not Louis, a hypocrite, nor a representative of the big merchant groups of various countries that had received losses, nor the Chinese Empire, which was bent on establishing a trade order, but the Count of Shambani. He did not cry out for injustice, nor did he expose his conspiracy to be placed under house arrest by Louis, but resisted all responsibilities, the compensation that should be compensated, the apology that should be apologized, learned the skills of crisis public relations in later generations, and kept his biggest intangible asset. The Shambani Bazaar is still open as always, and it has become more prosperous after the arrival of many 'foreign merchants' in the Chinese Empire. Silk, tea, porcelain, high-end luxury goods, cosmetics, perfumes, daily chemicals from China (soap and toothpaste and other materials were sold directly at FOB prices in Shambani, in exchange for very little cash, most of the wholesalers took the goods are bills, are Tuscany bank florin gold coin checks, promissory notes and their own timber and mineral warehouse bill of lading), Shambani not only did not decline, but became more and more prosperous, many merchants and royal tax collectors near Paris have invested capital in Shambani's trade business and settlementto contribute to the prosperity of Shambani.

The King of France was dumbfounded, and although his taxes had increased a lot after the revolt, they had been thrown eight streets compared to the increase in the income of the Count of Shambani. I finally realized that in the face of absolute strength, cleverness will not work, and in this way, I will be farther and farther away from the goal of unifying France.

King Louis had no choice but to honestly act as an agent like Lothair II, at least he would not let the count's agents under him get more support than he did, and finally surpass himself and have the power to divide the kingdom.

Although none of the famous monarchs who have left their names in history are general, even faint kings and tyrants have talents and courage that ordinary heroes do not have, that is, less discipline and inhumanity are also the key elements of their lack of obscurity; But no matter how powerful the hero is, it is impossible to surpass the golden finger and black technology of the traversal, and in the end, the uncontrollable accident has not been resolved into a pawn of the traversal? (To be continued......)