Chapter 429: Policy to Support Farmers
Resettling three hundred thousand refugees in a matter of months was an incredible feat, and one that Amy and Eric put a tremendous amount of effort into.
A few years ago, every inch of land near Sarleon City was owned by someone, and there were noble manors everywhere.
But now the area around Fierce Lion City and Deer Heart Lake is severely damaged. The continuous wars and disasters have once caused all the noble manors in this area to be empty.
After Amy returned to Sarleon City, she has been working to restore agricultural planting in this area.
At the beginning, some nobles ran back without knowing the consequences, intending to claim back the land and mansions that originally belonged to them.
But Amy had only one unified response to this - get lost.
Nobles who chose to flee when war came and failed to protect their subjects would be considered to have automatically abandoned their territory. On the contrary, if they died on the battlefield , the House of Nobles would help them find an heir. This was a common rule in the continent of Pendor.
Amy was very polite in asking them to get out. If it were Leon, he would probably send these nobles to Yaxing Village next to Singal and provide them with a job where they would not be easily unemployed. Leon had a large iron mine there, and Ramon had contracted the mining work to the slave traders...
Eric's approach is more low-key - Eric is now the head of the House of Nobles, and many more nobles come to Eric than those who go directly to Amy.
But for some reason, all the nobles who went to the House of Nobles to ask Eric to take back the territory around Sarleon City and Deer Heart Lake would basically disappear mysteriously within a few days...
Eric expressed his deep regret over this, and he even used the funds of the House of Nobles to open an "Aristocratic Orphanage", which took in many aristocratic orphans who were left helpless due to the disappearance of their parents. Due to limited funds, they only took in children under the age of five whose parents had both passed away.
Ever since the orphanage was built, no shortsighted noble has attempted to reclaim their original territories.
Therefore, there are very few noble lords in the area of Fierce Lion City at present. Only the members of the City Guard and their families still retain their territories - these people are the former members of the Royal City Guard.
Most members of the City Guard are illegitimate children or second sons of minor noble families who have no inheritance rights. Although they have families behind them, they actually have no property of their own.
Amy once made all their core members above the rank of squad leader official knights, thereby gaining their loyalty.
Today, they have become Amy's grassroots staff for managing refugees, and all of them have become the new generation of manor owners.
The manor that Amy assigned to them was actually the original manor farm of those nobles who "disappeared without reason".
This can be considered as allocating territories to the knights, but these territories do not belong to the members of the city guards. Only the houses belong to them.
——Amy gave the property to the city guards and the fields to the farmers.
The members of the city guards who participated in the resettlement of refugees were able to obtain the properties of the original noble manors. This was a reward and remuneration for them, as well as a strategy to win over the hearts of the soldiers. However, they could not get the fields in the manors, only the houses belonged to them.
There are nearly a thousand manors, which is just enough to be divided.
The reclaimed land will belong entirely to the farmer, and the more he grows, the more he gains. He only needs to hand over 100 pounds of grain per acre per harvest season.
Based on these farms, and using the simple and easy-to-understand policy of "land reclaimed belongs to the reclaimer", Amy attracted more than 300,000 refugees from various parts of Sarleon Territory and reclaimed nearly 2 million acres of land around Sarleon City.
This is a huge project.
The reason for setting the tax standard with a fixed amount per acre is to encourage people to plant high-yield crops as much as possible or to do their best to reclaim wasteland - whether planting wheat or corn, only one hundred pounds of tax will be collected per acre, and the rest will belong to the person. People will naturally do the math and then make choices based on their actual situation.
The land around Sarleon City is fertile. If high-yield crops are planted, the grain tax of one hundred pounds per acre is actually very low. Of course, everyone will plant as much land as possible.
If it weren't for the fact that there were only two million acres of land suitable for cultivation around Fierce Lion City and Deer Heart Lake, they might have been able to reclaim more land.
If calculated by household, there are nearly 100,000 households among these 300,000 people, and each household has an average of about 20 acres of land.
