Chapter 354： Manor Banquet II

"Lord Fergus? What are you in a daze for?"

Other people's shouts interrupted Fergus' thinking. He looked up and saw that it was a person sitting opposite him who was calling him.

Northwestern Rao's style is so rough, even for a wealthy family.

"Haha, Master Shanke, I just heard about last year's war, and I'm ashamed to think that I, Greyman's retainer, didn't serve under the earl's command."

"So that's what's going on, Lord Fergus doesn't need to think so."

Lord Warren, who was seated at the head of the table, raised his wine glass to comfort him, "I heard that Earl Greiman did not summon any other knights at home, except for the gentlemen who are still serving as officers in the army. There are thousands of soldiers raised and drilled every day. I think even His Majesty’s army is no more than that? With these soldiers charging into battle, do you still need to trouble a master like you? Isn’t that a sledgehammer?”

After hearing Master Warren's description, everyone at the banquet burst into laughter. In this era, knights are the decisive winners on the battlefield, but everyone seems to have not considered that as the enemy, the Kent family will almost certainly send their knights to the battlefield, they can only get carried away in the great victory and glory.

The person who was talking to Fergus just now was called Shan Ke, smacking his tongue: "There are thousands of soldiers raised, I really don't know how Lord Graeman can afford it, even with Bairdin and Eddie Muden's taxation is also very difficult!"

A person next to him said: "With food, you can raise as many soldiers as you want. Think about it, everyone, not Bairdin and Emden, just us Arda, when Lord Bigleyman first sat on the lord's seat How much new farmland has been opened?"

This sentence caused everyone at the banquet to talk about it.

"I guess it's twice as much, right? I bought harvesters, soil crushers, threshers and other machinery from the Huxin Town Machinery Factory. Who doesn't want to grow more crops. Praise Lord Graeman, he invented these Great machinery."

"The farmland has increased, and the crop rotation system has also been promoted. The output of this field has increased a lot compared to two years ago."

"In the past two years, a lot of water conservancy has been repaired."

"Iron farm tools are also cheaper, such as sickles, hoes, forks, shovels, etc., especially iron plows. If they don't work, I won't be afraid of your jokes. A few years ago, the farm tools I used there were all made of wood. It always feels like It's strange, the iron in our Arda has become very cheap recently, the shops in the town are full of ironware, and it doesn't cost much to buy it."

Hearing this sentence, Fergus couldn't help laughing. Now the manors are almost self-contained and self-sufficient. These landlords stay at home and drink the wine they brew and eat the grain grown in their own fields. They wear the cloth woven by their own servants, and rarely deal with the outside world. Only when they need to use things that they cannot produce, will they go to the town or city to buy them. In terms of knowledge, they are not much more than the farmers under their hands. .

It is estimated that most of the people in this room don’t know that Earl Greiman has used new technology to build several ironworks. Arda has one, Belding also has one, and even Emden, which has recently taken over, is also intensively exploring for ore veins. , inspecting water conservancy, and preparing to build a new iron factory.

Now Arda-Bailding has monopolized the supply of ironware in almost half of the territory in the Northwest Gulf. The traditional ironmaking methods are vulnerable to the impact of new technologies. Those folk mine owners and ironworks have gone bankrupt. Their original workers A large number of people moved to Arda or Bardin to make a living. Many lords who also opened mines relied on raising tariffs or directly imposing a ban to barely keep Arda's ironware out of the door. Why reluctantly? Because there is still smuggling. In this era, smuggling is simply an unstoppable phenomenon.

The host of the banquet, Master Warren, raised his glass and said with great admiration, "In previous years, a lot of people would have died of freezing and starvation in any winter. Although there were some in this winter, the number of deaths has decreased. This is all due to Lord Graeman's governance Well done."

Someone suggested: "Let's toast Earl Greiman again!"

"To Earl Greiman!" Everyone echoed, raising their cups and drinking in one gulp.

Everyone at the banquet has already drank a lot of wine. Although the alcohol content is not high, there is a lot of it.

A man with a drunken face shook his glass, his body crooked: "As for our current lord, here is good, there is good, but there is one thing that is not good."

Fergus frowned after hearing this, and said to the man: "Eldor, you are drunk."

The man named Eldo shook his head vigorously, and laughed a few times, "Master Fergus, I don't mean to criticize the lord. I support Lord Greiman a hundred times. I wish him a long life." .But... people will complain a few times, just think I'm talking nonsense after drinking."

