Chapter 649 The First Four-Year Plan Hearing (Part 1)
December 3, 1446, Holy Arms, Holy See Building.
Today's regular meeting is different from the past. It is not held in Horn's Bucks Room, but in the larger collective meeting room Clay Hall.
Including Madeleine, the chief of the Court of Truth, Sissi, the chief of the Holy Court of St. Curtin, Bussac, the chief of the Gospel of the Evangelical Court, Jeanne, the chief exorcist of the Exorcist Court, Martial, the presiding judge of the Inquisition, and of course Saint Catherine and Central Bank Governor.
In addition to the Privy Council's Chief Privy Council Armand and Second Privy Council Pettier, as well as the three heroes of the Internal Affairs Department - Cheka head Rene, Gendarmerie Captain Rafael and Night Watch Chief Duvallon.
The five central chambers, together with the Privy Council and the Chamber of Internal Affairs, form the highest level bureaucracy in the current system of the Papal States (proclaimed to the outside world as the Patriarchate).
Not only the Cardinal was present, but also the directors of various departments under the central court, including the chief priests of each township and county, and envoys and officials from the local city halls.
If a magician releases a fireball in this conference room, not only the Holy Axis Papal State but also the entire Thousand Valleys will come to a halt and may even collapse.
So the prevention and security of the Holy Arms Court today is the strictest, and outsiders have been prohibited from entering even before Holy Advent.
Because today’s regular meeting is not only a weekly meeting, but also a summary meeting for the two years of 1445 and 1446.
After all, the summary meeting in 1445 was disrupted by the war and could not be held, so it could only be held twice. This was a large part of the reason why Horn was so busy before.
At about nine o'clock in the morning, everyone was basically there. Although snowflakes began to fall outside, the room without a fireplace was still warm.
This is because the Clay foyer uses heating facilities. The peat boiler on the first floor continuously heats the cold water, and the winding brass pipes dissipate as much heat as the fireplace.
After a brief opening speech, Chief Cardinal Madeleine began to speak.
“Within one and a half years from 1445 to 1446, we basically completed the intermediate grassroots control in Langsand County, and the basic grassroots control in South Mound County, Lower River County, and Cashier County... ..." Madeleine turned over the official document in his hand, "In terms of political reform, we have exceeded our tasks."
A burst of neat applause immediately erupted from the seats on both sides of the Clay Hall.
According to Horn's previously proposed four-year war preparation plan from 1445 to 1449, it was said to be four years, but in fact it also included the second half of 1445.
From the second half of 1445 to the end of 1446, during this year and a half, Horn set three goals - political centralization, economic industrialization, and military modernization.
The first thing in the Madeleine report is essentially about the centralization of politics.
The goal of political centralization is to complete centralization and preliminary government structure, and strengthen the central government's overall control over the economy and society.
Specifically, it was to reduce the power of the nobility and lords, establish a central bureaucracy, and implement direct state control over taxes, resources, and labor.
In the past year and a half, Horn has gone through the war, formulated a constitution, abolished the dead-hand tax, promoted the right of permanent lease, established a government from the 100-house district to the priests' order, and successfully completed the project from the Papal Palace to the 100-household direct access to the area.
The situation where the royal power does not go to the countryside does not exist here in Horn. If the country is compared to a person, then the Qianhe River Valley in the past can be regarded as hemiplegic at best.
It can raise its arms, but it cannot control its fingers, and sometimes it cannot even determine where to hit.
Although Qianheya's ability to control his fingers to close into a fist is still random, at least he can control where to hit his fist.
Even if each hundred-household district recruits 5 soldiers, the current priests' orders in various places can quickly recruit 18,000 manpower within a month.
When all levels of priestly orders are established, you don’t even need to drain them (25% of the eligible population), and you can use on-demand military service (10%) to form an army of 100,000. It's just that the quality is not satisfactory.
Of course, judging from the current level of the empire, 10% is considered to be draining them dry.
Not to mention the military, the fiscal revenue of Langsand County alone has soared from less than 20,000 gold pounds in 1444 to the current central finance of 30,000 gold pounds and the local finance of 20,000 gold pounds. .
