When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 519: Market Church and the Earl

After reading the letter from Valentyl at a glance, Horn's brows were furrowed but then relaxed helplessly.

This situation is really unsettling. Ludwig was assassinated and the sugar and grain trade agreement of the Holy Axis is still pending.

The monks and nuns inside Cassia County are still arguing fiercely about the next abbot and investigating the identity of the assassin.

Horne said, is there any need to investigate this? Who else could it be except the church? It is just self-deception.

This assassination attempt did cause Horn a lot of trouble. Dean Ludwig was definitely a smart man who was wise but appeared foolish.

The fact that he was able to form an alliance with the Salvation Army and the various consensuses reached by both sides showed his cognition. The cooperation between the two sides was largely based on the pressure and prestige of this old man.

Even if there were no Ludwig, the Blago Monastery in Cassia County would still be a fence-sitter.

In contrast, the one who made Buluo is greater than Ruozhi.

We don’t know when they will elect a new dean.

Shaking his head, Horn could not find any better solution except to order the guard to be strengthened.

The affairs in Kasha County have not been dealt with yet, and the Saint Sun Righteous Army has brought a new trouble.

The nobles recognized the situation and gradually began to adopt a classic fence-sitting strategy.

Judging from this trend, the natural disasters and man-made disasters from 1444 to 1445 in the Imperial Calendar, as well as the civil war in the Kingdom of Leia, have weakened the psychological defenses of the nobles and self-employed farmers in Hotam County.

As for the real reason why Prince Condé sent the Lancers to seek food, Horn could roughly guess it.

Originally, the entire Thousand River Valley provided him with nine imperial companies. Although there are only five now, the only one that can be supplied is Hotam County.

Although Hotam County alone provides almost one-third of the tax revenue for the entire Thousand River Valley, how much can be collected is still a problem.

The original Longsand County only paid more than 8000 gold pounds. According to the calculations of the Saint Treasury Director Sissi, the Salvation Army is expected to collect 2 gold pounds in taxes in Longsand County next year, half of which will be from the central government and half from the local governments.

The tax base for all taxes in Longsand County added up to no more than 7 pounds. Horn could collect the maximum tax because he had financial instrument bonds and no middlemen to make a profit from the difference.

A wartime lance corps would cost around 150 to 200 pounds per year.

Given the current state of the Imperial Order Company, they are still replenishing personnel and purchasing equipment and medicines in order to maintain their combat effectiveness.

Prince Conde would need at least 8 to 10 gold pounds, which the local nobles definitely could not afford.

So what can we do? The only way is to bypass the middleman.

The idea is correct, but the means are too crude. If it were Horn, he would issue sin bonds in the name of the church and then forcibly distribute them to the nobles.

The Lancers only do supervision, escort and suppression work and will never directly collect taxes.

At that time, the middlemen (nobles) will do the work and the church will bear the blame. If they win, they will naturally be able to repay the debt, and if they lose, then forget it.

Directly robbing and writing an IOU are two different concepts. The former makes people hope you lose, while the latter makes people hope you win.

"Submit this letter to the Privy Council. The weekly meeting will be the day after tomorrow. Submit this topic urgently and copy it out tomorrow."

The Privy Council is actually the secretariat, and most of its members are monks of the Congregation of the Holy Fathers.

Normally, the correspondence and meeting minutes between Horn and the cardinals were completed by these monks.

"Okay, Your Majesty." A privy monk stood up, took the letter and left the office.

Horn stood up and took down the draft schedule for the regular meeting from the file rack by the window.

According to the Salvation Army system, a regular meeting of cardinals is held every Monday morning, so the agenda must be submitted two days in advance and the meeting content must be delivered one day in advance.

With the warm sunshine outside, Horn leaned against the window and began to read the steaming hot form that had just been delivered.

After a quick look, Horn determined that the main contents were three in total. The first was the market topic related to consumption tax.

Due to the implementation of the "1445 Plan", the collection of local consumption taxes by the central papal palace was largely based on fixed markets.

However, based on the two-month pilot projects in several markets, some problems have emerged in all of them, the two most important of which are:

The first is how taxes are calculated. Tax collectors cannot track every transaction and accurately calculate the tax payable, which is likely to lead to tax evasion.

Because no matter whether it is calculated by the entry or exit of goods, or the subtraction of the two, there is a problem, that is, there are too few people and too many numbers.

Don’t let the whole day be spent just collecting statistics while people are unable to enter the market.

Not to mention the high probability of smuggling and smuggling.

Or it is possible to simply check the goods on the exchange and trade them off-exchange.

The second is that bulk commodities cannot be traded because a market can accommodate hundreds or thousands of people at a time, and only tens or hundreds of pounds of goods can be traded at a time.

Generally, a market covers a radius of 10 to 15 kilometers and has a population of about 2 to 3 people. The goods they trade are numerous and complex, but in small quantities.

As for commodity trade, some local merchants, for example, will sign contracts with farmers from several villages.

The farmers were required to provide a certain amount of produce, timber or wool at a time in advance for the following year.

They have a large number of goods, but the categories are few and single. How many stalls will be occupied by several tons of goods, and how much waste will be in transporting them back and forth?

According to Horn's method, they must trade under supervision, and this quantity would not be appropriate to be placed in the market.

The Gospel Court, which is currently in charge of this matter, has already come up with a corresponding plan, and tomorrow's regular meeting will be to decide which plan to adopt.

Horn believes that it is better for the royal cardinals' conference to do more multiple-choice and true-or-false questions, and fewer fill-in-the-blank and essay questions.

If fill-in-the-blank and answer-based questions appear, it means that there was insufficient preparation and communication before the meeting.

After licking his fingers, Horn turned to the second page, which was about the topic of establishing a new construction department.

After the 1445 Plan, several towns would serve as seats for priestly orders.

In any town where a priestly order is located, the following municipal buildings must be built: church, town hall, square of believers, clinic, bell tower, school, night watch tower and armory.

Both the church and the town hall were major political buildings, centers of religious and administrative affairs.

Xinmin Square is a place for commercial and town activities.

Clinics, clock towers, and schools are functional buildings that provide simple treatment, inform measurements and time, and provide education.

As for the Night Watch Tower and the Armory, they are easy to explain. The former provides public security, while the latter is oriented towards military affairs.

These buildings will be renovated if they exist, and newly built if they don’t.

These buildings are mainly made of brick and stone with mortar, and are five or six meters high. They don't need to be magnificent or gorgeous, as long as they can be recognized as what they are.

In addition to establishing the core, it can also support the brick kiln industry that has emerged around Huilu Town due to peat.

These buildings are official ones, so it would be inappropriate to use engineering teams and stonemasons from the public whose origins are unknown.

Horn planned to nationalize several well-performing engineering teams and some stonemasons to form specialized teams for key official buildings.

But the next question is, and Horn thinks there will be a dispute about it the day after tomorrow, which is who will be in charge of this engineering team.

All the cardinals in the royal court hope that their departments can have as wide a scope of jurisdiction as possible, because the more jurisdiction they have, the greater their power will be, and the less constraints they will face.

The last topic is how to receive Count Sechinger who will visit next week.

(End of this chapter)