Hearing Gawain's words, Knight Philip was in a daze for a moment. He didn't quite understand what his lord meant, until Gawain asked him a more specific question: "When the old Cecil Territory was still there, How big is your fiefdom?"
"It is two villages and a settlement southwest of the old castle," Knight Philip replied, "...and a mill."
In the system of the Ansu Kingdom, this is a standard fiefdom for relatively poor knights. After the decline of the Cecil family, the knights loyal to the family basically only have these territories.
Gawain nodded: "You have been following me for a while. You should know that according to the current land distribution system in Cecil Territory, there is no living soil for the traditional land aristocracy here, even if it is a 'fiefdom' This concept is still there, but the privileges of the land aristocracy have been greatly compressed.”
Currently, the Cecil Territory has passed its initial stage of establishment. As more and more areas are opened up, land distribution has become more and more important. An issue that the ruler of Cecil Territory must consider. For Gawain, the pioneering and construction of the Cecil Territory is by no means his entire goal. He ultimately wants to introduce the new order to the entire world, but he does not want the new order he promotes in this world to become a waste of time. Progressive "change of dynasties", so when thinking about how to deal with the traditional land aristocracy and related systems, he really spent a lot of brain cells.
At the beginning, he considered implementing the reform in one step - directly and completely erasing the concept of "nobles", completely binding the governance of the territory to the Government Affairs Office, and in the future expansion of the territory along the way. Destroy all the nobles in front of him, but during his trip to Glenland, he was reminded.
Being too aggressive can lead to serious problems.
Although the situation in the Cecil Territory is not the same as that in the Glen Territory ten years ago, although Gawain has implemented education and publicity in the territory to enlighten the people's wisdom, and also has his own armed team and supporting productivity, but he still must face the fact that outside the Cecil Territory, the nearly indestructible old social order throughout the world is still very strong. Even within the Cecil Territory, those The officials, soldiers, and civilians who strongly supported him also grew up under the influence of the old social system, and the changes he wanted to make were far more intense and profound than those of Gülen ten years ago.
The old social order has long penetrated everyone in this world and this era, and his "one step to get it right" is likely to lead to unpredictable consequences.
No matter how fast the productivity of the Cecil Territory develops, it will be difficult for him to conquer the world while completing the transformation and reconstruction of the entire society in the process of future expansion. First of all, there must be quality and capable civilian management. Leaders cannot appear out of thin air. Most of the talents used to maintain social order still have to be selected from the old aristocratic system. Secondly, too extreme changes will stimulate aristocratic systems around the world unless he can change them in a short time. Opponents all over the world are eliminated and replaced with a new systemIf it were replaced, then the external enemies would attack in groups sooner or later - and most likely it would come when the Cecil Territory expanded significantly and became internally unstable.
Traditional nobles may be greedy or slow, but they are by no means stupid or lack vigilance.
After realizing these hidden dangers, Gawain thought carefully for a long time and referred to some situations in the Eastern Typhon Empire. Finally, he made his own policy for future expansion-that is, retaining the nobles. , but gradually disintegrate the soil on which they depend.
Gawain will retain the title of "noble" and some honorary privileges, and will even retain their power to collect tribute from the land in the early stage, but he will take back all the supernormal powers of the feudal nobles, Including legislation, maintaining the army, coinage, self-determined tax rates and other privileges. In this way, the control of the land aristocrats will be greatly weakened. At the same time, Gawain also plans to cancel the concept of "fief" and use " to replace the relationship between the old "lord" and the land. In the end, he hopes to create such a situation:
A new noble, who owns a legal "territory", He can collect a certain percentage of tribute from the economic development of this territory as his "annuity", but apart from this "dividend", he will no longer retain any control over this land and its population. He could keep the family's castle, treasury, and various honorary titles, but that was all he could keep.
If he wants to gain more income or gain greater power, then he can choose to compete for a position in the Government Affairs Department, or invest in opening a factory or business.
This is an incomplete change, but Gawain knows that even this level of change will still greatly stimulate the traditional nobles, even more than the Typhon Empire next door. Seriously, it triggered an even stronger backlash - after all, in Typhon, the nobles at least retained the concept of "fief".
But it doesn't matter, as long as their rebound is within the control of Cecil's "truth", then everything is not a problem.
