A closer look
You don't need a standing army to conquer Europe if you completely control the local supply of fish preservatives. During the Middle Ages, Catholic dietary laws required people to eat fish instead of meat on Fridays and during Lent. The Hanseatic League recognized that whoever controlled the salt controlled the literal survival of millions. They established the Old Salt Route to cart white gold from the inland springs of Lüneburg straight to their heavily armed trading galleons in Lübeck. They strangled kings and bankrupted nations purely by withholding the sodium required to stop their herring from rotting.
