Chapter 167 Tax Controller’s System

Chapter 167 – Tax Container System

The small argument that took place in the meeting was sort of over, and the crowd continued to discuss other issues.

“So, Hansel, is the kingdom’s army interested in our canned goods, salt and such?”

“Uh…… Lord, because of time constraints, I merely contacted the quartermaster under Her Highness the Grand Princess, but from his attitude, canned goods are very much in line with their needs.”

“How many canned goods can they buy?”

“It wasn’t talked about in such detail at the time, but with about 8,000 people under Her Highness’ command, the demand should be very high.”

Paul asked, a little puzzled, “What did you mean when you said earlier that you had only approached the quartermaster of Her Highness the Grand Princess?”

Hansel explained, “Not all of the troops that are still stationed in Jingyao are under the direct command of Her Highness, but the troops under the command of the various generals are solving the quartermaster problem alone.”

Paul understood, although these armies were all loyal to the same object, but the soldiers were owned by the generals and there was no unified logistic system, which was only common in the armies of the old times.

“So we have to talk to those generals one by one.”

“Lord Gleeman, I have a proposal, please organize a trip for merchants and factory owners to the royal capital and let them find their own sales.”

“A trade delegation?”

“A trade delegation? Good name. Organized in the name of the lord’s house, I think the merchants and factory owners will participate enthusiastically, after all, it’s very good to do business under the banner of a noble.”

Paul was very much in favor of this proposal, and he nodded his head continuously.

“This is a good idea, we should cultivate the ‘wolf nature’ of these merchants, and let them find their own opportunities and fight on their own, otherwise the left and the right will definitely not be able to become anything great.”

Hansel concurred, “Your honor’s high opinion.”

Paul slapped the table, “Good, this matter will be left to you, the ‘head of agriculture’, haha! Oh, in addition to canned goods, like porcelain, paper, the merchants who make these things also bring more, when the sea route is opened, we directly ship to the south to sell, do not need to let the traffickers to scrape another layer of oil.”

Hansel rubbed his right hand on his chest and assured Paul, “I will start organizing this matter right away.”

“But ……” Hansel then threw out a question, “Can our production keep up?”

“I visited several factory owners in Lakewood when I got back, not just canners, but also paper makers and porcelain factories, all of which are popular products, and according to them, production capacity is already stretched just to cope with the current orders.”

“That’s a problem, so I’m going to have these new arrivals find work in the factories instead of farming in the fields. You’ll have to notify the factory owners in both Arda and Bairdine to go out to the refugee population and recruit people. I don’t want to keep these refugees for nothing, I need to get them working and creating value.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Paul suddenly had a plan in mind, he looked around the crowd and said, “Gentlemen, in order to alleviate the problem of insufficient production capacity, I have another idea – to exempt a group of serfs in the Greiman family from slavery. I’m thinking about it like this, with the use of machinery such as ‘harvesters’ and other machinery, with the existing cultivated area in the family, it won’t be necessary to use that much manpower, so why don’t we just exempt them from slavery and let them freely choose their own jobs to support themselves, and in the meantime, alleviate the problem of the shortage of laborers in the factories.”

This is reasonable, the crowd did not express any objection, and then again this is the lord’s own property, do not bother others to talk.

“Not only that, I’m going to issue a decree to encourage those landowners and squires to take the initiative to release the serfs in their families to work as laborers, and then take the initiative to take the money out of their families to invest in various new industries.”

For a moment there was silence, and seeing that the room full of people were about to freeze, Paul immediately added:

“Of course, just encouragement, just encouragement, just encouragement, just encouragement, say the important things three times. I don’t intend to set any specific goals or targets, lest the affairs officers underneath take the chicken feather as an arrow, and infest the place in order to claim credit and reward.”

The crowd then slowed down, and Paul breathed a light sigh of relief and continued, “For those who take the initiative to release their serfs or go and invest in new industries, I will give certain reductions in taxes.”

Chief Ford twirled his mustache and said, “Supplementing the labor force of the factories by releasing the serfs, this idea is quite good. But I’m afraid that your efforts to facilitate this through tax reductions will not be very effective.”

Paul wondered, “Why?”