Half of the 30,000 gold pounds is just in hand, and the bonds will have to be repaid at the beginning of next year. The actual fiscal surplus is about 10,000 gold pounds.
Although it is not much, it can finally enrich the holy treasury with only 20,000 gold pounds left.
"Very good." With a smile on his face, Horn applauded along with him, "Okay, you did a good job, Madeleine, you are very strong now." After this period of hard work and Shilov After attending cram school, Madeleine is now dressed in a simple black robe. Although she is still kind, the majesty in her eyes is completely different from that of the fugitive before.
After Madelan sat down, the second person to take the stage was Sissi, the director of the Holy Library.
Today he was wearing a smart wide-sleeved white shirt and black spider silk breeches that tightened his thighs. His long hair was tied into a slightly curly high ponytail at the back of his head, revealing his white and slender neck. .
It's just that the Adam's apple on the neck is a bit eye-catching.
Sissi’s neutral and unintelligible voice echoed in the venue: “From 1445 to 1446, our fiscal revenue doubled, and a total of 125 kilometers of mortar roads and 32 state-owned buildings were built. Factories and 9 private workshops, participating in 52 workshops and 7 chambers of commerce...
The grain market in Langsand County increased from 80,000 tons to 102,000 tons, an increase of 27.5%, and the cloth market from 28,000 The number of horses increased to 50,000, nearly doubling...
In the past, Langsand County's business was dominated by a subsistence farming economy, with small-scale decentralized chambers of commerce and transactions, inefficient logistics, and reliance on the luxury of the nobility. Commodity trade, in response to this, we proposed commercial capitalization...
In agriculture, they are also subsistence farmers, mainly single crops, land management is scattered, low yield and inefficient, so we proposed agricultural commercialization …”
The economic industrialization proposed by Horn was dismantled by Sissi, Busak and others into commercial capitalization and agricultural commercialization.
In the past year and a half, Langsound County Government has initially solved the inefficient logistics in Langsound County by relying on canals and mortar roads.
6◇9◇Book◇Bar
In order to solve the problems of small-scale decentralization and dependence on aristocratic trade (excess of luxury goods but lack of daily necessities), Horn raised funds through banks and the bond market. There is a lot of local idle capital.
As for the subsistence farming economy in rural areas, it was violently invaded by the priestly order's processing of supplied materials.
Relying on this money and tariff policy, the Papal Palace monopolized key industries, took shares in chambers of commerce and workshops, moved and merged large and small workshops, and concentrated resources.
With each town as the core, a Qianhe Valley Market covering the entire Pingyuan County is slowly taking shape.
The prices of daily necessities plummeted.
When the sugar and grain trade and proto-industrialization start to operate, the Qianhe Valley market will become a gold-absorbing black hole with high profit margins.
As for agricultural commercialization, it is designed for the transformation of Qianhe Valley from an agricultural country to an industrial country.
This part of the work is mainly completed by the two state-owned monasteries of Holy Hoe and Holy Scythe.
The main means are to concentrate land, promote improved varieties of agricultural tools and grow commercial crops.
After the shackles of feudal relations were lifted in Baihu District, there were still a large number of farmers whose land was small and scattered.
The Holy Hoe Monastery increases the number of fields through reclamation and construction of water conservancy, while the Holy Scythe Monastery increases land output through agricultural economy.
That is, subletting fields from farmers, gathering a large number of scattered fields together, and hiring refugees to grow cash crops or simply raise livestock.
Through the financial policy of the priests' religious orders paying money to reserve grain, a large amount of food and agricultural products were first concentrated in the priests' orders, and then flowed into the market through the priests' orders in various places.
Due to the unified marketing, purchasing and transportation, the efficiency and circulation rate are not comparable to those sold by farmers themselves.
A large influx of food and cloth, coupled with convenient transportation conditions, led to a sharp decline in the number of people who died of starvation and cold, centered in Langsand County.
As for Hongye Township and Daze Township, they achieved two miracles of zero starvation and zero cold death this winter.
“...Although some operations had to be stopped due to the impact of the war, preliminary economic reforms were basically completed this year.”
There was a burst of warm applause again in the venue.
(End of this chapter)