Lord Harland.

Chapter 210 Ogre Tribe

After the summer grain was put into storage, the grain reserve in the Harland territory increased to about [-] tons.

This year, [-] tons of grain were brought in from the Baron of Harden. In recent months, it only took about [-] tons to feed the indentured slaves who migrated from the Baron of Harden.

In addition to last year's grain reserves and this year's summer grain, the huge warehouse built in the territory is not enough.

Judging from this year's situation, I am afraid that the autumn grain harvest will also be bumper.

In addition to the grain harvested by the free people, [-] tons of grain could be harvested by relying on contract slaves.

The territory of Harland now has a population of more than [-], and it cannot consume [-] tons of food at all.

Although the population of the territory has increased, Li Cha no longer needs to bear the rations of the free people. Li Cha only plans to reserve 8 tons of grain.It is also necessary to leave [-] tons of rations for more than [-] indentured slaves to grow food.

The remaining [-] tons of grain can be sold.

Thirty thousand tons of grain will seriously impact the grain price in the Heihebao market.

Richard found Sanji Tara again to see if he could continue to exchange grain for slaves this year.

Direct transactions with the Duke of Edward can save a lot of time and procedures.The absence of grain merchants and slave merchants peeling off layers of skin is beneficial to both sides.

Although the Duke of Edward had a bumper harvest this year, the food reserves were still far from enough.

After Li Cha came to the door, Sanji Tara said directly: "The price of grain this year is lower than last year, and the premium for grain is gone. Thirty thousand tons of grain are estimated at 1 gold coins, which can be exchanged for about [-] households. Qing Strong men and women can account for half, and the total population is about [-].

After all, the elderly and children are not worth much, and they are all given away.The average price for young men and women is about ten gold coins. "

To buy people from the slave market, the market price of male slaves in their twenties is about [-] gold coins.

An ordinary person's annual salary is between three and four gold coins. In addition to food, clothing, housing and transportation, the annual income of raising a slave is two gold coins and six silver coins.It takes eight years to recover the cost of buying a slave in the prime of life, and the longer the slave lives, the more profitable it is.

Therefore, normal slave owners do not treat slaves harshly, and basically let them eat and drink enough.

Because the elderly and children who have lost money are purchased, and slaves are purchased on a family basis, the price of slaves in the prime of life is often about 30.00% cheaper.

When slave traders captured slaves, in order to prevent slaves from rebelling and fleeing, they usually captured their wives, children, and parents.

With family members as hostages, strong slaves will not resist.

Many lords, in order to make the slaves settle down and not easily escape, often bought the whole family to enrich the account.

In fact, even the American farmer in his previous life bought slaves in the same way, often buying a whole family of black slaves.

Farmers in the south also had to go to the slave market to buy female black slaves, give wives to male black slaves, and let the slaves reproduce more.

Richard completed the grain delivery at Black River Fort, waited for more than ten days, and took over [-] households of serfs from Duke Edward.

In the past two years, Richard purchased 500 households of serfs from Edward's territory, adding up to a population of [-].

If the administrator of Edward's territory is not a fool, he will definitely plant spies among these people.

After all, the Harland family is already the most powerful noble in Gerda Province, second only to the great nobles in importance.

Moreover, the territory of Harland has also researched many new technologies and produced many high-value commodities.

The Duke of Edward's land must spend a lot of effort to obtain the steel production technology, the hemostatic ointment formula, the weaving technology, and the brown sugar production technology in the Harland territory.

Li Cha is well aware of this.

The slaves purchased from the Duke of Edward were not trusted in Li Cha's heart.

Recruitment and conscription are also impossible to select from this group of people.

For these contract slaves, Richard will only disperse them in the two baronies of Stopa and Dirham, and let them engage in agricultural planting.

Because of the ban on migration in the territory, it is difficult for these spies hidden among the slaves to get access to the secrets of the territory, and the secrets of the territory will not be revealed in a short period of time.

Even the indentured slaves from the Baron of Harden are more reliable in Richard's mind than the slaves from the Duke of Edward.

After settling down the new contract slaves, Richard immediately arranged for manpower to count the population of the territory.

By August, Harland had a population of 11.

Because the fertility rate of the Harland Territory is very high, it can reach about 5.00%. By the end of the year, the total population should be close to 12, catching up with the Cisse family.

Harvest has started in August.

The autumn harvest has been very busy these days. Even the students of He'an Elementary School were mobilized by Li Cha to count the harvest of autumn grain and take charge of the collection of public grain.

Harland Territory stipulates that when freedmen pay land taxes, they can pay coins or food in kind.

Ordinary civilians only have very little cash income. If they must pay coins, it will bring a heavy tax burden to the free people.

The middle and upper classes of society, such as businessmen, gentry, professionals, and bureaucrats, will use deflationary means to pass on taxation, and as long as they use very little cash, they can get higher-value physical goods.

In order to exchange money and pay taxes, ordinary people can only sell food, fruits, livestock, and even farmland cheaply.

