It took Marin almost a month to get his entire family accustomed to bathing, and this was in July, the hottest time of the year.
If no one bathed, who knew what kind of smell would spread?
According to Marin’s estimation, Charles VIII wouldn’t march into Italy until late August.
By the time the news reached Vienna, it would be September.
Then, the Imperial Parliament would spend some time arguing before they slowly agreed to increase taxes, or perhaps they would reach no decision at all.
When the first batch of taxes finally arrived, it would be at least November.
By then, Maximilian I, with the money in hand, would have the confidence to recruit mercenaries again.
However, as someone who had studied history, Marin was more optimistic about the emperor collecting taxes from Austria and Burgundy, regions under his control.
In other areas, collecting taxes would be very difficult.
However, even if they could only collect taxes from these two regions, it would still be enough for the emperor to expand his army on a small scale.
So, during these few months, Marin planned to reform Hoffman Manor properly.
Once the emperor began recruiting mercenaries, Marin would undoubtedly head to Vienna to “earn fame and fortune,” leaving him no time to manage the affairs of the manor.
With limited time, Marin hurriedly initiated bold reforms within the estate.
His excuse for these reforms was that they were based on advanced knowledge learned from his imaginary wise teacher—Einstein, who had gained this wisdom from a highly developed Eastern Empire.
Due to his previous successes, although the Hoffmans didn’t fully trust Marin yet, they believed in about seventy or eighty percent of the advanced knowledge he claimed to have learned.
So, with a “let’s give it a try” mindset, they allowed Marin to freely carry out his reform experiments within the estate.
After addressing the issue of bathing, naturally, there needed to be clean clothes to change into.
Therefore, the next thing Marin promoted was frequent washing and changing different clothes.
The reason Marin gave was also strong—frequent bathing and changing of clothes could largely prevent the spread of diseases.
This theory was essentially modern hygiene theory.
The argument about preventing diseases greatly convinced everyone else.
As a result, the whole family supported it.
After all, for the Hoffman family, they didn’t have to wash the clothes themselves.
They could just hire some female serfs from the estate, who didn’t need to be paid, only given some food.
Moreover, Lady Mary had already been diligent about changing clothes, so it was only the old Hoffman, Adler, and other men who didn’t frequently change their clothes.
Therefore, this proposal faced no resistance.
Next, Marin required the whole family to wash their hands before meals and after using the restroom to avoid ingesting or carrying dirt.
Lady Mary, who already valued cleanliness, supported this.
So, this proposal was also approved.
The previous initiatives—bathing, changing clothes, and washing hands—all fell under personal hygiene.
After addressing personal hygiene, Marin began tackling environmental hygiene issues.
Environmental hygiene mainly involves the concentration of waste, the disposal of garbage, and the cleaning of residential areas.
Medieval Europeans were quite sloppy.
In the Middle Ages, apart from the educated nobility, most common people had the bad habit of relieving themselves anywhere.
This caused cities in medieval Europe to be filled with the stench of excrement.
Main roads were fine, as local officials would organize cleaning efforts.
But in the smaller streets and alleys, many people relieved themselves freely.
So, as soon as you left the main road and entered the city’s less-traveled areas, you were sure to smell something foul.
This widespread excrement also bred flies and mosquitoes, which in turn spread terrible infectious diseases.
Marin couldn’t manage the cities, but two days ago, while strolling around the manor, he accidentally stepped in a pile of dung, which disgusted him for a long time.
Therefore, concentrating on toilet use and prohibiting random defecation became a pressing issue for Marin.
When Marin proposed centralized toilet use and the ban on random defecation, no one in his family opposed it.
The men didn’t care since they used toilets anyway, and Lady Mary welcomed the idea, as she was also disgusted by the scattered excrement.
Implementing this policy within the Hoffman family was simple, but when Marin gathered the serfs on the estate to announce the policy, he encountered much protest:
“Master Marin, why are you making such a fuss over such a small matter? Everyone does it this way…”
“Yeah, yeah, other estates do it like this too, and people in the city also relieve themselves wherever they want…”
Marin was furious.
