Chapter 387 Legal Property
The next day, when the town hall held a formal banquet to entertain the "big customers" who had signed orders, the holy priests divided into more than a dozen teams and went to visit the surrounding villages.
Westham is the first alien territory touched by the national team. The countryside of Westham is the area where the national team has put the greatest effort to explore, understand, and adjust the governance methods. For the holy priests of the Prosperous Church whose flames are gradually burning in their hearts, it is also the place with the most reference and learning value.
The mountain village that Charlie Rex and Ji Tang had visited before, a village so poor that only adult men and women who needed to go out had clothes to cover their bodies. White-robed ascetics carrying flails walked barefoot on the terraced potato fields made of gravel, soil and flexible weeds, and listened in amazement and shock to the villagers' stories about how they fenced off fields on the hillside and planted potatoes.
Once, Tattle Joe squatted in the mud-walled yard and listened through the wall to the village women talking about the backward countryside where the lack of sanitary products caused many inconveniences. The holy priests sat around the small farmyard still surrounded by mud walls, with their backs to the mud walls hung with dried corn cobs, listening to the nervous, shy and blushing farmer women introducing the villagers working in the paper mill not far from the village, and how the villagers, under the leadership of the undead technicians sent by the town, developed and utilized the wild bamboo forest on the mountain through hard work and became rich.
In the village on the shore of Horseshoe Lake, which was once invaded and robbed by the Sokri caravan, Joyce Andre was shocked to see chickens and ducks raised on a large scale in the artificially maintained reeds...
On the third day of the winter celebration, the City Hall sent people to solemnly pick up the delegation and take it to the city. The Holy Priest Cavalry, which was the escort for the delegation, did not go with them, but stayed in Westham to continue their visit and study tour.
When the old national team cadre who took over Zhao Zhenzhen's job and served as the governor of Innadli City led the wealthy Shiga nobles to visit a second-hand clothing refurbishment factory, the holy priests took off their weapons and equipment and dressed like ordinary people. Under the guidance of the staff and clerks of Westram Town Hall in groups, they fully and deeply understood the series of policies implemented by Westram in the past two years.
Two days after the Winter Celebration, the Shega nobles, who had signed many orders, finally remembered their visiting responsibilities and expressed their hope to obtain knowledge sharing on farming from the undead agricultural experts. The generous Undead Archon of Innadri City immediately delivered the written materials that had been prepared long ago.
At this time, Westram had a rough understanding of the Undead regime's governance route, and disputes were inevitable within the Holy Priest Cavalry.
In the large hotel that the town hall had vacated for guests, a total of 211 priests, including soldiers and non-commissioned officers, moved away sofas, coffee tables and other furniture, sat on the floor, and held an internal discussion in a very priestly style.
In the Orthodox sects on the continent of Nabarron, as the sect's main external combat force, the Guardians and Holy Priests Corps, all those who serve as non-commissioned officers and officers usually have to have experience as night watchmen, and the Prosperous Church is no exception.
Lieutenant Joyce Andre, two sergeant lieutenants, and eight corporal officers have all served as night watchmen. Compared with ordinary soldiers, they have given more thoughts on the ruling and governance policies adopted by the undead regime.
There were three non-commissioned officers who, like Joyce Andre, strongly supported the redistribution of the excess wealth owned by the nobles in order to better practice the teachings of the Goddess of Prosperity.
There were four people who opposed the deprivation of the nobles' property and believed that the wealth accumulated by the nobles for generations should also be protected.
The remaining three people were in a state of confusion and could not express their opinions clearly.
Brother Lowell, who was once the commander-in-chief of the Holy Priest Cavalry Regiment, did not participate in the discussion of the cavalry team, but just sat among the soldiers and listened.
After everyone sat down on the floor in the hall as they usually did around a campfire, the non-commissioned officers with different opinions spoke one after another around the central point of the dispute.
Sitting in the crowd, Lowell was not happy about the declarations of his supporters, nor was he annoyed by the resistance of his opponents. He just smiled and watched these young people speak impassionedly.
Young members of the church, both for and against, who have expressed their willingness to participate in the debate, have accepted the possibility of targeting aristocrats who have monopolized excessive wealth.
Anyone who completely denies this possibility, including his great-great-grandson Lance, who will inherit the title of Viscount in a few years or a dozen years, would simply walk away in anger and have no interest in discussing it.
Both sides of the debate had only a cursory understanding of Westram, and their opinions were all immature, so it was naturally difficult for them to convince others. In less than half an hour, they were all at a loss for words and fell into an endless verbal dispute.
Joyce Andre stood up to stop the discussion from turning into a quarrel, and said to Lowell, who was sitting among the soldiers: "Father, why don't you also tell me what you think?"
Brother Lowell smiled and nodded, looking at the two non-commissioned officers who held different opinions, and said, "In fact, both of your views make sense. In fact, the Undead Archon will respect all those who have accumulated wealth through legitimate means, whether they are commoners or nobles."
Seeing that both parties were looking at him in shock, Brother Lowell continued, "Last November, the Public Security Department, Government Affairs Department, and Commerce Department of Innadri City Hall jointly investigated the public security cases, land transaction documents, and labor and transaction contracts that had caused disputes in Innadri over the past 30 years. A total of more than 400 people were investigated and prosecuted, of which more than 300 were either nobles themselves or stewards, deacons, and servants acting on behalf of nobles."
"By the end of December, fifteen of the eighteen noble families of Innadli had all or part of their property confiscated, their titles revoked, their fiefs taken back, and the people involved in the case convicted and sentenced."
"Among these fifteen families, those who have not been involved in the case will not be punished. The property earned by the family members who have not been involved in the case will be retained by themselves. The servants under their names can also continue to keep their property if they are re-registered and willing to continue to work for the original owner."
