Chapter 202 Year-end 2
Chapter 202: End of the Year 2
“My lord, this year’s we integrated a total of thirteen thousand hectares of arable land, which includes ten thousand hectares in Arda and three thousand hectares in Bairdin. Next year we will speed up our progress and plan to continue using two to three years to integrate the remaining sixty thousand hectares in the two areas.”
In the hall of the castle, Minister of Agriculture Hansel is reporting on the results of his work.
The so-called consolidation of arable land is to cobble together the scattered small pieces of arable land in the homes of squires and landowners from all over the world into one large piece of arable land through replacement and transfer, and this large piece of arable land is operated by only one family.
Alternatively, the small plots of cultivated land held by homesteaders could be linked together and intensively managed and guided by the newly established farmers’ associations, for example, by collecting funds from each household to carry out some public affairs.
By establishing one big farm after another in this way, the landlords would be willing to shell out money to build large-scale water conservancy and pave roads and bridges on large tracts of arable land belonging to them only, without having to worry about being the wrongdoer and spending a large sum of money and then cheapening it for their neighbors.
“So slow?”
Paul slapped the table, he thought it would be done in half a year, but he didn’t realize that it would still take years.
Obviously, His Lordship was quite dissatisfied with the progress of the Ministry of Agriculture’s work.
“Uh …… Lord Gleeman please listen to my explanation ……”
Hansel embarrassedly started to complain to Paul.
“The work in this area is not good! Whether it’s the landowners or the farmers, they are all afraid of suffering a tiny bit of loss in the land exchange, but they are also mindful of how to take advantage of a little bit of cheapness, there are landowners and landowners for this to collude, farmers and farmers for this to fight and brawl, and even a whole village between whole villages of large-scale armed fights, all of these are things that we often encounter.”
“And we are short of manpower, we can only go village by village to carry out the work of land replacement, I hope that in the coming year we can be assigned more affairs officers.”
Paul was indignant, “Why are these people so devoid of the big picture, isn’t it just a few meters of land, a little more or a little less?”
“Ho ho ho, Lord Lord, let alone a few square meters, even a few inches less is like killing them. And the quality of cultivated land varies from place to place, which makes it even more difficult to know how to measure it.”
“Well, anyway, you guys work harder, and try to get it done for me next year!”
Hansel pulled out a handkerchief to wipe off his sweat.
“This …… we will try our best ……”
Paul asked again, “How’s the promotion of the new farming techniques going?”
“This is going well, the farmers’ associations around the country have already introduced the crop rotation system to the villages and towns, and the landowners have responded that they will start experimenting next year. But the homesteaders are not so enthusiastic, after all, their land is small and they always need to grow crops that can be eaten to produce a family’s rations.”
“These small households won’t have to be forced, and when grain production increases up and they have the money to buy rations from the market, they’ll naturally have the guts to experiment as well.”
“Yes, Lord Lord.”
Hansel continued to report, “Thanks to the promotion of the harvester, everyone has surplus labor to open up new arable land, and next year we estimate that the arable land area will increase by about one-sixth, including both Alda and Bairdin.”
Paul nodded his head in satisfaction, “That’s good, but the new arable land must follow the large farm model as well.”
“This is natural, Lord Lord, we will strictly monitor it.”
……
After the most concerned agricultural matters were reported, Paul went on to listen to matters of commerce, finance, immigration, and military.
Overall, the situation was still satisfactory to him. Since the introduction of a series of measures to support business, Arda and Bairdine two places built a total of twenty-three various types of factories, the production of canned goods, paper, porcelain and salt and other items.
Now the commodities of the two places have already begun to be marketed in the northwestern territories, and a small amount of them have even been sold to the vicinity of Jingyao.
Paul believes that when the southern route is completely opened, the trade growth will be more rapid, and without layers of tariffs, the profit will be greater.
When the profit is high, more businessmen will be attracted to invest and build factories.
Thanks to the establishment of various private factories and the sale of various new commodities, this year the tax revenue of the Council of State reached 23,000 silver coins, while the income of the Greiman family’s industry reached 25,000 silver coins, adding up to nearly 50,000 silver coins in total.
After all the expenses, there is still a surplus of 10,000 silver coins.
“Spend it! Spend it all! Next year I want the surplus to be no more than two thousand silver coins!”
Paul waved his hand and spoke words that dazzled the men of the Council of State.
“Only when you make the coins flow can it be considered wealth, otherwise it’s just a pile of metal lying around eating dust!”
“I suddenly thought of an idea, why don’t we invest more money in education next year, with such a lack of talent in the territory, it’s always good to invest in education.”
This idea was echoed by everyone, especially the female advisor, Miss Diaz, who was particularly attached to the Vis Academy.
In terms of immigration, so far the Council of State has received a total of fifteen hundred and sixty-three refugees, most of these people are rich and strong men and women, those who are too old or too small basically can’t hold on to the Northwest Bay.
Most of them have been placed in the various newly opened factories.
“More refugees will arrive tomorrow.”
Hansel said to the crowd.
“Now that the matter that Count Alda’s collar is recruiting immigrants has spread in all directions, the refugees will automatically gather towards us. In addition to the rebel areas in the south, those in the northeastern belt who suffered from orc looting will also come running to our side.”
After the people from the Council of State had finished reporting, the military led by Schroeder began to report on the military side.
The size of the army hadn’t expanded much, but there had been great progress in weaponry.
On the army side, with the successful development of the flintlock musket, small production has begun, and the first battalion of the army has been given the task of testing the equipment.
The navy, on the other hand, was the major contributor to military spending, taking over three new sailing warships this year, with another three under construction according to Austin’s six-six-six plan.
However, the Admiral was still not satisfied with this batch of ships, in order to be able to equip them as soon as possible, a lot of wood has not been sufficiently dried, which makes this batch of sail battleships doomed to not have a long service life.
Therefore, he proposed that the construction of the next batch of warships must follow the formal process, so that the wood is fully dried to create a batch of qualified warships.
“Austin, my next plan is to develop civilian merchant ships and sell a merchants to go south for business. But as you know, the shipyard’s capacity is limited.”
Paul’s sentence depressed the Navy Commander to the core.
(End of chapter)