Most of these refugees were tenant farmers or indentured servants of the nobles before, but now they have all become self-employed farmers with property. Of course, they are overjoyed and have a heartfelt respect for Amy.
The city guards were also very happy. Of course, the city guards did not know how to farm... After all, they were children of nobles, and they had learned how to fight and how to communicate with others since childhood.
However, the families of the city guards themselves usually have only a few people, and the properties of the nobles' manors are relatively large, so they cannot use up all the space. They will renovate the houses and rent out the extra houses to farmers, becoming their landlords - for them, this is a good benefit, simple and easy, and does not affect their main job at all.
However, after the harvest next year, these landlords without land will have to buy food from farmers - this can be considered a form of mutual restraint.
Amy's methods were very reliable. She not only bribed the city guards, but also bribed the farmers, and was able to provide enough farmland resources for the entire country.
In fact, these people are now considered to have industry. Each household has 20 mu of land, the average per capita land is close to 7 mu, and the grain tax is low, which is definitely enough for living.
But they will indeed be destitute in the short term - although they have land, they will have nothing until the food is harvested.
That is to say, until April next year, they will all need to rely on Li Ang's "agricultural loan" to survive.
The loans were used to purchase food and seeds from the directly-operated grain store in Sarleon City, and the loans were used to rent houses from the city guards. There was no traditional charity-style relief, because the agricultural loan was interest-free for one year, and the loan itself was the best relief.
Pure charity relief can only occur when a disaster occurs and should not be sustained for a long time. Amy and Leon are both very clear about this.
Providing land to the extremely poor is to make them hopeful about the future; providing them with loans is actually revitalizing the overall market in the region and driving farmers to continue their efforts.
After all, we can’t just provide food to farmers. We need to let farmers consume, so that urban residents can live on industry and commerce and the entire region can function .
Revitalizing the overall economy is the key to solving the poverty problem. If we only save the poor without saving the market, we can only provide relief every year.
These 300,000 refugees lack everything. If they want to survive in the area around Sarleon City, they have to buy a lot of things - this will generate a lot of demands, and they are all rigid demands related to food, clothing, housing and transportation, which can promote the rapid recovery of basic industries and commerce near Sarleon City.
At the same time, this will also allow a large number of smart people to stop staring at the land, and people will have the opportunity to choose their lives - to make money in the way they are good at.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Amy's management style. In addition, Eric, who has a quick mind, is also in Sarleon. As long as the commodity prices and food supply can be stabilized, the area around Sarleon will be greatly changed in a year.
But, but.
In order to house these people and provide seeds, all the food that Leon got from Bacchus had been used up, and there were only three kinds of food and seeds - wheat, corn and potatoes.
In other words, the types of crops are too concentrated!
This is not a small or medium-scale planting, this is two million acres of land. Some countries do not even have this much land in their entire country!
By next year's harvest season, if everything goes well, the entire New Pendor Kingdom will have sufficient food, which will indeed be beneficial to the country.
But the problem is that due to the single type of crops, everyone who grows crops will inevitably not make any money - the crops are difficult to sell.
During these months, these 300,000 people have to rent houses, eat, and buy necessary tools. They also have to keep a crop for next year’s harvest, pay taxes, and repay agricultural loans…
The loans the farmers have should barely last until next year's harvest, but by next year's harvest season, they will still be destitute - they are overspending, but even if there is a good harvest next year, it will still be difficult for them to get cash and make up for the overdraft.
In fact, this is the biggest dilemma faced by all farmers throughout history - in bad years, there is not enough food to eat, and in good years, food is cheap...
Even if they obtained seeds of other cash crops, it would still be difficult to exchange the agricultural products for money due to the lack of sales and transportation capabilities.
Agricultural production is also production and can be regarded as individually operated production enterprises. Only when they convert their output into cash can they truly escape poverty.