According to the history that Li Cha knew in his previous life, Zhang Juzheng in the Ming Dynasty carried out tax reforms, which required paying taxes with money. As a result, the burden on the common people was increased and the speed of land annexation was accelerated. Accelerated the pace of the subjugation of the Ming Dynasty.

The tax system of the Han and Tang dynasties collected both physical objects and coins, and there was no problem of fire consumption.Even at the end of the dynasty, the common people's burden was lighter than that of the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the treasury had more income.

In the Manchu Qing period, after the implementation of the government’s policy of distributing the land to the mu and returning the consumption to the public, the burden on the common people was also reduced, and the government had more tax revenues.

The Tang, Song, and Qing Dynasties were not due to tax issues.

Even in the republics of later generations, when collecting land taxes, public grain is still the main thing.

It was not until after the 90s that cash was mainly collected.

However, if the cadres who collect the tax go to the countryside, if they have no money, they can still use the grain to offset the tax.

Therefore, in the era of deflation, taxation must be collected in kind and in currency.

By this fall, there were more than 8000 freedmen whose five-year contracts had expired.

But this year they don't have to divide the land, so they don't need to pay taxes for the time being.

After gaining freedom, Li Cha took the family as a unit and gave them a house, arable land, farm tools, rations, seeds and clothes.These materials will be converted into coins, and they will be repaid slowly in the form of low-interest loans.

The interest on this loan is very low, around [-]% per annum.

Now this money is included in the installment payment for the house, and after a year, it will earn about a few hundred gold coins.

After the spring of next year, the city hall will also rent them cattle.

From the perspective of land tax, the tax increase this year is relatively small, and it is only about 200 in gold coins.

By next year, the land tax will be increased to more than [-] gold coins.

The land tax of [-] gold coins a year ranks third in the fiscal revenue of the territory after steel and wool spinning, and it is considered an important income of the territory.

With the increase in the number of freedmen, more and more sub-fields were allocated.

If all the contract slaves in the territory became free citizens and shared the land, the land tax could reach an income of [-] gold coins a year.

Although the tax revenue is low now, Richard has actually severely squeezed the labor of contract slaves, and can obtain more income from physical goods every year.

The food sold this year exceeded 1 gold coins.It's just that Richard exchanged [-] gold coins for [-] people.

If the 12 population of Harland's territory is exchanged for money, it can be exchanged for 60 gold coins in cash.

Li Cha has managed the territory for eight years, and has accumulated a population of 12 from scratch, more than 50 acres of farmland, more than 1 mines, more than [-] acres of orchards, several thousand acres of brown sugar plantations, and hundreds of acres of medicinal materials. plantation.Hundreds of thousands of sheep, thousands of cattle, thousands of skilled workers, and four thousand well-equipped troops.

These assets add up to 200 million gold coins.

He has managed the territory for eight years, and has already caught up with the accumulation of three generations of the Xisai family.

Such an achievement can be called astonishing.

Even the big shots in the royal capital began to pay attention to Li Cha, knowing that there was such a young hereditary nobleman in northern Xinjiang who was good at inventing and creating, managing territories, and being brave and good at fighting.

Before the autumn harvest was finished, Li Cha received information that more than a dozen people were missing in the Harland Valley.

More than a dozen people were missing, Li Cha did not dare to neglect, and immediately mobilized elite troops from the territory to set up an investigation team.

The investigation team has more than 100 people in total. In addition to the experienced demon hunters, Li Cha also recruited 30 people from the magic beast cavalry.

In order to ensure nothing goes wrong, Richard and Sophia personally participated in the investigation mission.

In the investigation team, there are also talents with special talents such as Powell, Ruiz, and Luciano.

Through Powell's extraordinary sense of smell, the investigation team searched carefully in the Harland Valley and soon discovered the abnormality.

It turned out that near the Harland Valley, a tribe of ogres had migrated over.

Ogres are the two overlords of the Eagle Mountain Range, mainly active in the west of the Eagle Mountain Range.

There are some ogre tribes in the northern part of the Duke of Edward. Every year before winter, they will go down the mountain to capture some humans for food.

There are occasional ogres in the province of Gascoyne, but they are not common.

An ogre appeared in Harland's territory. Li Cha did not dare to neglect, and immediately reported it to the Church of Dawn.

There is a powerful backer behind the ogre tribe, and they cannot be killed easily.

Destroying the ogre tribe will invite the legendary ogre to retaliate.

Richard also didn't know whether Grant Kingdom had signed a contract with the legendary ogre. If the young one was killed and the old one was provoked, the star necklace would have to be exposed in advance.

If the bottle of starlight is exposed, it will definitely attract the prying eyes of the great nobles, and there will inevitably be troubles in Harland's territory.

Unless it is absolutely necessary, Li Cha will not let the matter develop to this point.

After Sanders received the news, he rushed to Harland Valley with two priests.

Ruiz has extraordinary vision, and personally carried out the reconnaissance mission. He quickly figured out the scale of the ogre tribe, and found that the ogre tribe had [-] male ogres, [-] female ogres, and [-] There are two ogre cubs and a two-headed ogre mage, who seems to be a high-level professional.

Although the number is small, the strength of this ogre tribe is quite impressive.

(End of this chapter)