Hetty's question was expected by Gawain, and he knew that Hetty also knew the answer well - she asked this question on behalf of others present.
"Every one of us knows the power of Cecil Territory," Gawain looked around at everyone in the conference room, from Norris, the agricultural director, to Hammer, who was in charge of steel smelting, and then to From the senior clerks of the Government Affairs Department and other department heads, these familiar faces are all witnesses and promoters of Cecil’s growth to this day. “Then each of us should also know that Cecil’s strength is It is based on 'magical industrialization' and an advanced social system, and is based on an order that is different from the traditional aristocratic territory.
"Horsman and the 70,000 he organized. The rabble has collapsed, and among all the land nobles in the south, except for those who are attached to Cecil, there are only three types left. One has died in the artillery fire at Gravel Ridge and Whitewater River, and the other is being imprisoned in the Horsman area and The prisoner-of-war camp on the banks of the White Water River, the last of which is on its way to exile, is only a matter of time before its destruction. Then after these nobles and all their armies disappear, the entire southern border will be left with more than forty undefended and unruled empty cities. Cecil will take over these lands and re-establish order on the land - Cecil Searle's way. ”
Gawain wants to establish a new order. Now that he is on the key road to unifying the entire Southern Territory, he must extend Cecil’s success to the entire Southern Territory, making the Southern Territory a strong, stable, and integrated entity. Cecil Principality instead of letting the more than forty feudal territories continue to operate in the same way as before. Otherwise, even if the people on those lands are loyal to him, he will just change the noble team for the entire Southern Territory. , nothing has changed.
In any case, the foundation of the traditional aristocratic system in the South - land and population - must be fundamentally changed. This war is the opportunity to change everything.
Gaowen once considered two plans.
The first plan is to move all the population in the southern border to the Cecil area, and eventually form a large-scale densely populated area along the Whitewater River-Dark Mountains line. , and build a powerful industrial empire on this basis, which can maximize the power of the population in industrial society and allow Cecil's magic industry to develop to the next stage in the shortest possible time, but in rough estimation After measuring the population of the entire Southern Territory, and investigating the distribution of various resources and the geographical location of the cities in the Southern Territory, he gave up this simple and crude plan.
Because the population of the entire Southern Territory is as many as several million (rough estimate, actual). should be more), this number exceeded his expectations. This is due to the existence of extraordinary power, which makes the world's food output relatively abundant, and the physical quality of ordinary people is high, which also results in the population being poor even if the civilian life is difficult. The number of people is still very high, even in the most desolate, poor and backward southern region of Ansu, the number of people is enough to make Gawain's simple and crude first plan abort.
Although Cecil has a relatively advanced society. system, with rapidThe development of magic industry, but it is impossible to complete the relocation, resettlement, and transformation of millions of people in a short period of time. Even if the cycle of this plan is extended to three to five years, the huge consequences of this large-scale population migration will The huge resources and social pressure will also bring down Cecil.
Not to mention that this plan is equivalent to giving up more than 80% of the land in the Southern Territory in a short period of time - when all the population is concentrated in the Baishui River-Dark Mountains area, the resources and reclamation in other areas of the Southern Territory will be lost. What to do with the farmland that comes out? Without those resource output and food production areas, Cecil's current development rate alone cannot support the self-sufficiency of an industrial structure with a population of one million.
So Gao Wen could only choose the second plan, which was to only relocate the population in the southern region and let them establish new industrial belts in Cecil’s north shore development area and the east and west sides, while at the same time The population in other areas will be concentrated nearby, and several second-level new cities will be built in other areas through the establishment of secondary government affairs offices. Since there was previous experience in establishing secondary government affairs offices in the Kande area, this plan has considerable potential. feasibility.
And in this way, Gawain can also ensure control over most of the Southern Territory, and the resources distributed throughout the Southern Territory will be fully developed and continuously injected into the giant magic industry. Inside the beast.
Of course, the pressure is still great, but Gawain has every reason to do it.
“Relocating the population and establishing a magic industrial system similar to Cecil’s, with experienced Cecil administrative officials to preside over the construction - creating a new order and promoting the development of magic industrialization is only one of the purposes. The other purpose is to destroy the foundation on which the old aristocratic system relies."
Hetty followed Gawain and understood immediately what his ancestor meant: "Is it land and population?"
“That’s right,” Gawain nodded. “It’s not enough to ban or kill this group of land nobles. As long as their land and population systems still exist, there will be new land sooner or later. The nobility emerged, so we must break this system and ensure that the old nobility will never come back.”
The old nobility ensured the stability of the authority of the aristocratic system through the enfeoffment of land, and the land that existed together with the enfeoffment of land. The system firmly tied the civilians to those lands. The civilians could not leave the lord's land at will, or even do anything other than farming. When the Ansu founding was not stable, this kind of enfeoffment ensured the basic order of the entire country. , but after the advent of the Magical Industrial Age, this situation of tying people to the land has become a shackles.
With the current agricultural model established in Cecil Territory by relying on large-scale industrial production of alchemical potions and concentrated and efficient farming, a considerable amount of the agricultural population can be converted, and it is necessary to convert it into an industrial population.
On the one hand, Gawain's population migration is a necessary means to build a magic industry, because a sufficient population with basic labor freedom is a prerequisite for ensuring productivity.On the other hand, it is to completely destroy the living soil of the old nobles in the south.