But if the farmers rely on themselves, no matter how much surplus grain they have, it is difficult to sell it because there is simply not enough market demand nearby - there are farmers like them all around them, all with land, so who can they sell the grain to?
The poverty problem among the agricultural population actually arises at the commercial level.
In other words, the area around Sarleon City is actually facing two problems.
First, the entire country has no extra food reserves, and must rely on the land around Fierce Lion City next year. That is to say, the two million acres of land must last until next year's harvest. If anything unexpected happens during this period, the entire country will be ruined.
From December to April next year, there must be no wars destroying farmland, no extreme weather, no plagues, no internal problems around Sarleon City. Stability must be maintained...
Second, most of the population in this area are agricultural workers, and their crops this year are extremely single. Even if they have a successful harvest next year, they will not be able to cash in, which will cause them to remain poor.
Although they wouldn't starve to death, they had nothing but food, which was actually a state of extreme poverty...
In order to solve these two problems, Li Ang has been very busy recently.
The first issue is actually maintaining stability.
Sarleon is located in the hinterland, so the risk of war is not high. The war should not extend to Sarleon in the next few months.
Another good news is that the Jatu people's transactions have become more and more frequent recently, and their demand for "Fu Shou Gao" is increasing significantly.
According to the news sent back by Fothert, the Jatu people robbed several towns in the eastern part of Ravenstern, stole countless sheep, and then immediately rushed to Fletcher to exchange for the longevity cream...
The supply of mutton will increase.
In fact, relying solely on mutton is definitely not enough, but an adequate supply of meat can greatly reduce the consumption of basic food - if a person consumes one pound of meat per week, they can reduce the consumption of staple food by three to five pounds.
There should be no problem in maintaining overall food reserves until April or May next year.
The biggest problem is how to get through these months smoothly.
Li Ang's strategy is to ensure domestic stability by making other countries unstable...
Firdsvain and Ravenstern are already at civil war—King Vidis is fighting the Vanskerry Alliance led by Lord Haakon; Ursula is in a seesaw battle with Gregory IV. These are all great opportunities...
Of course, this opportunity does not mean that Li Ang intends to join the war.
Instead, I plan to make them more chaotic.
The Firdsvain was already short of food, and although Leon didn't know that Vidis was about to go bankrupt, he could tell that the overall economy of the Firdsvain must have collapsed long ago - otherwise there wouldn't be so many Firdsvain people running to Long River City to make a living.
So Leon asked Leslie to take the people from Changhe Express to Wulong City.
It was a place familiar to both Leslie and Leon.
And Leon asked her to find an acquaintance - the owner of the arena, Fatty Andrew.
Li Ang plans to develop Andrew into a franchisee of Maixiang International.
But Leon was not planning to enter the sports industry. He wanted Leslie to be an "investor" and spend money there. He only approached Andrew to help Leslie enter the circle of big businessmen.
Li Ang asked her to act like a wealthy person and to acquire all the properties she could in a high-profile manner - no matter what industry, as long as they were willing to sell, she would buy them.
The economy of Wulong City is currently bleak, and many people are willing to sell their industries. Moreover, they are basically buying at the bottom, so it is not complicated to discuss.
Most of the business must have some background - either related to King Vidis or to a certain Lord of Firdsvain.
But Leon told Leslie not to look for any lord, but to keep making acquisitions until all the big merchants in Fog City would gather around Leslie, the big money bag.
Currently Leslie is continuing to spend money and the results will be seen in about ten days or half a month.
The second question is more complicated.
Li Ang plans to build grain purchasing stations in various villages and towns before April next year, that is, before the first harvest season. The state will purchase grain at standard prices as a strategic reserve, allowing farmers to smoothly turn their output into cash.
Anyway, there is never too much food reserves, as long as malicious price suppression can be avoided.
This is indeed a good idea, but it is not the best idea.
Because the state purchases reserve grain, it can only purchase basic grains such as wheat and corn that can be stored for a long time.
This will lock farmers into these basic crops - if they grow other things, the government will not accept them and they will not be able to sell them, so they will never grow other crops next season, or the next season...
