Chapter 239: Traitor
Of course, arranged marriages are just a joke. If marriage could bind someone together and cement a relationship forever, there wouldn't be so many infatuated men and women in the world.
After teasing Rex, Yang Qiu sent him away.
Unlike Yang Qiu, an "idler" who meditates in the City Lord's Mansion every day, Rex is very busy.
As soon as she returned to the city hall, Zhao Zhenzhen smeared a report on Rex's face.
"Uh...'Investigation of Serfs in Innadri'?" After seeing the handwritten title on the report, Rex's mind immediately withdrew from the messy speculations about the Odysseus family, and his expression became solemn.
"This is the result obtained by Agent Monk and his investigation team after visiting more than 20 farms this month." Zhao Zhenzhen's skull face was also quite solemn. "The situation of raising serfs in Innadeli is more serious than you and I previously assumed."
Agent Monk was an ordinary officer who was not valued by the original sheriff. He was fortunately reused after the City Hall rebuilt the city's law enforcement department and assigned the public security management authority to the newly established Public Security Department.
When Ms. Shirley was sorting out the archived population files, she found that the number of newborns in some areas was incorrect, so she borrowed the investigation team of Agent Monk from Jimmy's Public Security Department to conduct a "census". The problem came out during the investigation...
This part of the population that was not included in the archives became the "servants" of the local nobles.
But don’t think it’s as simple as a family supporting dozens of “domestic servants” - there are more than 3,000 “domestic servants” registered in Viscount Darcy’s family.
And this is only the part that has been entered into the City Hall archives.
Agent Monk led the investigation team to secretly visit and investigate more than 20 manor farms, including Darcy's home, and the results of their discoveries were beyond imagination.
"The Darcy family alone has tens of thousands of servants?!" Rex turned to the first page and almost thought he had read the number wrong.
"They are serfs in the name of domestic servants." Zhao Zhenzhen said coldly, "Darcy's farm, manor, horse farm, forest farm, except for the butlers (stewards) who get paid and a few hired workers who are just for show, they are all slaves!"
Rex gasped slightly.
Next, Zhao Zhenzhen opened Agent Monk's report and briefly explained it to Rex.
The Rhine Kingdom prohibited the slave trade, but did not prohibit the nobles from using and keeping domestic servants (after all, the Rhine royal family still needed nobles from all over the country to raise their own private soldiers to protect the territory), which gave the Rhine nobles a lot of room for maneuver.
For example, the parents of the orc girl Lika, although they were illegal slaves transported from the north by Kenyan merchants, as long as the farmers and manor owners who received these orc slaves gave them a seemingly legal identity as domestic servants, no one would care whether these ostensibly domestic servants were doing the work of serfs.
According to Zhao Zhenzhen's estimation based on various information sources, the total number of serfs who served as domestic servants was at least over 200,000 in the territory of Nadeli alone... There were not so many large-scale agricultural machinery to assist in planting in this world. Even if the manors of the nobles had sufficient animal power and basic farm tools, the number of people needed for farming was not a small number.
"Only this farm on the east side of Kane Town has more than 1,400 serfs." Zhao Zhenzhen said murderously, "It's not just that. After Agent Monk pretended to be a passerby and talked to farmers working in the fields, he learned that... half of the serfs on this farm are from nearby villages!"
"In the past 20 years, nearly half of the land in that village has been merged into this farm. The farmers who originally cultivated those lands were also converted into serfs by the deacon under various excuses. This is why the number of newborns registered in this village in recent years is incorrect, far lower than the average of the previous few decades!"
Domestic servants did not pay taxes, which was the biggest reason why many short-sighted farmers were unknowingly stripped of their freeman status.
If you don't pay taxes, you won't get official protection. Even in the Bartles family's time, farmers who paid agricultural taxes annually could get the most basic guarantee of life safety. At least if a farmer was beaten to death by a noble for no reason, he would have to pay compensation, ranging from a few gold coins to more than a dozen. (According to the laws of the Rhine Kingdom, the oldest male owner of a family can get more compensation when he is beaten to death.)
If you don't pay taxes, you won't even have the most basic guarantee of receiving compensation after your death.
Moreover… not having to pay agricultural taxes does not mean that these serfs who were deceived or voluntarily accepted the title of domestic servants can really have enough to eat - which butcher would be tender to the pigs on the chopping board? !
