Chapter 461 Civil Engineering in Exchange for Land
After last year’s World Exposition, many nobles in the Kingdom of Gaul received a lot of benefits from the goods from the Duchy of Wesson.
Especially for those large landowners, the first batch of fertilizers has caught up with wheat planting. It seems that this summer harvest can increase production by 20%.
So everyone has no objection to giving him a title, and they are all waiting to exchange wheat for improved seeds this year.
According to Old Louis' original plan, it would be enough to give Frederick a court earl title, mainly to normalize his land in the lowlands.
Those lands were now strictly Lilou's, and Lilou leased them to Françoise, who in turn subleased them to Frederick.
With this earldom, Frederick could put the land in his name and hold it directly, with peace of mind.
But no one expected that the king changed his mind for some reason and made Frederick a duke with a fiefdom.
After injecting a bottle of diaphragm, Old Louis asked others to push it down, leaving Frederick talking to the ministers who had just been named.
Frederick thought to himself, could it be that old Louis wanted to win over him and not help the Kingdom of Tarago?
He had been to Lugang when he bought the land. It was located in the middle of the lowland area. To the south was the delta formed by the main channel of the Rhine River entering the sea. The northernmost tributary flowed from the south of the port town, and it was twenty miles from the North Sea to the west. More than fifty kilometers to the south is a hilly area where deer often run there, hence the name.
If you look at the plan, establishing a port there can become a transportation hub connecting the North Sea and the inland Rhine River Basin.
But the problem is that the altitude there is very low. The floods in the spring every year will submerge the entire delta area, and when the water recedes, it will be full of swamps.
In addition to rivers, there are also seas. During astronomical spring tides, the rising tide will also submerge part of the coastal land.
Lugang is located in a swamp, on a higher ground. It relies on dykes to resist floods. During floods, it is surrounded by a vast ocean. The hundreds of people living here are all fishermen who go fishing on the sea.
At that time, Frederick had initially considered the swamps there, but when he inquired about it, he found out that in normal years the floods were as high as the waist, and in serious cases as high as a person, so a dike of at least two meters high had to be built, and he said goodbye.
Now Frederick has a total of 10,000 hectares of farms in the lowland areas, equivalent to 100 square kilometers, scattered in various places. After years of development, they have become relatively mature, and it is time to start harvesting.
Old Louis was lying on the hospital bed, holding Frederick's hand, and babbled a lot of words of appreciation. He quoted scriptures and praised them for a long time, and then talked about the details of the fief.
According to his wishes, give him another 100 square kilometers of land around Lukang.
The faces of several ministers around him turned red after hearing this.
Frederick was not from the Kingdom of Gaul. If the Kingdom of Gaul wanted to fight, he would definitely not participate. If Wesson's army could help fight, this territory would definitely add 0, and it was good land in the country.
But the rules of feudal society cannot be broken. The Kingdom of Gaul will pay "assistance money" if it does not send troops.
In the past, Frederick's farm paid taxes to the local government. Now the farm and the new territory have paid subsidies directly to the royal family. The money is calculated based on the land area, and the unit price can be negotiated.
Frederick’s previous farm was covered by taxes for 20 years and has been completely handed over to the local government.
After the tulip collapse and the Amstel fire last year, the local government's coffers were empty. If it weren't for the friendship bonds, the bonds for that year would not have been repaid, so the royal family wanted to get back the farm surplus. of taxes is out of the question.
With the swamp-turned-farm example of turning decay into magic, naturally giving Frederick 100 square kilometers of land will no longer include taxes, but will require annual assistance payments. This money will definitely go into the pockets of the royal family. .
The problem is that it will take several years to transform the swamp, and His Majesty the King seems to want to use the swamp to collect farm money in these few years, which is a bit ugly.
The ministers have wronged old Louis. He is not stupid enough to offend Frederick for this little money. Now he wants to win over him, so of course the details have to be discussed.
Old Louis had long studied how Frederick reclaimed the swamps, and decided in his heart that more swamps could be given out, and there was no need to pay assistance fees in the first few years. He would pay them two years after the crops mature. Not too late either.
But, after being a leader for so many years, he has already become accustomed to the habitual complaints of his vassals, and then he pulls them a few times and then sweetens them, so as to show his authority and generosity.
But Frederick had different ideas.
In his long-term plan, the lowland area must be eaten up, or at least support a reliable ally, so he began to build reputation there many years ago. Last year, he spent real money on it, hoping to At that time, the local people welcomed Master Wang happily.
