RPAGF #172 - Come back soon, the city is dividing the land
#172 - Come back soon, the city is dividing the land
"Quick, hurry! They're distributing land in the city!"
"Really distributing, Brother?"
"Yes, indeed!" A farmer in short clothes beamed, shaking a land deed at his friend. "Not only that, but all refugees and public farmers can be upgraded to armed farmers!"
"I'm going right away!"
"Don't rush. Let's find a traveling priest first and gather everyone listed in the household register and those receiving land."
Originally, the nearby farmers were afraid to go after hearing about the Blueblood incident and the Duke's beheading. Especially after the fleeing villagers returned, saying that Jeanne d'Arc Fortress was a bloodbath, they were even more afraid.
But hearing that land was actually being distributed was a different story.
Outside Jeanne d'Arc Fortress, a long convoy carried the first group of people, totaling five thousand, in batches towards the Wild Spider Forest.
Along the road, the corpses of people like Zandpek, Danner, and Bulville were hung in a row, allowing passing refugees and citizens to mutilate them, with signs like 'Devil,' 'Fiend,' and 'Demon' hanging on their bodies.
Parallel to the convoy, refugees from nearby villages were lined up, walking in the opposite direction towards the gallows outside the city.
The pale light of the cloudy day shone obliquely on the monks' Mediterranean tonsures, like matte paint.
Nearly a hundred monks, accountants, and notaries were sweating profusely, rapidly copying and transcribing new land deeds, while a dozen holy musketeers stood guard behind them.
These land deeds were hastily engraved and printed last night. After the printing industry oligopoly was invited by the Cheka to eat radishes in the West Ice Cellar, the printers immediately became more cooperative.
The printing workers carved out the standard land deed printing plates overnight, or rather, modified the original standard land deeds and printed a large number of them overnight.
Now, the task of the monks and accountants was to verify the identity and share of the land recipients based on the household register and taxes, and then sign and put their fingerprints on the deeds.
This was the instruction Horn gave yesterday. Before leaving, with two days to spare besides buying supplies, he might as well distribute the land.
Horn did not simply divide the land equally, otherwise, if some unproductive people fraudulently claimed land and then acted as middlemen or squeezed other farmers, it would not be good.
He adopted the 'land to the tiller' policy, which was thanks to the Church.
Although those refugees were not from Jeanne d'Arc Fortress, the Church treated everyone equally. As long as you cultivated the land, whether you were human or dog, you had to pay taxes.
The Duke's properties outside the city mostly existed in the form of manors, with wages paid mainly in currency and supplemented by grain.
Because currency taxes were easier to calculate, it was clear in the household register who cultivated which fields and how much tax they needed to pay.
Horn did not give them more land, but transferred the ownership of the land to the actual cultivators, turning the hired farmers into the actual owners of the land.
That is, they went from working for the lord to working for themselves.
In the Church and Duke's properties, there were private fields and public fields.
Private fields were where the Duke leased the land to farmers, collecting currency or in-kind rent from the farmers according to the area cultivated, and the remaining harvest after taxes belonged to the farmers themselves.
Public fields were where farmers in the territory were obliged to work on the public fields, and all the output of the fields belonged to the lord, which was a form of labor rent.
Horn's land distribution actually only distributed private fields, while the public fields, which accounted for more than one-third of the total land, had not yet been distributed.
The first batch of private fields was given to Salvation Army members. Even if you came first, Salvation Army members had to be processed first before it was your turn.
In addition to priority in land distribution, the families of Salvation Army members who died in battle would also receive an additional twenty acres of public land and 5 gold pounds.
Like the people who died in battle in the old camp and the land that Horn had previously claimed to remotely control, all the land was distributed properly. The household register and land deeds did not record them as armed farmers or public farmers, but as fellow clergy.
You should know that clergy have some tax exemption privileges. Fellow clergy enjoy the same status as clergy and can be exempt from land tax on up to forty acres of land.
"If only I had made up my mind to go last night," a farmer said regretfully to his companion. "If I could become a fellow clergyman, I wouldn't even dare to imagine how good life would be."
"Aren't you afraid that the Edict Legion will come to kill us?"
"What's there to be afraid of? Didn't you hear Bishop Richelieu say? Duchess Herma Stone wrote a letter to protect us. As long as the Salvation Army leaves, they won't do anything to us."
"Then you still want to go with the Salvation Army?"
