Grantville Gazette-Volume XI

by Eric Flint

  Cass shoved Bernie away. "Get away from me. I'm going to have me a real nice time. She's itching for it. And I'm gonna give it to her."

  Bernie had been trying to calm the situation and not ready for an attack. The uncultured outlander's shove had pushed him back and his foot slipped on some rocks. Vladislav stepped in. The shot gun had to go. He grabbed it from Cass and tossed it to one of his men, keeping the barrel pointed to the sky. Fighting man or not, valuable outlander or not, this one needed a lesson in manners. He hit Cass in the gut. Hard. Then in the face.

  Vladislav had been restraining both himself and his men with some difficulty. He had orders to treat the new American with kid gloves. He actually did respect the courage of the man in combat, though no more than he respected Bernie's cool headed shooting or his own men's courage and discipline. But now that Cass had threatened to assault the knyazhna, it was too much. Cass had gone down at the second blow but he was getting back up. He went for the Peace Maker, and Vladislav kicked it out of his hand. Cass went down again. "I've been protecting Knyazhna Natasha since she was a child, little man." The outlander might not have been little physically, but he had a little soul. "I can live with your uncultured ways if I have to . . ."

  As Vladislav pulled Cass up from the ground— Grunt, not little physically—he heard Bernie talking to the guards. "Hey, guys, I can wait my turn, but at least let me watch." Some of the guards had thought Bernie was coming to the outlander's defense.

  Holding Cass by his collar, Vladislav said, "I can put up with your 'I'm better than anyone else' attitude, but you won't lay a hand on her. Not if you want to keep that hand." Vladislav hit him again.

  Cass flew into the table and made quite a racket going down this time. As Vladislav was picking him up again, Natasha appeared.

  "What are you doing, Vladislav?" The noise had brought her from the tent. She was shouting. "And why are your men holding Bernie? Neither of these men is to be harmed. You know that. Let them go."

  Vladislav let go of the outlander, who promptly fell on the ground, holding his guts, trying not to heave. The other guards let Bernie pass.

  Bernie took a few steps and reached Cass. "Good. Is it my turn now?" He bowed graciously to Vladislav. "I didn't really mind waiting, Vladislav Vasl'yevich, but you might have left a bit more for me. Don't worry about it, Natasha. Every man here has wanted to give Cass a lesson in manners from the moment he arrived. He's earned this, in more ways than you know."

  Bernie picked Cass up and leaned him against the handy cart, propping him carefully. Cass' knees buckled and he went down again. "I do think you could have left me some, Vladislav. Considering it was me he pushed."

  "I apologize, Bernie Janovich." Vladislav bowed precisely. "But there was very little to it. I thought there would be more. Perhaps tomorrow." Cass groaned.

  Natasha sniffed loudly and retreated to her tent. "Men!" She stopped at the entrance. "It has been a busy time and I do not read well in a coach. I have not had time to read any but the most essential messages from Grantville. We finally have an evening not filled with politics and you children decide to throw a brawl. Keep the noise down. I don't wish to be disturbed again tonight."

  Fifteen minutes later Bernie and Vladislav had arranged the semiconscious Cass on one of the carts. They were about to walk back to the fire when Natasha came storming out of the tent again. "You fool!" she shouted at Cass. "Why didn't you tell me that my brother wishes to marry Brandy Bates?" Then she hit him.

  "Darn it!" Bernie complained, laughing. "I never get a turn."

  Of that charge, at least, Cass was innocent. He hadn't known. He had left Grantville before Vladimir had sent the letter and it had caught up en route.

  Yaroslavich Dacha

  "What are we going to do about Cass?" Natasha asked Boris two days after they had gotten back. "He managed, just barely, to be polite to the czar. Other than that, he has offended everyone who has met him."