Frederick has always had only one core of foreign policy, be friends with him and make a fortune together, the Upstream Regional Cooperation Organization, the Elbe Treaty Organization, the Helvetic Federation, and the new city of the Osmaga Empire This is also true for the nobles in the Rhine League.
Only through comparison can we see the differences and let people know who is the true friend.
The most intuitive comparison is to let people feel for themselves what life will be like under different rulers on the same land. Frederick said to Old Louis: "Your Majesty, I am willing to hand over all the farms in my hands to the royal family and replace the two delta plains south of Lukang."
He is familiar with the terrain of the lowland areas. The delta area south of Lukang has many plains divided by rivers. Among them, the one on the other side of the Lukang River is relatively narrow, about 190 square kilometers, and further south to the main The plain between the rivers is much larger, about 450 square kilometers, for a total of about 640 square kilometers.
But there are only swamps growing with reeds. They are flooded every year and no one tries to develop them.
If you want to reclaim the area, you must build dikes with a height of more than 2 meters to surround the two plains to prevent floods from entering. The total length is more than 200 kilometers, and the preliminary estimate is that the amount of earthwork exceeds 3 million cubic meters, which is equivalent to Half an inch of the Carolina Canal in Wessin was dug out to build embankments.
But this had many benefits for Frederick. The increase in land area was only one aspect. The key was that scattered land could be concentrated for easier management.
But this involves a fundamental political issue: Frederick was not from the Kingdom of Gaul, but from the Rhine League. The lowlands were captured after a battle between the Kingdom of Gaul and the Rhine League. Frederick His father died in that war.
If Frederick obtained a large area of uniform land, some people can't help but wonder, is he going to annex in a curve?
Old Louis considered the overall situation and made a decision in his mind.
He said to Frederick: "I can give you those lands, but I don't want the farms you have cultivated."
It's not that he doesn't want those farms, but he wants to face them. , not wanting others to say that he forced Frederick to exchange worthless swamp land for mature farms.
Old Louis continued: "There are many pirates in the North Sea now, who often harass the coastline. I plan to build a defense line along the northern coast."
"Of course, I am not saying that you will pay, but we will pay. Please pay me for the project. The material cost will be cheaper.”
Frederick understood that the prevention of piracy he was talking about was secondary. The main thing was to defend the Kingdom of England across the strait. It would be nice to also build a line of defense on the border with the Rhine League.
No one who has been to Weissenburg has any doubts about the engineering ability of Frederick's men. Everyone thinks it makes sense for old Louis to entrust him with the construction of the defense line. Archduke Weissen is in the civil engineering department. The field of engineering is simply godlike.
And this matter is considered a military mission and one of the vassal's obligations.
Frederick thought for a while and said: "It is not realistic to build a wall to enclose the coast."
Old Louis smiled and said: "It doesn't need to be like this. My plan is just to build a lookout on the beach. Bunkers, build fortresses on key roads, and build garrison camps in the rear.”
Frederick nodded. The scale of the landing battle is not very large now, and landing is very troublesome and takes a lot of time. Anti-landing is the most difficult. The key is to timely warn and delay the enemy so that the rear has time to gather forces to launch a counterattack on the beach.
The same is true when pirates attack. As long as there is time and warning, the local lords can gather troops and lead people to fight back or defend.
Frederick agreed and suddenly thought about the difference between using civil engineering in exchange for land and working on a construction site to buy a house in his previous life.
He also proposed building a road network in coastal areas, which would collect tolls in peacetime and speed up the deployment of troops in wartime.
The general matters were quickly discussed. Old Louis generously gave him a piece of land on the north shore of Lukang, totaling 700 square kilometers.
Before Frederick left, old Louis held his hand and said: "My illness depends on you. I will perform the ceremony for you after I recover."
Until this day Only then did Frederick realize that something seemed wrong.
As the saying goes, the more you emphasize something, the more it lacks. Old Louis has been emphasizing recovery. Is it because he is afraid that his illness will not be cured?
He left this matter alone. The construction of new land required start-up funds, and this money had to be raised.
Then a breaking news spread among the nobles.
That night, a "maid" who came to seduce Frederick asked him: "Sir, I heard that you are going to sell those farms?"
Frederick replied: "Yes. Ah, do you want to buy it? "
"The maid" said coquettishly: "Can you give me one?"
Frederick said coldly: "I hate people who think about getting something for nothing all day long."
(End of this chapter)