When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 941: Shenglian Village in 1453 (Part )

September 1453 in the Imperial calendar.

Four years have passed since the two epic Thousand Valley Wars.

Two and a half years have passed since the signing of the Treaty of Wolfbridge County and the triumphal ceremony of the three major war groups.

The Thousand Valley War, which lasted for four years and occurred twice, finally came to an end two and a half years ago.

As to whether there will be a third Thousand Valley War, people are not sure.

But at least they were sure that the battlefield of the Third Thousand Valley War would not be in the Thousand Valley, and that the opponents would not be the Leia people.

Because the entire Kingdom of Leia is already overwhelmed.

In September 1449, the Battle of Franciarea broke out.

In October 1449, the Border Royal Court War broke out. In November of the following year, the Royal Court's troops headed straight for the Golden Horn.

In May 1451, after two years of negotiations, the Osra family and the royal family broke down again, and the Duke of Ormes raised the banner of independence.

The entire Kingdom of Leia was in chaos.

Compared to those terrible wars, Qianhe Valley, which was once caught up in war, has gained a rare peace in this era.

Artillery shells and war, blood and plague have gradually disappeared from people's daily lives.

Upper Riverside is no exception.

After four years of recovery, this county, which had experienced the Great Flood of 1444, the First Thousand Valley War of 1445, the Great Flood of 1447, and the Second Thousand Valley War of 1449, finally ushered in a rare peace.

The wounds from the war and floods gradually recovered, and farmers once again stood on the abandoned farmlands.

Only the arrowheads occasionally dug out from the ground during land reclamation and excavation can prove that this extremely cruel war has not been over for long.

The horse's hooves stepped on the wet gravel, making a sticky and dull sound.

Although it was cloudy in Upper Riverside in early September, it was still hot and humid.

Sitting in the saddle, Alexei lifted his beaver hat and looked left and right at the High Castle Basin in front of him.

Surrounded by green mountains on both sides, the V-shaped mountain pass and the blue sky are like a picture frame enclosing a corner of the basin in front of you.

The closer Alexei and his companions got, the more they could hear the gurgling and roaring sounds of the water rushing in the valley.

From the narrow strip of field came the sound of a whip driving a slow horse.

The rustling sound of farmers spreading fertilizer mixed in with the long ballad.

In the distance, there could be hawking sounds and the stubborn "ang'er ang'er" calls of donkeys and mules.

This is completely different from the thousands of miles of plains and swamps in the Roaring Corridor.

"Do you need a break, Your Highness?"

Alexei didn't want to rest, but when he saw the other followers behind him carrying large and small bags, he hesitated for a moment and said, "Then let's take a rest."

The followers then breathed a sigh of relief, found a flat ground and began to rest.

But Alexei couldn't sit still. He pulled Gloev's reins and said, "Gloev, accompany me to the nearest farmland and market."

"Now?" Gloev, who had already taken out the gin, looked downcast.

Although he is only thirteen years old, Alexei is a very opinionated and stubborn person: "Traveling is the most important thing, and studying comes second."

Considering himself unlucky, Gloyev gave some instructions, called two guards, and slowly walked towards the market with the curious young bear lord.

The sultry wind could not blow away the sweat on Alexei's neck, and he deliberately slowed down his pace as he stepped on the brown mud.

September is the season for sowing barley.

A seed drill pulled by two horses was moving forward on a long strip of field, and a triangular rake was pulling out finger-thick trenches on the ground.

The wheel rolls, bringing the belt along with it.

The gears turn with a click, driving the seed box to open and close.

Every time the wheel turns half a circle, a few seeds will fall from the seed box into the ditch.

"Good." Alexey suddenly clapped his hands. Gloev, who had long been accustomed to the young bear's frequent surprises, took a sip of wine and said, "What's good about it?"

"Look at this field. This horse-drawn seed drill can plow the field from beginning to end without running around. One person and two horses can plow such a long field."