  Boris grinned. "I am giving him to the military. Specifically to the Streltzi bureau." The Muscovy military was a weird mix of feudal duty and bureaucratic confusion. The bureaucratic nobility were also the officers in time of war. Each, depending on the amount of lands he held, was required provide so many soldiers. They were the officer corps and the cavalry. The Streltzi, who didn't receive land for their service but the right to do business, were the infantry. Added to the mix over the last few years were mercenary companies hired from the west, who had a different way of fighting.

  Natasha was nodding. Bernie had been urgently called to various military bureaus over the last few months. Especially the Streltzi bureaus. The Streltzi preferred to fight behind walls, city walls, because they were mostly city guards. When they could not fight defensively behind the walls of a city they wanted to fight behind walking walls. The "stand and take it" philosophy of the western mercenary infantry was not in their traditions. They had no objection to dishing it out and did not lack courage, but standing in the open and taking it just seemed stupid. "Do you think it will work?"

  "Perhaps. But in any case, it gets him out of our hair and gets the military bureaus off my back."

  Natasha laughed out loud. "So the gun shop, as Bernie calls it, will have their own up-timer."

  * * *

  To be continued

  NON FICTION ARTICLES

  Hither and Yon:

  Transportation Modes,

  Costs and Infrastructure

  in 1632 and after

  Written by Iver P. Cooper

  "If a man . . . make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door." If Emerson really said that, well, he was a philosopher, not a merchant. The up-timers of Grantville may know where oil can be struck, or how to build a typewriter, but unless they know how to economically transport the oil or the typewriter to a prospective customer, they will not be able to translate their knowledge into wealth.

  Transportation Modes

  In 1632, there were three main methods of transporting freight:

  –across open water (by sailing ship or oar-propelled galley)

  –along inland waterways, i.e., rivers and canals (e.g., by barges; they were usually drawn upstream by human or animal power but could be carried downstream by the current)

  –along roads (by human porters, or with pack animals, carts or wagons)

  At some point, up-time technology will lead to the development of railroads, steamships, pipelines, and civilian aircraft.

  Physical Infrastructure

  Pre-RoF Roads. The all-weather, cemented stone-surfaced Roman roads still exist, at least in Italy and parts of southern France and Spain, but they were designed for legions on the march, not for wagons and carts.

  The new paved roads were mostly in the immediate vicinity of cities and large towns. In our time line, France under Colbert "surfaced most of the main roads of France with broken stones," but in 1632, Colbert was just thirteen years old.

  In northern and western England, oxen were used for plowing and heavy hauling. Since oxen can traverse soft ground, most of the width of the roads of the region were left soft, with just a narrow causeway on the side to accommodate pack animals. This was called a "pack and prime way," and it could not be used by horse-drawn wagons or coaches (Crofts, 6–7).

  In contrast, in southeastern England, within the line running from the Wash to Gloucester to Weymouth, wagon traffic dominated (Crofts, 8). The ruts left by the wagons tended to make the going difficult for pack animals, and compelled the use of teams of four or even six draft beasts (Crofts 17).

  Most roads, especially in less settled areas, are mere "rights of way," not prepared roadways, so it is easy for overland traffic to flow around most obstacles. The principal exceptions would be fords, bridges and mountain passes, and consequently it was at these bottlenecks that tolls were sometimes exacted.

  * * *

  Post-RoF Roads. The up-timers have already substantially improved
the road network of southern Thuringia. By fall 1632, the "official" roads include U.S. Routes 4 (modern route B7 before it intersects B84, the "old main trade route from Frankfurt am Main to Leipzig"; DeMarce) and 26 (modern B19; DeMarce). Such roads "were invariably widened and properly graded. Graveled, too, more often than not. So the farmers were happy enough with the change. Easier on their carts and draft animals." ( 1632, Chap. 52).

  * * *

  Rail. A rail link to Halle is under construction as of 1633. ( 1633, Chapter 34). These are characterized, somewhat unfairly, by Quentin Underwood as "dinky wooden rails with an iron cap . . . with pathetic cargoes being pulled as often as not by 'locomotives' made up of a pickup truck—or even just a team of horses." As explained later, draft animals can pull a much heavier load on a rail line than on any normal road. The Baltimore & Ohio began operations in 1830 with similar rails and with horse-drawn cars.