The total population of Innadri territory is over two million, and agricultural population accounts for more than 70%.
Nearly one-tenth of the population are serfs (domestic servants) who do not pay taxes and have no basic human rights guaranteed... This made Rex's arms feel heavy as if he was holding a mountain as he held the report.
"Can we... do something?" Rex said with difficulty.
Zhao Zhenzhen nodded with satisfaction.
Those who feel pity for the “inaudible cries” are just ordinary niceties - they are not good people. They will not care about the inaudible cries, and they will only be satisfied with giving some cheap sympathy to the “audible cries”.
A good person in the traditional sense is one who has compassion in his heart and is determined to change this unreasonable phenomenon and take action.
Only such indigenous people are worthy of the support of the national team.
Rex was so poor and destitute that when he was waiting to die in the Sorenson Mountains, he still dreamed of becoming a better lord than his father one day. He clearly showed his aversion to Yang Qiu, a black magician. If the undead had not shown a subtle lawful nature that was beyond Rex's knowledge, and had not attacked bravely to save the poor people in Westram's red light district, he might not have been willing to cooperate .
Considering his miserable life experience, this is not surprising... People with unhappy childhoods tend to gradually differentiate after adulthood. Most people succumb to reality and follow the same path as their parents, passing on their misfortune to the next generation; while a small number of people are able to achieve self-transcendence spiritually, regard the suffering they experienced in their childhood as a lifelong opponent, and pursue fairness and justice more than their peers with happy families.
Rex knew how his father treated his subjects. He hated his father and the way he exploited his subjects. He believed that the subjects were the lord's responsibility rather than his possession. It was this persistence that allowed him to honestly accept the ideological impact from another world and gain recognition from the national team.
"Tax reform." Zhao Zhenzhen said calmly, "Cancel the income tax system for male heads of large families, and change it to a unified tax system for aristocrats and bureaucrats. Cancel the population tax, and cities will pay taxes based on personal income, and rural areas will pay taxes based on the number of acres of land."
This was not a tax system originally created by Zhao Zhenzhen, but a copy of Yongzheng's practice, abolishing the tax-exempt privileges of aristocratic landlords.
Paying taxes not based on total family income but on an individual basis is a slightly "radical" step... but it is beneficial in the long run. Large families will naturally band together to confront the regime, and dividing large families is what any mature regime should do. The existing "large families" in contemporary China either keep a low profile or stay in the "special zone" as mascots. Don't even think about combining family strength to cover the sky with one hand like Japan and South Korea. If you dare to think about it, you will be "cracked down on gangsters and evil."
Huaxia abolished the three rural taxes, but Huaxia's tax reform system could not be applied in Innadeli. The reason was the same: poor Innadeli did not have a strong central government funding support, but instead had to pay money to the church and the king annually.
We can't even exempt the peasants from taxes, but we want to give your nobles the privilege of not paying taxes here or there. Then what is the point of conquering Innaderi?
Do you want the approval of your noble circle? Do you deserve it?
Rex, the native, was obviously shocked by the tax reform proposed by Zhao Zhenzhen, which was not radical at all and even a bit backward in the eyes of the Chinese.
Due to his long experience of being slapped in the face, Rex did not rush to jump up and shout "It won't work". After all, he was not a masochist... Instead, he frowned and thought about what serious consequences would occur if the local nobles resisted fiercely.
If you think about it carefully...there really aren't any serious consequences.
The local nobles might dare to attack the City Hall, but no one in the City Lord's Mansion would be crazy enough to touch it.
Inciting the peasants to rebel... Given the credibility of the nobles, it is impossible to do it just by talking, but it can be done if you are willing to spend money to hire someone.
However, the nobles probably don't think that a peasant rebellion can shake the current Innadri regime - a hundred strong farmers are not as capable as five mercenaries, otherwise they would not have raised such a small number of private soldiers to allow these guys to bully others in the countryside.
Not to mention that the public horse-drawn carriages launched by the City Hall allowed cheap coal and cheap stoves produced by smelters and coal yards to quickly enter thousands of households. At least in the winter when coal was needed for heating, the "popularity" of the City Hall was much higher than that of that group of nobles.
