Chapter 562 Punishment

Chapter 562 Punishment
“The new village management body – I’ve decided to call it the Village Management Committee, instead of the previous Farming Society, it has to manage every aspect of the village, things like household registration, public affairs, disaster preparedness and famine preparedness, and even wedding and funeral ceremonies, and mediation of conflicts between neighbors, all of these things are all the All these things are the responsibility of the village committee. Of course, this is not something that one person can do, so it is necessary to form a committee.”

Paul talked freely about his grassroots governance policy.

“And it will also represent me, an extension of my mouth, eyes and ears, able to quickly, resolutely and forcefully communicate the spirit and will from Lakewood, as well as to quickly feed back to Lakewood all sorts of things that are going on in the village, truthfully and originally.”

It had to be said that this was very idealistic, and could even be said to be a bit of bullshit, Paul’s vision was impossible to realize in the twenty-first century Earth, let alone in this world that had not yet completely come out of the Middle Ages, the sky was the limit. But it is always right to work in this direction, always have to take the first step.

As Paul had just said, the functions of the village council could not be taken up by just one or two clerks, Old Ford frowned tightly after hearing this, “Lord Graiman, this will surely greatly increase our administrative costs.”

“Then expand our administrative staff.”

“Uh …… finances.”

“Failing that, issue bonds!”

Paul yelled, “Our revenues have been growing anyway! And I believe that with this reform, our economy will be more vibrant and healthier – by unleashing the productivity and spending power of the countryside.”

Paul continued eloquently, “To tell you the truth, according to me, our countryside is extremely dysfunctional. Yes, we haven’t had de jure slaves for almost a thousand years, but all sorts of irrational rules and regulations have kept de facto slavery alive. I think we all know the truth about that.”

“The powerful families in those villages – most typically the Valens in this rebellion, ah, and this Fergus fellow – who occupy vast fields, whose wealth is passed on cumulatively, and who have held for generations the tax-collecting They possess vast fields, have accumulated wealth, and have held the power to collect taxes for generations, set penalties according to their own will, and adjudicate the affairs of the village, aren’t they the de facto lords of their villages? And I, the true lord, can only convey my orders and collect taxes through them, and the will of the peasants can only be fed back to me through them. It seems that my orders can only flow freely in a few cities, this is simply outrageous.”

Speaking of this aspect, Paul had a bellyful of resentment.

In the Northwest Gulf, the countryside’s manor owners had utilized various tangible or intangible privileges in their hands to turn the masses of peasants into their de facto slaves. For example, leasing their land to those poor landless peasants, and then charging extremely high and unreasonable rents, letting the peasants just leave a little bit of food for their stomachs, so that they are unable to expand their business, depriving them of the opportunity to accumulate wealth, and can only rely on renting their fields to survive. Another example is usury as a means, especially combined with their former status as taxpayers, this means is simply invincible, every time the tax collection, the farmers can not pay the tax can only owe, and then interest rolls over, the debt like a snowball rolling bigger and bigger, and some farmers’ families are even in debt for generations, do not even know which life can be paid off, the owners of the manor on the use of the hand of the claims on the hands of the debtors do not have a lot of property The owners of the manor used their claims to take what little they had from the debtors, sometimes even the wives and daughters of the debtors. It was not only when taxes were levied that peasants were put into debt, but also when there were bad harvests or natural disasters, when the countryside was heavily indebted, and the ability of ordinary peasants to resist risk was very low.

You want to not pay your debts? Or want to escape the debt? Sorry, in the village the landlord’s word is law.

In short, the landowners make the peasants have to be dependent on them by all means, binding them firmly to their own land.

The agricultural techniques that Paul had vigorously promoted in previous years had greatly increased the area of arable land and the harvest, but the vast majority of the increase still fell into the pockets of the landlords in the countryside, and the only thing that seemed to have benefited the ordinary farmers was that there was no mass starvation. Paul’s posting of magistrates to the countryside, the establishment of agricultural societies, the setting up of circuit courts to adjudicate cases for the peasants, and the prohibition of the private imposition of the death penalty improved the situation somewhat, but there was no fundamental change.

And while the large number of factories established by Paul gave peasants who had left the countryside a second way to support themselves, tradition was strong, and large numbers of peasants remained in bondage.

“You see,” said Paul, spreading his hands in great annoyance, and addressing a kind of ministry, “this time I am merely trying to take back a little of the power in their hands – taxes and justice – and they are like vicious dogs guarding their food, flashing their sharp canine teeth ferociously at me.”

“So I have decided!”

He clenched his fists hard and fiercely, and there was no room for doubt in his tone.

“Since they are so uneducated, I will completely deprive them of all privileges! Note that it’s all privileges.”

“Except for the abolition of the charter tax system and the withdrawal of judicial power. I’m going to make it worse, yes, just worse!”]

“First, I will reduce interest and rent. For the land rent charged to the sharecroppers, I’m going to set a maximum percentage, in short, it should never be so high as to leave the peasants with only food rations, it should leave them with seeds that can be cultivated in the year, it should leave them with commodity grains that can be traded in the market, it should allow the peasants to be able to sell them for money, and then take the money obtained from the sale of the grains to buy other commodities they want, and to be able to practically improve their own lives through farming, and not just to survive. Then there is private lending, where I will set reasonable interest rates so that hardworking people are not unable to pay them back. For those old debts that already exist, I will send people to examine them one by one, and I will burn them all to the ground if they are ambiguous or have outrageous interest rates. For those who really can’t replace their debts, his descendants will not need to inherit the debts as long as they publicly declare that they will give up their inheritance rights, and will no longer allow the debts to continue from one generation to the next.”

“And then, I have the establishment of the Agricultural Bank!”

Agricultural bank? This word aroused the interest of everyone here.

“The Agricultural Bank will lend money to farmers at very low interest rates.” Paul explained, “If the farmers have unlucky times such as natural disasters, bad food harvests, etc., they can go to the Agricultural Bank for a loan instead of the vampire-like private moneylenders.”

Historically, in the Middle Ages, the countryside was so varied that it’s impossible to tell. The social patterns of the countryside in the Northwest Bay in the book are a mishmash of several typical features of feudal society extracted by the author.

(End of chapter)