"For factories in the Innadeli North City factory area that are seriously involved in the case and have chaotic equity, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Government Affairs will jointly investigate and redefine the equity; those with legal business operations, clear equity, and normal tax payments can continue to operate."
"Industries inside and outside the city, including workshops, factories, mines, factories, farms, ranches, horse farms, etc., which have a clear origin, have not seized farmers' land by trickery, and have not been involved in serious public security cases, will be retained after review by the Department of Commerce and the Department of Public Security."
After a pause, Brother Lowell smiled and said, "All the above, regardless of whether it is the property of a noble family or not, is protected by the undead regime. No individual or group may encroach upon it. This was announced by the Undead Archon himself in the newspaper in late December last year."
Both parties in the argument were greatly shocked. Not only were they no longer angry, but they fell into deep thought.
"The Undead regime protects the legal property of all the people in the territory, and this includes everyone." Brother Lowell said with great envy, "It's not only the opinions and feelings of the nobles that are valued, and it's not that nobles and wealth must be overthrown. They only deal with things, not people. This is the consistent style of the Tarantan Undead, and I really yearn for it."
"The Tarantan spirits will not grant special privileges to humans because of their noble status, nor will they ignore or abandon humans because of their humble status. I think this is something we humans need to learn seriously."
The white-robed ascetic sitting next to Brother Lowell nodded particularly vigorously.
More soldiers looked at the monks with shining eyes.
Joyce Andre, who had personally experienced the dramatic changes in his hometown, did not think that it was right to let the nobles monopolize a large amount of wealth. It was only because he was the commander of the cavalry that he was not convenient to participate in the discussion. Seeing that everyone accepted Brother Lowell's opinion, he stood up and said, "If only one noble family robbed the property of another noble family and enjoyed the robbed wealth alone, then such behavior is of course no different from robbery and is not worthy of our support as holy priests. The monks will not encourage the believers of the goddess of prosperity to do such stupid things."
"How the Tarantan Undead used and controlled the wealth they recovered from the Rhine nobles is the experience we need to seriously understand and refer to. This is my personal opinion."
The non-commissioned officers nodded one after another. One of them, who had been thinking since Brother Lowell spoke, said, "The Tarantan Undead organizes civilians to learn knowledge, trains militias, and recruits civil servants from the civilians. These are all things that require the concerted efforts of many people. I think, should we also try to get more people to complete this task with us?"
Another non-commissioned officer immediately said, "Don't worry about that. As long as we let the holy priests in the country know that Brother Lowell is leading us to do things that are more in line with the Goddess's teachings, they will definitely become our companions."
Another non-commissioned officer said in confusion: "But I think that the Tarantan Undead were able to make such changes freely only after they directly ruled the Innadli Territory and the Adler Territory. How can we convince the lords at home to follow our ideas?"
"The lords of Innadri and Adler are not undead either. We just need to have our people serve as archons like the undead."
"How can it be that easy? Where in the country is the governor not a trusted person of the lord?"
"Hey, I say, have you forgotten who supported the lords of Innadri and Adler?"
"This... is it going to start a war in the country?"
"If just launching a small-scale territorial war can make our country better, why not?"
Brother Lowell felt a little amused and emotional as he looked at these young holy priests who became more motivated after their doubts were answered and even thought of starting a war in the country.
He actually had little confidence in his ability to gain the support of the holy clergy, especially since his idea of revising the course of the prosperous church was so "radical."
Before the visiting delegation and the holy priests arrived, Lowell, who was worried about gains and losses, reluctantly revealed his true feelings to Ji Tang after struggling for many days, hoping to get Ji Tang's advice.
After Ji Tang listened carefully to his concerns, he analyzed them very seriously for Brother Lowell.
The undead mayor believes that the middle and lower level members of the Orthodox sect are the group most able to accept the concept that "all men are created equal" and the Tarantan undead governance strategy.
Brother Lowell, who was among them, suddenly realized what was going on after hearing these words.
For the middle and lower level members of most of the Orthodox religious sects on the continent of Nabarron, the greatest responsibility is to develop believers, maintain and expand the parish.
The believers in the parish, regardless of their status, are equally important to the members of the sect who devoutly believe in the true God - what the true God needs is more believers, not believers with noble enough births; the large religious donations generously provided by the latter are more important only to the senior priests who have the right to control the donations.
Compared with high-ranking legion officers and senior priests, middle and lower-level clergy are more likely to respond actively to the prayers of civilian believers. During the vampire incident, it was a priest of the Gold Coin Church who personally sent the Sapir brothers who were harmed by vampires to Innadri.
Brother Lowell allowed the holy priests to discuss all the possibilities without thinking, and then he smiled and gave the answer he had considered for a long time: "We don't have to rush to bring back what we have learned . If we pursue our goals too eagerly, it will only make us further away from our goals."
"My idea is that we can use the Lowell family's fiefdom as a test site and try to apply what we have learned in the viscounty in the western border of the Principality..."
Lowell knew very well that if reforms were implemented in the Principality of Shiga, internal war would be inevitable sooner or later.
Yang, who had an army of 30,000 undead and his own legendary strength, acted cautiously and carefully in the Rhine Kingdom. This was enough for Lowell, who was watching the whole process, to understand how dangerous it was to completely change the social structure from the bottom up.
But Lowell, who had thought through the consequences thoroughly, was not willing to give up.
What he needed to do was to make the vast majority of the citizens of the Principality of Shiga and the middle and lower-level members of the church, who made up the majority of the population, see the benefits of reform before completely angering the stubborn opposition of the Principality of Shiga and sparking the inevitable war, and to win the support and inclination of the vast majority of the citizens and church members as much as possible.
As long as there are more people who yearn for change than those who oppose it, he will definitely be able to continue on the path he has chosen.