"But... I always feel that this is a bit risky." Rex said as cautiously as possible, "Collecting taxes from these nobles is almost the same as asking for their lives. They will definitely fight back fiercely."
Zhao Zhenzhen smiled slightly and asked, "Isn't this just right?"
Rex choked.
Indeed... this group of nobles fought desperately and used all their strength to try to overthrow the Nightmare Butcher on the battlefield, but they were just providing labor for the prisoner road construction team in Westham.
The fact that this group of local nobles took the initiative to wage war against the City Hall gave the City Hall a reason to take back the towns and villages that had been granted as fiefdoms...
The Bartles family needed these local nobles to help them manage the place and collect taxes, but the current city hall no longer needs these nobles to be "sub-landlords" - if Barton's operators were released and provided with national team guidance, they would not have any problem managing a town. Didn't you see that Tattle Joe, that good-looking former thief, did a great job as a women's representative?
"But..." Rex struggled fiercely for a while, and said hesitantly, "Will it attract the attention of the upper echelons of the kingdom if we rashly change the tax system that has lasted for thousands of years?"
Innadili now needs space for peaceful development. This is what you and Yang often say, Sister Zhao!
Zhao Zhenzhen smiled brightly: "Do you think the king will oppose the tax reform in Naderi?"
Rex was stunned at first.
Then, his expression became a little strange...
If the king could collect money from the nobles, would he refuse?
The king's mouth is about to be crooked with laughter!
If Lord Innadri jumps out and strikes the noble on the head with a knife, the king might turn around and give the title of earl to this traitor in the aristocracy!
Rex, who recognized
When he first entered the city, Rex promised all the high-ranking positions in the city hall to local nobles as instructed by Yang Qiu. However, these bureaucrats "selected" by the nobles had not yet taken office...so those who attended the meeting were all civil servants with the title of "deputy" in their titles.
Well, that is, people like Ms. Shirley who were promoted from the clerks, Ms. Sibel, Jimmy who was from the militia, and Wagner, the former traitor of the city defense army.
They are all old members, and they won’t bring anyone who would hold them back.
All members approved it, and the tax reform details were sent to each noble residence in the central city just one day later.
Viscount Darcy, who had just caught a minor cold because of his useless second son bringing a vampire into the house, took the tax reform notice from the butler while wrapped in thick cotton pajamas. He spat out a mouthful of blood after just taking a look at it.
All the subjects of Innaderi, regardless of whether they are nobles or commoners, must pay taxes according to their personal income levels. The starting point is a monthly income of 18 silver coins. The higher the income, the greater the tax rate, which can be as high as 40%. All the land that Innaderi has reclaimed and cultivated for more than three years must be taxed based on the acreage... This is going to kill him!
Phoenix, who was preparing to use money to defeat the Gold Coin Church, also learned the news on the same day - the city hall did not hide the tax reform plan, and there were propagandists (contract workers) all over the streets explaining it to the citizens.
In the previous meeting, Phoenix quietly tried to find out that the other party had somehow realized that the Odysseus family had a tendency to war and would be happy to support them as long as the price was right. After returning to the hotel, he locked up his brother and interrogated him for a long time but could not find out whether it was he who leaked the information. He was wondering whether he should send a telegram home and ask his father to investigate the spies.
When Phoenix suddenly learned that the City Hall had made such a big move, all his worries disappeared.
The Nightmare Butcher instructed Charlie Rex to do something that would offend the nobles of the entire country, and Phoenix was quite happy to see it happen.
"Except for the Odysseus family, the Nightmare Butcher will never have the opportunity to cooperate with the second great noble of the kingdom." While Phoenix was directing the maid and secretary to count the property used to defeat Bishop Li Jean, he was happily thinking about how to use the immortality of the Tarantan undead for the benefit of the Odysseus family.
She had consulted many witnesses who had personally witnessed the undead army defeating the Cult of the Fiery Sun and the defense forces of the Bartles family, and was already quite clear about the secret of the undead's invincibility - when they went out to fight, they needed Nightmare Butcher Yang to provide some kind of device that could continuously summon the undead.
After getting the Gold Coin Church to show its sincerity, Phoenix will definitely get this special device that determines the combat effectiveness of the undead when he visits Yang again to formally discuss cooperation.