If they all plant basic crops, then everyone's income will not be very high, which will not be able to solve their already overdrawn consumption.
Because the country needs to maintain stable food prices, the purchase price of basic crops cannot be too high.
In addition, the weather is not always good every year, and natural disasters occur occasionally. Even if the average person has six or seven acres of land, people still cannot get rid of poverty for many years.
The real way to solve the problem is through commercialization and logistics.
This is the 'Fortune Castle' that is currently under construction.
What is absolutely indispensable near the core agricultural base is actually a trading and logistics transfer center.
Many agricultural products are not durable in storage and must be able to be converted into cash and transported quickly with minimal losses in order to achieve high returns.
The farmers do not have the sales and transportation capabilities, but Li Ang’s Changhe Express does, and Li Ang’s Maixiang International can directly purchase many things, so there is no need to find other investors to build the market.
However, the bulk trading and logistics gathering place for agricultural product transportation is not suitable to be placed in the city of Sarlion, so Li Ang wants to build it in the most convenient place for transportation near the city of Sarlion.
This is the reason why the God of Wealth Castle was built on the site of the Qicha Fortress.
Caishenbao will be built into a bulk trading market, and a comprehensive wholesale market - Li Ang wants merchants to help farmers make money.
Farmers can quickly cash in their agricultural products in Caishenbao, then explore business opportunities in Caishenbao’s integrated market and use the money they just earned to purchase production materials and tools that they are more proficient in.
——They are refugees who became farmers to survive when they were homeless. They are not necessarily good at farming; and those who are good at farming do not necessarily have to grow grain.
Moreover, merchants will take the initiative to contact self-employed farmers or local managers in order to create more supply and demand relationships - merchants need raw materials, they are not just here to sell goods, when selling products they may also persuade farmers to try growing something else... such as fruits or other cash crops with higher unit prices.
After all, every farmer here has land.
The role of the market is not only to buy and sell on the spot, but also to allow people who are good at communication to settle in and find business opportunities for themselves, while also bringing opportunities to people who are not good at sales.
In addition, agricultural product trading and comprehensive markets will create many new jobs, which will further solve the problem of food and clothing for more people.
When agricultural product transshipment markets are nearby and many people begin to establish supply and demand relationships with merchants, farmers can grow any products needed by the entire continent instead of relying solely on basic food.
Many of them will start growing cash crops, or even have their families engage in commerce and transportation, or find tools in the market to start other handicrafts - the overall market environment around Sarleon will become active, and production and trade will become diversified.
Only diversified production and operations can enable most people to make money.
Everyone has something they are good at, but most people don't have the opportunity to change careers.
Li Ang wants to give them this opportunity, which is not only an opportunity for people to get rid of poverty, but also an opportunity to bring wealth to the rulers.
Because there is an agricultural base with a population of 300,000, this is a ready-made end-consumer group that can digest Changhe City's products. The merchants in Changhe City trust Li Ang the most, so of course Li Ang wants to let them get rich first - they are the main force in paying taxes.
The job of building the Castle of Fortune was given to Charles because he was obedient and reliable.
Leon gave him a plan, and Charles started implementing it without asking any questions.
As for Li Ang, he was thinking about where he could find work every day.
After the arrival of winter, the demand for work decreased, and there were not enough houses in Changhe City. Many vagrants appeared in the city, and Li Ang wanted to give them something to do.
For example, now, Leon brought a group of unemployed people who couldn't find jobs in Changhe City to Lake Erakle in the Noldor Forest to break ice and clean up garbage.
It can not only help the Noldor solve things they are not good at, but also allow these unemployed people to earn a living, promote cooperation between humans and Noldor elves, and take the opportunity to popularize the new currency...
Clearing ice is a job that doesn't require any skills, just a willingness to work hard. Moreover, thin people and even lighter women sometimes have an advantage - they can stand on thinner ice to work.
But such a simple task caused a big problem.
