Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 297 Private Property
It is obvious that Egypt is regarded as the emperor's private property to a certain extent, and it is not easy for other senators to come in and share a piece of the pie. Looking at the current situation, as long as there is no major situation such as civil war or political assassination in the next few years, the emperor's private property will not be much different from his personal property. He and Tiya do not settle accounts separately, and he is more responsible for helping Tiya manage financial matters.

From this perspective, Orville was very thoughtful about his approach to Egypt.

Egypt's financial situation is not very good now. The war has had a great impact on the country's food production and trade. There are refugees everywhere due to various factors, and the whereabouts of those tenants who originally belonged to the nobles and kings also need to be urgently resolved. In order for the country to recover as soon as possible, and for Orwell to be able to gather food to supply the local area as usual this year, Orwell needs money, and the Egyptian royal family also needs money.

After explaining the pros and cons to Cleopatra, a detailed plan was put forward.

The first step was to sell a small portion of the land and exchange it for liquid assets. Some tenant farmers who had saved some money or Greek immigrants affected by the war could mortgage the land itself and food income in exchange for the land they cultivated at a relatively low price.

It was basically the same thing that was done in Gaul, the difference was that there was no special effort to attract population migration, and the main focus was on internal absorption and flow. At most, Orville privately encouraged some of his local friends to come and buy land.

In addition, Orville asked Cleopatra to reform the current land system. Most of the land would still belong to the Egyptian royal family, but the taxes on the tenants would be more accurately implemented.

To be fair, Ptolemaic Egypt's land system actually seems to be quite reasonable at first glance, and later dynasties in the Central Plains of the East would also do so to a certain extent.

Generally speaking, the proportion of land harvest that self-cultivating farmers hand over ranges from 3% to 10%. There are some differences in different regions at different historical stages, but it can be said that the proportion is normally not particularly high.

However, it is different when landlords rent land to tenant farmers for cultivation. The more conscientious landlords may charge a quarter or a third, but more often the ratio will be half or even higher.

This is the significance of nationalization of land. Rather than saying that the land is nationalized, it is better to say that the owner of these lands is the king himself. The king can collect high taxes from the farmers who rent the land to cultivate the land in order to fill the national treasury.

The reason why the Ptolemaic royal family was wealthy was largely because they were the largest landlords and monopoly merchants in all of Egypt. Many countries in the Central Plains also used this approach in later generations.

For example, although Suzhou had a developed economy in the Ming Dynasty, its taxes were extremely heavy. In the early years of the Wanli period, the court's annual land tax income in Suzhou Prefecture was about 663 taels of silver, and land tax accounted for 849% of the total taxes. The corvée labor accounted for 73.85% of the total taxes, of which at least 11.78/2 was included in the land tax. Therefore, the actual land tax income was more than 3%.

If we round it up a bit, the imperial court collected 720,000 taels of land tax in Suzhou every year. Considering how little fiscal revenue the Ming Dynasty had each year, this number is quite astonishing.

On the one hand, it was because the land was indeed rich and fertile. On the other hand, there were many lands in Suzhou that nominally belonged to the emperor, and they had to pay taxes according to the standards of tenant farmers. Gu Yanwu's statement that nine-tenths of the people had no land but were tenant farmers might be a bit biased, but the number of local tenant farmers was definitely large.

Some modern scholars believe that Suzhou's commercial and agricultural incomes are relatively high, so it can be "taxed in name only, not in reality". In any case, this is quite unreasonable in Orwell's view. Heavy taxes are heavy taxes. There is nothing to say about this. In Egypt, the richest lands were also owned by the king. The king kindly rented out the land to give these landless tenants a chance to survive, and collected high taxes from the farmers who rented the land for farming.

It cannot be said that this is a completely bad policy. Objectively speaking, the national finances do need more money, but everything has a price. It can only be said that the price of this matter is really not small. Egypt's rule has never been particularly stable. The army's combat effectiveness is weak, and peasant uprisings of all sizes are frequent. It is certain that this is closely related to this land system.

In the early days of the Ptolemaic dynasty, this system worked well. The previous generations of kings were wise rulers who intentionally controlled the proportion of taxation and kept the oppression of tenants within their tolerance. In years of disaster, tenants were often exempted from rent or given a rent reduction, and food distribution was also generous.

After that, especially in the last century, it can be said that the Ptolemaic royal family itself was in a state of being unable to protect itself. Its power was eroded by foreigners on the one hand, and by internal personnel such as eunuchs and guards on the other. They could not even take care of themselves, and these newly-emerged powerful people often did not pay too much attention to the lives of the poor below.

The result was a surge in rents for tenant farmers, the disappearance of the few policies that cared for them, and widespread systemic corruption.

In Orwell's view, there is no need to completely change this land system, which is the economic foundation of the Ptolemaic royal family. He does not want to lose Cleopatra as an ally, but there is an urgent need to make up for the specific implementation.

The Egyptian bureaucracy was slightly better than that of the Romans, but not much better. There were still many functions that should have been handled by the government but were now handled by the private sector, and there was a serious shortage of bureaucrats in taxation and prosecution.

This resulted in a lack of tax revenue from the public, and the corruption at every level meant that the central government ultimately received very little money and grain. Orwell could clearly see that more bureaucrats and stronger supervision were needed.

After discussing with Cleopatra, Orville also passed the decision to reorganize the bureaucratic system. The new bureaucratic system was mainly composed of local people, with some Romans as management bureaucrats, and the Egyptian customs were completely made a direct agency of the Roman Empire.

As for the supervisory agency, he was still a little worried about Cleopatra, so he kept it in his own hands.

The system planning seems to be okay, but there is a shortage of people now. Orville kicked out many of the old beneficiaries, and now there are certain vacancies in the management. Cleopatra asked to handle this matter herself, and Orville followed her wishes.

He could only promote local people to be bureaucrats. There were not that many Romans, so it was okay to do them a favor. He certainly wanted to check and balance Cleopatra, but not in the bureaucratic system, which would reduce the already low efficiency. As long as she could do her job well, it would be fine.

By this point, Orville had probably done everything he could as Governor, and there was not much he could do until the situation improved.

(End of this chapter)