Chapter 172 Come back soon, the city has divided the land

"Hurry, hurry up, the land is being divided in the city."

"Brother, are you really divided?"

"Yes." A farmer in short clothes smiled happily and shook the land deed in his hand to his friend, "Not only that, but all refugees and public farmers can also be promoted to armed farmers."

"I'll go right away!"

"Don't worry, let's go find the itinerant priests first and call the household register and the landowners."

Originally, after hearing about the Blue Blood Incident and the Duke being beheaded, other farmers nearby were too scared to go there. Especially after the villagers who escaped returned and said that there was a river of blood in Jeanne d'Arc, they were even more afraid to go there.

But I heard that the land can actually be divided, which is another matter.

On the main road outside of Jeanne d'Arc, a long convoy carrying the first group of people, a total of 5,000 people, headed towards the Wild Spider Forest.

On the roadside, the bodies of people like Zandbeck, Darnay, and Bulwerf were hung in a row, left to be mutilated by passing refugees and citizens, with signs saying "devil, demon, monster" and the like hung on their bodies.

Parallel to the convoy were refugees from the surrounding villages, who were lined up in a long queue and walking in the opposite direction towards the gallows outside the city.

The white light of the cloudy day slanted over the Mediterranean heads of the monks, like a matte finish.

Nearly a hundred monks, accountants and notaries were sweating profusely as they quickly copied and transcribed the new deeds, while a dozen holy musketeers were standing behind them with a fierce look in their eyes.

These deeds were temporarily carved and printed last night. After the oligarchs of the printing industry were invited by the Cheka to eat turnips in the West Ice Cellar, the printers immediately became more talkative.

Those printing workers carved out the standard land deeds in relief overnight, or to be more precise, they modified the original standard land deeds and printed a large number of standard land deeds overnight.

Now the task of monks and accountants is to confirm the identity and share of those who receive the land based on the household register and taxes, and then just sign and put their fingerprints on it.

This was the order Horn issued yesterday. Before leaving, there were two days left for everyone to do nothing except purchase supplies, so they might as well divide the land.

Horn did not divide the land, otherwise it would be bad if some unproductive people took the land and became middlemen or squeezed other farmers.

The measure he adopted was the policy of "land to the tiller", for which he was able to do so thanks to the church.

Although those refugees were not from Joan of Arc, the church treated them equally. As long as you farmed the land, you had to pay taxes, regardless of whether you were a human or a dog.

Most of the Duke's properties outside the city were in the form of manors, and the income from employment was mainly in the form of money, supplemented by food.

Since monetary taxes are easier to count, it is clear in the household registration book who cultivated which fields and how much tax they need to pay.

Instead of giving them more land, Horn transferred the ownership of the land to the actual cultivators, turning the hired farmhands into the actual owners of the land.

It means going from working for the lord to working for yourself.

The estates of the church and the duke are divided into private fields and public fields.

Private land means that the duke leases the property to farmers and collects rent in cash or in kind from the farmers in proportion to the area they cultivate. After deducting taxes, the remaining harvest belongs to him.

Public land means that the peasants in the territory are obliged to work on the public land, and all the output of the land belongs to the lord, which is a kind of labor rent.

In fact, Horn only distributed private land, while the public land, which accounted for more than one-third of the total land, had not yet been distributed.

The first batch of people to be distributed private land will be the Salvation Army members. Even if you arrived first, the Salvation Army members have to do it first before others can get their turn.

In addition to priority in allocating land, the families of the Salvation Army soldiers who died in battle will also receive an additional 5 acres of public land and gold pounds.

Those who died in the old camp and the land that Horn once claimed to be remotely controlled were all distributed to them. The household registers and land deeds recorded those who were not armed farmers or public farmers, but fellow priests.

You must know that priests have certain tax exemption privileges, and enjoy the same status as priests, and are exempt from land tax on land below 40 acres.

"If only I had made up my mind to go last night," a farmer said to his companion with regret, "If I could become a fellow priest, I dare not imagine how good my life would be."

"Aren't you afraid that the Imperial Order will come and kill us?"

"What are you afraid of? Didn't you hear what Cardinal Richelieu said? The Duchess of Hermès wrote a letter to guarantee us that as long as the Salvation Army leaves, they won't do anything to us."

"So you still want to go with the Saviors?"

