"Even half a dozen might help," Colonel McAdam pointed out. "As I said, we're likely to be using barges to ferry supplies up river to Saxony. At least at first."
"I'll see what I can do, sir."
The colonel nodded. "Good. But you're right, half a dozen steam wagons wouldn't be enough to make much difference. Do you know how much it takes to feed, clothe and house an army?"
"I know what the books say it takes, sir," David said. "I don't know how well the books agree with the reality."
They talked requirements then, in food and equipage. The answerer to how much supplies an army consumed came out to various values of "a hell of a lot" and "even more than that," now that they wouldn't be looting the country side as they marched.
That was something that Colonel McAdam agreed was very fine and noble but also something he wasn't convinced was practical. "I mean, if the other side is living in large part off the land and we're trailing along this monstrous logistic tail . . . it's a weak point the enemy can take advantage of." It was a problem that neither of them, nor anyone else in the Third Division's S4 section, had a solution for. Not then anyway.
****
David did beg steam engines off of Adolph Schmidt, but he only got four of the things. Then he spent his days till the Third Division headed for Saxony calculating tonnages, finding barges, working with drovers and merchants to arrange for food, powder and shot. And while he was making those arrangements, he noticed that many of the people who had goods for sale also had goods they wanted to buy. Value-added manufactured goods: plow blades, steel pots and pans, nuts, bolts, bearings, screws and screwdrivers, all sorts of stuff.
This wasn't all that surprising; the factories in Magdeburg and all along the lower Elbe where it continued navigable through most of the year, were producing at a phenomenal rate . . . but it wasn't enough. The full output of all the factories in all of the Germanies weren't enough to make a dent in demand. David was thought of as someone who could get stuff. Just as McAdam had asked him about steam engines, most of the people he dealt with were hoping he could use his influence to get something.
"You don't know what it’s like, Herr Bartley," Steffan Vogel complained bitterly. "I've got lands in pasture that could be producing wheat if I had the plows-new plows. I ask about the plows and I'm told there is a nine-month wait. Nine months, Herr Bartley. And meanwhile all the peasants are running off to Magdeburg to get manufacturing jobs."
And I don't blame them a bit, David thought, not greatly impressed with Vogel. Still, the man had grain for sale in Saxony. So David was polite.
After several such interviews where people like Vogel wanted stuff instead of money, David started to think. An army carried some of its supplies with it and it carried money to buy supplies as well. Before the Ring of Fire that money was silver coins. And even now it was partly silver. Oh, they would carry American dollars, the latest incarnation of them, USE Federal Reserve Bank Notes. They would carry American dollars to pay the troops, but not everyone was convinced that American dollars were good currency. So the army would also be carrying silver coins, minted by the USE Treasury Department, of a given weight and purity. The official name for such coins was silver slugs. Because they weren’t tied to the American dollar in any way, the exchange rate between them and American dollars was whatever the precious metals market in Magdeburg said it was. Third Division would receive them as part of their contingency funds.
All of which was perfectly standard and ordinary, except people like Vogel didn't want to be paid in silver slugs any more than in American dollars. They wanted plows and nuts and bolts and, well, stuff. What if, aside from American dollars and silver slugs, the Third Division were to take plows and nuts and bolts and . . . so on, to pay for the wheat and sausage and cheese . . . and so on, the division needed?
****
"The Third Division could make a profit on the deal, sir," David told Colonel McAdam. "We would be buying the stuff at golden corridor prices, then transporting it with the division, so no tolls or duties-no bandits for that matter-then selling at outland prices."
"Golden corridor?"
"Yes, sir. The Elbe up to the rail head and the rail line up to the Ring of Fire. The prices for most finished goods are lower in the corridor than just about anywhere else in the world. Still high by up-time standards, but . . ." David shrugged. For the most part, he didn't remember up-time that well any more, certainly not up-time prices. Prices for finished goods were low in the corridor and the price of labor was high, relative to the rest of the world. That wasn't constant, just an average. And people that didn't have the production machines tended to have real trouble competing. But that was another reason why the merchants and want-to-be manufactures in places like Saxony were so desperate for nuts and bolts. "If the Third Division can bring pots and pans, nails and screws and so forth with us, the local merchants will show up begging to sell us their grain so that they can buy our pots and pans."
But Colonel McAdam clearly wasn't impressed with David's notion. He gave one of those short sharp shakes of his head. "Pots and pans weigh a lot more than silver coins and paper money weighs even less than silver. If they will come for pots and pans, they'll come for silver."
The short sharp head shake had told David that the colonel had made up his mind. So he didn't point out that they would be "buying" the silver for precisely the same price they would be "selling" it for, but the pots and pans would sell for considerably more in Saxony than they would cost in the corridor.
Colonel McAdam wouldn't sign off on the division buying trade goods to cart with them on campaign. He did agree to let David do it on his own and let David's cargo travel with the army. David rented barges and hired troops who marched into Saxony, pulling hand carts and pushing wheelbarrows full of goods.
Summer Campaign Season, 1635, Saxony
"Damn and blast it!"
"Beg pardon, sir?" David said.
"He means it, doesn't he?" Colonel McAdam snorted. "How are we going to feed the troops if the local farmers won't take their own money? And your General Stearns is . . . most insistent that we be . . . polite . . . about it all."
The local money was worthless. The American dollars were acceptable, but only barely, just at the moment. Radio informs whether the news is good or bad. The American dollar, which had started out as the New US dollar, then become the SoTF dollar, was now transmuting into the USE dollar. They were all American dollars. At least, the government in Magdeburg said they were all "American dollars." However, the process of expansion had diluted the cachet of the original American dollar sent by God with the up-timers. Silver was preferred in Saxony at the moment and Third Division, the whole army in fact, hadn't brought enough.
"It's not helping that the USE dollar has been losing ground against the Dutch guilder for the last few months," David muttered. "Not all that badly, true, but it's got the Fed worried. Sarah said Coleman Walker is pitching a fit."
"Well, the locals aren't exactly snapping up our new American dollars with gay abandon," Colonel McAdam sneered. "They took the old well enough, but not the new. And don't even talk to them about the government chits, not without a sword in your hand. In the whole squad's hands, rather. I tried to talk to the general about this. Tried to tell him. But still!"
General Stearns had almost, but not quite completely, forbidden the use of sword point to persuade the locals to take the chits.
David went back to his office, frustrated. Colonel McAdam wasn't the world's best listener. David had actual material goods, real stuff that could be put to use. Sewing machines, the parts to make drop forges, batteries, rayon thread, all sorts of stuff. All in his own little supply train that Colonel McAdam didn't want to hear about, much less discuss. So the same merchants and farmers who were hiding their goods from the supply corps in general, were seeking David out and selling their grain and anything else they could think of before the rest of the army's supply division caught them with it and forced them to sell it for government chits which might or might not ever be worth anything.