Chapter 172 Not an Issue

Before the vassal system emerged, whenever human territories faced foreign enemies, lords and church armies would fight at the front while the common people fled. When the armies retreated to castles to rest, they couldn't even get a hot bowl of soup, and soldiers had no way to recover because there was no militia in the castles to help defend. The retreating soldiers had to keep guarding the walls themselves. With no logistics and no support, the outcome of the battle could well be imagined.

The vassal system solved this problem by uniting the people and the lords to face threats together. In fact, if capable, lords would prefer all common people to become their own tenant subjects. The essence of the vassal system is for the lord to grant the people more private property and higher status; only in this way will the people support their lord, and the wealthier people are, the more firmly they will defend their homeland.

The biggest difference between a tenant subject and a free commoner is the right to rent land from a vassal or a lord. A tenant subject can rent up to fifty mu of arable land, the harvest of ten mu of which belongs entirely to them. However, farming fifty mu requires at least four able-bodied laborers. Coupled with young children and elderly parents in the household, such a tenant family would need to consist of at least eight people. Tenant subjects do not need to provide their own seeds for farming, but in the best years, the grain produced from ten mu will not exceed three thousand pounds. Three thousand pounds of grain is only enough to feed an eight-person family for one hundred and fifty days. They rely on wage labor for part of the remaining food and on gathering and hunting for the rest. Victor, have you noticed that by this calculation, tenant subjects save no private property at all?

"Is that so? Then where does the wealth of tenant subjects come from?"

Victor was baffled. The people under his command had been eating from the communal pot, but the drawbacks of this practice were gradually becoming apparent. The members under the work-point system were still doing fine because they had the carrot of vassal status dangled before them, but the newly joined free agricultural laborers had already begun to show signs of slackness, preferring to spend their time on their private plots. Victor realized that it was time for the communal pot to come to an end. To prevent population loss, he also had to start the transition of transforming free commoners into more stable tenant subjects. Yet Victor had never considered how tenant family households accumulated wealth, and none of the village chiefs had ever raised the issue. Clearly, this was common knowledge that needed no reminder, but Victor did not know it.

Master Edwin did not beat around the bush and explained, "Those straw stalks are the primary source of income for tenant family households."

"Straw stalks?!"

"Hehe, what else could it be?" Edwin laughed. "Lords store wheat in preparation for war, but do you see any nobles whose staple food is wheat porridge and bread? We consume far more meat, milk, vegetables, and fruit. Compared to these cheap grains, cattle and sheep are the main wealth of lords and vassals, and those straw stalks are the food that helps cattle and sheep survive the season of waters. The price at which lords purchase straw is about one copper sol per pound. Each mu of wheat field yields four hundred pounds of straw, so ten mu yields four,000 pounds. A tenant family's annual income from selling straw is three gold sols. To encourage tenants to plant wheat, some lords credit more straw to the tenants' accounts—twenty mu for some, or even all of it. Tenants call such lords benevolent and generous masters, while the opposite are called stingy lords."

Victor was stunned for a long time, then said bitterly, "The village chiefs under my command never reminded me!"

"Ah, this is the petty cleverness of the common people. The church hopes lords will be benevolent and generous masters rather than stingy ones, so there is an unwritten convention: whatever the lord fails to explicitly specify, all fifty mu of straw are counted toward the tenants. This is also the common practice among most lords and vassals, because gaining the favor of the church and the tenants brings many conveniences. You surely wouldn't want to be called a stingy lord, would you?" Edwin teased.

Victor gave a bitter smile, shook his head, and said, "So, the agricultural and pastoral system I designed has cut off the financial source of the tenant subjects."

Edwin nodded and sighed, "When you graze cattle and sheep in the wild, straw loses its value. Furthermore, wild boars do not eat straw, and wild boars are less valuable than cattle and sheep anyway. Which lord would spend copper sols to buy food for wild boars?"

Victor thought for a moment and asked, "Why will my tenant subjects lose patience after three years? Besides, Sylvia is also promoting my agricultural and pastoral system. She couldn't possibly be unaware of this flaw. Why didn't she remind me?"