"Tsk, guess how much the Salvation Army soldiers earn?" "I don't know, 2 dinars a week?"

"Two dinars a week? Four dinars a day! The Salvation Army has officially decreed that even the monthly salary is one gold pound, which is more than what a craftsman earns. Can you earn one gold pound by working hard in the fields for a year?"

"Is there such a thing?" An armed farmer who was eavesdropping originally squatted on the ground, but now he stood up.

You should know that the average price in the imperial mercenary market is that an infantryman's daily salary is about half a dinar to two dinars.

The salary Horn officially ordered the Salvation Army to pay was 2-4 times the normal mercenary price!
After killing the Duke and defeating the Church, Horn now had nearly 5 gold pounds in his hands because the waterway was blocked and all the taxes collected by the Duke and the Church could not be transported away.

This is based on the premise that a lot of money has been spent on purchasing various supplies.

Based on the future new legion of 6000 people, it would cost 18000 gold pounds for three months, which Horn could afford.

"Then can I go?" the armed farmer asked hurriedly.

The farmer said sadly, "Only the Salvation Army can go. After killing the Duke the night before yesterday, they spent the whole day registering members. If you are not on the list, you have no chance."

"If I had known, I would have killed the Duke too."

"You have the guts."

"Why not?" The farmer gritted his teeth and looked at the hung duke. "What have we done wrong to deserve his treatment of us like this?"

"Which noble in the world is not like this? What the Holy Grandson said is indeed right. The nobles are indeed the devil."

"Say less."

"If I hadn't overslept last night, I would have..."

"You've never slept before, didn't you get scared halfway through and run away under the pretext of having to pee?"

"It's like you didn't run away."

Without further ado, the armed peasant shouted at Armand, who was preaching the Holy Grandson on the gallows, "Bishop Richelieu, how can we contract out our public land?"

Taking advantage of the power vacuum between the Salvation Army and the Imperial Order Company, these armed peasants wanted to take advantage of the fact that the Salvation Army did not know the ropes and fish in troubled waters to reap more benefits.

"Public land will not be contracted out in the future. We will send direct personnel to manage it. Don't try to play tricks. We will be back soon." Armand said bluntly, regardless of the ugly faces of the armed farmers.

"Fellow believers, you can only divide the private land if you meet them by chance. After we all leave tomorrow, there will be no more division." Armand stood in front of the gallows and shouted in a hoarse voice.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Bishop Richelieu, but isn't this the property of the church and the Duke? Is it okay to give it to us?"

"Wrong! This is not the Duke's estate. The Duke is a devil, and his estate is ill-gotten gains. We killed the devil, and all the ill-gotten gains belong to us. Isn't this a very normal thing?"

Armand said righteously: "The church is even simpler, Bourville is also a devil.

Our Holy Grandson is the son of Messiah, so the church’s property is managed by servants on behalf of their masters. What’s wrong with our Holy Grandson directly managing it?
As for distributing it to you, that is only natural, because according to the system of the Holy Treasury, everyone has to share the land and cultivate it together.

Things can't always be perfect. We can't guarantee that all of you will have land to farm, but I can at least guarantee that most people will have enough to eat.

Don’t you want a good lord? Well, now the land belongs to Saint Misaela, and your direct lord is Misaela, isn’t that good? "

"Ah?" The farmers looked thoughtful, but when they thought about what Armand said carefully, it seemed that there was nothing wrong with it.

What the Saint Grandson said does make some sense. We are all hired farmhands directly under Mircella, and the knights have no reason to deprive us of our rights.

A barely perceptible smile appeared on Armand's face. With this vague acknowledgement, part of his cognition actually began to change unconsciously.

"The public land will be used as a collective farm, operated by members of the Salvation Army, and we will use the income from the public land as a source of funding for hospitals, schools and Keats Home.

All members of the Salvation Army can enjoy low-cost treatment and purchase low-cost medicines in hospitals, family members of soldiers can go to school free of charge, and Keats Home will be open to widows, elderly people and orphans..."

Looking at the expressions of the villagers, Armand continued to draw the pie according to the instructions given to him by Horn.

"We will abolish the distinction between armed and registered farmers, abolish the shield tax and military service for armed farmers, abolish the Fugitive Slave Law and the Labor Law. Believe us, good times are yet to come!"

(End of this chapter)