Chief Ford explained, “Because those landowners and squires …… who own a large number of serfs are often the ‘tax wrappers’ in their own villages?”

“‘Tax-packers’? What does that mean?”

“Uh …… the so-called tax wrapper, is the meaning of tax contractor, the lord entrusted a certain local head man, let him be responsible for collecting all kinds of taxes in this place, and set a certain amount of money index, the tax wrapper must fulfill this amount of money index, if not satisfied, he has to use his own property to to make up for it, and then pay up the amount of taxes that the lord wants, and correspondingly, if the taxes collected exceeds the size of the amount set by the lord, then the remaining purse-taxers can stay and use it as their own honorarium.”

Chief Steward Ford pointed out the reason why Paul’s policy was not very effective: “It is actually up to the purse tax collectors themselves to decide how much to collect, and the more they collect, the more they leave behind. Think how much temptation there can be for them to collect less tax on their own homes.”

Paul bounced up from his seat in a flash, “Is that how we collect taxes in all our territories?”

Chief Steward Ford was taken aback by the Earl’s reaction, “In lord’s quarters like Lakeheart and large towns like Port Fullan, the lord’s house sends out tax collectors directly to collect taxes, but in most of the countryside areas, the taxes are contracted out to the local squires.”

He wondered, hadn’t everyone been doing this for thousands of years? Why did the lord react so violently? It seemed like they were very upset.

Little did he know that 10,000 alpacas were running through Paul’s mind right now, not to the old chief steward himself of course, but to this fucked up tax system.

It turns out that he didn’t know that there was such a thing, and if he couldn’t fulfill the tax target, he would use his own money to make up for it? Don’t be kidding, those landlords old money can have this realization? Even if there is this awareness of the old was eliminated by history.

Paul with the ass can figure out, this so-called tax man must be under the banner of the lord, desperately exploiting the peasants underneath, after taking out a sum of money to cope with the lord’s house of the errand, the rest of the money through to their own pockets.

His Excellency was heartbroken, partly for the peasants who had been overcharged and kept in the dark, but even more so because the overcharged money didn’t reach his own pocket.

Paul announced, “I want to immediately issue a decree to abolish the system of tax wrappers, and in the future, the Council of State will send people directly to the countryside to collect taxes!”

Old Ford panicked and stood up, waving his hands repeatedly and said, “Please think deeply, Mr. Count!”

“Huh? Why? Didn’t I give them the power to collect taxes? Couldn’t I take it back?”

“Uh …… that’s true in theory, but ……” Chief Steward Ford thought about what he should say, and slowly opened his mouth to advise, “Many of the tax packers have been passed down from generation to generation, and they have held this power in villages all over for a long time before the Gleiman family was ordained to this place. If you act rashly, it may …… may cause …… local unrest. One or two is not afraid, it is afraid that they will unite to cause trouble.”

Hearing the words of the old chief, Paul is very depressed, this is not a bunch of snakes, their own this “strong dragon” still can not pressure them?
Bryce, the army battalion commander, rose up and said, “Count, the first battalion of the army is always ready for your dispatch. You can rest assured and boldly take back the power of the tax collectors from the gang, if anyone dares to disobey the order, the army will definitely take him out and execute him with cannons.”

The navy had made a great show of itself in the preceding days by destroying pirates of all kinds, and this made Bryce, the big man of the army, very unhappy, and at once he saw an opportunity to jump out and ask for war.

Paul nodded to Bryce with relief, fortunately the army was on his side.

However, he still held out his hand to signal Bryce to sit down first, and asked Chief Ford, “Is this type of tax collection common?”

The old Chief Steward replied, “Yes, it is an unwritten system that has existed since the time of the Ancient Bella Empire, and it is still used by the lords of most countries, oh …… the city states along the Horned Cove may not do so.”

“I’m puzzled as to which noble invented this odd way of collecting taxes.”

The old chief steward actually didn’t understand why the lord lord felt it was odd, in his opinion it was all normal, but he still answered:

“There are various reasons for the formation of the tax-packing system, some are when a new lord is new to the area and must rely on the local headmen to support his rule, the tax-packing system is considered a kind of cooperation, some are when the lord is profligate, owes a large amount of debt or is in dire need of borrowing, and has to use the right to collect taxes to pay off the debt or mortgage.”