"Tsk, guess how much the Salvation Army soldiers are paid?"
"I don't know, 2 dinars a week?"
"2 dinars a week? 4 dinars a day! The Salvation Army's official Edict Legion gets 1 gold pound a month, which is more than a craftsman earns. Can you earn a gold pound a year by farming hard?"
"Is that so?" An armed farmer who had been eavesdropping while squatting on the ground now stood up.
You should know that the average price in the Imperial mercenary market is about half a dinar to two dinars per day for an infantryman.
The salary that Horn paid to the Salvation Army's official Edict Legion was 2-4 times the normal mercenary price!
After killing the Duke and defeating the Church, because the waterway was blocked, the Duke and Church's taxes were not transported away, and Horn now has nearly 50,000 gold pounds.
This was even after spending a lot of money to buy various supplies.
According to the future New Army of 6,000 people, three months would be 18,000 gold pounds, which Horn could afford.
"Can I go?" The armed farmer asked anxiously.
The farmer said sadly, "Only the Salvation Army can go. After killing the Duke the day before yesterday, they spent a whole day registering members. If you're not on the list, you won't have a chance."
"If only I had gone to kill the Duke."
"You have the guts."
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"How can I not?" The farmer gritted his teeth and looked at the Duke who was being hung up. "What wrong have we done to be treated like this by him?"
"In the world, which nobleman isn't like this? What Saint Sun said wasn't wrong, nobles are indeed devils."
"Say less."
"If I hadn't overslept last night, I would have…"
"You overslept my ass, didn't you run away halfway with the excuse of needing to pee?"
"As if you didn't run."
No longer speaking more with these refugee public farmers, the armed farmer shouted towards Armand, who was preaching Saint Sun's words on the gallows, "Bishop Richelieu, how do we contract the public fields?"
Taking advantage of the power vacuum during the handover between the Salvation Army and the Edict Legion, these armed farmers also wanted to take advantage of the Salvation Army not understanding the ropes to fish in troubled waters and gain more benefits.
"The public fields will not be contracted out in the future. We will send direct personnel to manage them. Don't think about playing tricks, we will be back soon," Armand said bluntly, not caring about the ugly faces of those armed farmers.
"Believers, you are lucky to be able to distribute private fields. Once we all leave tomorrow, there will be no more distribution," Armand shouted in a hoarse voice, standing in front of the gallows.
Someone in the crowd shouted, "Bishop Richelieu, but aren't these the Church and Duke's properties? Is it okay to just give them to us like this?"
"Wrong! These are not the Duke's properties. The Duke is a devil, and his properties are ill-gotten gains. We have killed the devil, and all the ill-gotten gains belong to us. Isn't this a normal thing?"
Armand said righteously, "And the Church is even simpler. Bulville is also a devil.
Our Saint Sun is the son of Messala, so the Church's property is managed by servants on behalf of the master. What's wrong with our Saint Sun managing it directly?
As for giving it to you, that's only natural, because according to the Saint Treasury system, everyone should cultivate the fields together.
Things can't be so perfect. We don't guarantee that all of you will cultivate the fields together, but I can at least guarantee that most people will have enough to eat.
Don't you want a good lord? Well, now all the land belongs to Saint Lord Messala, and your direct lord is Messala. Isn't that good?"
"Ah?" A pensive expression appeared on the faces of those farmers, but after thinking carefully about Armand's words, it didn't seem to be wrong.
This Saint Sun's words made some sense. Everyone was Messala's direct hired farmers, and the knights had no reason to deprive them.
An imperceptible smile appeared on Armand's face. Under this ambiguous acknowledgement, some cognition was actually beginning to change imperceptibly.
"The public fields will be operated as collective farms by internal members of the Salvation Army. We in the Salvation Army will use the income from the public fields as funding for hospitals, schools, and charity homes.
All members of the Salvation Army can enjoy low-cost treatment and purchase low-cost medicines in hospitals, the children of soldiers can enter schools to study without tuition fees, and charity homes will be open to widowed elderly and orphans…"
Looking at the expressions of the villagers, Armand continued to draw a big cake according to the instructions Horn gave him.
"We will abolish the distinction between armed farmers and public farmers, abolish the shield tax and military service of armed farmers, and abolish the 'Fugitive Slave Act' and the 'Labor Law'. Believe us, the good days are yet to come!"