Seeing that everyone in the room was looking at him, he continued on his own: "It's not good to be merciful to Graeman, but it's too indulgent to those businessmen who have fallen into the pile of money and can't get out."

Someone asked: "Master Eldo, what does this mean?"

Eldo shook his head and replied: "It's not right for Lord Graeman to connive, but we can't blame our lord, but those businessmen relying on the lord's attention to do illegal things. This happened a month ago." Yes, there are a few farmers who escaped from my manor and ran to Fulan Port, I took people to find them, and found them working in the salt field."

"and then?"

Eldo sneered, "Of course they were tied back. The leader was beaten to death to show the public, and the others were also punished severely, so that they could see the fate of running around."

Most of the farmers in the Northwest Gulf and even the Aldo Kingdom have no personal freedom and cannot leave their villages without authorization. They are ruled by the owners of their land, that is, landlords or manor owners. The official title of [serf], but their situation is indeed no different from that of serfs.

This serf system is a remnant of the ancient slave system. With the development of the times, especially the intervention of the church, the living conditions of the serfs have improved. They can have their own houses instead of being crowded in shacks like animals. Find your favorite spouse to marry and be blessed by the church. They can even have their own meager savings to pass on to the next generation.

Of course, all of the above is on the premise of not violating the interests of local landlords. Landlords can trade serfs on their land with other landlords. And if the serf fled without authorization, the landlord also had the right to arrest him and punish him.

But the current serfs have a [benefit], each village or manor will have a piece of [public land], and the harvest from the public land will be shared equally among the serfs.

"But what I want is - the owner of the saltworks - what's his name - hiccup - what's Godwin's name, he actually stopped me from taking people, why those muddy legs have already signed a contract with him, I'll go to his uncle!"

"Eldor, what did you do afterwards? How did people want to come back?"

Eldo blushed and looked very excited, "I was too lazy to argue with him at the time, so I sent people back to the manor and called a large number of people, directly smashed his salt field, and snatched people out. Unexpectedly, this idiot still I don't know what to do, but I reported it to the mayor, Theodore."

Ferguson frowned, and asked, "How did Mayor Theodore deal with it?"

Eldo smiled, "How else can I deal with it? I'm the one to be right, but Godwin just recruited him into the factory casually without looking at who he is. It's ridiculous that that guy is still talking about it in front of the mayor. Personal freedom, hahaha!"

The crowd also roared with laughter.

Shank patted or laughed: "I think that Godwin was fooled by Dean Morrison's preaching team!"

Morrison is the priest Paul met when he eliminated the pirate shark gang entrenched in Port Fullland, and promised to help him hide the disgraceful experience of being forced to join the pirate gang, and stay with Paul as a priest accompanying the army, and engage in some "ideological" aspects After Father Anderson succeeded his teacher as the dean of the North Shore Abbey, Paul arranged for Morrison to "help" him. Father Anderson, who was obsessed with research all day long, pushed the major affairs of the abbey to Morrison. Gradually, it was Morrison who was called the Dean instead.

Under Paul's instruction, Morrison organized several preaching teams to go to the countryside in the name of the church to criticize the serfdom, but the effect...

"The preaching team came to my land not long ago and left in a hurry! Don't talk about the good scriptures What about **** equality, mud legs still have farm work to do , who has the time to listen to their nonsense! No matter how they understand it!"

"It's the same in my place. These people really don't know what to do, and they just engage in some heresy."

Listening to the discussion at the banquet, Varun snorted, "We work with our brains, farmers work with their bodies, and those who work with their brains rule over those who work with their bodies. This has been the rule since ancient times. The truth has not changed even in the thousands of years since the establishment of the church that shouted the slogan of equality."

Someone next to him immediately echoed him: "That's right, the elm-like heads of the mud-legged people can't even work hard, and they can't do school without supervision, and the nobles are extremely noble, how can we let them take care of these things in the field by themselves?" For messy things, it is natural for us to act as agents to manage the farmers well.”

A group of people shouted.

"These businessmen in Fulan Harbor have made a lot of bad money in the past two years, and dare to put on airs in front of us."

"I think they were taken away by their counterparts at Jiaowan!"

"A bunch of vampires!"

…

The topic of discussion at the banquet gradually turned to scolding the businessman, Fergus shook his head, he just wanted to drink quietly, how did it become like this.

Steel, guns and the industrial party across the world ww.13168/