Vol 6 Chapter 30: The end of the Fugger house

As the weather gets hotter, the situation becomes more and more tense.
The French gathered an army of more than 6,000 people in Nice.
The French fleet is already on standby from ports on the Mediterranean Sea.
The French flag team of King Louis XII had arrived in Avignon, not far from Nice. This was the place where the double popes broke out when the Holy See split, and later it was the origin of the triple pope farce.
Repeated rumors have made people uneasy. Many people have left their homes because of the fear of the upcoming war. Especially in Milan, more and more people have left the city. Even the nobles and some knights have finally given up the honor and quietly fled. .
Although the French have n’t come yet, Ludviko Sforza is already somewhat desperate. His request for help from the Vatican is like a rock and a sea. Although Pope Alexander VI did not specifically refuse, the messengers that can be sent are not good. News.
The Pope's son Caesar publicly proclaimed the mercy of the Pharaoh everywhere in Rome. He called the Pharaoh "the noble person worthy of respect", and called the upcoming invasion of the French army "only an armed outing full of friendship."
Such remarks left Ludovico cold. He knew that the Borgia family had been bought by the French. Not only did they completely break up with Sforza in their personal relationship, but they also stood openly on the French side.
As for the other politicians in the Vatican, Ludvik found disappointedly that they seemed completely inattentive to Milan ’s fate, so that they were more interested in a grand parade held in the name of Lucrezia than Milan ’s future. Much more.
This made Ludovico feel unspeakable sorrow, he felt that he seemed to have reached the end of fate, but no one was willing to reach out to him, which gave him the urge to give up completely, so he simply neatly Heaven was addicted to the graceful bodies of his many mistresses, and even his niece Foley ’s Catalina Sforza wrote to him fierce and condemning letters that he ignored.
Ludvik felt he was betrayed, not only in the Vatican, but also in Milan.
When he heard that Da Vinci, whom he had always liked and even tolerated, took his friends and a large group of student artisans to escape from Milan quietly, he felt that he had suffered the deadliest betrayal.
And many Milanese left the city and went to the countryside to take refuge, which made him even more devastated. This caused him to burst into emotions when he was holding a dinner party, and he cursed loudly in front of many guests.
This scene is very embarrassing. Although the guests behaved sincerely and fearfully at that time, the people's eyes were no longer in awe of the duke, and even the fear was gone. People just looked at him indifferently and then in their hearts Looking forward to the farce ending soon.
Ludvik understood what the people were thinking. After returning to the room, the Duke locked himself in for a long time. When he appeared again, he sent someone to his niece, Catalina Sfor of Forli. Zha sent a letter.
"I do n’t know if I can still perform my duties, so I plan to entrust some things to you, I know my brother has always regretted that you are not a boy, otherwise you must be an awesome warrior, so now I I hope you can show your courage when your family is in crisis and help your uncle get through. "
No one knows how Ludovico was when he wrote this letter. After all, he had so unscrupulously obtained power from his nephew, and then became the Duke of Milan after his nephew's inexplicable death. Foreshadowing that Ludovico's relationship with his brother's family is quite delicate, and Caterina Sforza, as his brother's illegitimate daughter, certainly has no better relationship with this uncle.
But now Ludvik has no other choice. The disappointment has made him lose his composure. He no longer knows who to ask for help, which makes him feel that even the famous Forli tigress has no good feelings for him, but At least at this time, he was the only one who could ask for help.
Ludvik placed all his hopes on his niece. He knew that Catalina had a very strong army in Forli, although the number was small. The most important thing was that the woman had a strong enough will to let her even Enemies who are much more powerful than hers never shrink back, as far as Ludovico is most valued, because he no longer knows who to trust, and he does not know that once the French call, those who were fighting Will the ministers and officers with whom he eats come here to escape or even betray him before the battle, and Katerina Sforza will not have such a worrying danger.
Ludvik waited anxiously. He hoped to get a reply as soon as possible. He felt that his niece should not refuse him. Whether it was out of responsibility for the family or actual interests, Catalina Sforza would not watch. Milan fell into the hands of the French.
What Ludvik did not expect was that while he was waiting for his niece to reply like a desperate prisoner awaiting trial, Emperor Maximian of the Holy Roman Empire suddenly sent a messenger.
This made Ludvik really inexplicable. He already knew that the emperor had suffered a lot from the Swiss war. He even had to be forced to sign an armistice agreement to declare the independence of the four Swiss cantons. This is obviously a big deal for the emperor. , Ludovico has no hope for the support from the emperor.
But now that the emperor took the initiative to send people to Milan, Ludvik seemed to see a glimmer of light again.
It was just that the dawn seemed to disappear too soon. When Ludovico understood the emperor's intention to send someone, he almost drove the emperor's envoy out of the city because of disappointment and anger.