They will cooperate after the beating hurts.
Of course, most of these are Gawain's inner plans. Although many people in the territory have guessed that the ancestor is planning to beat the child with a rolling pin, Gawain has not said it out yet. , but for those smart people, such as Philip Knight, he can at least see from the various current systems in the territory what the position of the landed nobles is in the "Cecil Order".
“To be honest, when you first announced the land distribution system, established the Government Affairs Office, and transformed the various lord powers into the daily work of the Government Affairs Office, I had a period of...resistance, "Philip is a sincere person. Even when he was facing his idol or even his spiritual role model for the past twenty years, he did not hide his thoughts. "I also discussed with Knight Byron at that time, when will you Will you remember to talk to us about the fiefdom..."
Gawain looked at the knight in front of him who could tell the truth with a smile: "So what now?"
"Your wisdom has made this land extremely prosperous," Philip said From the bottom of his heart, "I never imagined that a land could become so wealthy in such a short time—not by farming and tenancy, but by factories and commerce, if you hadn't eliminated those The old system that tightly binds the people to the land, if you had not established an efficient government affairs department, factories and commerce would never be able to operate."
"Then you still miss yourself. A fiefdom?" Gawain continued to ask.
“A true nobleman gets his title not to rule anyone or to obtain any benefits, but to protect his people, make the people safe, and make the land prosperous. All his privileges are for To better fulfill this obligation - this is what you said in the 4th year of Anzu, and I engraved it on my shield," Philip said seriously, "So, if your new order can If we can keep the people safe, make the land prosperous, and do better than the old privilege system, then there will be no need to retain those privileges."
"Very good," Gawain said with satisfaction. Nodding, "It would be great if everyone could have the same awareness as you..."
Then he paused and ordered: "I want you to summon all the knights in the Kant Territory - —The time has come for them to swear allegiance.”
Knight Philip has always been responsible for liaising between Kant and Cecil, so he is the best person to do this.
The young knight lowered his head: "I will definitely complete my mission."
After Philip left, only Amber and Gawain were left in the study.
The half-elf lady circled Gawain twice - technically speaking, she circled the entire desk twice. Her actions made Gawain unable to help but ask, "What are you going around for?"< /p>
"I think you are going to do something big," Amber looked at Gawain seriously, "but I don't understand what it is that you are going to do."
"Not bad. Ah, it's quite surprising that you can tell that I'm going to do something." Gawain looked at this half-elf who usually knew nothing about territory, laws, traditional nobility and other things in surprise, "How did you tell that? "
As soon as Amber opened her mouth, Gawain wanted to slap her on the wall: "What I'm good at in my life is making trouble. I can't see the same kind of temperament?"
"You... forget it, I don't expect you to understand."
"Don't say that, I can still see something roughly," Amber immediately stared and said, "I am I know how many privileges you took back after changing 'fief' to 'territory', and how you brought those privileges under the control of the Government Affairs Department - before, apart from you, there were only a female countess, Rebecca and Bai, in the territory. Two knights, Philip and Ren, I was curious at that time, who were you targeting by doing this in advance? Now I seeOnce it comes out, you can't say who you will target in the future, but now the old knights led by Kant will definitely be attacked first... Aren't you afraid that those knights will unite to resist? ”
“Claimed knights are ‘half’ of the land aristocracy. Their privileges are far less than those of real lords. They themselves have no power such as legislation and coinage, and they obey Cecil. After the new law, they only turned their previous land rent income into annuity income, and lost the legal right to rule the fiefdom, but they can get more benefits from the new social order... People with a little wisdom and foresight , you will know how to choose. ”
“Oh my god, you actually require them to have wisdom and foresight, the two things that nobles lack most!” Amber said in a very exaggerated tone, "What should they do if they don't?" "
"That's great. The annuity saved is enough for me to open several steel foundries in the Kande area. "
Looking at the heartfelt smile on Gawain's face, Amber suddenly remembered the "negotiation means" mentioned by the other party before.
She suddenly felt a little cold...< /p>
“But I think they are more likely to see the situation clearly,” Gawain said with a smile. “Again, they have not lost many privileges, so their resistance will not be so Strong, at least not to the point of risking their lives to resist - and as long as they see the power of Cecil's Order after this, they will know how correct their choice is. ”