  By July 1633 there are trains running from Grantville to Jena and Naumberg (Cooper, "The Chase," scheduled for Ring of Fire, Volume 2). We know that the line runs all the way to Halle by June 1634 ("Until We Meet Again," Grantville Gazette, Volume 4), but the exact completion date hasn't yet been revealed.

  * * *

  Rivers. The principal rivers of commerce which pass through the USE are the Main (Frankfurt am Main to Wurzburg and then near Bamberg), the Weser (Bremen to the vicinity of Kassel and then near Eisenach), the Elbe (Hamburg to Magdeburg to Dresden), the Saale (a tributary of the Elbe, its mouth upstream of Magdeburg, and running to Halle, Jena, Rudolstadt, and Saalfeld), and the Oder, connecting Stettin on the Baltic to Breslau (Wroclaw). The Rhine (Rotterdam to Mainz to Switzerland) clips the extreme southwest of USE territory. All of these rivers flow north and west, into the North Sea or the Baltic Sea. The Danube, which flows south and east into the Black Sea, passes within about eighty miles of the Main, and there is a modern canal (1992) linking the two river systems, by way of Nurnberg. Some rivers were dredged to make them navigable over a greater length.

  The most important rivers in the general vicinity of Grantville and Magdeburg were the Elbe and the Saale. The Elbe is Magdeburg's connection with the sea. How far up the Elbe a ship could reach depended on its draft: Hamburg (with twelve feet draft), Magdeburg (four feet), and the mouth of the Saale, near Halle (three feet). Small boats could go up the Saale as far as Naumberg. Higher up, river traffic was limited to wooden rafts. (Zander).

  The navigability of a river changes over time. A river segment may be navigable one year, impassable another, depending on whether the year was wet or dry. Within a single year, the traveler may experience ice in winter, flood waters in the spring, and logjams in the summer or fall.

  * * *

  Canals. Navigable canals were common in the Netherlands and parts of northern Italy, rare elsewhere. (Parry, 214-5) It should be noted that the fact that a canal is available does not guarantee that the tow path is in good condition.

  There are several different kinds of canals. Lateral canals run parallel to a natural waterway. Contour canals cut across the neck of a river loop. Summit-level canals bridge two river valleys.

  The oldest canal, of Roman origin, is the Foss Dyke in England. Sweden has a canal (1606), with locks, joining Eskilstuna with Lake Malar. Construction of the forty lock, 55 kilometer Canal de Briare, a summit-level project, began in 1605, but in OTL, it wasn't completed until 1642. (ICML)

  Germany has a summit-level canal connecting the river Elbe, Molln lake, and the river Trave, forming a navigable waterway from Lauenberg to Lubeck and the Baltic Sea. The 100 kilometer route could be traversed in 8-10 days (ICML; Hadfield 33).

  Traffic frequently shifted back and forth between roads, and inland waterways (natural or artificial), depending on changes in weather conditions, tolls, and safety.

  * * *

  Ports. For coastal and ocean trade, there are many good harbors, with docks and other facilities, and smaller ships usually engaged in smuggling) can enter unimproved coves to transfer cargo. The Dutch shipyards of the mid-seventeenth century were able to construct ships at a cost 40-50% less than in their English counterparts, because of their efficient use of machinery (winches, cranes, etc.), and the low cost of materials (a byproduct of the Dutch dominance of shipping). (Parry, 210–11). It is unclear whether those shipyards are still in operation, given the Spanish invasion. However, the Dutch shipyard design could be copied in the USE.