So, do you think relieving yourselves wherever you want is reasonable?
Hence, he issued a strict order:
“From now on, anyone caught defecating randomly within the residential areas of the estate will be flogged and fined one Pfennig!”
This measure caused the serfs, who were used to being sloppy, to groan in despair.
A single flogging wasn’t a big deal to them.
After all, they were used to being oppressed.
But a fine of one pfennig was a serious matter.
At this time in Germany, a common laborer in the city earned only two pfennigs a day, and a rural serf earned just one pfennig a day.
So, a fine of one pfennig essentially meant a day of work for free!
Despite their dissatisfaction, the serfs couldn’t resist.
After all, this was an age of nobles.
The status of serfs was only slightly better than that of slaves.
They had no say and could only passively accept the rule.
If they had been free citizens of higher status (most of Europe’s uprisings and revolutions were led by citizens), they might have resisted fiercely.
But as serfs, they lacked the courage to rebel.
So, the policy was implemented smoothly.
As for his own family, there was no need for new construction.
Although knights were the lowest-ranking nobles, their lifestyle was still aligned with that of the nobility, so their homes already had toilets.
Marin then designated garbage disposal areas and arranged for daily cleaning of the Hoffman family’s main residence, with all trash concentrated in the disposal area.
He also set up a garbage disposal area in the serf quarters, requiring the serfs to dispose of their trash there instead of throwing it around randomly.
Additionally, Marin instructed the workers managing the stables to shovel out the cow and horse manure daily and concentrate it with the human waste in the designated pits.
As for why he did this, Marin suddenly thought about gunpowder.
Gunpowder required saltpeter, and saltpeter was the main ingredient in gunpowder.
But Europe didn’t have saltpeter mines.
To get saltpeter, Europeans in this era either imported it from the Middle East or collected it from manure pits.
However, with the rise of the Ottoman Turks and the obstruction of land trade routes to the East, Europeans had no choice but to search for saltpeter in manure pits.
Marin had heard of making saltpeter from manure and knew some of the principles, though he wasn’t clear on the exact process.
But that wasn’t a problem.
Many people in Europe knew how to make saltpeter.
While no one in a rural estate like Hoffman Manor would know, there were certainly people in big cities who did.
Once the manure pits were set up, Marin planned to hire a city craftsman to instruct him on how to extract saltpeter.
The current price of saltpeter is not cheap.
According to Marin’s knowledge, one pound of gunpowder cost as much as ten Pfennigs, and saltpeter cost 11 Pfennigs per pound.
Of the ingredients needed for gunpowder—saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal—saltpeter was the most expensive.
The reason was that the amount of saltpeter collected from manure pits was quite limited, making its price very high.
Hoffman Manor had more than a hundred people, plus dozens of livestock, producing a large amount of manure daily.
Marin dug several long manure pits in a remote, downwind part of the estate, specifically for collecting manure to produce saltpeter.
With so many people producing so much manure, the production of saltpeter could generate a considerable income.
After solving the sanitation issue and establishing a small saltpeter production industry, Marin turned to reforming the estate’s farming tools.
First, wooden tools were eliminated.
Then, Marin introduced iron shovels from the East, making it easier for farmers to dig and loosen the soil manually.
Not only that, but Marin also actively promoted row planting and hole planting techniques.
Europeans currently used broadcasting, which resulted in shallow planting and uneven seed distribution.
Some areas were sparsely planted, while others were overly dense.
When the seeds germinated, the plants would compete for soil nutrients, and none of them would grow well.
Controlled row planting and hole planting, on the other hand, solved this problem.
Initially, Marin had planned to introduce the ancient Chinese seeder, invented during the Han Dynasty.
However, since Marin had never seen a seeder and didn’t know how to build one, for now, he could only promote manual row and hole planting.
If he ever had the chance to send someone to the East, he would definitely introduce seeders because their efficiency in planting was far superior to manual seeding.