When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 961 Land Tax

"We are the Savior Army of the Holy Alliance. Our boots will crush the tyrants!"

“While Eve and Adam were working the fields, where were the king’s knights?”

"Lance forward, move forward, demolish the castle and save the slaves."

"When the holy flag is hoisted on the monastery, millions of believers will find peace."

"The holy flag moves forward, forward, the flames of war will burn to the Holy Throne Mountain and burn away all the sins in the world."

"Knives are made into plowshares, swords are made into nails, thousands of acres of fertile fields are opened up, and buildings and long dikes are built."

"The Holy League moves forward, forward!"

"The Holy League moves forward, forward!"

Bugles and flutes sounded, and the spectators, including cardinals and representatives, all stood up, touched their chests and sang along.

Not only people in the semicircular theater, but people outside the theater also sang this war song.

The singing voices of thousands of people lingered, rolling up the ribbons on the ground and dancing to an undulating rhythm in the air.

Horn also stood on a small stool and sang, but compared to other people, the founder of the Holy League seemed a little distracted.

In today's empire, it is not uncommon to see a common song representing an alliance or a city.

It was not Horn's invention to ask composers and bards to create such a "Sacred Couplet".

However, surprisingly, while other city anthems are often hymns, the Holy Alliance's anthem is a war song.

There is only one sentence in the whole article expressing the desire to build the country, and the rest is all about the excitement of fighting.

But this is normal.

The Holy Alliance is a rare organization in the empire that built its country entirely through war.

The early combat mode of the Holy League was that citizens provided money and farmers provided food for the army to fight, and after the battle, everyone shared the spoils.

It may be exercised externally through consumption and bonds, but this is the intrinsic nature.

Horn signed the Treaty of Wolf Bridge under tremendous pressure. Internally, everyone advocated not to cease fire and to fight all the way to Changge City.

But Horn knew that once a dependence was formed, it would be too late to brake once they reached Changge City.

After plundering the New Five Counties and Gravel Plain, as well as a large amount of cash, Horn led the cardinals to begin to reorganize the Holy Alliance.

Four years have passed quickly, and today is the time to announce their achievements over the past four years.

It was not until then that Horn realized that the song had stopped and even the dancing ribbons had slowly fallen to the ground.

Horn looked around and saw people sitting down as far as he could see.

“Fellow believers of the Holy Alliance!
When the trumpets no longer sound for war, when the spears no longer point at the chests of our compatriots...

We can finally gather together as builders in this free land watered with blood and fire!

The roar of the knights once tore our fields, and the shackles of the bishops once crushed the backs of the farmers.

And today——

Our regiment's chariot forts stood like mountains, and the lead bullets from the holy guns were shot out like clouds.

Our wails faded away, leaving only the songs of the threshing floor, leaving the winter nights of freezing cold and starvation as the dust of history.

Our mothers and children will no longer have to kneel under the whip of the Fugitive Slave Act, singing, 'No priest, no king, no tax for the saint'!"

The cheers surged like waves, echoing in the theater one after another.

When the applause and cheers died down, Horn raised his hand to signal silence: "But the war is gone. The four years after 1449 were the four years of forging swords into plowshares!
When the trumpet sounds again, it will no longer be for war!

For the opening of the new canal! For the bells of the new school! For all the free people who sing the "Dream of Heaven"!
Because the greatness of the Holy Union is not beneath my crown—

And in the fertile soil and busy workshops that you have cultivated with your own hands!"

Amidst another round of enthusiastic applause, Horn loudly announced the start of this central conference.

"Hmph, that sounds nice."

Although he could only see the scene on the wooden platform from the narrow window, Duke Barry couldn't help but sneer.

The greatness of a country should be on the crown and on the tip of the sword.

The reason Horn can say these things now is simply because his sword is sharper. What does it have to do with the civilians below?

Duke Barry felt a little embarrassed when he saw that Alaric and Genegis ignored him and were listening to the speech attentively.

He poked the Duke of Nava's shoulder and said, "I'll bet you two ounces of Dandelion coffee powder that the land tax of the Holy Alliance this year will not even reach half of that in 1449."

Duke Nava looked at him suspiciously: "How do you know?"

"I don't know, that's why we have to bet. Do you want to bet?"

Coffee powder, which is made of dandelion powder, pearl rice powder and sugar, is the hard currency of these senior prisoners, with a status similar to butter. You have to step on the spinning wheel to make sparks before you can buy a few ounces in the prisoner store to satisfy your craving.

The Duke of Nava was an old gambler, and he immediately grabbed his thumb and shook it: "Let's bet."

Duke Barry laughed and said, "You are doomed to fail this time."