Maximian actually sent someone to borrow money!
The emperor has no money, and this is the news that Ludovico waited for after seeing what he wanted to wear.
And this news also led Ludvik to panic after the initial anger.
Maximian has no money, which means that not only the emperor's usual spending will be cut sharply, but the grand contest he is about to convene can only be cancelled, and it is not just that he has to be careful when he feeds those mistresses.
The real trouble is that the emperor will not be able to provide his army with a full amount of payroll, and an army without a payroll cannot fight.
The help from the Holy Roman Empire was about to turn into a bubble, and Ludvik had the urge to go crazy.
Then Catalina Sforza's reply to him was almost a fatal punch to knock him down.
Although there was a sneer in the letter, Forli's tigress finally agreed to be willing to provide Milan with some help within his ability, including 5 artillery and an army of about 400 people.
This is already the greatest help Katerina can provide, and even when it comes to artillery, she does not forget to remind Ludovico, "Once the Milan crisis has passed, please return these artillery as soon as possible, because I also need these big guys here. protection."
Ludvik knew he was really going to lose his way. Obviously, those who can help him can't be tied up, but those who can help are either standing by or being hostile.
Ludvik also thought about whether to provide the emperor with a sum of money so that he could reorganize the army as soon as possible, but he soon dismissed the idea.
Ludvik has vaguely heard that the emperor ’s financial problems have been troublesome recently. Although the specific situation is not clear, he believes that it is by no means a small number.
Now is the critical time to spend money everywhere. Considering how big the financial hole that can cause trouble for the emperor, Ludvik is worried that his money may be lost.
Ludvik ’s worries are not unfounded. In fact, except for him, the emperor ’s messengers are now almost all over Europe.
And their only mission is to borrow money everywhere.
It is no secret that the emperor is short of money, but this time he is not only short of money, he may even face the risk of bankruptcy.
The Fugel family, the money bag that Maximian had been supporting for a long time, is in trouble. This has now been quietly heard in many places.
Especially those businessmen who have business dealings with the Fugel family, their feelings of this news are the most obvious.
People can be keenly aware that the Fugger ’s chambers of commerce in various industries have become cautious. They started to stop all kinds of large-scale trading and shrinking funds, and then quickly put some, even if they earn less, even lose money. The transaction was completed as soon as possible. Although it was very cautious in doing so, the merchant ’s keen sense of smell still made many people aware of what seemed to be wrong with the Fugel family.
Once these speculations appear, it will not be easy to dispel, and with the collapse of the copper price several times causing chaos in the market, it finally made people realize that the Fugels were really in trouble this time.
The Chamber of Commerce that had business dealings with Fugel became uneasy. After all, there were enough businesses in all walks of life in this huge family to affect most people. Now it seems that there is a problem with the funds of the Fugel family. Will this affect The interest of everyone in a few or more major industries immediately caused speculation.
People always like cranky, and if a large group of people will turn cranky into a complete delusion, if these people are originally very smart, then they can create something out of nothing, maybe even they themselves afraid.
The businessmen were frightened by themselves, and some large chambers of commerce began to contact the Fugger family frequently, hoping that they would either stand up to clarify the rumors, or simply provide a sufficient amount of margin to prove that they are fully capable of supporting the existing industry. strength.
However, these two requirements can't be fulfilled by the Fugel family.
It is of course very simple to clarify the rumors. It only requires any one of the three brothers of the Fugel family to tell everyone in public that all the bad legends about the Fugel family are nonsense. A great moment from victory to victory, from glory to glory.
But both Jacob Fogel and his two brothers knew that such a declaration was actually selling the credit of the Fogel family, if they could not do what they said, once people found the Fogel family ’s In fact, the losses caused by such lies will be one hundred times or even thousands times that of today. At that time, even those who are still willing to believe them will have to stand against their opposites.
But with a deposit, if you think about Jacob Fogel, you feel that your whole body is shaking.
So far, not many people know how much the Fugel family has lost in a short period of time. Even some important members of the family only know that the loss is great, but the three Fugel brothers clearly know that In just one month, the wealth of the Fugel family has virtually disappeared and disappeared by almost a quarter or more!
As for how much this loss is, even Jacob Fugur cannot tell.
Because this loss is changing rapidly almost every day, and according to his speculation, this number is now approaching the seven-digit mark indefinitely.
The Fugger family may be the richest millionaire in this era, but this does not mean that they can really take out millions of Florin or Ducat.
In addition, the intangible losses that accompany the loss of money are terrible,
What really worries Jacob Fugur is that he anticipates that all the riots are just beginning.
All kinds of signs made Jacob feel that there was an enemy hidden in the dark staring at the house of Fugger, he even suspected that asking them to make a statement was also the enemy ’s conspiracy, because once they did this, they It soon proved to be deceiving, and that meant for the Fulgor's family to be a disaster.