"Another unwritten rule: when common people follow a lord to pioneer new territories, they attain tenant status after three years. Without this rule, no one would be willing to come and pioneer frontier lands."

"That is only proper." Victor nodded in agreement. Life in pioneer territories is not only more dangerous, but also requires heavy corvée labor. Moreover, a pioneer lord's savings must be invested in construction while the common people can barely scrape by. To work oneself to the bone for three full years without being granted tenant status would be completely unjustified.

Victor currently did not plant a large amount of wheat—fewer than ten thousand mu—and this year was mainly focused on seed propagation. It was fine for free agricultural laborers to work for him for free for three years, but once they discovered that becoming tenants yielded no income, most of them would likely leave. Smart people might even seek their own way out before the three years were up.

Edwin continued, "Sylvia certainly knows about this issue. Putting aside the problems for a moment, in terms of efficiency, your method is extremely well-suited to the current circumstances. Enclosing and raising wild boars allows cattle and sheep to have more abundant food, and using pork to substitute for beef and mutton allows the numbers of cattle and sheep to multiply. Three years from now, the cattle and sheep in the Man-Horse Hills can recover to their pre-war scale, or even greatly exceed it."

"So it wouldn't be too late to change it back after three years, right? But why didn't Sylvia remind me?" Victor asked with lingering dissatisfaction.

"Hehe." Master Edwin gave a dry chuckle and said, "You are Sylvia's precious darling right now; she doesn't want anyone interfering with you. Who knows, maybe you'll solve the problem yourself... Anyway, even if you fail, the York family will back you."

Victor's mouth twitched slightly. Edwin put it nicely, but wasn't the York family simply using him as an experimental plot? If he succeeded, the York family would learn from his experience; if he failed, the York family would still keep their doors open to him. Of course, this was also the environment Victor needed. History had proven that without backing, closing one's doors to develop in isolation was a dead end. If not for Sylvia's support initially, Victor would have already become the queen's puppet. Moreover, the manpower and resources of the York family were naturally an important part of his plan. Thinking of this, Victor had nothing to complain about.

"Victor, you are very special. You haven't received orthodox lordly education, and many of your novel ideas are very similar to my own views. As a scholar of the White Tower, one's purpose is to solve problems, but I am old and lack Sylvia's patience. I would very much like to hear more of your ideas," Master Edwin said with a hearty laugh.

Victor smiled as well. As a scholar-master of the Silver-White Tower and the uncle of Duke York, Edwin indeed did not need to be restricted by Sylvia. Sylvia not reminding him of this issue was not because of any ill intentions, but rather out of fear that Victor would be overly timid, halt his progress, and turn into a cautious and mediocre lord. How could they possibly know that Victor came from an information-exploded world with countless successful experiences to draw upon?

Victor pondered for a moment and said, "Master, the problem of tenant income is not difficult to resolve. I can expand the area rented by tenants and the proportion of their yield, increasing the land from fifty mu to seventy mu, and raising their share of the harvest from twenty percent to thirty percent."

Edwin sat in a daze for a long time, then said in disappointment, "Is this your solution? What about the vassals then? Doing this harms the interests of the vassals and the lords themselves. You must remember that the seeds for the tenants' farming are provided by the vassals and the lords."

"Of course I know. If you knew that I sow seventy pounds of wheat seeds per mu with an expected harvest of 350 pounds, you wouldn't be so disappointed," Victor said calmly.

"What did you say?! That's impossible!" Edwin cried out in disbelief.

From the perspective of yield, vassals would prefer to plant more pasture grass, but planting wheat is a mandatory requirement from the lord, and the vassals' first batch of seeds is provided free of charge by the lord. This is because when castles and towns are besieged, easily storable wheat is a vital resource for human survival.