Alexei opened his hands, and as if they were not long enough, he stretched them again: “How much food can this produce?

Why do we use so many hedges to separate the fields? If we remove the hedges, the accumulated amount will still be a considerable amount of food output."

Ignoring the excited Alexei, Gloev took another sip of wine.

He was quite concerned about the developments of the Holy League and would buy and read every issue of Pravda.

For the several trades with the Holy Union, he would come in person whenever he had time, which made him half a "Holy Union".

Otherwise, he would not have accompanied the young bear master, who had just come of age, to study in the Holy League.

Alexey's idea is good.

But he knew that the large-scale strip fields of the Holy Alliance could not be implemented in the Xiongbao Territory.

The reason is simple. Those wild Norn tribes have the conditions to play with strips of land, but Alexei and his men have no control over them and can only patrol and collect tribute.

As for the Norn serfs in the castles and farms, they faced a huge challenge: the redistribution of land.

Strip fields seem convenient, but the prerequisite is that you have control over all the land.

In the Xiongbao Territory, the east piece belongs to this earl, the west piece belongs to that knight, and there are also scattered pieces of rented land from self-cultivating farmers and serfs.

And there were a number of enclaves, whereby nobles from Codburgh bought fields from Blue Ribbonburgh on estates from Beefburgh.

Especially the self-cultivating farmers, who would reclaim new land in a scattered and random manner, making the farmland look like patches here and there.

More importantly, if all the farmlands are left together, they can easily be destroyed by local disasters.

Therefore, farmers prefer to divide the crops into several small and scattered plots. After all, their time is much greater than the cultivated area, so it is safer.

There are three reasons why Shenglian can do this.

First, the two largest landowners in the country, the church and the nobility, were cleared out in one go, ending the chaotic feudal land relations, which created room for distribution.

Second, the population dropped dramatically during the war, leaving a considerable amount of land vacant. Since there were more land than people, the horse-drawn seed drill came into being.

Third, there is a poverty relief warehouse in the Hundred Households District as a guarantee, so even if there is a loss of crops due to an epidemic, at least people will not starve to death.

Even so, when the Holy Alliance was carrying out land distribution and village mergers, it caused quite a bit of trouble.

The incident of rioters surrounding the priest's office came to light, and in the end it was Valentyl who went to quell the incident personally.

Children's attention comes and goes quickly, and in a flash, Alexei was attracted by a different scene on the other side.

"Hey, why are the farmers over there much taller than the farmers over here?"

After taking a quick look, Gloev knew what was going on. He coughed and said, "Those are the knights of Leia. They couldn't pay the ransom and were left in the Thousand River Valley."

Among the prisoners of war obtained from Leia, if they are ordinary civilians, there will usually be a military chaplain to question them.

If you are willing to stay, you will be given 50 acres of land, tax exemption for three years, and you can also rent seeds, cattle, horses and horse-drawn seed drills from the Hundred Households District.

If you don't want to, then get all your fellow villagers over. When there are enough of them, give them some money and send them away.

The reason why we need to gather fellow countrymen is because in today's imperial society, returning home alone with the money is simply seeking death.

But soldiers, mercenaries, knights, nobles, etc. were not so lucky.

If a knight killed civilians or was accused of being a war criminal, not to mention a ransom, exile to the eastern counties was the best he could do, and many were hanged.

If not, there will be a ransom.

Of course, in order to raise money for the civilians' travel expenses, the Holy League charged a relatively high ransom for the knights. Many knight families had to dismantle and gather the money for a long time before they could collect the money or they could not collect the money at all.

At this time, the knights had to reclaim the land to pay their ransom.

After explaining to Alexei, the young bear master suddenly realized and said with a smile: "This is a good idea. In the past, they couldn't pay the ransom, and we had to keep them well fed and well fed. Now we can just send them to farm the fields. How great is that."

Hearing this topic that should not be touched, Gloev quickly diverted his attention: "Your Highness, you see, we came at the right time, there is a market today!"

(End of this chapter)