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

Chapter 631 Enfeoffment
The palace hall.

At this time, all the eunuchs and servants had been driven out by Richard.

In the center of the hall, a piece of cloth was spread out with various curves drawn on it. It was the map of the Western Roman Empire. Richard held up the throne, and below him were hundreds of strong men.

"You are all meritorious officials. According to your military achievements, you should be awarded titles. You have returned victoriously today, so naturally you should be rewarded for your merits."

"I have recorded all your contributions and divided up the territories. Now, each of you should take a look and see if you are satisfied."

Richard said with a smile.

After the Western Roman Empire recovered its old territory and resumed its former heyday, Richard naturally wanted to bestow fiefs on these meritorious officials.

This time, there were nearly a hundred pieces of land divided up. The smallest was only a barony, which was roughly a town and a few villages, and the largest was an earldom.

The earldom's land included a small city, several towns, hundreds of villages, and a population of about 50,000. As for the higher marquisates and dukes, Richard did not grant them fiefdoms.

He planned to distribute the marquis and dukes after he recovered the Eastern Roman Empire. The marquis and dukes were basically a small country.

These small countries were considered vassals of the Roman Empire. When going to war, they needed to lead their troops to follow the Roman army, and they were also responsible for guarding the borders.

Dukes and marquises are hereditary, but they can also be demoted, but their fiefs will not be reduced. As long as they have made meritorious contributions, they will definitely be restored.

If his title was really downgraded to Baron, it would mean that his family was no longer able to control the territory.

These dukes and marquises are basically Richard's extraordinary knights, and only they are powerful and loyal enough.

The bloodline of the Blood Knight can also be inherited. Richard originally set shackles on his bloodline, one of which is loyalty.

Therefore, these bloodline families will basically remain loyal.

With the power of the Blood Knights, these families can basically continue to pass on their blood as long as they are not stupid. The blood improved by Richard will have no problem continuing for dozens of generations.

Even if the Roman Empire is destroyed in the future, these families will still be loyal to Richard's descendants.

After seeing that Richard had already divided up all their titles and territories, everyone became excited. They followed Richard to conquer the world in order to have their wives and children ennobled.

Now at this moment, I finally got what I wanted.

Richard has conferred titles on hundreds of territorial nobles here, and in addition to these territorial nobles, there will be thousands of honorary nobles tomorrow.

Honorary nobles are landless nobles who have titles and some annuities. They also have the opportunity to study at the Roman Academy.

The titles of these people would be reduced with each succession. At the same time, their annual salaries would also be reduced. Compared with the nobles of the territory, these nobles had much less power.

But their social status is equal, of course, it is equal at the legal level. In fact, the territorial nobles are definitely of higher status than them.

However, the nobles of the territory also faced the problem of decreasing titles. Every time the title decreased, part of their land would be taken back. If the title dropped to the lowest level, all their territory would be taken back.

Richard gave these nobles the opportunity to study because he wanted their descendants to study hard. It was impossible to implement comprehensive education in this era.

Even in modern times, universal education has only been possible in the last few decades. And apart from the compulsory education for all in the University of Tokyo, the so-called compulsory education in other places is not very valuable.

The most typical example is the Lighthouse Country.

Before Richard traveled through time, the Lighthouse Country was still the world's number one superpower, but its national education level was incredibly low.

There are two educational models implemented in the Beacon Country: one is universal education and the other is elite education.

Elite education is similar to the education of the University of Tokyo, and is also very strict, with a lot of things to learn. The other kind of universal education is completely the opposite, promoting happy education. Basically, learning in school is voluntary and completely free-range. The level of students from such schools is so low that they are even lower than that of elementary school students.

Later, when the United Nations conducted a literacy test, it was found that the illiteracy rate in the entire Lighthouse Country was as high as an astonishing 21%.

This means that one in five people in the Lighthouse Country is illiterate, and 4.1% of adults are classified as below level civilization, which means they cannot complete simple reading tasks or even fill out forms.

Another 54% of adults have literacy levels below sixth grade level, and 20% of them have literacy levels below fifth grade level.
It is shocking that the problems caused by this kind of education actually occur in the world's most powerful country.

In the Lighthouse Country, people in many places firmly believe that the earth is flat
When Richard first learned about this, he was also unbelievable. But thinking about the political model of the Lighthouse Country, he was not surprised, and even felt it was very reasonable.

After all, in the Lighthouse Country, these strata are basically consumable cattle and horses, and for those upper-class people, they are just leeks and voting tools.

They don't need these people to be smart, the country's politics and economy will only be controlled by a small number of top elites.

They promote happy education so that the people at the bottom of society will always work hard at the bottom, and the people at the top of elite education will always be the top of the country.

They don't want those at the bottom to compete with them for upper-level resources.

Richard also planned to provide elite education, but his elite education did not exclude other commoners. The Roman Academy recruited students from outside, and Richard also planned to build academies in Gaul and North Africa.

These colleges recruit students every year and offer free basic courses. These basic courses are mainly to teach children. Ordinary people can come to study. After studying, they will take exams, and as long as they pass the exams, they can enroll to study.

Those who have made great contributions can skip this step and enter school directly.

This method naturally has many flaws, such as ordinary people cannot afford the tuition fees, but it is much more convenient than before.

And as long as they are good enough, their tuition will be waived after entering the college, and they will also receive a sum of money to support their studies.

Although it has many shortcomings, it is sufficient for this era.

After graduating from these academies, only the outstanding ones will be sent to study at the Roman Academy. After graduating from the Roman Academy, they will be granted some official positions according to their talents.

This system is similar to the imperial examination system of the University of Tokyo. As for promoting the imperial examination system here, it is basically impossible. There is basically no soil for the imperial examination here.

Not many people are learning knowledge, so what are the questions in the imperial examinations?
Richard knew very well that this system had many loopholes, but it was much more advanced than the previous system and the system in Europe for the next thousand years.

In normal history, what system emerged after the fall of Rome? Basically, it was family inheritance, the dark ages of the Middle Ages that lasted for thousands of years.

Compared to the dark ages of the Middle Ages, Richard's system is much better.

Being advanced or backward depends on who you are compared with.

After enfeoffing the nobles with territories, Richard began to enfeoff the nobles with honors. Although the nobles with honors did not have territories, they still had some rewarded farmlands.

These honorary nobles would receive a reward of five hundred to two thousand acres of land, but all nobles had no tax exemption privileges.

Richard had stipulated from the very beginning that all citizens of the empire had the obligation to pay taxes, and those who evaded and avoided taxes would be deprived of their property or even directly reduced to slavery.

Richard didn't want to see the weird phenomenon like the end of the Ming Dynasty in the East. The Ming Dynasty was incredibly wealthy, but the emperor was extremely poor.

Hundreds of millions of silver coins flowed in every year, but the imperial court was unable to collect taxes. This kind of strange phenomenon could not occur in Rome.

Taxes are the bottom line of this country.

(End of this chapter)