Chapter 1972 Simple Question
Yes, people don’t know when their desire to have children disappeared.
In an agricultural society, if you give birth to a child, as long as you raise it to five years old, you can start to help with various farm work and produce wealth.
Being able to work as a free labor force for your parents until you are 18 years old is equivalent to working for 13 years in vain.
The reason why industrial society is unwilling to raise children is because in industrial society, children must be 16 years old before they can work.
Having a child is a completely loss-making thing, and after the child turns 16, he or she will get married at the age of 20, and the wages earned during this period will not be given to the parents at all.
To the workers, the child is just a person who helps sign in hospitals or nursing homes after falling ill in old age.
As long as one is enough, at most one more can be used as insurance.
However, even if this is the case, even though having children is very beneficial to people in agricultural societies, most young farmers are not willing to have children.
Emperor Lancelot is very anxious, although the total population has now reached an extremely exaggerated 45 billion.
But this is far from enough.
The divine messenger told him in his mind that the more population the better, there is no upper limit.
So he decided to visit privately incognito.
Anyway, as long as the divine messenger and the world are satisfied with him, he will never die.
On the contrary, if the two are not satisfied, he will die no matter how hard he struggles.
He didn't think of it as a threat, because he knew very well that there was never absolute freedom in the world.
Even when you were an emperor in the past, it was the same. You had to consider the balance between the great nobles and the interests within the family. Some things had to be compromised.
If the emperor wants to live according to his own wishes, everyone will rebel against his relatives within five years.
He came to an ordinary old farmhouse, disguised himself as a traveling vendor, and asked for water.
The other party generously gave him water to drink, and he also gave the other party a handful of dates he had trafficked as a gift in return.
He drank water and casually asked the old farmer who was enjoying the cool air: "Old man, how is your harvest this year?" There are kilograms of corn and some vegetables, fruits, etc., and there is no need to pay taxes, so you don’t have to worry about eating and drinking,” the old farmer said casually.
"How many people are there in your family?"
"There are six people, my wife and I, and four children. The eldest is twenty years old and is looking for a wife for him. But this child refuses to marry and is just idle. The upper management of the village allocated land to him, but he just gave up farming and just made a living here."
"Then don't say anything about him. ?”
"It's hard to explain. Tell me, he has ten things to say. He said that our ancestors have been digging on the land for generations. What hope is there? We will work until we die, we will be tired for a lifetime, we will have endless quarrels and endless anger. , Just don’t give birth,” the old farmer said worriedly.
“It’s not okay to think like this. Carrying on the family line is the glory of our ancestors. Without descendants, how can we maintain the glory of our ancestors?”
“Well, he said that our ancestors were poor and had no glory. "
"Yes, the priest should reprimand him. After all, giving birth to children is the best way to atone for sins."
Of course Lancelot will not give up on the church's fertility killing. Yes, the church certainly advocates having many children.
Many measures have even been taken to ensure this. For example, those with more children can receive Holy Communion first.
"Alas, these young people look down on the teachings of the priests. They just want to have fun all day long and idle around until they are more than 30 years old. Then they go on adventures, and they end up dead." The old farmer sighed.
"Adventure? What adventure?" Lancelot was a little confused, there was news that he didn't know.
"Just go exploring some miracle caves. Everyone knows there is nothing there, but the children still think there is the power of God inside."
Lancelot understood.
The so-called Miracle Cave is a lava cave formed when the earth's surface was covered. There is indeed nothing inside.
But the deep environment and the black book seem to have escaped some power, forming some fantastic life with the help of darkness.
Those fantasy beings are basically cruel and violent, but there are also some that are gentle and cunning.
They also have strange materials that people in the industrial area want.
This may be the source of those young people’s yearning for adventure.
Unable to enter the industrial area, they had no choice but to enter the cave.
To be honest, because of the isolation between the industrial area and the agricultural area, several major uprisings broke out in the agricultural area, and they also wanted everything in the industrial area.
But they were all suppressed by miracles.
Human power is too weak in the face of divine power. However, they are unable to resist, but they can resist passively.
For example, don’t let your descendants repeat this boring life.
It is difficult to force them to give birth, and it is even harder to force them to raise them.
Lancelot sighed.
But if they were all allowed to live a happy life in an industrial area, they would not have children.
Don’t say 40 billion, 4 billion is barely enough.
The angel will not persist until now.
I am afraid that the Black Book would have escaped hundreds of years ago.
It is a pity that the knowledge that World Tree gave him only reached the level of so-called modern technology, and could not advance population production to the level of industrialization and assembly lines.
He once tried to get scientists to study related technologies, but he often suffered accidents such as lightning strikes and fires.
This means that those technologies are taboo and cannot be studied.
He can only work on traditional reproduction methods.
Now the people have no worries about food and drink, but the next generation is unwilling to repeat the life of the previous generation.
What should I do?
Lancelot returned to the palace and asked the ministers this question.
"Your Majesty, the solution is actually very simple. It just depends on whether your Majesty is determined." General Duke Lancer said.
"Tell me about it."
"As long as the regulations continue, those who have no children before the age of 25 will be put to death, and those who have no three children before the age of 30 will be put to death in the same way. If this selection continues, the rest will naturally be People with children,” the general said proudly.
"Cruelty!"
"Inhumane, you are a madman!"
Several court earls sternly accused.
There was no way, according to the other party, a lot of their own sons would die.
There are a lot of 25-year-olds without children.
Many nobles have had enough fun and don’t have children until they are 45 years old.
According to the general's advice, everyone will die.
"Simple and crude, this is the law of the army, not the way to govern the world." Of course Emperor Lancelot would not be so naive.
If this continues, it will definitely cause a big chaos.
It is possible for the final population of 40 billion to be directly lost to 4 billion.
"Then I have no choice." The general said disappointedly.
How simple, just kill and that's it.
Unfortunately, the emperor is not stupid.
"Your Majesty, we can appropriately improve the lives of the people and give them hope." A count thought for a while and said.
Lancelot shook his head.
He learned some fragments of the future from the World Tree saplings. In the future, people will live very well. They will have what they want. They will have air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter. They will eat until they are full and fat people will walk everywhere.
However, no one wants to have a baby.
Only poor places have more children. Those poor people who go to rich places will no longer want to have children after the second generation.
Some places provide subsidies, but subsidies are not enough to reduce the number of children, so they can only save a small amount.
They must provide millions of subsidies, which is basically equivalent to ten years of an ordinary person’s salary, before they are willing to put in the effort to raise one more child.
But these subsidies are simply unaffordable.
It can be said that this is a seemingly simple but unsolvable problem.
(End of this chapter)