Of course, saving management costs is also part of the reason. After all, Cecil’s administrative power is limited and the southern territory is vast. Gawain wants to establish the same advanced management system as Cecil in other areas of the southern territory. To achieve this level of management throughout the southern border, it is necessary to change the current situation of vast land, sparsely populated areas and chaotic settlement structures.
Rationally concentrating the population, redistributing land, and setting up a more scientific and standardized urban and rural structure are all effective solutions.
Not everyone can fully understand Gawain's complete theory, but the people here have at least witnessed the rise of Cecil, and how the new order in the territory takes effect and As a result, they understood the necessity of population migration and turned their attention to the specific difficulties faced by this grand plan.
Norris first raised the most realistic question: "What should farmers do if they are unwilling to leave their land?"
In this era, land was used by the nobility to bind the people. Shackles and tools, but the sad thing is that most civilians do not understand and agree with this. On the contrary, they will identify with this bondage - farmers are unwilling to leave their land. This is almost an inevitable situation in any farming society. To be liberated The person who is unwilling to accept your liberation is a problem that Gawain must face.
Even if we take a step back, people in this world do not have many specific thoughts about "it is difficult to leave their homeland", but rashly forcing so many people to move will inevitably face huge resistance, even according to Gawain's first In the second option, he just asked those people to move to the nearest city. Those civilians who would rarely leave the village in their lives would also have great resistance.
The traditional nobles probably would not care about the public's resistance, but Cecil's rules cannot do this - Gawain must also consider the issue of social stability during population migration.
"First of all, population relocation will be a long-term plan. I initially plan to complete it within three to five years, and this time can be extended," Gao Wen explained, "So we can carry out the population in batches Migration. The experience of Cecil's founding can be used - first of all, serfs and slaves are moved. More than 80% of serfs and slaves are the property of lords and knights. Now they have become ownerless people. This is the most important thing. Easily relocated;
“Secondly, to ensure the supply of land, we can ensure that there is enough farmland for the relocated population through land replacement, reclamation of new land, recovery of old noble manor properties and redistribution, and also to ensure that there will be no In this process, it affects the agricultural production of the entire southern border;
"Finally, pay attention to rewards and publicity and guidance. Everyone in the Government Affairs Department and your clerks should have some experience in this. We The purpose is not to force the common people to leave their homes, but to prepare a better new home for them, attracting them with the propaganda that they can become urban citizens, obtain land granted by the lords, and that the new lords will reallocate real estate.Lure them into thinking that population migration is an opportunity rather than a mandate, which can also make things go smoothly. "
When Gawain finished speaking, Norris nodded repeatedly. As a farmer himself, he believed that the plans proposed by Gawain were enough to deal with the vast majority of the migrant population.
In fact, even without these plans, it is possible to enforce the population relocation plan - the civilians of this era have amazing tolerance for the lord's orders and various adversities. In many cases, the lord may only rely on In a moment of good or bad mood, he could ban all people in the territory from entering the mountains or order everyone not to go fishing in the river. If Gawain wanted to force a population relocation, most of the common people would just think that it was the whim of the new lord. , and then gritted his teeth and accepted the arrangement. After all, after this war, the Cecil family has actually become the absolute authority in the South.
But... Gawain is not willing to do this. /p>
In the establishment stage of the Principality of Cecil, every stain caused by everything he did would cost ten times or even a hundred times to make up for it a few years later, and it was even impossible to make up for it. He understands the pros and cons very well.
Based on existing experience, there are druid potions produced by the alchemy factory, and there are agricultural learning meetings to allow farmers to exchange their high-yield techniques, and cooperate with advanced technology. System, the food production in various places will be greatly improved. When the food production is sufficient, a large number of concentrated free people can enter the factory, and an important part of the magic industrialization will be achieved.
Hetty. Then another question was raised: "Ancestor, establishing a second-level city hall still requires a large number of manpower. Although the Government Affairs Department has been doing its best to train various administrative personnel, it can barely make up the people needed for various supervisors in the second-level Government Affairs Department. But we may have a big gap in the more basic clerk and clerk positions, and we also have to solve the problem of appeal... Although Cecil defeated the coalition of more than 40 nobles in the south, we have sufficient strength. To take over the land of those nobles, but the administrative personnel sent do not have enough appeal in the local area. It would be okay to send some soldiers to control order, but to establish a unit like the secondary government affairs office... the locals may not cooperate . ”
Then Hetty organized the language and added another point: “And we must also take into account that there are still remaining loyalists of the old lords in some areas waiting for opportunities to destroy - although the number may not be large, but This disruption has a huge impact on social order. "
"There will definitely be residual rebels, and there will be troops to protect and eliminate them," Gawain nodded. "The problem of appeal does exist, so I have asked Byron and Philip to take care of them first. The noble and knight prisoners from the prisoner of war camp have been escorted back first. I will have a good 'talk' with those people. After they 'cooperate', we can more easily recruit intellectuals from various places and train them. The manpower gap will also be reduced. It will be relieved. ”
Gawain is destroying the old aristocratic system in the south, but just as he realized before- Whether he is willing to admit it or not, most of the intellectuals and upper-class talents of this era are concentrated among the nobility and their vassals. If he wants to establish a new order, especially in a short period of time, he still has to think The only way is to borrow strength from these people.
So he wanted to destroy the old aristocratic system, but he had to retain - at least some of the nobility and their vassals who were willing to cooperate and accept transformation, so that the resources they had could be put to use.