Paul thought glumly in his heart, “It looks like strengthening centralization is the way to go. Hmmm! A serfdom system and a tax-packing system, two big mountains over my head, ah, just, I’ll put up with it for a while, and later on, when the gunbar is harder, I’ll slowly pack them up.”

He waved his hand feebly, “Alright, then I won’t toss anything for now. That decree encouraging the release of serfs still needs to be enacted though, something is better than nothing. Chief Steward Ford, while Miss Lardy is away, you’ll draft one for me.”

“Yes, Lord Earl.”

Chief Steward Ford secretly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, fortunately Lord Lord didn’t mess around.

In fact, as the Chief Steward of Government, he was also happy to see the abolition of the tax wrapper system, with the Council of Government being uniformly in charge of direct taxation within the territory, but this matter had to be taken slowly, and could not be rushed.

“Right, gentlemen!”

Paul suddenly thought of something and asked the crowd, “Many of you here have a lot of fields and serfs in your family, right?”

The crowd looked at each other and admitted, “Uh …… yes, Lords.”

Many of them, such as Ford, Bryce, Cecil, and many other heads of the Council of State, belonged to the “landowning class”, and naturally owned many serfs.

All people heart a nervous, could it be that the Lord wants to let himself set an example?
Paul made a harrumph, waved his hand and said: “Don’t be nervous, I won’t force you to let go of your serfs.”

The crowd then put their hearts down.

“However, if you guys intend to take the initiative to release the serfs, it can be more than just a little tax reduction and forget about it, after all, after serving in the Greiman family for so many years, the rewards you’ll receive will be much more.”

Everyone’s eyes lit up, who would go against profit.

Paul raised his voice and said, “I declare! Anyone who serves me and takes the initiative to release their family’s serfs will be able to obtain a corresponding percentage of shares from the Gladman family name’s industries.”

Oooh! The people in the room were all of a sudden enthusiastic.

The high profits of those factories established by Lord Earl were there for all to see, and with his current financial resources (including taxes) he could even afford to support a standing army of more than 2,000 people, which was unimaginable in the past, and successive generations of House Masters of the Greiman Family would surely drop their own jaws when they saw it.

Now, Lord Earl was actually going to share a portion of his shares with them? This was simply a good thing that fell from the sky.

Although this needed to be exchanged by freeing the serfs, they had heard Paul talk about the kind of farm model he was promoting – farming by hiring ‘agricultural workers’.

That is to say, after releasing the serfs, and then spending a little money to hire some people, their own land can still continue to grow, but from the count’s factory to obtain a large amount of income.

I just don’t know how much the “corresponding proportion of shares” in the population will be.

Seeing everyone’s eager eyes, Paul revealed a satisfied smile.

“Everyone go back and think about it first, if you have the intention, come to me.”

Indeed need to think about it, including himself, he has to find some time to think about it, how many shares correspond to how many serfs, if the price is too big then self will also be meat pain.

Anyway, the meeting continued in a lively atmosphere.

Hansel stood up and said, “Your Excellency, I have another proposal. According to the information I searched in the royal capital, the kingdom’s main army will be heading south to quell the rebellion at the beginning of spring next year.”

“Hm, so what is your proposal?”

“Once they start fighting, their demand for iron – and furthermore, for weapons – will surely skyrocket, so shouldn’t we seize this opportunity as well?”

Paul had mentioned to him before about increasing the output of iron and steel, but lately it seemed like there was nothing planned in terms of that, but it was always on Hansel’s mind, it was a matter of his future.

Paul also remembered his previous plan: “You’re right, with the iron ore mine in Beierding, we can indeed start to increase the production of steel. But manpower in this area is also a problem.”

Hansel proposed, “Then how about I write to the offices stationed in the royal capital and ask them to focus on recruiting blacksmiths and miners?”

Paul agreed, “That’s fine, and we’ll need to adopt new smelting techniques.”

New smelting technology, he suddenly had quite a few ideas in his mind.

Written in too much of a hurry, I feel like this chapter reads a bit astringent, so everyone will read it. o(*￣3￣)o

(End of chapter)