  * * *

  Trade Routes. While German goods could be shipped down the rivers, around the Iberian peninsula, and into the Mediterranean, there were several trade routes which more directly connected Germany with northern Italy. The first was the direct overland route. We begin arbitrarily at Basel, which is on the Main river, and thus accessible to German goods. The route continued southeast to Zurich, then south to Lucerne, went over the St. Gotthard Pass, and finally reached Milan. This alpine route may have been adversely affected by the Little Ice Age, which caused the glaciers to advance. (Parry, 186)

  There were three other routes. One also began at Basel, but skirted the mountains by passing through Chalons and Lyons and then descending the Rhone. (Samhaber, 143) Another major transit was much more roundabout (about three times as long as the direct one), but had the advantage that some of the travel was on rivers. It went through the Low Countries to Paris, then along the Seine and the Rhone to southern France, and finally east into Italy. (Kohn I) Finally, there was the route from Erfurt (Thuringia), through Nurnberg and Augsberg (Bavaria), over the Brenner Pass, and onward to the Italian towns of Bolzano, Trento, Verona and Venice. (Parry, 185).

  Germany was also linked, albeit tenuously, to Asia, by the land routes Magdeburg-Leipzig-Breslau-Krakow–Lemberg (Lvov)-Akerman, and Nurnberg-Regensburg-Passau-Vienna-Buda/Pest-Belgrade-Constantinople. (Tuma, Fig. 6.1; Samhaber 140–1, 153–154).

  Social Infrastructure

  The social infrastructure of early seventeenth-century commerce was surprisingly sophisticated. Most merchants didn't own their own ships or barges. Instead, they relied on common carriers—specialized transportation services—to carry goods for them.

  Innkeepers were key players in the intra-European transport network. Once goods landed at a port, and cleared customs, they were delivered to a local innkeeper. He or she then arranged for them to be shipped to an inn closer to the final destination. There, the recipient innkeeper arranged for the next leg of the journey, and so forth, until the cargo finally reached the end point and was picked up by the merchant's factor. The arrangements made by the innkeepers included hiring carriers, paying tolls, and, sometimes, arranging financing.

  By the 1540s, the long-distance overland trade among Belgium, Germany and Italy was dominated by "about half a dozen firms, the largest being from Milan, with others from Genoa, Germany, and Lorraine." (Kohn I, p. 45) Braudel mentions the existence of transporters in Ratisbon, Ulm, Augsburg, Coire and Basle (II, 354). There were also common carriers in England. The main role of these firms was that they made the arrangements for the entire trip, and quoted an all-inclusive price, so the merchant didn't have to deal with a host of innkeepers. They thus were more analogous to a modern freight forwarder than to a trucking company.

  There were also itinerant carters in Germany, who traveled about looking for business. Inns acted as commission agents for these entrepreneurs, too. (Braudel II, 353). For short hauls, peasant carts could be hired for a pittance if it didn't interfere with the agricultural routine. (Braudel II).

  * * *

  The Spanish, Portuguese and Venetian ships published regular shipping schedules, encouraging merchants to get their goods to port at a particular time, allowing the ships to fill quickly. The Genoese used a hub-and-spoke system, with small ships carrying goods to and from the periphery, and large ships handling the higher volume inter-hub traffic. Finally, the Dutch came up with the notion of having shipowners sell some or all of their cargo capacity to "charterer's houses." This transferred the risk of finding a cargo from the shipowner to t
he charterer. Merchants, in turn, could find cargo space more quickly, by "one stop shopping" at the local charterer's house, rather than by walking the docks in search of an accommodating ship.

  * * *

  By the publication of Sir John Taylor's Carrier's Cosmography (1637), the English long distance wagon trade had regular schedules (Crofts 43), and I think it likely that the well-developed system he described was in place by the time of the RoF. A carrier could further diminish waiting time by using the post to warn customers of its impending arrival. This was usually done by "footpost," who were trained long-distance runners. (Use of post-riders was then too expensive for routine business correspondence; the British post office, an offshoot of the official communication system, wasn't established until 1635, see Crofts, 51–54).

  The Risk of Loss

  One significant gap in the social infrastructure is that it has failed to suppress bandits and pirates. The cargo, the vehicles (animate or inanimate), and (in the case of the Barbary corsairs) even the crew were vulnerable to seizure.