The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 572: Changes in the System

As the population in the territory continues to grow, the original simple system in the territory needs to be improved. At the same time, the number of troops also needs to be increased.

The first thing to be affected is the tax policy. According to Richard's idea, most of the land in the territory must be distributed to civilians. Only in this way can sufficient tax revenue be obtained.

He divided the taxation of the territory into three parts: farmland tax, pasture tax and business tax. The taxation was also very simple, because if the taxation was complicated, it would give the people below the opportunity to manipulate it.

After three years of cultivation, the reclaimed land will become an individual's private land, and one only needs to register it at the local administrative hall.

After registration, you will start paying taxes, one-tenth of the tax will be paid in the first three years, and one-quarter will be paid from the fourth year onwards. Pastoral tax is one-fifth of the tax paid each year.

Commercial tax also needs to be paid at one-fifth, but it only needs to be paid once. As long as you are in the Rhine Province, commercial tax only needs to be paid once.

Commercial taxes in this era can be said to be very cumbersome. Taxes need to be paid once in almost every place. Some places even set up checkpoints along the way, and commercial taxes will be collected every time.

The consequence of this is that only the caravans of the great nobles can survive and make profits, while other caravans dare not engage in long-distance trade.

Richard acknowledged that civilians could own their own private property as long as they registered it.

The rules he made seemed very simple, far from being as perfect and reasonable as those of the Roman Empire, but they worked very well. The reason for this was very simple, that is, his system was seriously implemented, while the system of the Roman Empire had already collapsed beyond repair.

Almost all the officials of the Roman Empire were corrupt. If they could collect one denarius for the empire, they would put two denarius in their own pockets.

There is no way the empire's finances can be maintained by relying on such a group of people.

Moreover, even these taxes were not spent wisely, but the emperor enjoyed them first, and officials at all levels took some. As for the imperial army, eating empty salaries and drinking the blood of soldiers was not unique to the Eastern powers.

The Roman Empire was no less powerful. Except for a small number of troops who received full pay, the vast majority of the rest had little money.

In order to gather enough soldiers, these Roman nobles would send bankrupt farmers, slaves, etc. into the army as cannon fodder. This is why there were a lot of deserters in the Roman Empire's legions.

If they don't even give you military pay, are you just going to stay here and wait for death?
The system that Richard implemented was more like that of the ancient oriental powers, while also incorporating some of the European conditions. He set up five military towns in his territory, each with three armies, each with three regiments, each with three teams, and one team with 100 men.

If the army is fully organized, he will have 15,000 men under his command, which is a large number.

A regular fully-strength Roman legion had about 5,000 to 6,000 men, so Richard's five military towns were equivalent to three Roman legions.

Of course, the Rhine Province cannot afford to support so many soldiers, not even one-third of them. The Rhine Province has only 3,000 troops.

Now he has 60,000 people under his command, but he has to support them all. If he wants to make these 60,000 people generate income, it will take at least the second year.

Of course, in addition to these 60,000 people, there are also several thousand slaves, which are basically obtained by looting the Germanic barbarians. However, Richard does not intend to use them as slaves all the time.

He had stipulated that as long as slaves joined the army, they would be pardoned and become civilians if they achieved one level of victory, and they would be promoted if they achieved three levels of victory, and would be given houses and land.

Although Richard promoted slavery, it was not as harsh as the Roman slavery. Here, as long as you fight bravely, you will be rewarded.

As long as the slaves have a channel for upward mobility and can see hope, they will fight bravely instead of thinking about how to rebel.

This truth was verified by ancient Tokyo University over thousands of years.

After all, the big reshuffle that occurs every few hundred years is no joke. These reshuffles are partly due to population growth, land conflicts, natural disasters and man-made disasters, and another problem is that the upward channel is blocked.

If the people at the bottom live in poverty and have a hard time making a living, with no way to rise, and the upper class is corrupt, extravagant, and greedy for pleasure, then the people at the bottom will have two options: one is starving to death, and the other is rebelling.

Chen Sheng is only the first, but he will never be the last.

Later, in the Tang Dynasty, this problem was solved in a different way. The emergence of the imperial examination system gave the lower class a channel to rise. Although this channel was heavily restricted and the opening was very small, it was such a restricted and unfair channel that made generations of poor people work hard for it. But when this channel was completely blocked, war came. Huang Chao let future generations know that it was easier to enter Chang'an than to pass the exam to enter Chang'an.

Later rulers learned lessons from history and expanded the number of places in the imperial examinations to make them fairer.

However, this system has become very rigid for various reasons. This rigid system has caused some people to fail the exam repeatedly, especially in the final stage of the palace examination.

This eventually led to the emergence of Zhang Yuan. This failed candidate who was repeatedly dismissed from the imperial examination showed the Song Dynasty what it meant to say "If you don't give me an official position, I will help others beat you."

It was also because of Zhang Yuan's appearance that Song Renzong changed the rules and the palace examination was no longer dismissed.

In fact, this method is to win over those people who have some abilities. As long as these people are given an official position or brought into the system, they will not rebel again.

The purpose of the imperial examination is to select talents and to allow those unstable factors in various places to enter the system and restrain them.

It was difficult for ordinary people to succeed in a rebellion, and they needed a leader. This was why the Song Dynasty issued an imperial edict to appease the leaders of the rebellion. As long as they were appeased, they would be assigned a small official position.

Using this system, the Song Dynasty suppressed a large number of peasant uprisings.

Now, the Rhine Territory naturally does not need such a complicated and sophisticated system. He only needs to use the military merit reward system.
Simply put, it is a variation of the system of conferring titles based on military merit in the Qin State, one of the seven major powers in the Warring States Period.

Of course, the system of conferring titles based on military merit here is not that complicated and rigorous.

Richard planned to use three years to increase the population of the territory to 200,000, the regular army to 15,000, and the auxiliary soldiers and peasant soldiers to 20,000. This goal was very big, and Richard needed to continuously collect population and resources to achieve it.

In addition to these, Richard established a school in the Rhineland.

The teachers in the school are basically polytheistic priests. In this era, only the priests of these temples have mastered a large amount of writing and knowledge.

It is not so easy to come to school to study. Except for a group selected by Richard, the generals and soldiers under him need to make meritorious services before they can come to school to study.

These people knew very well that only by learning knowledge could they become rich and noble for a long time and become true nobles. Without knowledge, at best they could only become a centurion.

After hearing the news of Richard's announcement of the establishment of the academy, the generals and soldiers shouted
"Long live His Excellency!"

Why was the Roman Empire admired by the barbarians, and why European countries still yearned for it even hundreds of years after its demise?

One of the important reasons for this is their advanced culture, knowledge, and strength.

It can be said that the Roman Empire was unique in the whole of Europe. Even though the Roman Empire had been destroyed for hundreds of years, the technological culture of the kingdom in the Middle Ages was not necessarily as advanced as that of the Roman Empire.

After hearing that Richard had established a school and allowed them to learn knowledge, these people burst into tears of gratitude towards Richard.

Just relying on the military merit award and the academy system, Richard took control of the entire territory.

These soldiers became even more excited about the battle, and each of them wanted to be rewarded for their merits and be awarded a title.

At the same time, Richard also began to select those who were qualified from these people for training. He also had more than a dozen bottles of blood potion in his hand.

If all of them were used, thirty people with peak combat power could be created. The strength shown by the dozen or so people before had already shocked countless people.

So when Richard made his selection again, everyone wanted to be one of them.

Next, Richard carefully selected these people from the territory, gave them professional training, and after they passed all the tests, he fused their blood with them.

(End of this chapter)