He dared to gamble because he had already heard that the Holy Alliance had implemented a policy of not paying taxes for three years.

Others might have doubted this policy and wondered whether they would be able to harvest grain in three years, but Duke Barry knew that it was impossible.

He had tried it himself and exempted the affected estates from grain production for one year. However, the harvest was still insufficient the next year.

Tax-free, what the hell.

If you are dismissed, will the manor steward be dismissed? If the manor steward is dismissed, will the village head be dismissed?

What? Can you still tell the farmers one by one in person?

Moreover, the land tax of the Holy Alliance is only one-tenth. At that time, the Kingdom of Leia and the Church collected 50% of the land tax in the Thousand River Valley.

In the end, Leia got 50,000 gold pounds, the church got 100,000 gold pounds, and King Leia also had to thank the Pope.

At the tithe rate, I'm afraid the Holy Alliance's land tax this year will only be 3 gold pounds.

They probably don't know how cunning these farmers are and how they try every possible means to conceal the yield per acre.

How can we collect the grain without any nobles watching over it?
If it were any other time, I could have kept it secret.

But he trapped himself in a web of traps and created a supervisory council. Now he couldn't hide it even if he wanted to.

"why?"

Fearing that the Duke of Nava would go back on his word, Barry changed his perspective: "Nonsense, if the Holy Alliance could collect so much tax in the past four years, could Horn be dressed so simply?"

"But didn't Horn make a lot of money selling grain?"

"Is that selling grain? That's the witch Catherine speculating!"

"What are you mumbling about?" Alaric said in a low voice, "Can't you see that His Highness and I are listening?"

Barry subconsciously wanted to fight back, but when he saw Jinigis frowning at him, he shut up in disappointment.

"…In the past four years, a total of 9000 small water conservancy facilities have been built in more than 16128 -household districts throughout the Qianhe Valley…"

"…With the promotion of agricultural fertilizer fermentation chemicals and improved varieties, the average yield of wheat per mu has exceeded 100 pounds, and the average yield of rice per mu has exceeded 120 pounds."

"…at the county level, the Order built 10 flood control dikes and 13 irrigation canals and small canals…"

"...Currently, the Thousand River Valley Holy Alliance has a total of 6700 million acres of arable land used for food cultivation..."

"It's such a long story, can't it be quicker?" After listening for a long time and not hearing anything about land tax, Barry started complaining again.

"Shh!" King Gigi couldn't help but growl at Barry.

Everyone looked shocked because they finally heard the report on land tax.

"…After three years of exemption, the land tax of the Holy Alliance was collected for the first time this year." Sissi, who was giving the report, spoke in a hoarse voice. "In 1449, the total land tax was 11 gold pounds. Four years later, in 1453, the total land tax of the Holy Alliance was 25.9 gold pounds, an increase of 135%…"

"Lies, these are lies!" Barry couldn't help but scold before Xixi finished speaking, "Has no one exposed these representatives of public opinion? Do they dare to call themselves representatives?"

Alaric glared at him. "What a lie! If you lie about this amount, what will happen to tomorrow's fiscal budget? You'll keep lying?"

Barry's face turned completely black: "I don't believe it."

"Admit your defeat." Duke Nava was happy and took two ounces of coffee powder for free.

"Impossible! If he had said 15 or 16 pounds, I would have believed it. But 25 is impossible. The average annual increase corresponds to a tax base of 3.7 pounds. It's impossible!"

"What's impossible?" King Jiji was quite calm, but his calmness revealed a hint of desperate calmness, "You just mistakenly took the part that came out of the middleman's stomach as the part of growth.

Besides, don’t forget that Qianhe Valley specializes in grain, and also has sugar and grain trade with Black Snake Bay.

The Stonehenge was originally supplied with food from the Garden of Thorns, but now it also relies on the Valley of a Thousand Rivers for its supply.

The increase in grain production has filled the gap and prevented grain prices from falling.

Besides, of the 26 pounds, it would be good if half of it is currency, and the rest should be rent in kind.”

In fact, although Jinigis's intuition was just a hunch, it was indeed quite accurate.

The fields that the Holy Alliance was supposed to tax produced 5.6 million pounds of grain annually, but the amount of metal currency actually collected by the Holy See was only 10.3 gold pounds.

The 15.6 gold pounds remaining in the local area were only book gold pounds.

Some are currency, some are physical objects, and some are circulating commodities, which cannot be distinguished at all.

Just when Jinigis said half of the amount, Duke Laban of France stopped calculating.

"About 95000 to 110000 gold pounds." Labang put down his quill and rubbed his sore wrist. "I was so excited, but it's only this much after the calculation."

(End of this chapter)