The question from the emperor also made Jacob Fugur headache.
The advantage of sponsoring the monarchs to wage war is that they can get enough rewards after winning, but once they lose, they will lose all their money.
In the past, the investment returns of the Fugor family in this respect were still considerable. The Emperor Maximilian launched several wars and won them. This has made the Fugor family happy that they have found a reliable investment target.
But somehow, suddenly things didn't go well.
The emperor ’s fiasco in Switzerland was only one aspect. In the lowlands, Maximian ’s son, the beautiful Philip, who was the governor of the lowlands, was disturbed by the small port called Rotterdam that suddenly emerged from the previous year. Merchants are grabbing business everywhere with the Chamber of Commerce supported by the Fugger family.
The fiasco in Switzerland caused the emperor to owe a debt, and in order to deter the German princes, Maximian decided to spend a lot of money to expand his army. At the same time, in order to deal with the French, Maximian had already sent money to the rich The Er family proposed the idea of ​​borrowing again to recruit the army.
These places that need to spend money are like wounds cut from the giant behemoth in Fugur, pumping blood out, but what makes Jacob horrible is the Hungarian copper mine that they give all hope. But something big happened.
What kind of crisis the Fuggol family is facing is beyond the imagination of outsiders, and even Jacob Fuggol himself does not know what their enemies will do next.
But Jacobs had some thoughts about their enemies. He thought that at least those Venetian Jews participated in this dirty conspiracy, and those merchants in the lowlands also blended in.
But after all, these people are only unimportant characters in this conspiracy to siege the Fulgor family. Jacob has a feeling that the emissary hiding in the dark may soon come to the front from behind the scenes.
However, before that, the Fugger family had to pay a large sum of money for the emperor's withdrawal from Switzerland, and at the same time, the Fugger family also received bad news that was obviously worse for them.
A team of merchants sent by the Hanseatic League in the North took advantage of Maximian ’s disappointment to take the opportunity to enter the 4 Swiss cantons that had just declared their independence. These northern merchants waved their hands to start a beautifully crafted gold coin called Ladia. Lobbying the local Swiss.
This is a new type of gold coin that looks beautifully crafted and has a lot of weight. Those merchants from the north or simply from the lowlands spare no effort to sell their new currency to the Swiss, and for the sake of the size of locals Concerned about the credit of new gold coins, these businessmen offered to propose that all local people who trade with this new type of gold coins can use these gold coins to get other cheaper and better commodities from them first, so these new currencies called Ladia are almost Only a slight turn in the hands of the Swiss can return to the hands of the lowland merchants without any risk.
This at least made the locals feel that the sale did not seem to be at a loss, and those merchants' joyful use of Ladia to conduct transactions obviously contributed to the local people's favor for this beautifully-looking gold coin.
And for those businessmen from the lowlands, they have not lost anything, because when the locals are keen to use those Ladia to buy the goods they provide quite cheaply, a businessman named Grogening has already been used to The local politicians who changed from military generals to administrative officials engaged in exchanges. After several consultations and the proof that the gold coins they provided were certified by the Pope, Groningen was successfully obtained and can be implemented in the 4 Swiss cantons. Radia's permission.
But in fact, things are certainly not that simple. The reason why those politicians have so easily agreed that Groningen ’s gold coins entered the Swiss 4 canton market was actually almost six months ago when Rotterdam took advantage of the opportunity to seal the port. When he monopolized the entire Western European winter market in a month, Grogening sent people to contact the Swiss.
In the following months, even when the funds were quite tight, the lowland regions did not stop the funding of the 4 cantons, and now the previous investments are not only completely correct ~ EbookFREE.me ~ The rewards may make many people who initially expressed objections fainted.
The only thing that puzzled Grogning was that at the time, Alexander, who suggested that he try his best to fund the Swiss, how could it be sure that the four Swiss cantons that were not at all optimistic at the time would succeed.
Jacob Fugur ’s hunch was clearly very effective. Just as Emperor Maximian was still on his way back to Vienna, a letter from the Vatican was placed in front of the emperor.
"Your Majesty, the rumors in Rome that the Fugger family may have gone bankrupt are very worrying. What is more noteworthy is the news that the Fugger family has decided to leave because of their bloodless business in the copper mine in Hungary. The loss of a large amount of the ore business that has signed the agreement obviously irritated King Ladislas. At the same time, the Fugger family did undoubtedly offend Wallachia and Bosnia, which are now closely related to Hungary, so There are rumors that the Fugel family may have to give up their many businesses in those places, but this is not the worst. According to reliable information, they seem to have signed a very mysterious relationship with the Venetians. The loan contract, and they do n’t seem to want you to know the money. "
Seeing this letter in the name of Old Rovere, but sent by a messenger from the Pope, Maximian couldn't help but fall into deep contemplation.