However, the agricultural technology of this world is extremely backward, and every year's harvest is poor. In good years, the harvest is only three times the amount sown, and in bad years, at most twice. Calculating with fifty mu of land, an investment of 120 pounds of seeds per mu, and a harvest of 300 pounds, a vassal invests a total of 6,000 pounds of wheat seed and takes in 15,000 pounds of wheat. Deducting the 3,000-pound share for the tenant family, the vassal harvests 12,000 pounds of grain. After subtracting the seeds, the net income is 6,000 pounds, half of which is handed over to the lord. The vassal is left with only 3,000 pounds of grain, which is on par with the tenant family. If the tenants' share is increased from twenty percent to thirty percent, the vassal's income would be even lower than that of the tenants. Therefore, the ratio of harvest to seed has always been the primary factor restricting farmers' income.

Looking across the history of human development on Earth, it is not hard to find that increasing the income of the common people is something rulers tirelessly pursue. Violating this rule causes any kingdom to collapse dramatically. This world is no exception; without the support of the people, a lord becomes a commander of a bare pole, unable even to build a castle, and no family can produce Golden Knights generation after generation. Victor understood this logic and had the capability to solve the problem.

In modern Chinese society, the amount of wheat seed per mu is about twenty catties (twenty-two pounds), and the harvest is nine hundred catties (nine hundred and ninety pounds), yielding a seed-to-harvest ratio of 1 to 45. Setting aside factors like chemical fertilizers and superior wheat seeds, by adopting deep cultivation, meticulous farming, frequent irrigation, and frequent fertilization, Victor believed he could at least achieve a harvest ratio of 1 to 5.

Calculated according to a tenant renting seventy mu of arable land, 4,900 pounds of wheat seed are sown, yielding 24,500 pounds. The tenant family takes thirty percent, which is 7,350 pounds. From the remaining 17,150 pounds of wheat, the seeds are deducted, leaving the vassal and the lord with 6,125 pounds of wheat each. On the surface, the income of the vassal and the lord might seem slightly inferior to that of the tenants, but the actual yield per mu is seventeen pounds higher than initially, and deep and meticulous cultivation reduces seed investment while greatly increasing labor costs. Raising the farmers' share by ten percent will give them peace of mind to farm earnestly. This distribution method can be said to leave everyone happy.

Edwin used a twig to calculate on the ground for a long time. The result left him stunned for quite a while before he asked, "Victor, how can you be so sure there will be a 1 to 5 harvest ratio?"

Victor smiled and said, "I guessed it."

Edwin: "......"

"Won't we find out when the harvest comes this year? Even if there is no such harvest, it won't be too late to change it back then."

Edwin stared at Victor for a long time, then said in a deep voice, "Victor, I won't ask where this farming method came from. If there really is a 1 to 5 harvest, you won't just be a generous and benevolent master; you should be called a great lord. I look forward to that day."

Victor nodded and said, "Master, it doesn't hurt to tell you. Haven't you noticed that the roots of the purple sugarcane are very deep? This indicates that the deeper soil is more fertile. Anyway, I have few people and plenty of land right now, and my territory isn't fully formed yet. There's no loss in trying, is there?"

"Victor, daring to try is your greatest virtue," Edwin sighed.

Victor continued, "Actually, internal flaws are easy to resolve, but deep and meticulous farming cannot do without fertilizer, and wild boars are an indispensable part of the agricultural and pastoral system. Therefore, the external flaws are the real challenge."

"Indeed." Edwin frowned and said, "Cattle and sheep in the wild lack the ability to defend against beasts. If this problem cannot be resolved, your agricultural and pastoral system cannot be implemented. Sylvia is even preparing to slaughter all the enclosed wild boars and re-enclose cattle and sheep once beasts appear."

Victor did not speak, nor was he in a hurry to pitch the artificial river project. As long as a harvest ratio of 1 to 5 or higher was achieved this year, the York family would certainly not abandon the new agricultural and pastoral system. When that time came, it wouldn't be too late to slowly guide them. What needed to be done right now was to persuade Edwin to dig out the reservoirs and ditches.

"Master, let's leave future matters for the future. Let's go see how Nicole is doing first."